Cat's In A Cradle?
How do you measure success?
How often do you measure it?
Do you have a consistent method?
Does it even matter?
What do you do if you are doing poorly, or, really well?
How do you avoid giving up, or, getting complacent?
These are things we all need to figure out.
So last night I asked our son, On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think I love you?
His answer really surprised me.
Pray, Pay, Obey
What does that mean exactly? Growing up Luthern, in a small Pennsylvania town, there weren’t many Catholics. In fact, I don’t recall knowing what a Catholic was until college.
Well, life comes full circle and here I am, a devoted Catholic for over a decade. There are something like 15,000 members of our Holy Family congregation. All walks of like.
One of them, I see occasionally at Gold’s Gym. We recently had a nice conversation with these highlights:
Draw nearer to God and God will draw nearer to you. James 4:8.
True love doesnt force anything.
Greed, sloth, doubt, hypocracy – the four points in the circle surrounding the four squares.
Pay, pray and obey Catholic. This is how my friend (60-something) described himself.
God does not want good men in heaven, he wants Saints.
Gotta go. Time to work on praying, obeying, paying and demonstrating.
Pair of Boxes
The joy of having two Guest bloggers this week pales in comparison to the pain of the Haiti earthquake victims.
Last night, after my son and I walked Carter, we hurriedly returned to our house.
Told our son we needed to watch the evening news at 6:30PM.
Our lifestyle doesn’t make much time to watch TV. And this week has been exceptionally busy (see today’s Lane 8 challenge).
We watched Diane Sawyer on ABC Evening news describe the tragedy in Haiti. I wanted our son to understand the magnitude.
Yes, he’s only nine. But he’s smart. He’s compassionate. He has a caring heart.
It’s my sacred responsibility to teach him Life’s Big Four.
And it was the day prior to yesterday that he became my first Guest Blogger.
Paradox?
Carter 2008 on Sanibel Island
Are there things in your life that are difficult to talk about? Things that scare you to talk about?
Me too. But not as much lately. Why? Because of things that have happened and the lessons learned.
Namely, becoming a parent. And thinking about the type of parent a child should have, there are a few key concepts that seem all too obvious to practice well.
Being honest.
On our sunset walk the other night, with our Dog, our son and I talked about random things. Clouds. The sky’s color. The cold air. His “winter” clothing. Sounds we heard. Jokes. Junk.
And then for some reason, as we were turning off the road and through the woods to our house, I saw Carter, our yellow Lab (10), come following behind us.
“You know Carter’s not going to live forever, right? All things die. Carter will die some day. You know this right?”
It felt like the right moment to say that, mostly because of a recent conversation with a death expert.
This “death expert” works in Hospice and Palliative Care. She mentioned that her vision would be that everyone in her community would “die well”, not just her company’s “customers”.
It hit me in a weird, but glorious sort of way. Her honesty. Her frankness. Her ease in talking about death.
Eureka!
If we are aware and not too afraid, we can help Carter die well. We should start thinking about it before we need to.
Same goes for humans.
Yesterday’s post ended with, “Five minutes later, he was an angel.”
However our encounter started an hour earlier. When I first approached him, he was having breakfast in the small food court. We were the only people there at the time.
I asked him permission to say something and, of course, he graciously granted it.
After sharing a very simple thank you with him – and I may have mentioned my Dad (Korean War) and Father-in-law (WWII) both served – we both smiled and went on about our morning.
About an hour later, totally by chance we end up sitting together for 3-4 minutes right before boarding.
The plane was a smaller regional jet and, being in Zone 1 (first boarding) I walked out on the tarmac and up the steps (like the President does) to get on the jet.
It was there that panic set in. “My phone! Where’s my phone? Oh no! I can’t be missing my phone. I’ve got to find it!”
As I was about to have a meltdown, and was walking the opposite way to get off the plane to go back inside the terminal, the Military Man, my new Angel, was holding it out in his hand.
God is good! :)
Dear Heavenly Father, please bless everyone with Your wisdom and Your guidance today, to help us make good choices.
And also, please bless us with Your Grace, Your Mercy, and Your Never-ending Love.
Amen.
The Joy of Living is one of the most elusive of all endowments.
Why? Just watch a child and you’ll find your answer. Having a child (9-year old boy) in our home is a daily reminder.
We all, at least I do, need daily reminders of this simple fact, don’t we? Why? Because life is hard, especially in today’s challenging and uncertain world.
Every day is an opportunity to count our blessings. Anyone need a calculator?
I don’t remember my grandfather ever talking to me. Ever.
At 60, he died of a heart attack. He was in the hospital for a while (week?) before he died. I was 13.
I never went to see him. I sort of felt guilty about that.
All these years later, it dawned on me that there’s a chance I didn’t go because I may have thought:
Or maybe I just didn’t understand love enough to know how this may have been very important to him.
Or maybe, just maybe, I was following his lead.
A lifetime of learned behaviors. Life is hard. And mostly difficult. And busy. And distracting.
Some days, maybe while watching a movie or TV show, we see a Family that seems to have it all together and wonder why we can’t live like that.
It’s a movie, okay? It’s not real. Yet perhaps there’s some compromise between what’s portrayed in books and movies, and what is our current reality.
Maybe. maybe not.
I’d like to find out.
Carpe diem, jeff 
Failing? Probably. It weighs heavy on my soul and heart. I’d really like to be a better:
Yet after decades of learned behavior, there’s a struggle deep down inside that seems overwhelming.
Overwhelming, yes. Impossible, no.
The people involved in this are going to have to want this too. It takes two. This is not a one-sided challenge, nor a one-sided opportunity. Is it me, or is that ticking sound the clock?