ALL DIFFERENT, ALL THE SAME

Our daughters are scattered, much to our chagrin. But that is life in this world today. We find our home where we find work. For the past few years we have tried to gather our daughters and their families at our home the second weekend in December to celebrate a family Christmas. We have yet to succeed in gathering all five at one time, again, such is life and work in this world today. We are grateful for what we can do.

What we were also grateful this Christmas that all our daughters were able to be in their church for Christmas. When we spoke with them about their experiences, they were all different and yet they were all the same. Two daughters worshipped in a little, white-clapboard building in a small college town where the “family-type” church gathers each Sunday.

Another daughter worshipped with a growing congregation in a modern church building: the rear of the church consisted of plate glass windows that looked out on the nearby lake. The congregation followed the service by looking up at two wide-screens attached to the wall upon which the Book of Common Prayer was projected as well as the hymns to be sung. The music was led by a synthesizer, guitars and other instruments.

Another daughter worshiped at the early, well-attended Christmas Eve Service at her multi-lingual, multi-racial parish. The congregation’s annual Christmas Pageant began the evening, the highlight of which was Joseph dropping Baby Jesus while he was trying to hand the infant to Mary. No harm done, fortunately, as grandson Carter was not baby Jesus who, thankfully, was just a doll baby. The next day Daughter #1 (as she always signs herself) and her sons worshipped at that same church along with seven other people including the priest.

On Christmas Eve I celebrated the Eucharist in the cathedral-like church in the blue-collar community I serve as Priest-in-Charge. We had triple our normal Sunday numbers which made the large building look at least rather full. Joining us was a hired brass ensemble and several volunteer choir members from the local Lutheran church to help make the service very festive.

Five services: all different and all the same. Every Christmas service is different. No two are alike. And yet each service is the same. That is true not only on Christmas but every Sunday.

It is also true about us human beings. My wife has been delving into our ancestry. What she has learned is, of course, that we are all different. No two human beings are exactly alike. And yet, we are all the same. Geneticists tell us that we are 99% alike as human beings. The differences, while important and what distinguish one from another, are, in the end, minimal. Unfortunately and sadly, over the course of history we human beings have spent an inordinate amount of time emphasizing our differences and wreaking all sorts of mayhem and havoc in the process.

My hope and prayer for 2015 is that we, the world over, recognize that while we are all different, in the end, we are all the same. That is the only way to bring peace to this world.

A CHRISTMAS WISH FOR THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

If I had it in my power, I would love to give each and every one of you a gift a day for the twelve days of Christmas. It wouldn't me a material gift. Rather, I would give gifts that would last. If I could, then, this is my wish gift list for the twelve days of Christmas.   

On the First Day of Christmas my wish for you is a thankful heart in gratitude for the abundant blessings in your life and especially for the greatest blessing of all: God's Gift to us: Jesus.

On the Second Day of Christmas my wish for you is an open hand to reach out and touch someone who somehow believes that there is not much for which to be thankful.

On the Third Day of Christmas my wish for you is a smile on your face to brighten the life of just one person whose life seems so dark.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas my wish for you is to be a faithful friend for someone who just needs a friend.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas my wish for you is a sense of wonder and awe at the goodness of God and the goodness of others, freely given.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas my wish for you is a moment of peace amid the hectic lives we all seem to live and wish we did not.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas my wish for you is the grace and strength to forgive someone who has hurt you and perhaps doesn't realize it or maybe does but doesn't even seem to care. It may be the greatest gift you can give both to the other and to yourself.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas my wish for you is that you accept the forgiveness Jesus's birth and life and death and resurrection grants unconditionally. It is the greatest gift of all.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas my wish for you is an open mind to accept others just as they are, if only because we want others to accept us just as we are.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas my wish for you is a sense of thankfulness for the sadness and disappointments of life knowing that the cross is a gift we will never understand.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my wish for you is to understand that the material is never better than the spiritual, that it only seems that way, and only for the moment. The spiritual is eternal. The material always passes away and is never enough.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my wish for you is to discover that the real meaning of Christmas is the giving of love every day.

POOR SCOOBY-DOO

It is probably safe to assert that no man is good enough for a father’s daughter and no woman good enough for a mother’s son. How good that potential spouse has to be is known only to the one making the judgment. In most instances no one can fully live up to his or her future in-law’s expectations no matter how hard that person tries. We parents are very protective of our children, even over-protective at times. What allows us to give the future spouse a chance is that we know we have not lived up to our in-law’s expectation of us.

We have two sons-in-law. Both are already very protective of their offspring even as they are still not yet teenagers. Fortunately they are not protecting them from us which allows us to spoil them as much as we can, and, as all grandparents do, go home and leave mom and dad to deal with the fall out. It’s called Parent’s Revenge!

Back in the day when we were young, our parents protected us, but their task was much easier than the task our children have protecting our grandchildren. When it came time for us to raise our children, it was a more difficult task than it was for our parents and not because we were such good children growing up or because our children were so bad. It was a different world out there when we were parenting

And it has only gotten worse for our children raising their children: more violent, more temptations, more chances to get hurt, seriously so. I do not envy our children trying to raise our grandchildren who are “growing up in an unsteady and confusing world,” as the Prayer for Young Persons has it in The Book of Common Prayer. I pray daily for our grandchildren and I pray for their parents.

And yet, there are times when we have to smile. As much as I sometimes rant about how much cell phones seem to be taking control of our lives, the one great advantage is that our children can send us pictures of our grandchildren without having to get them developed and then sending them by snail mail. We receive them almost immediately after they are taken. And because our grandchildren live away, the pictures keep us up to date.

One of the latest is a photo of Carter, two-months old, propped up in his parent’s bed with his trusty sidekick, Carmine, a Shih Tzu, right beside him. They are watching Scooby-Doo cartoons because Carter seems to like all the color. Obviously, so does Carmine who is also enthralled with Animal Planet. We loved the photo. Dad, however, is concerned. He does not want his son getting used to watching too much television. Poor Scooby-Doo.

However, on this one Dad is up against it. Both Carter’s mom and his grandmother still love to watch Scooby. Can the little one get his fill of Scooby and still not become a television junkie? On the other hand, Dad loves to play his video games with his son sitting next to him. Is mom concerned that Carter might become a video-game junkie? Makes you want to smile. In fact it did. Don’t you just love it?

I CAN'T WAIT

When our girls were growing up during this time of the year, we would often hear them say to us, “I can’t wait. I just can’t wait for Christmas.” We would smile and say, “Honey, you’ll just have to. Christmas will get here soon enough.” But, of course, it would never be soon enough for them. They wanted to celebrate right then and there. As Christmas approached, their anticipation and impatience only increased. Was it any wonder they had to wake us so early Christmas morning?

