Breathing Deeply

Autumn dawn, College of the Holy Cross
Worcester MA

Fall Break arrived yesterday at Holy Cross, as classes wound down for a one-week hiatus. Campus seemed to empty abruptly, as quickly as the trees on the College's stately grounds seemed to shed their summer greenness for the flaming hues of autumn.

For many professors with whom I chat regularly, the coming week will be a welcome time to breathe, six weeks into a semester that has proceeded at a breakneck pace. For the students, it's a chance to go home, or visit friends at other schools, but generally to take time that they surely need for restoration amidst their coursework, activities, and other pursuits. With the air turning more crisp by the day (this past week's unseasonable mildness notwithstanding), I'm reminded that this is a time of year to notice the changing atmosphere, to savor the gifts that attend each moment in a busy world, and to seek abiding signs of God's enduring, timeless presence wherever and whenever they may be found.

As I'll be spending the coming week in La Paz with a fellow Jesuit and the ten students in his seminar on theology and inculturation in the Andes, I'll also be breathing deeply... of air that is thin (the city is nearly 12,000 feet above sea level), but surely thick with grace and blessings.