It matters little to walk to do the preaching if not the walking is the preaching. In this note from Patty, we are not only preaching as we walk, but we are also sowing.
A local religious educator told me her objective is not to press out cookie cutter nuns and priests from her students, but to gently sow small seeds of Christ’s love into the folds of their lives. Can you picture that? The teacher, the gardener, teaching, tending to her students, His gardens. Quietly erecting a spiritual infrastructure for both opportunities and hardship, alike. A faith formed scaffolding to support them, and to rest upon.
Imagine if we were all sowers of seeds; one small seed at a time. Imagine what our world would be like if we took the hand of Jesus. Our lives and the lives of those gardens about us would never be the same.
One Important, And Final Conversation Before Departing
Writer and friendPatty Hebert returns with a truth – a truth we have the opportunity to embrace, or not.
While the truth can set us free and the truth can sometimes hurt, there are some rare moments when the truth doesn’t matter.
Why?
Because the old truth has been superseded by the current truth.
Take it away Patty:
Life is a pathway of lessons. Where our accomplishments offer us gentle pats on the back, our failings, our brokenness, build our inner being, and make us truly who we are.
Eighteen years ago, my mentor, dying with cancer started our last conversation like this. “I have something to tell you. I was married before this time… twice…” I stopped her. Told her it didn’t matter. She was who she was because of her life’s struggles and experiences. That as hard as her life might have been, all I saw, all I had ever experienced with her, was pure goodness and light. And that I loved her just the way she was. Those words weren’t a trivial gift offered to a dying woman. They were the truth.
I think of Marty often. No one wants to fail, or to feel failure in their lives. But from struggle comes growth, and the opportunity to help others, as Marty had helped me.
Some people close to us live a love life like a movie script. The script that balances the ups and downs, but focuses on the ups while never sugar-coating the downs. here’s a perfect example…
My friend, Patty Hebert returns to offer a great example of what Love really is.
Movies, especially those not produced by The Mouse, flood the media and bombard our senses with their own branding of love. In many, like the 1999 remake of the Thomas Crown Affair, love’s passion is drunken, explosive, violent and pushing the envelope on abusive. And if we buy into these ideals and believe in alcohol pouring off of cleared off tables and embraces met and returned on cold marble stairs, then we are setting ourselves up for catastrophic failure. For when the glass and alcohol are cleaned up; what’s left?
As my husband and I grow older together, I am reminded of my grandparents, who shared a worldly love for over 65 years. Better than the movies, in daily living color, they lived the tenet that love is a decision and a promise made to each other. It’s not glamorous or wrapped up in fine arts, jewels or fast cars, but instead it is subtle and keep alive with daily small, almost hidden, acts of kindness. And yes, my grandparents had their moments, like all couples. But their promise to each other enabled them to put their differences aside, and find the solution that would bring them back together.
Later in life, when my grandparents required more care, they moved in with my aunt and uncle, and there, I got to witness the most profound gift of their love. Each and every evening, when they were tucked into bed, as they fell asleep, my grandparents held hands. Just as in the day, whatever the night time brought, they would face it together. Hollywood, that is love.
A reader recently sent an email about finding my blogs through a Search Engine (probably Google or Yahoo). She said some nice things about the blogs and shared her blog, and some other writing she’s done. She’s an author who’s self-published her first book!
Isn’t it amazing how the Internet connects people?
But We Do It Anyway, Because It’s Socially Acceptable
In a busy world, and it’s always been a busy world, we can’t do everything that comes across our path. Yet we often try to anyway.
Why? We learn a lot from watching those who came before us. We also learn from TV, movies, books, and the Internet.
It’s not uncommon for us to have a skewed list of priorities because all we know is all we know.
To change our perspective – and our priorities – we’d really need some significant force.
Is a powerful, paradoxical question enough?
It might be…
Please join me in a warm welcome for Patty Hebert. Take it away Patty:
Think about it. You find a thick envelope in the mail. Your eyes roll. You open it; another wedding invitation; a cousin, a niece, an estranged sibling. The clock is running. You have six weeks to formulate the perfect, Sorry but… Tried to squeeze it in but…
Think about it. The phone rings. A grandmother, grandfather, cousin, uncle, or estranged sister has died; unexpectedly or not. The calendar is wiped. Children get pulled from school with no thought of missed homework or exams. Important business meetings and dinner plans canceled. Soccer tournaments missed.
Now ask yourself, what’s more important, the living or the dead?