Whether or not this forced waiting did them any good, made them appreciate Christmas any better is an unknown. Yet being forced to wait should have. It certainly should for those of us who are old enough to know that we can’t rush time no matter how much we desire to do so. Time marches on in its preordained pace and nothing and no one can or will make it go faster or slow it down.

What matters, of course, is what we do with the time, what we do while we await whatever it is we are awaiting. How we use that time more often than not will determine how the event we await turns out. I am awaiting a surgical repair to my artificial hip at the end of January. How I use the time between now and then may, and probably will, determine the outcome of the surgery.  If I follow my surgeon’s instructions, if I don’t obsess about the surgery and worry about its outcome, I trust all will be well. If not, maybe not.

The same is true for this time of the year. I suspect our kids (sorry, girls, you will always be our kids no matter how old you are) never used the waiting time between their first notion that Christmas was coming soon and its actual arrival to reflect on the real meaning of that celebration. For them the real meaning was material (presents) and not spiritual (the celebration of the presence of Jesus in their lives). They could be excused even when we tried to help them understand the spiritual. They were kids after all.

We adults, however, cannot get off so easily. Nor should we. Advent is a time of waiting. For certain we know for whom and for what we are waiting. Again, what is important is how we use this time between now and then. It is so easy to get caught up in the material the way children do that we have little or no time to reflect on the spiritual. In fact, the material element that has become such a necessary part of the celebration can so consume us that the spiritual element, which is what the day is all about, is simply lost.  

Given all the material distractions of the Advent season, distractions that will not go away and from which we cannot hide, it takes an effort, perhaps a supreme effort, for us to find and make the time to reflect on the spiritual reason for our celebration of Jesus’ birth among us. We don’t have to find a lot of time. That may be asking too much. I don’t think Jesus is asking too much of us if we would just find a little time each day, a minute or two, to quietly reflect on the real meaning of Christmas and to give thanks for all the undeserved blessings that have been given to us. Doing so will make our waiting both meaningful and worthwhile.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOPE

When things are not going well with us, we tend to hope and pray that the situation will be reversed and that the old order will be restored even if the old order was not all that good – at least it was better than the present. That is our hope when stuck in a mess, when uttering the first word of prayer to God to get us out of the mess. Yes, we know that it can always get worse and that what we have now may be better than what can be. For certain we hope and pray that things won't get worse. We hope they will get better.

The outcome of our prayer, our hopes, our wishes and dreams is often totally in our hands. We hope to pass the final exam. It's all in our hands. Prayer won't help us pass the test; only study will. And sometimes what we hope for is both in our hands and in the hands of others. We need surgery. For our part, we hope the surgery to be successful, and hope the doctor, for her part, will do the best she can. And sometimes, after we've done our part and others have done theirs, the final outcome is still not fully in human control. It's up to God.

That kind of hope, a bad ending up good, is one we deal with all the time. So, too, are our hopes of making a present good even better. Those are universal hopes that know no time or place or circumstance or religion. Those hopes come with the territory of being human.

There is another kind of hope, however, that demands faith, first, last and always. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (11:1) Faith leads to hope, not the other way around. We have faith in the doctor or else we will not go under the knife. We have faith in ourselves, in our own abilities, or we will never pass the test. Faith precedes hope.

But as Christians it is the conviction of things not seen that make our hope a hope of a different kind. Such is our hope when faced with our own death, with the dying process. The conviction we have as Christians is in the resurrection, our own. Since we have no idea what death is like, we have no idea what we are hoping for when we say, when reciting the Creed, that we believe "in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.” But we believe and so we hope.

We don't like to think about dying, ever, and certainly not during this Advent season when all our thoughts are on new life, on Christmas. But the reason for Christmas, the reason why Jesus was born among us, was and is to give us hope for life beyond this life even if we do not know what that life is like. We will all surely die; but we live in faith with a different kind of hope.

Yet even more, Jesus’ life among was to give us hope in and for this life as well. We are not in control of the life to come, but we are very much in control of this life: what we do, what we say, what we believe. Advent is a reminder that if we want our hopes and dreams for this life to come true, to become realities, they will only become so if we live the life Jesus, the celebration of whose birth we anticipate, showed us how to live. Let us hope and pray we so live.

 

THE CONUNDRUM OF WEALTH

Last week Arlena and I took a bus trip with some family and friends to tour the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and the Biltmore Estate outside Asheville, NC. The Park is the only National Park that has no entrance fee. The Biltmore charges $49 plus and extra $10 if you want to carry along an audio about the mansion while taking a walking tour through it. If you don’t do the audio, you miss too much. The audio came with our tour package, thankfully.

The bus trip through the Park was like being submerged in God’s creation. Even though most of the leaves had already turned colors, they had also fallen to the ground. No matter, enough remained to stare in awe. Yes, I had seen beautiful fall foliage hundreds of time, maybe thousands. But every time there is the awe-factor, really, the God-factor, that can easily overwhelm and does.

The next day we drove to the Biltmore Estate. As the bus came around the final bend of the three-mile entrance way, there stood The Biltmore. It, too, was an awesome sight. The mansion has 250 rooms, over 40 bathrooms, a huge indoor swimming pool all contained in almost 179,000 square feet of space. All this and much more was the home for three people.

Yes, the staff lived in the house and many more were housed on the grounds giving employment to probably a hundred or more people and being paid “New York wages” as the audio informed us. Descendants of the first employees still live and work on the property. Yet, there is that nagging feeling that comes over you when you stand in awe of the structure, tour the building and grounds, try to calculate the millions of dollars it cost to build and furnish the place and think, “All this for three people!”

Over a million visitors come to the Biltmore each year. George Washington Vanderbilt, the grandson of Cornelius whose many millions were passed on to his hands, almost depleted his inheritance building the estate. He died prematurely at 51. His daughter had to open the estate for visitors in order to pay for the upkeep. His grandchildren are following their mother’s lead.

To me the Biltmore Estate is one of those conundrums of wealth. Just because one can built an estate like the Biltmore or, for the less-wealthy, $10-, $15- $20-million homes, should one? My wife and I live in a house too large for us. Should we? Most of us have more than we need even if we always seem to want more. Why? Low self-esteem? Or are we just greedy when enough is never enough but the joy of more never seems to satisfy – so we want more?

The Biltmore mansion is awesome and an example of what awesome wealth can produce. It is also a reminder that wealth can be used for selfish motives while at the same time serving the less affluent. It also asks, “Are there not better ways to use that wealth and still fulfill anything and all that one can desire and certainly, perhaps even more importantly, all one deserves? Actually, as the vista from the porch of the mansion and the road through the Park remind, God has already given us more than we can either desire or deserve.

WHAT COULD BE

Too many miles, too much caffeine, too restless to sleep all of which led to Arlena surfing the channels as we lay in bed. She stopped at the end of an old Murder, She Wrote. We had no idea what the story had been about but it must have been set around Christmas because Jessica was saying to Doc, “Christmas should be about what could be and not about what is.” Isn’t that so true?

