Workfest: Looking Toward the Hills and the Hearts

Sacramental living: CAP is an ecumenical social service organization. That being said it is hard for me to experience CAP without experiencing it sacramentally. I know a theologian who says sacraments (small “s”) are those things that make what is always present, noticed. He says that when something always is, we become habituated to it, sacraments are concrete ways of breaking through that natural numbing.

Francis believed almost everything we encounter was a sacrament if we had eyes, ears or hands. Almost everything was a reminder, a pointer, to the generosity of the Creator. Well that is how I feel about Workfest.

We experience our world and make sense out of it through our body, through our senses. That is why for us Catholics it is important to have a church look like a Catholic Church, it reminds us of oh so much. It reminds us of the Triune God, of the Incarnation and the Passion, of the Mother, the saints and the mystical body. We are reminded through our eyes with statues, windows, sacramentals, we are reminded through our noses with incense and flowers, through our taste with wine for THE SACRAMENT, we are reminded.

That is why some churches have crucifixes and others crosses, it reminds them of the Passion and/or the Resurrection. Some churches are ornate, others simple, either one bears witness to the fact it is saying something to our senses.

Well CAP reminds me continually of the generosity of a loving Creator. The earth, the hills, the trees remind me. The food, the wonderful meals remind me. The people, the people we work for and the people we work and worship with remind me. My eyes take in the visions of natural beauty and the faces we touch and that touch us. My ears take in the sounds of worship, singing, laughing, and praying, of roosters, birds and dogs. My nose takes in the scents of the hills and my hands take in the feel of a roof, a hammer, a firm handshake.

Appalachia, northeast Kentucky and CAP demand that we pay attention to the here and now, that we bear witness to a generous God. For me going to Workfest is to live sacramentally and to find myself immersed in a week of thanksgiving.


Workfest 2009: Anita Ringer: CAP