Back from Labor Day weekend and as I worked today, words from a friend from South Dakota lingered in the forefront of my mind.

"It's RE-creation, not REC-reation Mary...which one are you doing?"

Sister Donna, a Catholic nun with the Sisters of the Presentation in Aberdeen, SD is a family friend and a truly delightful woman. In her late 80s, she doesn't miss a beat. Much of her youth was spent as a professional dancer, a part of a family group called the 'Brown Kittys'. We met her at a trumpet soloing performance in South Dakota with the SD Symphony Orchestra one Christmas a couple years back. Ever since that meeting, she has become a part of my journey through life. Conversations can last up to three hours and include topics such as boyfriends (or lack there of), life decisions, and questions.

Every conversation will for sure include, along with my topics, her topics; Sacraments, Irish Celtic Spirituality, dance, recreation, the Holy Spirit, with a sprinkling of the Mother Mary for taste. (She often adds she knows quite a few good Lutherans too :-) Every conversation opens with prayer and ends with prayer. It's a staple. So much so that even if the phone battery dies, we re-connect to finish in prayer.

Among her many accomplishments, and one she is passionate about, is having received a bachelor's degree in recreation and leisure from Central Missouri University, Warrensburg. She sees recreation as something holy, that recreation is not a destination, rather, it is a state of being. It happens in living out the mundane and the extraordinary each day.

I think I get what Sister Donna is saying in ways better felt than written though. One thing is for sure, RE-creation sounds more enjoyable than REC-reation.

Signing out, Sending prayers,
Mary