Granted, this is not yet the Christmas Season no matter what the merchants want us to believe and to which they want us to respond by buying, buying, buying. However, what Jessica opined about the meaning of Christmas could be said not only about every season in the Church’s year but also about every one of us as Christians, namely, “Being a Christian should be about what could be and not about what is.” Even more: “Life itself should be about what could be and not about what is.”

Yet, more often than not we find the Christmas season and being a Christian and living our daily lives more about being about and responding to what is rather than what each and all could be. We get so overwhelmed by the present that we have little time and often no inclination to think about what could be, even what should be. And even when we take the time to ponder what could be, we throw up our hands in frustration because what is seems to be in control of our very lives.

Yes, there is very much good in what is. Life is not all that bad and not always difficult. But the good can always be better and whatever is not good also can be made better. But how? How do we make Christmas/being a Christian/life itself about being active, proactive in being about what could be? A quick and easy response might be to ask ourselves “What would Jesus do in such a situation?” The problem with that is that we have no idea what Jesus would do because we are not Jesus.

The better question to ask ourselves is “What would Jesus, my faith in Jesus, have me do?” Asking that question is the first step in making what is into what could be. That, in many ways, is the easy part. The hard part is actually doing what is necessary to make the present better, into what it could be were it not for our own sinfulness and selfishness. For the reason why things are not what they could and should be is simply that too many of us either like it the way it is for us or do not want to make the effort needed to make the changes that are needed.

None of this is a pretty picture, of course. But, then, when we look around and observe what is going in in the world about, the picture is not what it should or could be. Unless we are honest with ourselves about how bad that picture is in so many ways, and unless we resolve to do our part to do something about it, nothing will change. Individually we cannot make the world as it is into what it could be, but we can begin to make our own lives into what they could be. That is only a start, but a much-needed one.

MOTHER NATURE

Last week I was sitting in my office speaking with my wife as she walked through the woods behind our home. She told me that it was a gorgeous fall day outside and she was thrilled to be outdoors. When we hung up, I looked outside my window. Sure enough, the sun was shining, glistening off the waters of the Allegheny River. The temperature was in the high 50s and the wind was blowing. “Wow!” I said to myself. Good time for a walk.

Off I went to Dunkin Donuts a few blocks up for the cup of coffee that I needed and the donut I did not; but I was going to walk off the donut anyway, justifying to myself why I was defeating the purpose of the walk in the first place. On the way to the shop I encountered three men from one of the local yard-care companies blowing leaves off a property they were paid to tend. As fast as they blew the leaves from the grass, just as fast did Mother Nature’s wind blow them back. We all got a kick out of their futile work.

Earlier in the day I received a note from a friend who wrote to tell me that a former parishioner had finally died after a long, long bout with dementia. On the morning news were reports that the lava from the volcano in Hawaii was ready to destroy many homes in its unrelenting and unstopping path. And there was the news that Gordie Howe, the great Hall of Fame hockey player from the past had been struck down by a stroke. Mother Nature at work.

Then, of course, amid all of this news – and before and after and forever and ever – come the advertisements about how we can defeat, or at least delay, the ravages of Mother Nature: take this pill, go on the diet, visit this athletic club, have this surgery to make you look younger, etc. and etc. Of course there were the disclaimers that the pills were not approved by the FDA or that the side effects could kill or maim you before Mother Nature did. They may be able to make us look younger but they can’t actually make us younger. As for proper exercise and diet: that works only to a degree and especially to the degree we are willing to stick to it. Good luck on that!

Try as we might to defeat the realities of Mother Nature, in the end we always lose. That’s not so bad when we know what is in store for us when that end comes: eternal life when there is no wind to blow back the leaves, no pills to take to feel better, no surgery needed to make us look better, no exercise needed to stay fit. And if there is food in the life to come, I can eat all the donuts my heart desires and not put on an ounce. Wow!

But there is another “wow!” to consider, a “wow” in the here and now, in this life. In fact, the “wow” IS this life, the one God has given us and with which we are blessed despite the ways and whims of Mother Nature. Perhaps if we spent more time enjoying this life instead of fighting against it, in spite of the trials and hardships from Mother Nature from which no one escapes no matter how hard we try, we can look out our windows every day, in spite of any pain we may be in, and simply utter “Wow, wow! Thank you, God.”

AN EXPLANATION IS NOT AN EXCUSE

It started with Adam and Eve and it's been going on ever since. We get caught doing something we know is wrong; and when asked why we did it, we explain: "The snake made me do it." Good explanation, but no excuse. "The Snake," of course, goes by a thousand names, usually the one most convenient at the time of being caught in the act: like "genes," "my parents," "my friends,", or that old standby "everybody else."

If we can name it, we can blame it; we can use it to explain our misbehavior. We use it to excuse our actions, and not only to excuse but to justify as well. Nevertheless, even a justifiable explanation does not excuse us. Never has; never will. We only wish it would.

In the Genesis parable the woman had a perfectly good explanation as to why she did what she knew she should not have done: the snake in the grass gave her a very good, logical, reasonable, even justifiable explanation for why she should eat of the tree. It was not that she was going to die. Rather, it was that she was going to live even more fully. She was going to be like God. Who wouldn't want to be like God, knowing everything? Wouldn't you? I would. So let me explain to you why I did it.

The young man convicted of murder while driving drunk explained to the jury why he did it. He was angry and he drank too much beer and he simply made a mistake. The jury agreed with him: he did make a mistake that cost two young women their lives. But the explanation didn't excuse him from doing what he knew he should not have done: get behind the wheel drunk, running a red light crashing into and killing two people. Try as we might, he and we cannot explain away our actions into reasons for excusing them.

But we try. It's probably the one way we can live with ourselves. I suspect the most difficult words to ever pass our lips are, "It's my fault. I have no excuse." Then we choke back the words we are almost dying to say, “But I can explain. And if you listen to my explanation, you might see that what I did really should be excused, even forgiven."

Explanations are not excuses. So why do we spend so much time and energy trying to explain ourselves when, in the end, the explanation will not excuse what we did? Why don't we take our lumps, resolve not to make the same mistake again, and get on with it?

Why? Human nature. That's the explanation (not the excuse). Our brain wants to justify why we did what the brain knew all along was the wrong thing to do. Just as the body is always trying to heal itself of foreign objects, like disease; just as the body tries to heal itself when it is ingested with that which will hurt it -- too many drugs, too much food, etc.; so our brain tries to heal itself by rationalizing why we just did what we implicitly knew was wrong but went ahead and did it anyway.

It can't, of course. The only resolution to the problem is repentance and forgiveness. Both start with us. We must admit our mistakes, explain them if we will but not excuse them; and then accept forgiveness both from ourselves and from others. Accepting forgiveness may be the most difficult part of all. But that's another story.

