When the Homily is about Immunology

Relaxed Vigilance

Well, here I am…obviously back again, both at my blog and my work. I apparently have time to spare here in the lab doing things wholly unrelated to infectious diseases….save for the nasty little infected burn I have on the tip of my index finger which I was rewarded with while “sweating” copper plumbing line. Four days of intense home repair and remodeling and I am nowhere near being done…it is hard work but has made me realize how much leisure time I normally have. Time utterly wasted – usually. They say that the devil will always find work for idle hands and I’d have to say that there is some truth to this. Ah well…

But leisure time is rarely spent doing nothing, rather we usually must find some means of feeding our restless minds. Media (of some sort) usually plays a major role in our leisure time activities: can you imagine making an hour-long drive without a radio? How about a 10 minute drive? It seems our minds are starved for stimulation! Something to soothe the savage beast within us.

Yesterday as I lay in bed preparing to fall asleep I noticed that there was no peace in my mind, no quietness, no rest…instead it seemed to rage with random and variable thoughts of such a magnitude so as to make any music video director profoundly jealous.

The fathers often analogize our state of mind to that of a flame and advise us to keep our vigil lamps lit in a manner so as to not burn out and yet not be fanning about wildly. Metropolitan ANTHONY Bloom calls this state: Relaxed vigilance.

Something to ponder tonight during commercial breaks?