My mind was racing when I woke up this morning. I had been looking at the allocations of my pension fund last night (age 55, 10 years before retirement; one of those points at which the allocations of stocks and bonds and cash need to be tweaked) -- and I wanted to check on that again. So I turned on the computer to access the account and worked on it for a few minutes. And I figured that, since the computer was on, I'd check on e-mail, and there was one from my cousin, Michael, who works for Catholic Relief Services, specializing in the work they're doing in Africa. Which got me excited to write him back about the stimulating books I've been reading by Philip Jenkins about the church and interpretation of the Bible in the global south.

And, wait a minute ---

I was about to leave behind my morning prayer time.


And it's Advent; a particularly holy time of the year. During Advent, to begin my prayer time, I light the votive candle held by an Advent angel that a dear friend gave me years ago. I just sit. I open myself in prayer.

What do you do, to carve out time for quiet during these weeks of Advent preparation? What do you do to remind yourself that it's Advent?

Today I'm 55 years old. That seems like a significant milestone. Soon, I will have been ordained for 30 years -- another significant milestone. And yet, I still feel as if I'm just beginning to learn how to live, and how to do parish ministry: to live in grace; to know that any "results" are up to the Holy Spirit. I'm only a beginner.