“ALL THINGS COME OF THEE, O LORD"

At the Offertory when there is no music, after the gifts are brought forward, the priest lifts the monetary offerings on high toward heaven, then the chalice and paten, and says, while doing so, "All things come of thee, O Lord." And the congregation responds, "And of thine own have we given thee." Prosaic language which simply means that God has given us everything and what we are doing in our offering is simply giving back a small part of all that God has given to us.

We know all that. We're no dummies. We know that God created everything – and still creates – and that we are the recipients of that creation. What is even more wonderful is that we are the greatest result of that creation. We are God's best work. And everything we are, everything about us: our ability to sing, to think, to dance, to work, to dunk a basketball – or the lack of some of those abilities – are the result of God's creating us the way God, in God’s infinite wisdom, chose to do so. (Parenthetically, that means it is God’s fault I am a klutz and can’t sing.)

And so everything we can do and everything we actually do is directly the result of what God has done, and is still doing, for us. The possessions we have, the money we earn, everything, in the final analysis do not belong to us: they're all God's. God simply puts us in charge of those talents and possessions. And so when we give away some of what is in our charge, we are not giving away something that is ultimately ours but something that is ultimately God's. We are giving back.

We know that, do we not? Nevertheless, sometimes it is so difficult to give away some of what we have accumulated because we worked so hard for it. And we did. There is no denying that. God did not simply plop the possessions into our hands. We had to use the raw materials God graced us with to earn, purchase, build up those possessions and those bank accounts.

What God calls us to be are good stewards of all that we are, all that we possesses. God also reminds us that the gifts we have been given and the ability to use those gifts well were not given to us for us alone. They were given to us to share with those who are less blessed. Why they were less blessed is unimportant and not our concern. Our concern is to share from our abundance. Moreover, they were given to us to help us become even more blessed.

When we give some of "thine own" to our church, we do so because we know the importance our church, our church family, is in our lives. We are better people because of this place and these people. We come to this place and are among these people because we are fed here – with the Eucharist, with fellowship, with education. That may sound self-serving. And it is. But unless we are fed spiritually, we die.

God blesses us so that we may live, and in so living be able to give some of what God has given to us to others. When we do so, we give life to one another and, we should not forget, to ourselves.

THE MOST DIFFICULT OF THESE IS...

When Martin Luther took the Church to task centuries ago, he did so because he knew the Church needed quite a bit of reforming. There was much corruption on the part of the leaders of the Church (the hierarchy) and much ignorance on the part of the people of the Church (the laity). It is hard to say either which party needed the most reforming or which reformation was the more difficult to do.

It would be easy to speculate that the more difficult task was to reform the hierarchy. Once one comes into power, one is very reluctant to give up that power and to change the order of that power. Self-security is a powerful incentive. History affirms that Luther's greatest opposition came from the hierarchy, so much so that he and his followers eventually split from the Church, although that was certainly not his original intention. He simply wanted to reform it.

But unless I miss my guess, in the end, the hierarchy was a piece of cake when compared to the job that needed to be done with the laity of the Church. Both reformations, clergy and laity, demanded conversion: a turning away from the old ways and turning to new ways or, certainly, back to the original ways Jesus laid out to live out our faith in him. But the fact of the matter is that no matter how much we want to make that conversion, it is never easy. Conversion/change is always difficult as each and every one of us knows from past experience.

Luther knew this. He knew the difficulty. He has experienced it in his own life, in his own conversion. He could have left well enough alone; but the situation was so bad that he could not do so even if it would cause him much pain and suffering. And it did. Reflecting on his own conversion he once observed about conversion itself. He opined: "There are three conversions necessary: the heart, the mind, and the purse." Now unless I miss my second guess, I would assert that the most difficult conversion to make is that of the purse.

Conversion of heart and mind are interior conversions. Conversion of purse is an exterior conversion.  The former leads to the latter. We can have a true change of heart and mind when it comes to matters of the pocketbook. But to put that change of heart into practice is often most difficult, the most difficult conversion to make.

We may, for instance, be intellectually convinced that we should – dare I use the word? – tithe. And we may be convinced in our hearts that that is what we want to do. But when it comes to putting pen to check, ah, that is most difficult. It is as if someone suddenly grabs are hand and makes it immobile. The mind says, "Write it!" The heart says, "It's the right thing to do." But the hand says, "I can't."

Who's in control here? Good question. I don't know why the conversion of purse is so difficult, the most difficult of all. How much is or is not in that purse does not seem to matter: Luther's followers were not wealthy. So tell me, why is the conversion of purse so, so, so difficult?

CARTER

As I write this, Arlena and I are in Baltimore at Tracy’s and DaMon’s home sitting at the kitchen table with our newest grandson, Carter, lying in his cradle, squirming around, just begging to be picked up and held. Oops, he just got his wish. But, then, how was his grandmother to resist? Infants make the strongest of people weak. They are so very weak and yet they are so very strong.

They are so dependent on others for their very survival. But, then, aren’t we all? No one of us can get through this life all on our own. Sometimes in our bouts with our ego we think we can. Sometimes when feeling down and out and put upon we wish we could. But no one can, not even Bill Gates. All the money in the world cannot buy what only the love and care of another human being, other human beings, can freely give.

As I look at Carter, as I hold him in my hands, I have to think about that. I have to remind myself that Carter needs me as much as I need him. Actually, as needy, as totally needy that he is, I need him more than he needs me. He doesn’t know that and that is fine. At this moment all he knows and all he cares about and all he needs is to be held and fed and changed. We lovingly fulfill those needs not just because he is our grandson but simply because he needs us.

As I do my small part in fulfilling Carter’s needs, at the same time he is reminding me of how blessed I am, how blessed I have been, to have had and to have so many, many, many loving people in my life who have made and who make my life so very blessed. The sad fact, for me at least, is that it sometimes takes a helpless baby to remind me to remind myself of my many blessings.

It would be wonderful if I were the exception to the rule here, but I think not. It is so easy for each one of us to forget just how blessed we are no matter what our age. I used to think it was only teenagers who took their blessings not only for granted but also believed they were their rights. But adults do too even if we are a little less obnoxious about it at times. Sometimes we can be even more so than teenagers!

Even if we have not had the best of parents, as some should never be parents, we all have been blessed to have others in our lives who have loved us and reminded us that as we have been loved, so, too, must we love in return and especially love those who at the moment cannot return that love.

