Hi There!
So, there's this wonderful energy flow in life.
We get to have it surge right through us and on to others.
In the intensity, we get hot wired.
Dynamic!
Simple story.
Years ago I filled in one summer for the pastor of St. Vincent De Paul Church in New Hope, KY.
Beautiful area, beautiful people, beautiful farms and hills
- a few miles from thee Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani.
On the first Friday of the month the practice was to visit and bring Holy Communion
to the homebound of the parish.
Before the pastor left he gave me a hand drawn map ( no GPS back then )
so I could find my way around the back roads and up the hills.
On the map was a special notation about Mrs. Brady.
Evidently she lived way up in the hills .I'd have to navigate rough, rutted roads to get there.
The notation read: "Dogs!! Stay in car til son calls them off."
Was that ever so!!
When I did get there all sorts of yelping threats to life and limb surrounded and jumped up on the car.
You can bet your sweet bippie I stayed in the car, windows up tight ( and so was I!!!).
Mrs. Brady's son came out and literally called off the dogs.
He was somewhere in his sixties, skinny, bib overalls, no shirt, real friendly.
Took me to his mom.
She was sitting in a rocking chair by the window in a long dress and bonnet.
Picture Whistler"s Mother and you've got it!
She greeted me warmly and vigorously;
" Come on in here, Father. Hear tell you're from up there around NEW York.
Never got out of Nelson County myself. Tell me all about it, would ya?"
That got us going on a happy, wide ranging visit.
Getting ready for Holy Communion, I asked Mrs. Brady if she would like to go to confession first.
Without skipping a beat she responded, " Yep! Sure am sorry for all them damn sins!"
That was that!
The most no frills confession I ever heard!
We went to share a truly prayerful, "holy" communion.
As I gave her a hug good by, Mrs. Brady reached down into her sewing basket
and handed me a ten dollar bill (easily twenty in today's money ).
We went through the back and forth of my " Oh, thank you, but I couldn't,"
to her " You're such a sweetie to come all the way up here to see me."
She wouldn't give on gifting..
On the way out I explained to her son that I really couldn't take the money.
He smiled and said: " Oh hell, Father, every month when that other priest comes up here,
Ma asks me for ten dollars, I give it to her, she gives it to the priest, the priest gives it to me.
That there ten dollar bill's been going round and round like that for years."
If I had refused Mrs. Brady's gift, or gotten grubby and kept the ten dollar bill,
I would have short circuited a unique surge of goodness.
How wonderful that we all are invited to the high intensity spiritual phenomenon of getting gifted
and giving those gifts every day in all sorts of settings and occurrences.
We are like a high voltage wire receiving and passing on the current of goodness
to people, places, things - indeed, to all encountered creation.
- It could be pleasantness of response after being put on hold for just this side of forever.
- It could be genuinely forgiving someone who has screwed us over yet again.
- It could be recycling everything, returning our gifts to nature for re-gifting.
- It could be sharing ourselves and what we have by taking in a foster child.
- It could mean attentive listening to a story our ancient of days relative retells so often
we could repeat it backwards in Chinese.
- It could be advocating for social and environmental justice.
In the Christian tradition all this wonderful energy flow in life is called grace,
a participation in the very Energy, the very Life and Love that is God.
We are invited to personally, openly " be on line " to receive and transmit
that goodness in all the practicals and particulars of life out here on the street of everyday living.
We accept gift and play it forward.
We are gifted to give.
" The gift you have been given, give as a gift." ( Paraphrase of 1 Peter 4: 10 )
" A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other." ( 1 Corinthians 12:7 )
How good to be "gifted " with your company today.
I appreciate your grace gift.
Thanks!!
Look forward to being together next week
( New postings go up toward the end of each week ).
Holding you in God's Dear Love,
John Frank
Some Meditation Markers for the week;
- " Love is the bridge between you and everything."
( Rumi )
- " We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly and without hesitation:
for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers."
( Seneca )
- " Open you hands if you want to be held."
( Rumi )
- " Give and it will be given unto you, a good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.
for the measure with which you measure will be measured to you."
( Jesus )
- " Be foolish in love because love is all there is."
( Rumi )
- " The only gift is a portion of thyself."
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
- " A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover
as the love of the giver."
( Thomas a Kempis )
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