Eject the Nucleus

In our first year of formation in the diaconate program, they asked us to draw a picture that represented what was driving us to consider ordination. I drew a blood cell. That was the example I wanted to live.

A blood cell does not begin its life as a blood cell. It starts as a stem cell in the bone marrow. Those stem cells can become several kinds of cells. The process of becoming a blood cell is unusual: the nucleus begins to shrink over time, smaller and smaller, until it is ejected from the cell altogether.

That is a strange thing for a nucleus to do. The nucleus is the part of the cell that runs the show. It determines what the cell is supposed to be doing and when. It calls the shots by sending proteins out into the cell. The rest of the cell does what the nucleus tells it to do.

A blood cell is different. After the nucleus leaves, the cell enters the bloodstream. It goes where the flow takes it. It does not decide whether it is going to the eyes, the feet, or the stomach. It goes with the flow and does what it is supposed to do wherever it ends up.

One important place it visits is the lungs. It enters a membrane where oxygen is given to it. The blood cell does not reach out and take the oxygen. It is placed in the presence of the oxygen, and then it receives it. After that it continues on, and when it meets another cell that needs the oxygen, it transfers what it received.

That is the example I want to follow. I would like to do not what I want for myself, but what God would have me do. I would like to eject this mental nucleus that wants to control everything in my life. I would like to be like a blood cell that goes where it is directed and does not try to steer itself to one place or another. And I would like to give to others what I receive.

In Acts, in the story of Philip being sent, he is like that cell. The Lord tells Philip to go, and he goes. He is pointed toward someone who needs what Philip has received, and Philip pours himself out. Then the Lord sends him somewhere else, and he pours out again what he had received.

In John chapter 6, in the story of Jesus as the bread of life, he is talking about a gift that fills us. Like the blood cell, we are not called to hold onto that gift only for our own purposes. We receive. Then we go out and pour out.

Without the blood cell the body would quickly become lifeless. Most days look like any other day. We will interact with other people the way we always do. The readings give a reason to hope we can give away what we have first received.

If you are still trying to run every decision from the inside, start by naming the nucleus. What is calling the shots today — the plan, the preference, the need to know where you will end up before you move? Write that down. You cannot eject what you will not name.

The next step is smaller than a personality change. Receive one thing you did not assign yourself: a meal, a prayer, help someone offered, a direction you would not have picked. Do not reach out and grab a substitute so you can stay in charge. Then give one thing away the same day. Philip went. He did not first complete a map of the rest of the year.

You will want the nucleus back as soon as the path is unclear. That is expected. Name it again. Stay in the next place you were actually sent — the person in front of you, the work already in your hands — and pour out what you have. Control is not the same as faithfulness. The cell does its job after the part that runs the show is gone.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached in 2017.