Carter is indeed a blessing: God’s gift to his parents and grandparents and the rest of his immediate family. At this time in his life all he can do is accept our unconditional love. He cannot love in return, at least not intentionally. What he does do is make us thankful for the blessing of his life and remind us of just how blessed we are, not only because he has come into our lives but for all our blessings.e jusHHe

THE HUMAN RACE

The Episcopal Church has a requirement that all in a position of leadership, lay or clergy, attend an anti-racism workshop. To be honest, over the years of my ministry it has been very difficult for me to convince the leadership in the parishes I have served to attend these workshops. I have been given a multitude of reasons why attendance was a “no”: took too long (a full day and a half) and they were just too busy on the one hand to “I’m not a racist and don’t need to go”, on the other.

The truth is that the workshops are too long, in my humble estimation. I’ve taken them. The other truth is is that most of us do not consider ourselves racists and get angry when anyone might intimate that we are, especially by requiring that we attend an anti-racist workshop to help us overcome our racist mentality.

Thus, I found it quite interesting, fascinating and completely honest when one of my parishioners, in completing the registration form to attend the latest workshop, responded to the question: “Race/Ethnicity with “Human”. To read her mind, which I probably should not do but will anyway, her obvious point, at least to me, is that being asked to declare our race just might be the basis of the whole problem.

What we all have in common is that each and every one of us belongs to the human race. When we begin to name what we do not have in common – color of skin, country of origin, sexual orientation: the list is long – trouble starts. Then we begin comparing those differences as if they really make a difference. It’s as if saying a car painted blue is better than that same car painted yellow.

Yes, we are different. No two people are exactly alike. Those differences are what make this world what it is. But those differences do not make one person better than another person, one country better than another country, one skin color better than another skin color. What they do is help make us better. Because we are different one from another, have different experiences one from another, we can learn one from another, which is what we should be doing anyway, which is probably why God made us different one from another in the first place.

What we need to do, must do, is appreciate those differences and be thankful for them. What we must not do and which, unfortunately seems to be easy to do, is categorize and judge people who look alike to actually be alike when they are not. My brother Fran looks very much like me, handsome guy that he is. But even though we have very much in common, very much alike in many ways, we are still different.

We all belong to the human race. What we need do is treat one another as fellow human beings, treat them as we wish to be treated. If we did, then we would not need these anti-racism workshops to remind us that that is what we should be doing all the time.

NATURE AND NURTURE

All four of my grandparents were born and raised in Italy. They migrated to this country in the early 1900s to begin and raise their families. When others learn this about me and then discover that I do not like garlic, wine or opera, they shake their heads in disbelief. They assume, I assume, that there must be a defective gene in my makeup. Is it not the nature of an Italian to love all three? My siblings love garlic and drink a little wine now and then, but I’ve never asked them about opera. Am I the odd man out or simply odd?

Perhaps if my parents liked garlic and wine and listened to the opera on the radio when I was growing up, they might have nurtured me into loving or at least liking all three. But they did not either like or nurture or encourage. My Dad, when he was told that he had to learn to like hard liquor simply asked “Why?” Why do we have to learn to like something we don’t like, like garlic, opera or wine?

The truth is that both nature and nurture play a very big part in who we are. I naturally do not like garlic. I cannot explain why I do not like it just as I cannot explain why I do not like liver, Brussel sprouts or sushi. On the other hand, I don’t think I came out of the womb being a bleeding-heart liberal. I believe my parents nurtured me in that regard. By nature we are all born good because our Creator is good. But we can be nurtured to be bad.

Nature and nurture: is one more important than another in how we turn out as individuals? I really do not know the answer to that question and leave it to those who have professional expertise in that area of human make up and the human condition. Yet it is our fundamental nature and how we were nurtured that explain why two people looking at the same situation can have opposing opinions, sometimes diametrically opposing views.

The issue becomes even more confusing when siblings, raised in the same household, nurtured by the same parents, can be so different when it comes to likes and dislikes, to religion and politics, to, well the list is long. It is those differences that make life so fascinating and yet so difficult, so enjoyable and yet so painful. In my family it is those differences that make conversation around the dinner table loud and long and leaves my wife shaking her head because she was raised where only one conversation at a time goes on and not three or four.

Nevertheless, even if we concede the fact that we are who we are because of our nature and our nurture, that truth in and of itself, does not excuse us from doing what is inherently wrong. Not only does the devil not make me do it or say it, neither does my nature or nurture. As old as I am I can learn to like garlic, wine and the opera if I so choose to do so.

I can also learn to be more kind and caring towards those with whom I disagree. I will never understand why they believe what they believe and they will never understand me. That is always frustrating and even maddening, but it is what it is. Sometimes, sad to say, there is no happy ending other than to agree to disagree. For me that leaves a garlicky taste in my mouth.

BEING RIGHT IS SOMETIMES WRONG

There have been times in my ministry when I have been visiting a parishioner in the hospital who was very, very ill. And while I was at that person’s bedside, the doctor came in to speak to him or her. When I tried to excuse myself so that the doctor could have private time with the patient, the doctor often said, “No, Father, you can stay.” And so I stayed. What I heard when I stayed was sometimes very honest but not what I thought should have been said.

Those were the times when the doctor was brutally factual with the patient. He cut no quarters, did not soften what he said and he certainly did not tell anything but the truth. “The cancer is malignant and inoperable and you only have a few weeks to live,” he said. “The paralysis in permanent and will never be lessened.” I’ve heard others in a similar vein. None provided any hope for the patient.

As a priest I deal in hope. Without hope, we cannot go on. We will very easily simply give up if we believe all hope is lost. However, even if that hope is only a small sliver, at least it is that, and with that we can go on. When I heard those hopeless diagnoses that came from those doctors’ lips, I believed while they may have been right in what they were saying, they were wrong to say it.

Yes, we need to know the truth. But when the truth will not change anything, when the truth will not allow us to hang on waiting for a miracle, then why destroy another’s bit of hope? Not only does offering a bit of hope help the patient, it also helps the family as well. They need a bit of hope too even if they know they are really hoping against hope. It is human nature to do so.

Years ago I attended a local ministerial gathering where the featured speaker was the hospital chaplain. He said, rather bluntly, “You know, don’t you, that the doctors think we’re just a bunch of clowns.” At first I was very insulted. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe it was a compliment even if back-handed. For is not a clown someone who lifts up spirits, who, in truth, is a symbol of hope?

But, then, aren’t we all? Is not that one of the responsibilities we have as Christians, to be bearers of hope, to lift up spirits? Yes, there are times when we are called to tell it like it is. But there are also times when we don’t have to do so. There are times when telling the truth only makes things worse, when being right is the wrong time.

Those times don’t happen all that often, thankfully. I didn’t take the doctors to task who were brutally honest with their patients. I just wish they had not been so, that they could have found words of hope; and if they could not have done that, they could have at least understood that that moment was the wrong time to be right. There may never be a right time, but there are times when it is the wrong time to be right.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE?

