On one of the walls in my brother's kitchen are little black lines with dates beside them all the way up the wall. They signify the height of my niece and nephews as they grow up with the corresponding date on it.
It is interesting to see the different lines and dates where they were and where they are now; and where Mummy is and Daddy is and Uncle Brendan is way up here! (from "The Measuring Wall", Brendan McGuire)
In my family home we marked height and we also had a chimney to record significant events. The wall-papered cover on the chimney was used only for something really significant: date, time, event. "That should be marked on the chimney," we'd say.
In McGuire's homily "The Measuring Wall" he challenges us to think of our spiritual growth, "to take ownership for the fact that we are called to deepen our spiritual livesevery one of us here can read. We read other things. Why would we not read spiritual books? Why must we read only that which is not religious?"
In Sunday Sermons Treasury of Illustrations James Colaianni compares our growth to a three-legged milk stool. We spend a great deal of time measuring the physical and mental growth.
Our education is intense and marked with certificates and achievements. As well we devote time to eating regularly and following an exercise program, carefully weighing and measuring.
But what about the third leg? We cannot stand erect as complete persons if we move along only on the animal and human levels. We need to strike a balance solid enough to sustain us at the Divine level.
And unlike our physical growth, our spiritual growth or divinization continues and perhaps intensifies with age. As McGuire puts it, "We never stop growing ever. So there should be no line at which we say, "Ah, that's it; I'm done; I've grown and I have fully reached my spiritual perfection."
Our achievements in spiritual growth deserve more than a line on the wall, which is easily painted over. Mark them in the chimney, a spot more sacred.
Of course there are those who insist on sitting on a one or two legged stool. Let me conclude with an internet quote on the lighter side.
A milking stool will stand upon one leg-if you sit on it and thus provide your own two legs as the other necessary props; but even then, as every farmer's boy knows by bitter experience, a vicious kick, or a "corkscrew swat" from the old cow's tail may upset the youthful milker and his pail of milk and bring him to grief.
