Well-worn furniture
Most likely, all of us have had the experience of sitting or lying in well-worn furniture — whether it’s dad’s football Sunday recliner he refuses to donate to the church rummage sale or the bed we are subjected to sleeping in when spending a few nights at the home of relatives during a holiday visit. Sometimes well-worn is comfy and reassuring, but most of the time, it is uncomfortable and annoying to anyone other than the person who is pleased that no one else wants to sit in their chair or visit their guest room.
Recently, while visiting our Generalate in Rome for the celebrations surrounding the beatification of Giovanni Merlini, I felt as though I was doing penance in an old monk’s cell, trying to sit and sleep in some very well-worn furniture. While the hospitality was vintage Missionaries of the Precious Blood, so was the bulk of the furniture!
Finally locating a reading chair that I could sneak into my guest room to replace the stiff wooden desk chair originally provided — upon sitting, I thought I might end up in Alice’s Wonderland, nearly dropping through the floor due to the extreme sag in the seat!
Additionally, although I move around a lot in my sleep, I found that my guest room bed kept me stationary thanks to the large divot (more like a crater) in the middle of the well-worn mattress!
Well-worn furniture doesn’t only make its home in our living rooms, dens, and bedrooms — but also in our mission, ministries, and community life as Missionaries and Companions of the Precious Blood. While the well-worn can help us feel comfortable and carefree, it also can contribute to our lack of energy, enthusiasm, and willingness to go forth in service of God’s people. Like the divot in the mattress or the sagging seat in the recliner, we can become stuck in place (sometimes quite literally) and unable to respond to, as we say so often in our community lingo, “the signs of the times.”
In his book, “The Courage to Be Free: Discover Your Original Fearless Self,” Guy Finley speaks to the challenges we face when we fall into a rut, or as I’ve described it, well-worn furniture:
“Ruts don’t create the cattle that follow them; cattle create ruts by blindly following one another, slowly grinding down the ground upon which they walk. If life seems like a grind, it’s only because we’re following around the same level of thinking that makes it so.”
As we approach the Season of Lent, perhaps it can be a time for checking our personal and communal furniture as Missionaries and Companions and seeing how we might find creative ways to extract ourselves from the well-worn in our mission, ministry, and communal life.
Fr. Ben Berinti, C.PP.S.
Provincial Councilor