A while back I received an invitation to the ordination to the priesthood of a colleague. The invitation announced that the bishop who was to do the ordaining was the bishop of that Bishop’s diocese “by Divine Providence”. I disagree. I also disagreed with another colleague who had been in the election process and was a final candidate to be called to be the bishop. When the elections results came in and he was not elected, he sent a kind email to all those who had supported and prayed for him saying that the result of the election was the result of the Holy Spirit – in other words, by Divine Providence.

As I said, I disagree on both accounts. Episcopal elections, the calling of Rectors, the choosing of the Pope, the election of the President of the United States, none of these are the result of Divine Providence. They are all the work and result of what we human beings do and not do. If we honestly and truly want to rely solely on Divine Providence in any election of any kind at any level, religious or secular, all we need do is place in a container the names of every individual qualified by age and then draw out one name. We would then conclude that the choice was the result of Divine Providence if we were believers. Non-believers might say that it was simply dumb luck.

The danger in believing that any election result is the work of Divine Providence is to conclude that everything that person then does must also be the will of Divine Providence as well. But we know better, or at least we should. I hope none of the congregations that have called/elected me to be their Rector ever thought that I knew God’s will firsthand and that everything that I said and did was in accordance with that will. I also hope they believed I was called not because it was God’s will but because I was merely the best candidate among a list of candidates. I may have also simply been the best of an extremely bad lot.

To be sure it would be wonderful if we knew what the will of God is for every decision we make. It would be even better if, knowing that will, we actually fulfilled it each and every time. But we do and we don’t. There are times when we know exactly what it is God wants us to do but we still refrain from doing it. That’s what sin is. Sin is knowing what we should do or not do and then not acting accordingly.

We in the Church really want to believe that our leaders have been specifically chosen for us by God. But we have seen our leaders do some of the most ungodly deeds – all in the name of God, of course. Somehow they must have come to believe that they were chosen by Divine Providence and not because they knew how to work the election game.

The Holy Spirit is indeed alive and well and works in deed in and through you and me. Nevertheless, we need be careful when we claim that the works we do are the works of the Holy Spirit ordered by Divine Providence. Enough damage has been done already by thinking that way and, even worse, actually believing it.

WHY EVERYONE DOESN’T AGREE WITH ME

While I am serving as Priest-in-Charge in Kittanning, I spend two nights a week at the Quality Inn. It’s no 4-Star motel by any means, but it is fine for me: decent breakfast, small exercise room where I can spend some time on the elliptical to burn some calories, good bed. Nothing fancy. Many of the men working the gas fields stay there as well. But since they work twelve-hour shifts, I usually see them coming or going. No conversations but only a nod of recognition or a “good morning”.

The only person I have any semblance of a conversation with is the manager, Michael, who works the day shift, seven-to-three.  But we don’t talk much anymore, not in depth anyway. Michael has FOX news on all the time, which drives a liberal like me up the wall. A while back I said something about how I had lost all respect for the Republican Party back in 2008 when they nominated a totally unprepared person (in my humble opinion) to be Vice-President. His first response was, “Look what we got” (meaning President Obama) and then, “Let’s not talk politics.” We no longer do.

Nevertheless, I still wonder why Michael can’t see what I see, why he doesn’t agree with me about politics. To me what I see is perfectly clear and obvious. Can’t he see that? Of course, on the other hand, internally he is probably asking me those same questions. We both look at the same situation and see things almost the polar opposite. I wonder how this can be. Why can two people see the same thing and yet not agree on what they are seeing or certainly, when I am one of those two, not see what I see?

The world would be so much better, again in my humble opinion, if everyone saw what I see. There would be less fights, if any, no disagreements. Life would be pleasant and we could get on with solving the world’s problems because we would all be on the same page. What a wonderful would that would be!

 

But that would be a fairytale world simply because no two people have the same experiences. And it is those life experiences that color how we view the world and thus what we believe and how we should act. Michael obviously believes what he believes to be true based on his experiences: single, Navy veteran, under VA care because of an injury suffered when he was on active duty: his list is long. I would find myself nowhere on that list just as he would find himself nowhere on my list.

It is that list of personal experiences that make each of us so different and why we can find ourselves in total disagreement about the same issue. I know that. We all know that. We also know that, when we are open to hear what another has experienced and why that person sees what he sees, we can at least agree to disagree in peace. Unfortunately, tragically, as the mess in the Middle East exemplifies, that does not always happen. Fortunately for Michael and me, agreeing to not talk politics makes our conversations peaceful if not, at times, inane. But I still wish he would agree with me politically.

NOBODY KNOWS….

Remember the old spiritual that begins “Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows my sorrow”? On the one hand, that is true. On the other, it is not. We’ve all seen and experienced trouble and sorrow in our lives. There are no exceptions. And we will continue to experience them till the day we die. Thankfully, most of the troubles and sorrows that come our way are minor, mere blips on the road from birth through life till we die.

Yes, even those blips, as short as they are, can be quite painful and the memory of them quite lasting. We do our best to avoid them; and when we cannot, we do our best to cope with them. That is all we can do and that is all we are expected to do, no more and no less. It, again, is all part of life, part of living in this sinful and broken world in which we do and which we cannot avoid or escape.

Back to the spiritual: it is correct to say that nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen. Nobody knows the sorrows we have experienced. Those troubles and those sorrows are our own and no one else’s. Others may have had similar experiences, but they have not had our experiences. Two people may have both lost a spouse through, for instance, cancer. Both had similar experiences but not the same experience. How each dealt with that experience was unique. No one else has dealt with it in the exact same way or had the exact same experiences and no one else ever will.

All that is why we can and never should say to another, “I know what you are going through.” No, we do not. We may have been there, as they say; but we have not been exactly where that person is now. All we can do is be there with that person as he or she suffers and is in pain. Words, any and all words, words of consolation, understanding, comfort, will all fall short.

But the reason that we are there with the one in pain is that we have been there ourselves. We do know trouble and sorrow. We have not been immune. We have not escaped what happens to every human being. We are not an exception. And so we do know, in a very real way, something of what that person we love and care about is going through at that moment in his or her life.

The danger, of course, when we believe that no one knows our pain, our sorrows, our troubles; when we think we must be being punished because we hurt so much – the danger is that we will push everyone away and allow ourselves to wallow in our sorrow. This is not to denigrate the pain we are in. It is simply to say that the reason why there are those who want to be with us is that they have been through something similar to what we are going through. They cannot undo what was done nor can they take away our pain. But they do know pain and sorrow and they are there to help us get through it as others, who also knew pain and sorrow, helped us. We are never alone unless we choose to be.

SELECTIVE MEMORY

My mother-in-law, who is 92, has a very selective memory. As with each one of us as we grow older, there are times, which frustratingly get more frequent the older we get, when we have great difficulty remembering something or someone we think we would or should never forget. But we do. The memory is somewhere back there in our brain; but at the moment we want to recall that piece of information, it takes too long to come front and center. That’s not selective memory. It is simply a momentary loss of memory.

