by Sr. Sheila Campbell MMM                   Ireland                                 18.07.2024

The other day, when I sat down at my desk to work, the first two emails put me in a bad mood.  I had that instinctive reaction “This is going to be a “blank” day”.  You can add in your own adjective!  And, true to form, the rest of  the day wasn’t great.  A co-worker looked at the emails and they put her in a bad mood too, so now there were two of us!  Worse off than before.

I tried to distract myself from the emails by trying to do ordinary work, but my mind was elsewhere.  It kept spinning around the content of the emails and I found I could not concentrate on any creative work at all.

At the end of the day, I sat in the chapel and thought about the day.  Yes, to be in a bad mood every now and again is normal.  I would say even Jesus was in a bad mood when he drove the money changers out of the Temple!  But I don’t want to let one little incident contaminate my whole day.  At first, I thought of the phrase “do not let your heart be troubled, trust in God”, and I sat with that one for a while, but there is the danger of denying the upset and the pain.  No, how do I recognize it and yet put it aside?

The next morning for some unknown reason I changed the normal reading at Morning Prayer and used a phrase from Colossians and then my eyes drifted onwards until I came across the following gem:

“Conduct yourselves wisely towards outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to answer everyone.” Col 4, 5-6

Yes, I thought, seasoned with salt! At times we need to be “salty” if the situation requires it.  I just need to keep in mind the graciousness bit!  Thank God, having dumped all this problem on God in prayer I feel better now!