Wednesday Witness: On Busyness

January 15, 2020January 22, 2020 / J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Blogger’s Note: This post first appeared as part of the Wednesday Witness blog series on the St. Michael Catholic Church website.

“Idle hands are the devil’s playground”—so goes the old saying, and I can verify its truth. So many of the sinful traps I fell into as a young man were concealed in downtime and baited with curiosity and pleasure.

It’s good for young men to keep busy, but I am no longer young. These days I struggle with having too much to do rather than too little, and that, too, can be a sin trap. A mentor of mine even has an acronym for BUSY:

Burdened Under Satan’s Yoke

Even if you work for the Church, as I am blessed to do, the acronym may still apply. Perhaps the best Christmas gift I got this year was the Monk Manual, a special sort of planner based on the prayerful patterns of work and reflection in monastic life. This beautiful leather-bound book serves not only to organize and schedule your work days, weeks and months, but leads you to examine what you achieved versus what is really important to you, at which points in the day you were at your best and worst, the state of your relationships and habits, and what God may be trying to teach you. Continue reading →

The Phantom Cross, or ‘It’s Not About You’

July 30, 2019July 30, 2019 / J. Thorp / Leave a comment

I’m Mary and I’m Martha all at the same time
I’m sitting at His feet and yet I’m dying to be recognized.
I am a picture of contentment and I’m dissatisfied.
Why is it easy to work and hard to rest sometimes?

– Audrey Assad, “Lament”

My last post, “The Better Part,” was on Mary and Martha, and God continues to hammer my heart with the example of these two holy women. Yesterday was St. Martha’s feast day, so Jodi and I reflected again on the story in Luke chapter 10, and I was struck by how much of my busy-ness—which I pretend is selfless and sacrificial—is in fact all about me. Continue reading →

The Better Part

July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 / J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Nearly everyone I talk with these days agrees with me: The summer is flying by, in part because our families are so busy.

A friend has an acronym for BUSY: Burdened Under Satan’s Yoke. We may object that the numerous things we are doing are not evil, but are good and perhaps even important. But we would do well to ask ourselves, are they necessary?

Necessity is a high bar, when you think about it. As animals, we have very few absolute needs: food, water, shelter, and the like. As humans, made in God’s image, we have a few more: freedom, community, love. Meeting these needs for ourselves and our families requires effort on our part—but for the person of faith, there is a hierarchy: God, spouse, children, everyone else, everything else.

Which of these things are we spending time on these days, and in what order? Continue reading →

‘I Can’t Love You Enough’

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 / J. Thorp / Leave a comment

A while back I was counting my blessings in prayer, reflecting on my life and my family. I was struck by how differently things have turned out than I would have predicted, and how much better than I ever could have orchestrated myself. I remember choking up a bit (which happens more than I like to admit), smiling to myself and God, and saying to Him, “I can’t love you enough!”

When I said it, I meant, “I love you so much for all the great things you’ve done in my life, and even that isn’t adequate!”

But as soon as I heard my words, it struck me another way: I cannot love You enough. I am unable to love You, Lord, in the way that I should. You have given me everything; You lived and died for me…and I can barely find time to say thank you, let alone seek to do Your will.

I am unable to love You as I should, Lord.

That thought struck me again late last week, as we prepared to head to Bismarck for our oldest son Brendan’s graduation. As I reflected on it, I saw two paths I could take from there.

The first is well-worn and dusty; I have traveled it many times. It’s the path by which I try to pray harder, do more, use better words, cram more in. I try to earn my way into heaven through my own effort…and time and again, I fall, because I can’t love Him enough.

The other path is so little traveled that flowers grow, so that you almost dare not take a step. It’s the path by which I acknowledge the truth about myself: that nothing I can ever do can repay my debt to God for loving me into being and dying to save my soul. I learn to humble myself and submit to His plan, in which He saves me because I can’t love Him enough.

The first path leads to exhaustion, failure, frustration and despair. The second leads to freedom and peace. Which one, do you suppose, leads to Him?

Christmas Poem: Hallowed Hollow

December 28, 2018August 29, 2019 / J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Hallowed Hollow

There is a cave between my lungs,
A hollow where my heart should be.
But lo! our Lord an infant comes
And gives His heart to me.

It is a hard unfeeling place
Of stone and stench and rotting hay.
But lo! His virgin mother comes
To clear the filth away.

It is a dark and frigid space
Where creatures wallow in the mire.
But lo! His foster father comes
To light and tend a fire.

It is a black and hidden hole
No other is supposed to see.
But lo! The Holy Family comes
To make a home—in me.

— J. Thorp

* * * * *

Wishing you the merriest of Christmases and a blessed New Year. Know that our thoughts and prayers are with you even when we, ourselves, are not. We love you.

The Thorp Gang: Jim and Jodi; Brendan, Gabe, Emma, Trevor, Lily and Bruno