When checking off your ‘To Do’ list, make time for divine lessons

By Peggy Weber

TTD: Those are the letters I often put at the top of a sheet of paper. It stands for “Things To Do.”

I have been a lover of lists since college. Back then I would chart out my study times during finals. My friends teased me about it and got their hands on my list one day and added such items as brush your teeth, eat and breathe.

They made their point. Still, that has not deterred me from continuing my list-making ways.

I get such a sense of satisfaction from crossing out such important items as “get milk” or “return library books.”

Elizabeth, my youngest at age 20, also loves lists. However, she likes to highlight what she has accomplished. But I like to just run a line through the task and feel good.

Since I began my love affair with lists, I have added a deep affection for post-it notes.

I place those all around my desk and have even affixed a few to the steering wheel of my car as reminders. My son, Matthew, 24, gave me a little highlighter pen that contains mini post-it flags inside of it.
Recently, I felt as if I needed all of my tools – TTD lists, highlighters and post-its – as I helped Catholic Communications in its coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic trip to the United States.

I was excited and exhausted after my trip to Yankee Stadium. Even now, my desk has so many piles of papers related to that project and many other assignments given to me.

So, it was nice on a warm spring day to stroll to the downtown library to return some books. Yes, I was delighted that I could cross “return books” off my TTD list, too.

As I walked through the quadrangle area I enjoyed looking at so many people enjoying the sunshine and the Dr. Seuss sculptures. Squeals of delight could be heard as children said hello to Horton the elephant.
I smiled but I also was thinking about what I had done and what I had left to do at work and home. Often I tell my children to savor their days and not stress out too much about the future. However, I do not always practice what I preach.

But the good Lord manages to find special ways to preach to me. On this day, he showed me two tender scenes.

The first was a father talking with his son who was in a wheelchair. The boy looked to be about 8 years old and the father was pushing some hair from the child’s face. You could see a deep tenderness between the pair.

I captured the moment in my mind and reminded myself that this man had a much bigger and more difficult “TTD” list in life than I had. I thought about the daily challenges he must face as he tries to help his son cope with the crippled limbs that were evident.

As I left the library, I saw the wheelchair was empty and the father was helping the little boy along the grass. The child could walk a little with much assistance from his father and in a bouncy fashion. Again, it was a beautiful and humbling sight.

Then another little boy ran up and tried to push the wheelchair. He couldn’t do it because the locks were on it. The boy was the younger brother of the disabled child and was shouting to his father, trying to be helpful.

I also saw a need for attention and approval in this little boy’s face.
“Wow! And you thought you were busy and having a hectic day!” I said to myself.

Whatever task that faced me was easy in comparison to that of this father who spent a day at the quadrangle with his boys. He probably does not think he was doing anything extraordinary – after all, it is just his life as he knows it.

However, I watched the family and was in awe of this example of great love. I looked up Pope Benedict’s brief remarks to disabled youth at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., and realized just how wise the pontiff is.

Pope Benedict said, “Sometimes it is challenging to find a reason for what appears only as a difficulty to be overcome or even pain to be endured. Yet our faith helps us to break open the horizon beyond our own selves in order to see life as God does.”

I felt that amid the Seuss sculptures and sunshine I had glimpsed the divine. And it wasn’t even on my TTD list.


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