Grace when and where we can find it

Grace...It is a word...a concept that we hear thrown around a lot. The "grace of God" Gods grace" "grace at work". What does any of that really mean?

Maybe it is something we do not really know until we are in it...or just out of it. The whole hind site is 20/ 20 thing.

So here is a little story for you.

Last week...Wednesday...it was a beautiful day. Really lovely, a bit on the warm side, hints of Spring in the air and I went to tend to my parents. I had been at work all day and I had errands to run. I was not expecting to be the person who was" watching them" that day but things had just worked out that way. So...still the errands had to be done...laundry, Wegmans, post office and the library.

All errands that i would happily forgo...except the library. I love the Library. I have said more than once that one of the best things about moving back to Auburn has been getting back to Seymour Library. On days that i am feeling exceptionally stressed the library is where I go to feel relaxed. I walk in the building and feel an immediate release of tension. Seymour Library is such a wonderful mix of old and new. The building has the classic feeling of many years ago...I walk through the doors and i can feel myself 50 years younger. I swear I hear the voices of Mrs. Pine,the children's librarian, and my mother.

The smell of the books takes me back in an instant. I go back to the time of my childhood and of my children's childhood. Story hour, for me...for my kids...library cards...

I actually remember receiving my first card. Oh and the pride i felt when i could finally print my own name and receive my card. I see my kids painstakingly writing there own names and getting their cards. All that rushes back when I walk in that place.

So back to last Wednesday...

My mom was having a good day and I had errands. So away we went. We did the laundry mat, Wegmans and the Post Office. My mom was a willing if slow companion. Always agreeable she went along with me.

Last stop the library.

I offered to let her sit in the car while I ran in. She said she would walk along. I admit that for a moment I was almost going to pass on going. I figured it would take forever to get her in there...it is a bit of a walk from the parking lot. But I figured we would give it a try. As we approached the doors she looked at me and said very clearly" they have changed this" Which they have.

It used to be that there were these wonderful big stairs and black heavy wrought iron doors. I loved the steps and I would spend a lot of time as a little girl going up and down and up and down. My mother would sit on one side and start to read one of the many books she got out while I went up and down. When i tired I would sit next to her and she would read to me until the bus came to pick us up.

So in we went.

As she walked into the main part of the library ...which is really very much like it was 50 years ago... the look on her face was joyous.

She turned to me and said"oh you loved this place so much...you still love it don't you?" I said to her" oh yes, I really do...because I never ever go here and not think of you." She smiled at me and said"your a good one...your mom did a good job."

" Yes , I told her she really did."

The next day my mother could hardly walk and was talking almost incoherently all the time. Friday she entered the hospital. Saturday she almost died. She rallied but is unable to walk on her own and will be going into a nursing home. She will likely not come out.

Dementia has claimed the mother I had. The bright, organized, high spirited mother has been gone for some time now. About two weeks ago I said to a friend I do not remember her well anymore. I cannot think what she used to be like.

That was before last Wednesday. Last Wednesday It all came back to me and I think It came back to her for a minute.

That to me...Gods Grace.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Always loved that David Bowie song. Not always as crazy about actual change in my life and I am real sure I am not alone in that. Still it all changes... all the time. Good and Bad... Not a damn thing you can do about it.

Last weeks lectionary readings dealt with changes. Those that had happened...those that were going to happen.

The reading from Isaiah "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. i am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth,do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

The reading from Paul to the Philippians" Beloved I do not consider that i have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

Then there was the Gospel reading. Mary is acting is a most unusual manner for a woman of those times. she has let her hair down and she is anointing Jesus with her hair and costly perfume. Her behavior is questioned and Jesus defends what she does saying that change is coming..he will be gone soon.

The lectionary readings were not the only changes we heard about last week. There was also the endless talk about the Health Care Bill. The Republicans warning against all the evils that would occur if we adopted the health Care reform bill. The Democrats reminding us of all the evils that would befall us if we do not.

Evidently Washington is like the scariest place in the world for change. I even heard the word Armageddon used referring to the bill. Really scary.

Don't get me wrong health care reform is a a serious serious topic.

I... however... find change not to be what is scary.

No change ...now that is what is scary.

Turning a topic that literally means life and death to many into a political issue is scary.

That the American public allows it self to be led like sheep and refuses to research on their own what is really going on is scary.

In my work I have seen people suffer the effects of no insurance or being under insured. It is devastating to families and it ends lives. That is not political rhetoric...No.. that is fact. I have seen young women die because they had no insurance and waited too long to get care.

Not one life should ever be lost because a person had no insurance.

I have seen families who are under insured lose everything they have ever worked for to pay for care.

No one should have to lose their home because they need medical treatment.

Health care is a social justice issue... perhaps one of the greatest of our current time. Nothing separates the haves and have nots any quicker than those with insurance and those without.

Health Care is a religious issue. I like to think of how Jesus would react to the political wrangling and the back door deals that have gone on with this issue. I wonder what he would think of churches shying from a topic that allows such blatant disregard of some lives.

Now I am sure they do not all steer away from it...but a great many do and they do because these days pastors want to be sensitive to their congregation. They do not wish to offend anyone. So you can't pick a side because that might alienate some of the flock.

I am sure that is what Jesus would do. Right?

That any person of any faith can look at this issue and not be appalled is beyond me.

Last weeks lessons speaks of times long gone when people were directed to stop looking and back and to look forward not just look to the new, expect the new. Anticipate change. It does not say fear change. Next week is Palm Sunday. Churches all over will read and act out The Passion. We will once again hear the story of Jesus being caught and convicted and put to death while so many look on and do nothing or even aid in his capture and death. Why?

