Sail on Silver Girl

Lately, as most of you know, I've been having some kidney issues.  As part of the treatment for this 10mm kidney stone my doctor suggested I invert myself to 45 degrees every night after having consumed sixteen ounces of water.  They already took the step of doing lithotripsy to break the stone up into smaller pieces (hopefully).   Now the goal is to use gravity and fluid to get those pieces up out of the bottom of my kidneys and through the bladder to freedom.  The Exodus of the kidney stones eh? So I've been taking this old box spring and placing it on the couch to create as much of an angle as I can.  Then I drink my water, wait thirty minutes and lay with my face downhill for half an hour.

What I did not expect is that my daughter would love this time.  She can't wait to get on the mattress and lay next to me reading or watching TV.  Daddy are we going to do that tonight?  Then we play around, I poke her and tickle her.. and sometimes I roll over on her and mash her like I forgot she was there.  All the while she's giggling, reading, or often just falling asleep.  It's a comforting time.  It's an amazing moment of bonding that I will cherish for years to come.

Yesterday my buddy Clyde Joshua came over while I was cleaning out the garage and it reminded me of when Moira was very little.  He was walking around asking questions, pointing at this or that, or laughing and running away when he thought I was going to 'get him.'  He would follow right in my footsteps and hand me this or that, and mimic the things I was doing.  Moira used to do that when she was very small.  In fact, she mimicked not just the good, but the bad.  Isn't that how kids learn to do the bad anyway?  Children remind us of that fact when they pull out those special words in front of grandma or at school.  They become their parents.  Sometimes I open my mouth and my dad pops right out...  That's a big responsibility!

Today's Gospel reminds us of that truth, and gives us a better option.  Jesus is always upsetting the cart.  He never walks away with people indifferent.  Either they love him or hate him, but they always make a choice, they are always challenged.  Today they are mad at him, again.   He has just equated himself with God!   Today we would just kind of laugh if someone did that... "they're crazy!"  It was very serious to his contemporaries.   Serious enough they had him killed for it right?  Then he goes on to speak that truth, that children do what their parents did.

Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,

but only what he sees the Father doing;

for what he does, the Son will do also.

There is that pesky Amen, Amen again.  Remember, in the Semitic languages often there are no superlatives. (Good, better, best would be "good" "good good" "good good good", brings a whole new meaning to Holy, Holy, Holy eh?)  Amen means that what he is saying is truth.  It has that connotation of this has been confirmed, it has been supported, it is upheld as the truth.  So to say Amen and Amen.. he's saying this is the truth of the truth!  It's as if Jesus is saying "Pay attention to what I am about to say!"  Then he goes on to affirm that notion that as the Son he mimics his Father.. he follows in his footsteps.  If God raises the dead? So does Christ.  If the Father heals the sick? So does the Son.   If He frees the captor and forgives sin?  Well so will Jesus himself.

That brings an amazing level of depth to that reading from Isaiah in which God lists off a litany of the things he will do to bring his people back to him, back to freedom, back to love.  He declares he will feed them, give them drink, protect them from the elements and never forsake them.  Regardless of what they ever do he will always remember them.  That's a powerful promise to us today as well.  God wants us to be in relationship with Him.  Jesus himself is offering a personal invitation to each and everyone of us to be in this amazing personal covenant, not just a private one with God alone but in communion with his entire Body, the Church.
That begs the question for those of us who claim to be a part of that Body though... If children mimic their parents, then who can we claim as ours?  When I was young my daughter would follow me around, just as Clyde Joshua did yesterday.  The words I used? She used.   The things I did? She did.  The places I went? She went.  I was just telling my friends last night that Saturday of last week I had a bad day.  You know those days when you wake up and the world seems off kilter?  I couldn't get out of this bad funk.  I was snappy.  I was rude.  I was a jerk.   I stormed around like some monster seeking to destroy an enchanted forest.   My wife and kids took the brunt of it.  If anyone had seen me that day, would any of them been convinced I was a Catholic at all? Probably not.   I wasn't acting like my Father at all.

How then do we know how to act?  We emulate the Son.  He healed the sick, he cured the blind, he fed the poor and hungry, he offered forgiveness and compassion to all he met, and above all he proclaimed the Kingdom of God.  Are we doing that?  Do our actions show others that we are Children of the Most High?  Are we reaching out to the poor, the destitute, the widow, and the orphan?  Are we welcoming the strangers who come into our midst?  Are we building walls or bridges?  As we journey through the last remaining days of our desert of Lent, let us take time to examine who we are... to draw closer to God... so that when people look at us, they can say "Now there is a child of God, there is a person who loves others!  There is someone I want to be more like."

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Oh Happy Day?

This morning was absolutely horrible. Do you know the kind of day I'm talking about? Where everything seems like it's out to get you and even the furniture is on the attack? It all began with a nice alarm blaring in my ear... apparently for over 30 minutes. As I groggily hit the snooze button I happened to glance up and see that it was closer to 7 than it was to 6. Oh no, the kids aren't up! So I quickly rush down the hallway knocking on doors as I go, and move in to wake up Moira who still needs help getting ready. No one seems to be moving. Another round of knocking 3 minutes later as I look for breakfast, snacks, getting together my clothes, planning my shower etc.

