I rebuke myself, well sometimes, at the many times in which I am not mostly nor fully present. The picture here shows Jane looking out to the isle of Mull from Holy Island, Iona, in Scotland. I'm probably off somewhere taking pictures. No, actually, I took this one, but then stole away for my own walk of contemplation, leaving Jane with her own meditative thoughts. We travel together and apart, all at the same time.

I think of Peter Seller's movie, 'Being There.' Commenting on it, Elaine M. Prevallet, S.L., says - “Sometimes I am amazed when I realize how rarely I am where I am. More often than not, my body is in one place and my mind is in several others. That, I know, is energy diffused."

I resonate with that. My energy is diffused and not focused. 'O, look at butterfly!' - and I am away, at least in mind.

Prevallet continues (thank God), "But there are times when I can just be where I am and do what I am doing." She goes on to  add this, which I think is profound: "When my energy is concentrated in the given of the moment, then it flows freely from the centre, without diversion into folds or side pockets. Then, I think, the light shines brightly. Then there is a kind of pure power in what is done . . .”

Dr. Maurice Boyd said something similar in a sermon I once heard. 'Power is the ability to get things done - to do; but if you don't know what you want to do, what you're supposed to be doing, then you'll have no power." I wonder how much power and energy I could have but do not have, simply sometimes because I do not focus, do not know what I'm supposed to do, have allowed my mind to wander or be distracted, have been carried away by something urgent (which wasn't at all), something new, shiny and alluring.

I admire those who stick with it, who know what they're to do and are doing it, who have found their vocation and are not overy-distracted by their vices.