Today I met with another priest in my diocese to discuss our literary journal. This will be third issue of Wonder in All, which you can find by clicking here (our summer 2025 issue is forthcoming, but you can find prior issues at the bottom of the page). It has been one of my dreams to publish a journal like this, and the process of getting the journal up and running has been quite a lot of fun. It has also been a lot easier than I had imagined, because the poems, sermons, stories, and pictures we get are really worthy of being told. That’s maybe a weird way to put it, so let me explain a bit of what I mean.

The journal is expressly for Episcopal voices in Central New York. My co-editor and I wanted and want the journal to be a place where people can artistically describe what it’s like to be an Episcopalian in this time and in this place. It’s not, of course, that I don’t want to hear about what being an Episcopalian is like in northern Pennsylvania or what it’s like to be a Lutheran or a Catholic or Jewish in Central New York, but that I wanted to give people living here and worshipping as we do a place to reflect on their lives and that worship. Episcopalians do a lot of interfaith work, which is really cool, but we often have only a foggy concept of what it means to be an Episcopalian. Or at least that’s what it’s seemed like to me. I wanted to use the journal, in a way, to understand better how people thought of themselves as Episcopalians.

Maybe it’s that we don’t often have a chance to examine our identity or to consider just who we are. We go about our business, working and playing, eating and sleeping, and another day passes us by. When the weekend comes we reflect a little on how fast time passes before we rush off to do chores, drop off and pick up the kids, or spend time with family. I’m amazed at how little we just sit and think.

Lately, in the past few years or so, I’ve been doing work in coffee shops. Back in Oregon, where I served a parish last, and back in Tennessee, where I went to seminary, there weren’t all that many public places to work. Now I have something of an embarrassment of riches, from local shops where I can get all sorts of coffee blends to places like Panera where the coffee is always the same (but they have really good cookies). But whatever the location, people are always working or talking. I never see anyone just sitting and enjoying their coffee. Of course, I don’t either, so I shouldn’t be critical, but it’s something of a pity how little we just sit and think.

This past week some family came into town. We had a wonderful time, and it was really great to see them, but the house was pretty busy (there were more than double the number of children in the house!). When they left, my mind felt numb, and no matter how much I tried to jump start it with books or games or writing, I just couldn’t focus. And so I laid on the couch, closed my eyes, and just let the events of the prior three or four days sift down and settle. Sometimes I directed my thoughts, other times I just let my thoughts happen as they would. And although my energy and focus hadn’t returned after a half hour or so of this, I felt somewhat fresher and more open to the rest of life.

Wonder in All is something of an invitation to do just this: to let life expand in our minds and hearts so that we can see it before it rushes by. Writing a poem or a meditation requires us to sit down and see the world around us. Not to think, not to work, not to compose (those things may come later) but to simply look and see, to just be present. At least, I hope that the writers who send in their work see the journal in this way.

Why don’t we just sit and do nothing? Why do we scramble around, moving from one thing to the next? Why don’t we just watch the sunlight outside our window or observe the clouds pass over the skies of our own internal world? Why must all things be of some use? Why must we only be productive? Shouldn’t life be more than work?

I pray that, when you finish reading this, you sit back in your chair and just look off into the distance. I pray that you do nothing for some of today. I pray that, for at least some time in the next few hours, simply being is enough.