Tag Archives: Everyday God

Attending to Sundays

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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What is it about church that gets into a person’s blood, that makes them put aside their Sunday paper or doings to attend?

Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s God.  At least, not for me.  If two years of abstinence from church has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t need church to find God or to experience the Holy.

I sense God everywhere.  In the everyday. The sunrise, for instance.  Or sunset.  Sometimes in a bite of buttered toast.  Or the smell of rain — especially this year.  The smell of a newborn — always.  Looking into a dog’s soft eyes.  Laughter.  Tears.  Hugs.  Hope.  Joy.  Beauty.  Truth.  Forgiveness.  God is in whatever it is that makes my heart sing, in that which makes me stand in attention and awe.

So if not God, then what?  Well, there is the pastor.  And the sermons — most which I can’t recall an hour after hearing them.  Here it is Tuesday and I’m wracking my brain for Sunday’s topic — surely it was about Advent — I know I listened.  But all I can remember is what the preacher looked like and what he sounded like.  Not a word he said.

Ah, but there are others words for which I do have a soft spot in my heart.  All that rich liturgy — and why wouldn’t I? — being a writer of sorts, there’s something a mite powerful about uttering ancient words passed down through the centuries by those who first heard them spoken by the Christ — or his Apostles — which they recited over and over to ensure they got just right, so they never ever forgot the seeds of their faith.  So help them God.

For the same reason, I adore singing hymns though I can’t carry a tune.  The music, of course, is memorable.  But again, it’s the words that hold and carry such power across time and space:

“Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.  Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us.  Let us find our rest in Thee.”

Who in their right mind doesn’t wish to be free of fear and sins and guilt?  Surely we’re united in this, whether ‘churched’ or ‘un-churched.’

But as I think about it, it’s not just the words.  It’s the act of speaking and singing them in unison.  Or taking communion in unison.  Being a church-goer is about being part of something bigger than myself — sitting in the pew surrounded by others like-minded but totally different sitting in their own pews — with their own individual joys and fears and gifts and quirks.  And when church is really good and right, all these gentle souls simply fade away to leave space for communion with God.  And when that happens, even I fade away.

Something like this happened to me last Sunday.  I was in a chapel full of worshipers, and a preacher in robes in the pulpit with a booming voice  — and for a brief moment,  all I felt was God.  Afterwards —  I think it was afterwards —  I began to remember a recent conversation with my spiritual director; about how I felt Jesus, of late, had become like one of those Facebook “friends” — you know, the ones you knew and hung out with, many many lifetimes ago — that you’d all but forgotten until behold, they found you again on Facebook and asked you to become their friend.  The kind that you say yes to — or is it ‘accept’  or ‘confirm’?–  for old times sake, rather than because you believe saying ‘yes’ will make them friends again.

Well, as I was thinking about this snippet of spiritual direction confession, it came to me that I should read a book  — something contemporary, preferably fiction — where I might actually bump into Jesus and get to know him again.  To really become his friend again.  And so that’s what I’m doing.  I’m reading Margaret George’s novel, Mary Called Magdalene, which I began last Sunday.

Perhaps the best part of attending church is that one never knows what will come of it  — sort of like everyday life, when one really attends to it.

Save the Day

18 Saturday Jun 2011

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Soul Care

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“Life is relationships.  Everything else is just moving furniture.”  — Sister Elizabeth Molina

My sister and aunt are coming to save the day on my living room, which for the moment, bears an uncanny likeness to “Grandma’s Attic.”  My grandmother didn’t have an attic but if she had, it might have looked like my living room.

Saying Sis will ‘save the day” sounds a bit dramatic, especially when the phrase marries the task of rearranging furniture.  But the words just slipped out on to this white digital space, so here they will stay, in spite of reminding me of all those Saturday morning cartoons of my youth — the likes of Underdog and Superman and Mighty Mouse and even Rocky and Bullwinkle, who not only saved the day but saved their cartoonish worlds from evil.

This trinity of words stops me to wonder how many people we know — either now or ever — that could easily bring to mind this phrase.  In my life, it was Mother, for one.  With Father’s Day tomorrow, I wish I could say it was Daddy, but it wasn’t.  Daddy had his place in my life but it was not saving my world.  If anything, Daddy was one in need of being saved.

No, in her way, it was Mom who saved Daddy just as she saved us all.  She saved the day for many, especially in her prime, with all her wonderful bag of tricks — sewing, painting, restoration — but mostly just by dropping everything and showing up in my life and others  to set things right with her rock steady presence.

Sometimes, of course, Mom couldn’t put things right but it didn’t keep her from trying.  Over and over again she picked up the pieces of my brother Jon’s life — picking him up at Crack Houses, picking up Jon’s low self-esteem as best she could, picking up his trail of hot checks left all over town with money borrowed from others.  Only to have the entire ‘save the day, save his life’ routine begin again — over and over in endless waves of need — until Reality hit.

