I write of coffee grinders. Well, one coffee grinder. For nearly twenty years this faithful, if inanimate, friend has greeted me each morning with an eager willingness to perform the task for which it was created. I receive a particular pleasure by pouring an inexact amount of beans into the well that houses a neat, albeit nasty, blade for grinding. The noise it makes in the morning is as habitual as the sunrise and announces to the household that the day is about to begin. Occasionally I think that this machine deserves a poem on the order of Keats or Wordsworth evoking the power and beauty of its existence. Simple in design and reliable in performance, my coffee grinder serves as a daily reminder of the things that matter.

We recently had a portion of our home remodeled. A messy and expensive business to be sure, but illuminating in much the same way as that coffee grinder lights up my mornings. I watched with great pleasure as craftsmen I have known for many years created a new and beautiful space for our family to live in. Quietly, carefully, expertly, they employed their gifts to make a gift for us. I appreciated their integrity more than anything else...their refusal to compromise beauty or function for their own convenience. This was their work of art. Their signature would be left upon it and they intended to write the final inscription with pride.

I have read recently and sadly that many college students first investigate what careers offer the highest potential salary before choosing their undergraduate major. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that inevitably results in great dissatisfaction and personal pain. This first decade of adulthood should be used less in developing a trade and far more in discovering the passions that are at the heart of one's existence. If I were to offer a word of advice to these emerging adults it would be to spend time, lots of time, discovering the things that bring joy into your life. Is it music? Art? Solving a mathematical formula or planing a piece of oak? Look for those sources of simple and deep personal pleasure. Treasure them. Listen to them. They are the signposts to a life of meaning and joy.

I remember once talking with a dentist who, not knowing I was a priest, nevertheless confessed his intense dissatisfaction, indeed hatred, of his work. Outwardly, he had a very successful practice but inwardly, where things really matter, he was a dismal failure. Imagine spending forty years of mornings getting up to do what you detest! That is tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Incidentally, I go to my dentist precisely because it is so apparent he loves his work. The care by which he attends to my teeth and those of hundreds of others is vivid evidence of the value he has found in his vocation. It is just about the very last career I could ever imagine myself choosing but each time I lean back in his chair and stare at the rack of carefully placed drill bits, I am extremely grateful that he listened to the stirrings of his heart and chose to do what he does so well.

I have always loved cars. Knowing that it is politically incorrect and probably professionally inappropriate, I love vast amounts of horsepower combined with carefully crafted construction. If budget and wife allowed, I would probably own a different car every six months. I suspect it wouldn't do much for our church's fund-raising campaign if the pastor showed up in a red Ferrari some Sunday, but I can still dream. What I treasure in a fine vehicle is much the same as that twenty dollar coffee grinder. When you see something created to perform very well, it is cause for admiration. Obviously, the same argument could be made for well-designed nuclear war-heads but I am not relenting. I value the values displayed by these products of ingenuity and integrity.

D.H. Lawrence, of all people, once wrote incisively on a subject well-known to me: sin. "Sin is a queer thing" he penned. "It isn't the breaking of divine commandments. It is the breaking of one's own integrity." To which I can only add...

Amen.