Selective memory is when we choose to remember what we choose to remember and forget what we choose to forget. My mother-in-law’s selective memory is fascinating. She has been married twice and buried both spouses. To be honest, neither was a marriage made in heaven. At times it seemed like a marriage, well, let’s not go there. On second thought, let’s, because it makes my point.

Both husbands were WWII sailors in the South Pacific and both came home, although she did not know it at the time, with what we now know as PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Both were shell-shocked by what they experienced and that shock stayed with them the rest of their lives and, in the process, made my mother-in-law’s life at times a pure hell. The fact that it was only in their deaths and her reflection back on their lives together does she now understand what was going on all those years.

Nevertheless, today, when she reflects back on those years, and talks about both spouses with Arlena and me, all we hear are the good times. The pain, the suffering, the hurt that was so much a part of the after effects of the War seem to have faded from her memory and, I believe, selectively so. But that is not easy to do so because it must be a choice. She has made that choice. For her and for us, that is a blessing.

One of the perverse joys Arlena and I have is when we talk with our daughters who are now raising their own children. Our grandchildren are now doing to our daughters what they did to us. The very same actions that drove us up the wall are now driving them crazy. They don’t remember their misdeeds, of course. Selective memory. But then we selectively choose to remember our daughters’ misdeeds and misadventures only when history is repeating itself in and through our grandchildren. That is also called “Parents’ revenge” and it is, again, perversely pleasurable.

We all have those painful memories stored somewhere in our brain. We can keep them up front and personal, allowing them to control our lives and our relationships or we can push them to the back and remember the good, as my mother-in-law has done with her husbands and as we are doing with our daughters. That is not to downplay the pain. It is simply to say that we have a choice with what we do with that remembered pain: we can continue to dwell on it and make the present even more painful or we can selectively remember the good so to enjoy life in the present. The choice is ours.

I NEVER WENT TO A PROM

Whenever I look back on my life, I find that there many things I never did that my peers did. I never went to a prom. I never joined a fraternity. I never got drunk with my buddies after our football team won the conference championship. I never went on a spring break. I also never worked a day in my life. All this is true because of the choices I made in my life and especially the one I made in 1957 when I went off to seminary as a high school freshman. As an aside and result, when what I do becomes work, I will retire for good.

When I do look back and reflect on what I missed, I do not do so with any regrets. The choices I made were the ones I made and not forced on me. Every choice we make has consequences. If we choose to do this, we will not be able to do that. For instance, there was no prom scheduled or even considered for those who were in training to become celibate priests. Why should there be?

Of course, most of those young men, my classmates, were never ordained. Do they rue the choice they made that denied them the opportunity to take a young lady to the prom? I doubt it; but even if they do, it’s all water over the dam. Besides, even if they missed all that I did, their lives were not irreparably scarred by the loss of such experiences. No one can experience it all nor should we want to. Life itself has its limitations and we are all subject to those limitations.

We know this to be true even though there are indeed times when we bemoan our fate because we never did something we think we would have liked to do back when we were willing and able to do it. Indeed there are those “For once in my life I would have liked to” moments. – going to a prom and the like. We all have them. But are we any worse or maybe even better because we did or did not experience them?

That may be a good question to ponder, but we will never really know. Sometimes we learn from our experiences and sometimes we do not. Of course the real issue when we are reminiscing about the past is that regretting the past, deeds done and left undone, experiences had and not had, often hinders us from living in the present and enjoying the present for exactly what it is: a present, a gift.

I have been blessed to be able to look back on my life, especially those formative years in seminary when all those “fun” and “normal” experiences my former grade school classmates were experiencing were forbidden to me, and know that I would not only not trade what I missed for what I learned and experienced and always be thankful. It was my choice as their life’s decisions were their choices.

The choices I have made, good and bad, have brought me to today. I rejoice in both, ruing neither the good experiences I missed not the mistakes I made. If I had made other choices, my life would not be what it is. I am thankful for what it is: no regrets.

WHOSE STUFF IS IT, ANYWAY?

Every so often the National Church puts on seminars on Planned Giving to which clergy are invited. The plan and the hope is that we clergy will understand the importance of planned giving and that we can convey that message to the people we serve so that when they make out their wills, they plan on leaving some of their legacy to the parish. The seminars address the broader issue of that dreaded word stewardship.

At one of these seminars when we were talking about stewardship, one of my colleagues pointed out that the new translation of the Bible replaces the word steward with the word manager. He likes manager better. When most of us hear the word stewardship, we immediately think of the word money. That's probably because we almost always, at least in church circles, use the word in conjunction with annual every member canvasses. We have a stewardship campaigns. And stewardship campaigns tend to be all about money: how much money parishioners will donate/pledge toward the next year’s budget.

My colleague’s point was that a steward, in the original understanding of the word, was a manager of "someone else's stuff", not just his own money. Thus, today we can hire money managers to help manage all our stuff and not just our money.

Stuff. I like that word. I am intrigued by the word. I looked it up.  It meant originally materials or supplies. The verb also meant "to stop up." When something is stopped up, it means that there is more there than can be handled at the moment.

I suspect we need money managers, we need stewards, when we are all stopped up, when we have more than we can handle at the moment. In the old days there were not too many people in such condition: having too much. That is why stewards were probably rare.

There are not too many people today who have money managers, at least in comparison. But we all have too much stuff, as is evident by the vast number of yard sales that take place this time of year. We all would be better off with less and we could manage our stuff better. No, let me restate that: we could manage the stuff we have been entrusted with better. You see, it is never our stuff, my stuff, your stuff, that we manage or mismanage. It's all God's.

All the stuff we have has been given to us by God to use for a while and then to leave behind once we die – or to sell at or give to yard sales. We don't and can't take it with us. Our responsibility is to manage all this stuff as best we can for the betterment of all of us, ourselves included, but not just ourselves. The word we use, steward or manager, is beside the point. What we do with what we have been blessed is the point.

If we are to be good stewards/managers, and that is what we are called to be in and through our baptism, we have to pause on occasion and reflect about how we are using all the stuff we have, all the stuff God has entrusted us with. Yard sales and stewardship campaigns are such times. That said, might this not be a very good time to spend some time thinking about how we are managing/stewarding God's gifts to us?

WE’RE ALL WIMPS

Years ago when we were living in Spokane, Washington, for our vacation Arlena and I drove back to Pennsylvania and West Virginia-Ohio to visit our families. They were glad to see us even if they could tell us why they thought the way west was much longer than the way east which is why we had to make the trips. Not a complaint, especially now that we are back home; but, back then…. Part of the agenda was to pick up two pieces of furniture Arlena's late grandmother had left to her. They fit nicely in the back of our pickup.