Because he was different, because they feared change, because they went along with the crowd.

So my personal change? Renouncing my lifelong Democratic status. The partisan politics of this nation get in the way of real change and any real progress. The debacle that this really simple issue became is something that both parties share equally in the blame for. I encourage people to stop looking to the political parties to decide your life. You have a stake in it.

If your a person of faith you have more than stake you have a religious duty to make sure that all are cared for and that no ones life is of more value than anyone else's.

Forget what lies behind and strain towards what lies ahead.

Good Bye Tito...

Tito, our cat of many many years...23 almost 24 to be exact....had to be put to sleep on Saturday.

He has been a part of my life as long as Kim has been a part of my life. He was part of the package when we married.

I did not know him his first three years but I hear he was a Holy terror during that time. My mother-in-law....who has had a good many cats...has deemed him one of the craziest, wildest, naughtiest cats ever. That is saying a lot.

When I first moved in Tito and i did not get along. The cat flipping hated me. I walked by and he scratched me. He would sit on the edge of the couch and I would try to walk out of his way and he would stretch so far to get his claws in me he would often fall off the couch. Served him right!

When i sat down on the couch he would jump up and proceed to stick his butt in my face. If i objected he would hiss and scratch me. He clawed my clothes, he peed in my shoes. He was not accepting this change that he had no say in. He had been perfectly content with my mother-in-law in the house and me in another town. His routine had been disturbed and he was not amused.

It took me moving out...the first time... for him to decide I was Okay.

A year of Kim being in charge of the house made Tito decide maybe I wasn't so bad.

So when i moved back, he was much nicer. MUCH. He never scratched on purpose. He did still put his butt in my face...he apparently decided this was something all people actually liked and he continued that until the day he died.

He, was the only male cat in a house full of female cats for the last few years. He played second cat in charge for many years. When "head cat" Tasu died we wondered if he would take over that position. He did.

Not like Tasu...but he was definitely the head cat.

In the last couple years he had been struck with dementia. Sometimes he would just walk around and yowl seeming confused. The youngest cat, Snake, would go and find him and lead him back to where he needed to be. All of the cats seemed accept his position in the pecking order, his age, and even his failing health. They allowed him to sit where he wanted, eat what he wanted...even if they were eating it at the time and he pushed them out of the way...they put up with his chronic and room clearing diarrhea and they often seemed to try to keep him turned in the right direction in the cat box...which we were quite grateful for.

So you might be asking why did you keep him these last couple years? I mean the dementia and chronic diarrhea really were enough to put him down some time ago. But he seemed happy and not in pain and then there was the fact that he took care of me...Something both Kim and I were quite aware of.

When I was sick,he was one of my life forces. He sat with me hour after hour and purred. When I passed out cold on the floor he was the one head butting me as I came to. When I weighed 80 lbs and was freezing all the time he sat on me and kept me warm. Not just him, there were others... but consistently always he was there. He was devoted to me. I became part of his family.

So we made the decision that as long as he seemed happy we would wait. So wait we did until Saturday morning. Then it was time.

So Tito...I will miss you...thanks for being my cat.

Calling Diane ....part 2

So... i was last talking about my message, call, direct invite... from God. I mentioned that my day had started with reading an email and homily that the good Rev Dr Tembeckjian had written for the prior week.

Now that was the first thing that I did that morning... before getting out of bed... read her email and her sermon.

That was, I do believe, the first call from God.

At first,I heard it as Good Morning..someone loves and cares about you, I did not hear it as anything more or less. I was certainly not hearing it as God speaking to me. Not then.

Her homily, as I read it that morning, made me think but in all honesty I did not read it deeply.

But later... I was drawn to read it again,

I have now read it every single day since receiving it.Some days ...more than once.

It starts out with the story of Willie Loman.

Now you gotta love a priest who starts out her first Sunday of Lent Sermon with Death of a Salesman! That's not the typical way to go.

It got my attention.

I am a firm believer that what we get out of a sermon is what we need at the time. Call it divine intervention, Call it a panacea for the masses. Call it fate. Call it anything you want.

For me, it was part of the call from God. Direct and pointed. I have had several. That day. This week. One of many.

Rev.Dr. T gave me the wake up and I chose to briefly shake it off.

However, when i started to really listen I thought how perfect the Willie Loman character was for me to focus on.

Willie Loman, a tragic figure who chooses to end it all rather than live in to who he really was. He had a vision, an ego, about who he was supposed to be and without that...he felt his life was not worth living. He could not envision anything other than what he thought his life should look like.

The lectionary reading for that week was about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. She goes on to talk about the fact that we all enter this wilderness at different points in our lives. Often, it is when we least expect it. Often, it is just as we think we have it all figured out. Then BOOM... there we are, sitting in the wilderness, walking alone, dodging one temptation after another.

Temptations come in all shapes, sizes, and varieties.

Often it is the ones we put in our own way that really trip us up...the subtle ones..the internal ones.

For Willie Loman it was not knowing what he was good at...letting his misguided ego reduce his life to a failure when in fact maybe...just maybe ... he just hadn't found his niche.

His struggle was within himself, in his mind, a war within.

For Jesus, in the wilderness, it was the temptation from Satan. It was the temptation he felt as he examined his own life, as he realized just exactly what his life would be... what he was being called to do.

For all of us the struggle to discover who we are and what we are called to do can be life affirming.

Conversely, this struggle in the spirit of introspection can also move us further away from God.

It can be our wilderness walk. It can be our temptation.

As Rev Dr T says..."Such contemplations are not easy."

"Such contemplations are devil enough".

But then it is all part of the journey... Isn't it?