What Did You Think Your Life Would Be?

Did you think it would be taking care of your ageing parents?

Did you think it would be raising your grandkids and great-grandkids?

Or did you think it would be your own imagined version of a Broadway stage with you as the star and all the people in your life your adoring fans?

Did you think it would be just what it is – ordinary – useful – filled with the challenges and disappointments and small joys that life on planet earth is inevitably filled with?

Did you think you would be a refugee?

Did you think you would be a soldier and did you ever imagine that what it is like is so much different than what you thought?

Or did you think that whatever came your way, that would be okay and somehow, you would get through it?

I know a man who is dying of cancer who simply looks forward to a good night’s rest and the chance to spend just a little more time with his grandson – the light of his life.

I know a woman who had a heart attack today and I can just imagine her telling the doctors that she is far too busy for this because she has work to do and many people to take care of.

I know families tonight who are praying, desperately seeking, hoping, pleading, for just a little more time, grateful for whatever graces came their way today.

I know people tonight who aren’t world leaders or generals or people who end up in history books who are doing the work of making it through another day the best they can and they are my heroes.

I know mothers and fathers, brothers and cousins, parents and friends, nieces and grandchildren, gathered and gathering, drawing strength from each other and from their God, to do the next thing that needs doing and in knowing them, I am so very, very blessed.

This is faith. 

This is love.

This is the big stuff.

This is life.

It may not be what they thought it would be.

But it is what it is.

And in their dignity, in their acceptance, it may not be what they thought it would be.

But it is exactly what it should be.

Ordinary Time

Perhaps the first thing to notice is the very ordinariness of it all – Jesus coming after the resurrection to his various followers:  sharing meals with them, talking to them, sitting with them.

Perhaps then we might remember that God doesn’t comes to us when we’re rescuing children from burning buildings or leaping tall buildings with a single bound . . . nor does God come doing those things . . . most of the time . . . most of the time, God comes to us at the dinner table . . . sitting beside us watching tv in the living room . . . walking or driving home . . . working in the garden . . . standing at the Wal-Mart check out.

We live our lives in ordinary time . . . thus it follows that most of the time, God, who is ever-present, would be with us not or not mostly, in times of crisis, but in the every-day of things.

God’s coming to us where we are is what we call grace – a thing done just for the doing and not for the earning.

Our recognizing God when the divine stands before us we might call mindfulness – paying attention . . . looking for . . . seeking out the very God before us.

When Jesus comes to dinner, grace and mindfulness meet at the table and share a meal.

It’s not very noteworthy in the headline news.  Nobody – even me – will record for history that I eat dinner tonight.  No one, including me, will remember what was served.

The big deal is not what we’re doing at the time . . . it’s not even what we need at the time. . . the big deal is that Jesus is there at all . . . that we have been graced with his presence –

Merely by being here with us, God has elevated us beyond the ordinary that we were into something more beautiful, more wonderful . . . we are made better merely by God being in the room.

Where I Live 4.0

Where I live, our local Supervisor and furniture refinisher has a lamb in his shop window this morning.  I can hear her bleating for attention across the court house lawn.  And everyone at the table later will understand – she needed feeding and no one would be home enough that day to do it, so he brought her along.  It’s just what you do.

Where I live, Mark and the guys change my oil and fill ‘er up while talking about how much we raised at the latest dinner/fundraiser – this time for Emergency Shelter funds for the needy.  (Mark is the county’s go-to guy for putting together a great dinner for hundreds at the drop of the proverbial hat.)

Where I live, death is as practical as life, so we all stop on our way to or from the funeral at the Dollar General to pick up our sundries and think it no disrespect – Guy would have done the same, after all.

Where I live, Deb will follow me to the gas station to drop off the car and drive me back the ½ block to Evelyn’s for our meeting just because she knows I hate to walk in the cold.

Where I live, I catch up with friends sitting in their warm car in the church parking lot after catching them doing a drop off for tomorrow.  That’s visiting and none of us will think it odd that I don’t invite and they don’t expect to come in – we’re both kind of busy just now, but want to catch up, so car visit it is.

Where I live, many of the folks at Guy’s funeral will come up to ask me how my mother’s doing after her car wreck, because they’ve all been praying for her and genuinely want to know.

Where I live, people will tell you if it was a good funeral or not and why, because where I live, folks have lots of practice at funerals and we all know the difference between a good one and a bad one and good send-offs matter.

Where I live, lucky is scooting back across Jack Mountain into the lower highlands just in time to beat the ice and snow and we’re all happy for all the luck we get.

Where I live, a preacher of one church will borrow a congregant from another for some special service or event, because we’re just too small to think it strange to do so.

Where I live, the extraordinary blends in with the ordinary, wearing the camouflage of this thing we call life, sliding by so quietly we almost don’t even notice – almost.

What's So Super About Tuesday?

Yesterday while Republican presidential candidates engaged in all the usual campaign activities and voters in Tennessee, Georgia, Vermont, Ohio, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, Massachusetts, Virginia and Idaho turned out to choose their primary favorites, the day wound through its usual course for the rest of us.

I have to confess that I am so disconnected from it all, so out of touch with any sense that what’s on the airwaves has anything to do with me, that I actually wondered throughout the day what all the cars were doing in the Volunteer Fire Department parking lot behind my house.  Only this morning as I write this does it occur to me that the VFD is our local polling place and that people were voting.

I suspect I’m not alone in this disconnect: in this place where voter turnout is usually high, especially for presidential elections, no one I saw yesterday sported the usual sticker showing that they had voted; no one I spoke with even mentioned the primary happening in our midst.

Thus it was not electoral politics, but ‘life on the ground’ that occupied my attention and focus yesterday.

I talked with family and got a report from my son about his first day on the new job and when he and my grandson will be coming for a visit.

Bible study in the morning with the gals was a time of learning and thoughtful discussion and reflection.

Prayer needs were exchanged and prayers offered throughout the day.

Time was spent with a friend in need.

Like every other day of the week, Tuesday was its own gift, for which I am grateful.

My prayer for all those who would be president this day is not only the usual for their increased wisdom, goodness and kindness, but also that they too, even in the midst of the pressure cooker that is electoral politics in these United States, had a Tuesday that was its own gift, filled with family and friends and opportunities to serve others.