The trip was long, three miles short of 6,000 miles. And it, was, as I noted, in a truck. Of course, the truck had air conditioning, cruise control, and all other kinds of bells and whistles. It was a great trip. We stayed at comfortable motels when we were not staying with family. Meals were hot, daily showers welcome, and the swimming pools were wonderful and welcome especially while we were on the road. To put it succinctly, we’re spoiled.

As we drove across the wide expanses of Montana and South Dakota on the way east and the similar expanses of Kansas and Wyoming and Idaho – among others – on the way back, it was impossible to miss how big this country is, how wide open, how one can drives miles and miles and not see a house or even a barn.

But we weren't worried. We had our new, handy-dandy cell phone with us in case the girls needed to get in touch. When the phone rang in the middle of nowhere (actually Wyoming), Autumn's voice came loud and clear, as if she were just around the corner (or at least at the top of that hill that we could see fifty miles off in the distance. Back then hearing the phone ring while driving down the road seemed like a miracle. In a way it still does. And no matter how dull the drive, we always looked forward to the pool at the end of the day.

As we visited Little Big Horn in Montana and Fort Hays in Kansas (from which Custer and his troops had their headquarters), it was impossible to not be impressed about the fact that not too very long ago our forefathers in this land rode and walked those vast distances. There were no cell phones to call in the cavalry when the Indians attacked. There were no motels to stop in for the night where beds were soft and showers hot. There were no McDonald's or Arby's where one could get a cold Diet Pepsi, no air-conditioned stage coaches to beat the heat.

I remain in awe of all those people. I am humbled when I think about the hardships they endured, especially when I remember my complaints because the bed in the motel was too lumpy or the buffet at the diner was too greasy or that one of the motels did not have a swimming pool.

The fact that I am not alone in these feelings is no comfort. We're all wimps in comparison. We are so blessed, you and I, so graced by God. Let us never forget that the next time we want to complain because the motel is only a two-star.

IS HITLER IN HELL?

If the above question were asked, most people would respond, “Of course!” Then they would ask, “Why do you ask? Isn’t it obvious?” My reply would be, “No, it is not. Besides, how do you know Hitler is in hell, or for that matter, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin and all others of their ilk: mass murders one and all? We only assume they are burning in hell or whatever punishment we deem appropriate for such sinners. But we certainly do not know and will not know until we are like them: dead and buried.

The issue at hand is God’s infinite love and forgiveness. For those who believe Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he thus died for the sins of Hitler and Stalin and the rest, including you and me. Yes, we want to object that we certainly are not as great a sinner as these men. The truth is that we certainly are not. But we are just like them in that we are indeed sinners; and if our sins are forgiven, then so are theirs. Thus, if heaven is open to us because of Jesus’ death on the cross, so it is for them.

That just doesn’t sit well, does it? No, it does not and it should not, but not for the reason we think it does not. It doesn’t sit well because it is so difficult to believe that mass murderers, for instance, who knew full well what they were doing and did it any way without any seeming compunction, should be given a free pass to heaven in spite of their horrendous sins.

The real reason it doesn’t sit well is that we believe no one should be given a free pass and that includes you and me. We should have to earn our way into heaven. And if we have not done anything to do so; and, even more, if we have done much to negate any good that we do, we do not deserve heaven when we die. We should get what is coming to us, what we have earned and what we deserve, like Hitler: hell.

The problem is that we can’t earn our way into heaven. We can never claim we deserve it either. The greatest saints would be appalled if anyone told them that they were a lock for heaven because of their saintliness. They would have quickly reminded the one praising them that they were no saint but rather a great sinner. And they would be right. They were sinners, even if not great sinners. Heaven would be theirs, they would say, only because of the grace and love and forgiveness of God and not because they had lived such a saintly life and thus deserved that eternal reward.

Nevertheless, none of us likes the thought of Hitler, for instance, being in heaven. It just grates at everything we consider right and just and even fair. And as much as we believe Hitler and some other rotten so-and-so we personally despise think even hell is too god for such as they, we waste our time and our energy mulling the issue. It’s none of our business and is out of our hands.

What is our business and what is in our hands is our own life. While there is nothing we can do to merit heaven when we die, getting to heaven or avoiding hell when we die should not be the reason why we do what we do. We do what is good and right and loving because that is what we are called to do and because that is what we want to do.

WHEN YOU’RE 92

My mother-in-law is 92, an active, if slowing-down, 92. She drives her big Lincoln to and from the grocery store and drug store and hair appointments and occasionally to the mall across the river but only between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon – less traffic that way, which is mutually good, both for her and for the other drivers on the road. Arlena and I drive down to visit at least twice a month to make sure her medications are filled and the salt in her water softener is filled and some housework is done and to take her out to lunch, which she loves!

She just had cataract surgery on one eye and will have the other eye done soon. She can’t wait until she can see clearly again so that she can get back to cross-stitching and reading which she dearly loves. It will also give us peace of mind knowing that bad eyesight is a hindrance to good driving. She is independent and will remain so until she can no longer do so. Good for her.

The day before her first cataract surgery she had a doctor’s appointment for routine check-up. The Physician’s Aide who did the checking told her that her blood sugar was up. Her reply? “That’s not my fault. It’s my son-in-law’s [me]. He keeps bringing me these great cookies and I just have to eat them.” The P.A. just looked at her not knowing how to respond. Well, how do you respond?

After the doctor’s visit, mother and daughter went to the mall because “Belk’s is having a great sales” so said mother-in-law. It seems that the shopping gene stays strong until the heart stops beating. At least it does in these two, neither of which can resist a sale. When Arlena meekly protested that she would probably have to put some charges on Bill’s [me, again] card, mom just laughed as they headed to the mall.

“Not my fault my sugar level is high” “Not my fault they’re having a sale and I’ll probably buy something.” It’s my fault [me].  If I had not bought the cookies and if I had not, well, never mind. You get the point. You just have to laugh, which is exactly what I did when Arlena told me the story. We all like to pass the buck of responsibility when we can conveniently do so even as we know exactly what we are doing. And we all do no matter what our age: both pass the back and know that is exactly just what we are doing.

In this instance it was mostly harmless. My mother-in-law’s blood sugar was not way out of line. Besides, she’s 92. What’s a cookie or two now and then, even if it's more often than now and then? It’s not going to kill her. And what’s another pair of shoes that you “just have to have and they fit perfectly” when you’ll be giving quite a few to the Yard Sale?

We all make excuses. When you’re 92 and lived a full life and the indiscretions are small and often silly and laughable, who cares? When you are your mother’s daughter, you hope you live long enough to make the same excuses. Oh, you already are!

We are who we are. I wouldn’t change one thing about my mother-in-law or my wife. I’ll keep bringing her cookies and I’ll keep smiling as I lead my wife into the next shoe store or shoe department we pass by. My mother-in-law didn’t reach 92 because she took life so seriously that she couldn’t enjoy it even as her life has honestly been a difficult one. There’s a lesson there.