64 step commute

I finally remembered to count the steps it takes to walk from the front door of my house to the back door of my office: 64 steps. It isn't even far enough to consider my walk to work exercise.

I was joking with someone about my 64 step commute, and then started to wonder if it could even be considered a commute. The common American use of the word commute comes from the changing of a daily train fee to a single annual train fee. That would earn the buyer a "commuter pass." Think "mutate." It is about changing from one to the other. It once referred to the change of a type of ticket, but in present common usage, it has come to mean a change in location from home to work, work to home.

I was singing the word along with the Roches' "The Train" long before I understood what a commute was. The Roches were probably reflecting on a train commute into NYC. A very different commute than what I'm experiencing each morning and evening.

When I drove my commute, I had some time alone, private time, to listen to music, catch up on news, or drive in silence to clear my head. A friend who used to commute on a train said he spent that private, quiet time (surrounded by other private people) and read morning prayer as he clacked along to and from work.

My commute now is not private in any way. No silent meditation. No listening to music or reading morning prayer. I walk, uncontained across the vicarage and church yards. As I go, I say hello and talk to people. I notice the weather, I refill a flowing fountain, I wave at teachers on the playground. The change-time, the commute, is to step out into our little slice of the world.

There's still a commute, though. A change. It reflects the sort of transformation I hope for in my priesthood, and the transformation I have been practicing. My priesthood, my sacramental presence (and the church's sacramental presence) is about connecting with people in the community; connecting people's every day lives with their spiritual lives; connecting the church and the world.  Bread and wine is Body and Blood. A song is a prayer. A wish of "peace" is the sign of the presence of God's Kingdom. The actions we take when we gather as a church teach us that over a lifetime, and my 64 step commute is a daily reminder that the sacred and the profane are not as separate as we sometimes pretend they are.