by Sr Nunother  

Each week day at 9:00 AM, I climb a stairway. At the top of the stairway is a window that I call my pausing place. I see a stone wall bordering a length of green lawn that leads to a cluster of trees, and beyond the trees, the waters of Cape Cod Bay. Sometimes the water is still but animated by splashes of sunlight; sometimes a blanket of waves, constant and rhythmic. In a moment I’ll open the door into my workplace — a suite of offices — all busy, all vital, and with different functions. There is work to be done, problems to solve, and personal differences to untwine. I don’t always handle it well. But there is my pausing place, steady and sure, when I am not.