Becoming who we are by what we do:

My thanks to Kathleen for these interesting thoughts:

"You become what you do. We are shaped from the outside in ... So we do the Works of Mercy, we bend and we kneel, even when our head is clouded and our spirit is grudging. We cross ourselves even as our faith fails. We light candles and sing "O Radiant Light, O Sun Divine," even when the world seems dark." - Mary Margaret Nussbaum, from her essay "Hope Is Our Means"

Susannah: I've found a significant part of who I have grown to be was tied up with just the routine of doing - the practicality of what being a parent meant, day by day - just doing the work on the hospital ward, even though plenty of it was smelly, unpleasant, mundane - teaching for 24 years when at times the sheer hard work left me feeling tired and spent. Yet those things - not theory but just get-on-and-done - are maybe the best of who I am. Even though I know the failures even in the heart of those. Prayer, even when we don't feel much, is part of that as well I think. Becoming who we are by what we do.