Finally after 3 tries I hear movement in the rooms and Moira is stirring enough to start getting dressed. I run downstairs to find the clean clothes I had washed the night before, pull out my outfit and a shirt for Mo and back up the stairs I go. (by run I mean a fast hectic walk that reminds the stair well that if it moves up an inch, it can stub my toe with the best of them.) So here I am stumbling with a toe that's sure to be broken, trying not to drop the clothes, when a magical lego appears out of no where and embeds itself into my flesh. Score 2 for the inanimate invaders and nothing for the dad who is running late.

My head begins to overwhelm me as I remember all things I'm supposed to do today. I need to get Moira ready, I need to get her to the bus stop, I need a shower, the dog needs to be walked before I leave, the clothes need to be put into the washer, the dishes need to be started, I need to help Butch at the church rewire some lights, it's almost time for Mass, then the prayer group, then I need to work on some homework for class, a meeting tonight for the building and grounds... we gotta get moving I remind them in a voice that's entirely too loud, entirely too angry.

Sarah and Hannah run out the door, their bus is running in less than a minute. Moira points to the basket and says "uh oh, Sarah forgot her project." Another thing in my head, a new object crams it's way into things to do... How am I going to get that to her at school? Someone is blowing their horn in the driveway, and I call back (by call I mean yell irritatingly that someone has invaded my introverted space again) 'Your ride is here!' This is followed by a slowly shuffling teenager who takes her time and calls out as if they can hear through the closed door 'I'm coming.' I begin to get irritated and mention that she should hurry, which is followed by a 'I am' as the shuffling sloth like creature begins to put on her shoes.

It all begins to bubble over as she has left and I look to see where Moira is.. and she's in the bathroom. So I knock and remind, we gotta go your bus is going to run. Followed by another 3 knocks in what seems like 10 minutes of time.. when actually it was probably about 10 seconds apart. Finally she opens the door and I notice in horror she doesn't even have her shoes on, her hairs not brushed, and I have less than a minute for the bus to run. I tell her "MOVE!" and she does, she runs into the living room, dancing around in all four cardinal directions as if she was a compass out of control, trying to find her shoes. Dear God help me, she doesn't even know where they are! So we frantically look, and my phone rings. My wife is on the other end reminding me that 'Sarah needs her project for school she left it.' I snap at her, she doesn't deserve that. I hear the air break release on the bus.. we missed it.

Ah, how wonderful a day eh? You may think I'm complaining, and maybe in a way I am. Actually, this morning was beautiful. I didn't realize that when I woke up. When my toe was throbbing I was angry. When my kids weren't moving fast enough, I was irritated to no end.   When my phone rang and sang 'Oh Happy Day' to me, I was angry that it interrupted my space. When the horn beeped in the driveway I was irritated for the occupants in the vehicle who kept beeping every few seconds to remind someone they were here. How do we miss all the things in there that are from God? As I was 'stomping' my way on foot to take Moira to school, a small wind blew through my mind and God reminded me in that still small voice "It's not about YOU."

Dumbfounded. That's the word I would describe me as I stopped mid track.   As I stood there on the sidewalk and Moira caught up to me and I realized I had made my day all about me. I apologized to her for being frazzled and we walked together and she began to talk to me. She began to point out this house or that, this flower or that, this bus and where it was going, etc. I realized she hadn't been talking.. how could she? We were walking at the fastest pace my broken body can handle, and I wasn't really giving her a chance to see anything.

I took her to school, and we got there before the bell rang and I began to walk on towards the other school to drop off the project. At this point I'm not in a hurry anymore. A friend stops and asks if I need a ride, my mind for a second says 'you can still make it to mass, you can make it to work on the lights, forget the project, get in and go!'  I realize quickly that in doing that my friend who is lector for daily mass today would miss it if she gave me a ride. Thanks, but I'm gonna be a while I say, and tell her to go on. It's not about me.  It's now about God.  I need to spend more time listening. So I walk on.

So I open my eyes around me. The barking dogs yapping at me, the squirrels and their nuts, the trees and their blossoms and fading flowers, the elderly gentleman walking his pup, the birds in the trees, and the wind in the leaves. I walk on and back home, all the while thinking what a blessing I had this morning. The bible warns us in sacred scripture that our tongue has the power to curse and bless, and it should only be blessing. Jesus also reminds us that what comes out of our heart is what makes a man unclean. With that in mind, our thoughts can be a blessing and a curse too, they can take a moment in which we can see the finger prints of God... and instead we see only the dust. (Think of a CSI show, how they dust the surfaces to find finger prints.. our lives are dust... but if we look at where the ashes fall, we can find the finger prints of God on the surface.)

Curse: I woke up this morning to a blaring alarm clock.
Blessing: I woke up.

Curse: No one is up yet.
Blessing: Everyone was soundly asleep and resting.

Curse: having to get clean clothes from downstairs
Blessing: we have clothes.

Curse: Moira doesn't have her shoes on.
Blessing: We get to walk together and chat this morning.

Curse: Sarah forgot her project.
Blessing: I get to serve my family by living my vocation, I can take it to her.

Curse: the phone rings interrupting me
Blessing: the phone serenades me with 'Oh Happy Day' followed by the melodic beauty of my wife's voice.


We forget that everyday life sanctifies us. Living our vocation, our calling, can be the most holy thing we can do.. if we allow it to be such. We parents are called to serve. We often think of service as only when we go to church to wire a light, clean a floor, or lector at the Ambo. But service includes those at home as well. We often treat them worse than we would a complete stranger. We are hypocrites. Everyone of us. But we can do better. We can do it one day at a time. One blessing at a time. One walk at a time.

In Christ,
Brian