Mother's Day

This is an early picture from our family photos. This one is Merrie & Dana at maybe six and one year old. Marsha was such a proud mom. She loved her children but she loved being a mom too. It was her nature to take care of people and having children just put her in her natural element. Early in our marriage I made the mistake of missing how important being a mom was to Marsha. I didn't take Mother's Day very seriously, and for someone who defined themselves as mother that did not show any understanding of who Marsha was. She was so good at so many things that being mom seemed to me to be down on the list of accomplishments, but not to her. I wish I had caught on sooner because Mother's day was one of the things in life that show just how much I can be a slow learner. I think it is not just me that underplays the importance given to being mothers. As a priest I met quite a few women who struggled with not getting pregnant, or repeatedly losing babies before birth. Often it didn't seem to matter how good their education or job or marriage was if they lacked the element of motherhood. I came to appreciate how much this is engrained in most women. I don't think my children ever really understood how much being a mother meant to Marsha either, or specifically how important Mother's Day was. She was a great wife and a great mom. Happy Mother's Day my love, you were the best.

Fasting

The picture is of Marsha when she was a leader on a Cursillo retreat. One of the disciplines Marsha used to prepare for and/or support a Cursillo was fasting. Until she had diabetes she fasted for twenty four hours for every Cursillo, and prayed for the retreat every time she felt the hunger. A routine yearly disciplines at Lent was to omit one meal per week and donate the money it cost to serve that meal to an organization that feeds the world's starving. Many reasons exist for fasts but usually they are for some desired change, and often draw those fasting closer to the Lord as well.

In about ten minutes the youth of my church will fast for thirty hours on only water. They will all be together during a directed overnight time at church. I pray this time will be blessed by the Lord for both our youth and the recipients of the money they raise for World Vision. It is a funny coincidence that my first church as rector held a thirty hour fast last weekend for World Vision. I read of their excitement of accomplishment both personal and excitement for their service to others. I pray that the youth here at Church of the Resurrection will know both kinds of accomplishment and that each of them will have somehow drawn closer to the Lord as well during this fast today. I volunteered to supervise the cardboard village in which they will sleep on the front lawn of the church tonight from 3 AM to 6 AM. I pray also that they all want to sleep tonight.

They Think I'm Wise

I'm always surprised when people treat me like I'm wise. I wonder is it my grey hair or my bald head or maybe the accumulation of wrinkles. It certainly couldn't have to do with real wisdom. I must admit I spend a lot of time trying to figure out life, but I don't think I'm nearly finished enough to be wise. My humility, Marsha, would have been glad to tell you that I might have one or two things figured out but that I am definitely a work in progress. What is it Paul says. that God uses the lowly of this world to shame the wise. Well than just let me be lowly will you. Last night at Alpha I was saying how many questions I have to ask God when I see Him face to face. I know he has the answers to why things happen as they do, but I certainly don't. Maybe wisdom is knowing you don't know, in that case maybe I have a little wisdom. I also know God is not finished with me yet, and in fact I hope the best me is yet to come. Even at the golf course today some of the folks were trying to make it seem like I have the answers and that I'm somehow special. Why do we do that with people? Is it because we don't want to be measured by the same standard, so we make some people more skilled or more something so we don't have to meet a higher standard. Me too I guess, I just want to be one of the gang.

Movies

I like movies. I can watch some of them again and again. Today I watched Dances With Wolves for the I don't know how many times. I remember seeing it for the first time in Cambridge with Marsha. It was the weekend in the middle of the General Ordination Exams. I had a room at the seminary for the week of the exams including the weekend and Marsha had come in for the weekend with me. On the big screen seeing it for the first time it was unbelievable. We both wept at parts of it and were touched by others and understood that it had a message beyond itself. To me what makes a movie great is that combination of effects. With this particular movie it is the combination of a compelling historical novel with a serious look at humanity. The indian culture seeking group wisdom has always been attractive to me for example. At the same time the hostility between indians tribes and indians with the whites both show a common problem of human unwillingness to try to understand people who are different. I think we fear that if we try to understand those who look different or think different or talk different that we will have to change. Maybe sometimes that is what will make sense in the end, but more often we hold onto the values and choices which define us. I admire the two main characters who are invested in coming to know each other. I would love a world filled with people like that.

