Good Morning Digital Neighbors and Friends! A couple of more quotes and a new word for the day with commentary and of course an autumn photo to round out the morning. Happy Wednesday my friends!
Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other. - Joshua Loth Liebman, Peace of Mind
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eye for an instant. - Henry David Thoreau, Walden
My brother Jerry died in an car accident the year I was ordained, 1993 on the Eve of Thanksgiving. It was the first thing I heard on the answering machine Thanksgiving morning. I still remember my conversation with him on the Sunday the 21st when I was visiting Mom & Dad and he dropped by for a quick visit. The experience of his death messed up my head and heart for the better part of a year and half. It made ministry and service to others more demanding and exhausting.
It was a difficult time and when I wondered if my life choices were made wisely. There were other circumstances like a difficult first year with my pastor having a mid-life crisis and leaving the parish. His replacement ended up being one of the people who occupied too much headspace and emotional weight as a very negative relationship that only grew more stressed with time. It sucked.
I ended up asking for a transfer after being at St. Martin's for nearly 3 years. It a a time of real consideration for leaving ministry and finding a different path. I am thankful I started over at Sacred Heart and regained a sense of self and purpose as I started over in a reboot of ministry and life. In the midst of all this was a wonderful gem being tumbled with Jerry's death.
Early on in the winter of 1994 it really dawned on me how fragile life is and what a gift each day is. Sure I knew that before that Thanksgiving, but I KNEW it after that and it changed what I said and how I looked at each day and each person I knew and loved. On good or average days I keep this awareness in my active attention, on a bad day that forgetfulness that causes regret finds a place in my heart and rest on my mind too much. I strive to cultivate more of the former days of wonder and awe and less of the later days of preoccupation. Treasure the persons in your life, that was the first of many gifts from Jerry and that Thanksgiving in 1993.
It gave me new eyes to look at life and actually believe many of the things I was taught in my formation but treated more as intellectual reality rather than an experiential one. If Jerry's passing could open my eyes to what is real, an occasional pause to wonder how another looks at an experience, a subject or topic might prove beneficial. I think Thoreau believes that such an experience would be life changing, I guess I am hopeful but less convinced. Well if you read all that, thanks for taking the walk down memory lane with me. I hope your day is worth treasuring and the people or at least one person in your life, is a gift. I am blessed with an abundance. Hopefully you didn't find it to be lot of bumfodder. 😉
BUMFODDER - toilet paper, a newspaper, magazine or useless document. Noun | bum-fah-der | Seventeenth century. English. Slang. - The Little Book of Lost Words, Joe Gillard.
Autumn Hay Barn Photograph by Debra and Dave Vanderlaan
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
