Brailling

Anyone who really knows me, will tell you I am a creature of habit. The pattern of my days, at least the parts I can usually control, provides a rhythm and dependability that steady and often heal me. The routines of my morning, from how I get my coffee to where I fetch my bag, are burrowed in my brain’s deepest folds. And in the midst of those patterns God finds and follows me. Somehow, the habits free me to be attentive to the UN-expected sighting of the Holy: the refrain of a song, or the poignancy of a photo, the line from a story… or the little old lady in the grocery aisle who starts chatting as I get the can down from the top shelf for her, or the conversation with a treatment-center client on the elevator in my Camden office building.

My glasses (and contact lenses) have been part of me – almost forever. How often I feel like the blind man, not literally, but figuratively. Help me to see…over and over… everyday. Not the externals, but what’s underneath… the seeing that comes from understanding … the seeing that comes from getting past, and getting through and getting underneath. I read somewhere the word “brailling” and it caught my heart because I found myself in it. Touching God – using touch to see God. Is it YOU? Are YOU God?

Despite rather cerebral ministries, I have always loved to use my hands to create – to build – from my crayon-coloring days to my crafting of bigger stuff like playhouses and furniture and… especially, I am drawn to the wood – the scent, the beautiful grain – how what is rough can be made smooth. One of the most sacred experiences for me is sanding the to-be-finished piece. In the silence of a garage, with the object visioned in my head (and drawn on a napkin), fit and fastened, it is time to smooth the edges/splinters/expose the beauty of the grain. Not surprisingly, I love the repetitive rhythm that makes the wood smooth as silk. And as I sand, I pray. I ask my God to do that for me – smooth my rough edges.  Round-over my sharpness. Remove my splinters. Reveal the Karen-grain and help me honor the patina of age and wear and GRACE.

I know that deep within the ordinariness of my everydays lies meaning that is blessed by the depth of God-ness within my life. For me, the steady, repetitive rhythms let me return again and again until I see and touch the prayer – the sweet whisper and soft touch that brush against my soul – me to God and God to me.

Sister Karen Dietrich SSJ 

Sister Karen has passionately spent her ministerial life in education – as a teacher, administrator and now as Executive Director of Catholic Partnership Schools, an organization that oversees five inner-city, Catholic elementary schools in Camden. Having served as principal of Mount Saint Joseph Academy for 15 years, she is now immersed in the non-profit world of mission, development, marketing and finance.