What I learned at her funeral

Thoughts about her following Vivian's funeral

I should have known her better.

I could have known her better, I had the opportunity and passed on it. We both are to blame. If I had gone first she would have been thinking the same thing about me.

From a small service you see much bigger things. The whole of what matters in this life.

I was there not because I knew her well, but because I didn't. Because she was family. God created family for when times are fun and easy and for when it is hard.

Suffering differs so much across time and place. I cannot say I know what you are going through, because I don't. The suffering of the one who lost a sibling is different from my loss. I feel as inadequate in sharing his grief as he did in sharing mine. Nothing I say helps to fill that void, but it is good to know that others are there.

This priest is one acquainted with grief. 

Sunday worship, western rim of the known world

Two conversations an hour apart. One at a jail, the other at a nursing home. One with a man, the other with a woman. One is dying. One is locked up. Both were in tears.

"I miss my kids. I finally understand how much I hurt them"

"I miss my wife, I wish I could see her one more time to tell her that I love her".

Small things

I volunteer at times with hospice patients. At the end of life, and at the beginning, it is the small things that we often take for granted that can mean so much. Being warm. Being able to sleep throughout the night without discomfort. Having a loved one nearby.

Today I was with a man who wanted just one thing, relief from an itch. He got it.

Those tiny things we don't think about. When was the last time you gave thanks for being able to quench your thirst without assistance? Or walk to the mailbox under your own power? There is so much we don't think about. St. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians to give thanks in all things. For all things and in all things. I don't do it like I should, but my friend today gave me a wonderful reminder.

Deep Winter

I love winter. We say that a lot in Minnesota. Perhaps we do. Perhaps not.

We are reaching the point of the really hard days of the season we love. Highs around zero. Lows somewhere down on the minus scale. It is mid-February and the sun is much higher in the sky than at Christmas, though that fact has not yet made a difference in our temperatures. That will come.

This is the waiting time.

This period of winter is like many times of our lives. Waiting for something. For first grade. For a new bike. For a drivers license. For marriage. For a new job. Waiting for a sign. Some signal that what you wish for will come to be.

I am a hospice volunteer and just spent 15 months visiting a patient with a terminal illness, who became a friend. Waiting to die. I stopped by twice a week to chat, about his family, sports, occasionally his faith. He had the type of illness that shows no real symptoms to others until the very end. As predicted, that was how it played out. On Monday he was happy and alert. On Thursday he was much weaker and knew his last few days were upon him. On Saturday his body was dead.

I have tried to put myself in his place and imagine this period of waiting. For some it is a period of fear and dread. For my friend it was a time to enjoy with family and friends, to ponder his life in its triumphs and regrets, to read, to sleep, to meet a new nurse, to welcome a priest bearing the blessed eucharist. One day folded into the next, one season to the next. Now he is where there are no seasons, and no waiting, only joy and love in its purest of pure forms.

I look around my house for a sign of spring. The snow is piling up. The ice on the lake is thicker than last week. No birds in the air or squirrels in the trees. But the sun is higher in the sky today than yesterday. For a while that will suffice.

Day two of Retirement

Pondering this part of life.
Last week as I drove to work for one of the last times, I wondered how I would answer all the old friends who ask about my new status. This question and answer came to mind.....

What is the most important project you are working on now?

Answer: Repairing the damage to my soul

In the name of the Father

Pondering the Trinity

One recent evening I was reading the Easter story to my granddaughter, Lilly, who is three. During the time in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that Jesus prayed. “Why was he praying?” she asked. “What do you mean, why?” I replied. “He’s God isn’t He? What was he doing, praying to Himself !?” In this simple sentence she laid open one of the deepest questions of theology.  

The truth is we don’t know. We believe that Jesus was fully God and fully Man. We can write books about that and talk in our Bible studies about it, but can’t ever understand it. God as man is a glimpse of what God is like and what we are to be as sons and daughters created in his image. His life and love and pain here was a tiny peek at his nature. What does it mean when God takes on all the suffering of the human body? Not as a punishment but as a redemptive act.   

I tried to explain to her that we know God in three ways, or that he shows himself to us in three forms, but dumb down the Trinity and you find yourself wandering from one heresy to another. Fortunately she’d had enough and turned the pages of the story book, to his arrest and death and then resurrection.  

What our talk reinforced to me, is what CS Lewis said so many times, one of the reasons Christianity rings true, is that it is not something we humans would have come up with. The very fact that at times it seems to not make sense bears witness to the fact that it was not man made. 