The summer before she died, Mom came to realize, that no matter how hard or often she tried, she’d never really be able to save the day for Jon.  Sometimes I wonder if this played part in her readiness to quit life here, to leave Jon’s messy life to bigger hands than hers, to someone that maybe really could save Jon.  Reality’s a hard thing to swallow even for superheros; so why am I now  suddenly recalling those ancient words whispered by another in a dark garden, with a trinity of friends sleeping on the job  of keeping watch nearby?:  “Father, let this Cup pass from me — yet not my will but yours be done.”  

What a brave thing for anyone to say — to admit one’s vulnerability, to give up pride, all semblance of control and their bag of tricks, especially with an angry mob bearing down on them.  Instead, this Savior chose to trust in the goodness of an invisible Father; he chose to believe that all will be well in the end, in spite of  current evidence to the contrary.

I do miss my mother, especially when I think of how she loved me no matter what.  How she judged me not.  How she took me as I am and not as I could be.  Or should be.  Maybe I loved her most for all of these because in these ways, she bore the greatest family resemblance to one greather than her, whose sandals she was unfit to tie.

And in my life, on this day, where my living room needs saving and furniture needs to be shuffled around, Sis bears a huge resemblance to my mother and Father.  I’m so glad Sis is coming, and bringing our auntie with her, whether or not we move a single stitch of furniture.

Parting Gifts

29 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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I can’t sleep.  My  mind is whirling with thoughts and images of the last few days.  I need to park them somewhere and here is as good a place as any.

Dad died Sunday.  That you know.  Leading up to the moment of Dad’s death, it was a hard three days.   It’s difficult to watch a loved one suffer.  But even in the laboring for life and death, there are gifts of grace.  These I wish to record for posterity.

The first occurred Saturday afternoon.  My brother and sister had gone out to bring back lunch, leaving me behind.  Dad liked having someone sit on his bed, someone to hold his left hand.  So this was where I was — holding Dad’s hand through the scary parting.

Dad’s eyes were open.  It had been almost two days since he had closed them.  Most of the time, Dad fixed his eyes on some faraway point.  I followed his gaze more than once to bump into the popcorn ceiling above his bed.  His gaze seemed to extend beyond what I could see.  I feel certain of this, for twice, once with Christi on Friday afternoon and another with all of us Saturday morning, Dad pointed toward the ceiling.  With his free right hand reaching up, index finger extended out, Dad pointed at specific spots on the ceiling, his hand moving from right to left.  Christi asked Dad, “Do you see Mom?”  “Do you see Pugsley?”  “Sherlock, maybe?”  The last two were favored dogs, and anyone who knows Daddy, knows how much Daddy loved his dogs.

On Saturday, as Dad was gazing out beyond the popcorn ceiling, I leaned down to Dad’s face, and whispered, “Daddy, I wish I knew what you are thinking — and what you are gazing at so intently.  But since you aren’t able to share with me, I have something important I need to share with you.”

Looking back on it, I’m surprised at how quickly my words wrestled Dad’s attention back to me and this wonderful world in which we call home. Dad squeezed my hand, as if to let me know that he was ‘all ears,” his way to let me know that he was ready to listen when I was ready to talk.

“Daddy.  I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  But if death should come to separate us, I want you to know that the love we share will never die, that the love we have for one another will flow into eternity.  The other thing I want to say is this:  Daddy, I will watch over Christi and Jon for you.  I will do my best to support them through the ‘thick and thins’ of life.  But I know I won’t support Jon with money.  Your experiences have taught me that gifts of money hold no solutions for Jon.”  At this, and at one point before, Dad squeezed my hand.  I felt at peace and sensed Dad’s peace as well.

I had thought that would be my final gift to Dad.  I was wrong.  That came yesterday, when I put aside my introverted nature, and presided over my father’s funeral.  It was too important to leave in the hands of one who didn’t know him.  So with the help of my four children, who each took a part, with the help of my brother, who collected a set of old tunes that my Father loved, and with the unscripted memories of more than a handful of others, including my sister who shared her own, we said goodbye to Daddy.   We paid tribute to the man I liked to call “best daddy in the world.”

A few came up afterwords to say how proud Daddy would have been of me.  But here’s the thing:  Daddy was always proud of me, even when there was no reason to be and even when there was reason not to be.   It will be this that I will cling to in the days ahead.  And maybe this Louis Armstrong song, which began Dad’s graveside service yesterday.  For truly, we live everyday life in a wonderful world.  Our time here is short.  But surely that other side — the one that lives beyond the popcorn ceiling– is wonderful too.  At least, based on Daddy’s witness.