What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?
What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
Change is the only constant in life. God is in His Heavens.
I don’t know how to bring
these two thoughts together.
Am I just I?
What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
I am bobbing in my own guilt and regret.
Both relationships were complicated – they always are.
They have to be.
Was I a good son?
Or good enough?
A good parishioner?
Could I have done more?
Yes, of course. Of course
I could have done more.
It was what it was.
What does that mean?
Why in this trauma am I conjouring inane utterances?
What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
I “know” this. But I don’t always “feel” it.
And why does my brain immediately go to the KJV?
What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
I am tired as I write this – tired because this past weekend we celebrated our daughter’s ninth birthday with six of her friends for a sleepover. They giggled and laughed and had little meltdowns and laughed some more and sang, boy did they sing, for 18 hours, barely sleeping because there was so much living to do.
They laughed so openly, so freely. They laughed as if there was no sadness in the world. They laughed because that moment, that very moment, was rich with things to laugh about.
I must learn this. Though I must have known it, perhaps when I was nine, and have since forgotten it. I just don’t have a memory of ever laughing or singing that much.
What a year. My mother died.
My church of 40 years closed.
As you read this, Advent has begun. The countdown – Christ is born.
Rebirth in the midst of winter. Even though I hate the noise of the Christmas season – and this year I fear it even more – I love the stillness of Christ’s mass itself.
The presents – I hate the presents, the mounds of wasted cash shoved under a tree, itself laden with testaments to sentimentality and banality – mock the inverse story. “The little stranger,” to quote one of my favourite songs, in a manger, a scared young woman his mother, a handyman his father.
Osvaldo, who also died this year, came to our house everyday for three years. He could paint, do drywall, electrical, plumbing. A five-foot-nothing Portuguese man in his sixties, he renovated, built, developed, modernized, prettified our house. He brought little treats for our daughter.
Now when I think of Joseph, I think of Osvaldo. (It helps that both their wives have the same name.) A simple man, not famous or rich or the bearer of titles, not well equipped to be at the centre of history, a craftsman who could perform little tricks with wood.
Through Osvaldo’s skill came this mansion in which I live. Through the manger came the salvation I take for granted. Through Christ comes the strength I forget I have.
And the peace my selfishness craves.
Sure it was a tough year; but Joseph’s baby boy has built my mother a private mansion. She’s happy. No longer in pain. And in the name of Christ, my church is vital again as a mission.
I must learn this wisdom. I know it, but often forget it.
“In a dream I heard a voice saying
‘Fear not, come rejoice
It’s the end of the beginning,
praise the newborn king.'”
