Yesterday both of my children were away. I had plans for the evening, but I was home during the day gardening and puttering. Waves of nostalgia washed over me as I realized it had been this time FOUR years ago that I saw the first symptoms in Lucius. Most times it is the little things that make me miss him or someone else who or that is no longer, such as a simple time in my life when there was no hint of the heartache to come. When we were young marrieds and had over a decade together before children came, time seemed to be in endless supply then.
I see an old fashioned orange day lily and miss my maternal grandmother. Smell steaks cooking on a grill and remember my Daddy in his white t-shirt and shorts bringing Saturday supper into the house, him younger than I am now. The scent of chlorine brings back youth and summers that lasted forever. Motown music comes on the radio and I am a child again. . .
In a few short months Mary Casey will begin high school. This would be a sentimental time for any parent, but made so bittersweet by the absence of her father. He was and would still be so proud of the girls and the way they have handled themselves through a monumental tragic loss. I am thankful every day that we have held it together as well as we have.
Time marches on and I'm homesick.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Post Easter
Isn't it great to live on this side of Easter? I don't mean just THIS Easter, but the original Easter. Years ago I was in a study group with a wise woman who said she wondered if she would be so courageous if she were living in the days Jesus was alive.
Forgive me if I have written about this book before, Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr, but it is simply too good not to mention every time I think about it. This book on contemplative prayer is one of my very favorites. I was re-reading a chapter today and so many sentences jumped off the page:
Many people become their thoughts. They do not have thoughts and feelings; the thoughts and feelings have them. It is what the ancients called "being possessed"
by a demon.
We won't see things as they are, we will see everything as we are.
We live too much in reaction to others. There's something strangely sweet about negative or accusatory feelings. It's a strange way to achieve moral superiority:
to feel right because someone else is wrong.
My minister preached on some of these things this past Sunday morning-- If we spend so much time focusing on what others are doing wrong, And pointing it out to them, why would anyone want to be a Christian? As Gandhi said, "I do so like your Christ, it is the Christians I do not like. They are so unlike Christ.
Don't misunderstand me, I needed to hear these words as much as anybody. I need to hear them every day.
Forgive me if I have written about this book before, Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr, but it is simply too good not to mention every time I think about it. This book on contemplative prayer is one of my very favorites. I was re-reading a chapter today and so many sentences jumped off the page:
Many people become their thoughts. They do not have thoughts and feelings; the thoughts and feelings have them. It is what the ancients called "being possessed"
by a demon.
We won't see things as they are, we will see everything as we are.
We live too much in reaction to others. There's something strangely sweet about negative or accusatory feelings. It's a strange way to achieve moral superiority:
to feel right because someone else is wrong.
My minister preached on some of these things this past Sunday morning-- If we spend so much time focusing on what others are doing wrong, And pointing it out to them, why would anyone want to be a Christian? As Gandhi said, "I do so like your Christ, it is the Christians I do not like. They are so unlike Christ.
Don't misunderstand me, I needed to hear these words as much as anybody. I need to hear them every day.
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