Simple

On the left is my great grandson enjoying something sweet. i was in MB but I think it is his birthday cake. On the right is Madison Surgeons who is hunting for Easter eggs. Both happy with life as it presents itself before them. We had a focus on Sunday geared toward the upcoming parenting conference. The gospel picked was Jesus desiring that the little ones not be kept from Him. The warning is that you cannot get to the kingdom of God without receiving it like a little one. Children are easily swayed to happiness or sadness. They don't hide who they are or what they feel. They respond honestly to the moment. They are authentic and genuine human beings. If the world does not teach them to hide and pretend they will always simply respond to life with the same honesty and integrity. It can take a lifetime to get back to childhood in that manner. I know I'm not completely there but I do believe I am mostly at peace in my own skin. Mostly I can be me without masks and pretenses. I've always said that I don't wish to go back to any earlier part of my life. I have found every stage of life better than the one before. Lately I would modify that if Marsha could be back with me, but not including that, perhaps early childhood would be the exception. It is what God wants from us. Just be yourself, the one you were created to be.

Opportunities

I grew up in a family with a dad who worked with his hands. He never completed high school, in fact his family worked very hard to be able to keep his youngest brother in school to graduate high school. My uncle Hugh, the only high school graduate, died in WWII. My dad was very smart but his opportunities were limited. I think my brothers and I thought that opportunities were available to us but I'm not sure my parents ever dreamt that college was possible. My older brother opened that door and that changed everything. My parents changed their vision and for me college was then an expectation not an opportunity.

Opportunities are kind of open ended, like a matter of choice. They feel like a take it or leave it scenario. Expectations are more solid, they contain an element limitation. Expectations seem to limit choice, and I think in many peoples minds that is a bad thing. Expecting too much is one of the most negative things that can be said about a parent or a boss isn't it. It's as if we are not accepting someone. I think expectations get a bad rap.

I hate to tell you this but God has expectations. He gives you absolute freedom but he also has expectations. Life is full of opportunities and pregnant with possibilities, but they are just the place where we can do what God expects of us if we have a hope of experiencing a truly blessed life. Yesterday I wrote about the little things. At our best those little things match nicely with the expectations God has for us. If they do they will pour out blessing on those who are part of the details while blessing us at the same time.

The most basic summary of God's expectations in the words of Jesus were. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Loving God first means caring first about things he expects of us. I simply want to meet the expectations of the one I love. Loving my neighbor as myself means treating those around me the way I know God wants them to be treated, the same way he treats me.

I love that God expects my best. I pray I can please Him with all the little things in my life.

The Little Things

My grandadult Laura wrote a wonderful note about an event that brought up a memory of my wife Marsha. It was the loss of a button that began the memory and triggered the remembering of an event in New York City when Bekah's pants had a problem that Marsha instantly fixed. A little thing like a needle and thread or the absence of a needle and thread can bring out the sadness that comes from loss. My son commented that although Marsha did many big things it is also the small things that he misses so much. As I pondered these things I concluded that there is no such thing as little things. Marsha did so many little things for me that I would hard pressed to be able to count them all. The big things would be her character, but the little things are the expression of her character. It occurred to me that little things are never little. I am known by the details, the little things, that make up the moments of my life. It is the way I react to life in the moment that shows people my true character. Marsha always seemed prepared to meet the needs of others, that was just who she was. Marsha was always ready to affirm the good and challenge the bad, that was just who she was. It is no little thing when we are touched by a memory, it is just a reminder of the true character of the one we love. So many such memories have surfaced in the year just past, but I know more will come, it is just who she was.