Living in balance

Dear St. Augustine's 'ohana,
In this week's gospel, we meet Martha and Mary. Martha is busy, working hard, making sure everything gets done. Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening. We often read this story as a binary—work or worship, service or stillness. But perhaps this lesson is about balance.
Jesus isn’t scolding Martha for serving. He’s inviting her to stop just long enough to remember why it matters—to let her service be rooted in love, not resentment.

Martha says: If I don’t do it, it won’t get done. Maybe that’s true. But is it the only truth?

What if we stopped virtue signaling and started soul listening? What if we let joy into our work and made time to pause? What if we stopped framing life as either/or—and embraced it as both/and?

Spirit reminds us to live in balance: meeting ourselves where we are—with grace—while also staying open to how the Spirit wants to stretch us.
​Blessings,
Vicar Jennifer +

P.S., Mahalo for reading this message! I send my thoughts on the coming Sunday's scripture lessons in our weekly e-newsletter. If you'd like, you can sign up here to receive it. My e-message is usually a sneak peak of the coming Sunday's sermon, so if you're curious to hear more, head to our Facebook page for our livestream or go to our YouTube page to view past services. As always, I would love to see you in person on a Sunday! And please let me know if you'd like to talk about anything I've written here.

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