Lewis said...

“Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is

one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have

guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected,

I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing

anyone would have made up.”

A three year old heart felt the tug that something fundamental to this story is very very different from every other story she's heard. It has no flying ponies, or talking rainbows. But something even more incredible. A God who is fully one of us and fully God. You need not ask her if it is true, just look on her face and listen to her voice when she says "He's alive!, that's my favorite part". 

The eve of Thanksgiving eve.

It is two days before Thanksgiving and I am in the Charlotte airport. Flight out of Knoxville was delayed so I spent a ew hours at my brother Kevin's house waiting. Had a real nice cigar and a snack of crackers and pimento cheese. Watch the second half of last years Clemson Alabama game on his deck and talked football and Thanksgiving plans. A nice break from a routine business trip.

Charlotte airport is packed with happy people, off to see family and friends. No one has more to be thankful for than I.

New Stuff

Got some snow this week, our second one of the month after a very dry Feb. Soon the ground, the lake, the trees will be showing signs of spring, signs that what we thought was dead is alive. Symbols of the Resurrection. What was dead is alive. Easter.

Fall in a flash and the winter onset

In Minnesota we love the fall. Too bad it doesn't last very long. What most folks call autumn starts here in late August, when you first see a leaf or two begin to change and you wake up one morning to temps in the mid-50s instead of 60's.

It was 45 when I woke this morning and the weatherman says we may fall to the high 30s over the weekend.

Other fall things going on....

The boat is off the lake. This weekend it goes into storage until April.

The dock and boat lift are off the lake and are pulled up on the shore. That happened yesterday.

The last hummingbird was spotted last weekend. The smart ones left earlier. The feeders have been washed and are stored until May.

Leaves are falling with every breeze.

Tomato plants are in the trash and the cages are stored under the deck.

Chokeberries have been picked and frozen for some winter recipe

Apple harvest is in full swing and we'll be making apple butter this weekend or next.

We have placed our best on when we first see snow. November 3rd is my date.

The box of Christmas lights are in the garage, ready for their early November hanging.

Mailed the check today to my snow plow guy for his continued service.

First post of 2016

My how things like twitter and linked in take away from blogging. I really used to love this but there is something about that evil little bird that keeps me from posting here like I should. What are the big things in my life this summer?

A new granddaughter, a special reminder of how wonderful God is and how the world is blessed by new children who are born into loving homes where He is honored.

A new dock service. Hooray! No more days waking up at night wondering if the dock is going out in the spring or if it will freeze to the lake in the fall.

Gooseberries, currants, and hazelnuts from bushes I planted three years ago.

New landscaping on a hillside that was once home to an old shed.

That is all for now. Just wanted to get something plugged into the blog today. If I recall right one of my new years resolutions was to blog more this year than last. I have some work to do.

That may have been the last big solo drive of my life

December 20, 2015

Left Waco, TX at 4am. Arrived in Victoria, MN at 830pm. If you don't stop at all, Google Maps says its a 16 hr drive. So I guess I wasted about 30 mins stopping for gas and driving less than expected in road construction areas.

Not a bad drive, just a grind. Getting through Fort Worth is always challenging. Texas border to Oklahoma City is somewhat scenic. Oklahoma City to Wichita is flat and fast. North of Wichita is the Flint Hills area, a most beautiful area of the country that most people have never heard of. Knute Rockne died near there and is commemorated very tastefully at a rest stop near his plane crash.

After leaving the Flint Hills the beauty turns into millions of acres of farmland, interupted briefly by the cities of Kansas City and Des Moines. During summer it can be nice to drive by acres of corn wheat and soybeans, but in the winter it is stark. From the Flint Hills to Minneapolis it is a grind that you just get through by force of will.

1080 miles.

In the hours before I left I drove around Waco and wished I had taken more time to see the place. It really is a special little spot with its own history and its own special mark on America. My youngest daughter has graduated from Baylor University. More than likely I will never go back to Waco, but one never knows for sure. I only know that next time I won't be the only one driving.

I remember you! Weren't you that guy.....

In college I was in student government. It seemed important at the time and was the sort of thing that you list on your resume when you first leave college, before you have a real job. 

One of my college friends in student government is now in the insurance biz in Missouri, and has been for many years.

On his website he lists his bio and career accomplishments. What's still there for this now 60-yr old? His position in student government. In the 1970's. 

After all these years, that is one of the high points of his life. That is so terribly, terribly sad.

Lord, thank you for all the things that really matter, and for clearing my life of so many things that don't.