This year I chose to start living like a contemplative.  The lifestyle change has had an amazing impact.  It started with the thought that I had never seen monks or nuns run.  I took this to mean PACE was a very big deal and one I had failed at miserably.  I could no longer shove everything into my schedule just because there was room. Creating transition time was my first major adjustment.  That alone has created an amazing amount of peace and tranquility in my daily life.  The practice is: statio -stopping one thing before beginning another…a holy pause.
     Lately, I have come to realize multitasking is a spiritual killer!   Every now and then I will stop and count how many things I am doing at the same time.  I am always surprised.  I just naturally juggle several things at the same time and then I wonder why I can’t remember what I was doing, or thinking.  When you are multitasking you can’t really be fully present to any one thing.  Even if that one thing is folding the laundry. 
     It’s a beautiful thing to be unhurried and sit down and appreciate breathing.  That’s what I call a contemplative.
            ~Cathy Mann Christiansen, NCO Coordinator. Summer 2023