Eternal life... Love that will not let you go

The gene pool is a lovely swimming hole for a grandparent. You are a child again in many ways... fun with limited responsibility. This week I have been given glimpses into the eternal life that is passed on from generation to generation. Our oldest daughter and her husband had an oops baby, a girl after three boys, named Maddie. At nearly two, her pictures are eerily reminiscent of her mother’s pictures at that age. She has begun feeling the tags in her clothes, holding onto them as she moves through her day. Her mom felt the tags in her pajamas as she went to sleep at night. Alison, our middle daughter, has my grandmother’s mouth. When you look at a picture of Grandma as a young woman, you can see the likeness. Now Aidan, her oldest son, bears the mark of a great-great-grandmother he never knew. Adam, our son, has two sons and his youngest son seems to have his father’s temperament. When Clancy’s eyes light up and he smiles at me, years fall away and it is Adam smiling at me through the mists of memory.These glimpses of the past paid forward into the future have been a joy and a wonder. 

In spite of all we know about the science of life, there is so much more we do not know. It seems to me we are a many layered creation, designed to surprise God perhaps, much as we are surprised by our children and grandchildren. When one takes the long view, the ever changing nature of humankind is a delight and a worry at the same time. My grandparent’s generation faced challenges and changes that shifted the balance of the world as they knew it. And, they changed in response to world wars, industrialization, horses to cars, telephones and televisions. Yet the basics, the essentials of self, are still being transmitted, passed on down to new creations in children they could only imagine.Along with behavior patterns and look a like characteristics, I wonder what else is passed down through the generations. 

Traditions help keep the past a part of our present in our family...saying grace at meals, lining upon the stairs to come down for Christmas gifts, going to church, farm time, story telling time, birthday celebrations. Each unit in our family has their own interpretation of traditions, a new creation based on their shared past experiences. One thing I hope never changes... the love that calls us together as family, that binds us together in good times and hard times, the love that is connected to the underground river of love that flows through all creation.

Cynthia Bourgeault describes this love beautifully in “The Wisdom Jesus”. “Even with death waiting in the wings, Jesus will allow no separation between God and humans, no separation between humans and humans, because the sap flowing through everything is love itself. In image after image he tries to impart to the disciples his assurance that they can never be cut off from this love, because their very beings are rooted in it.” The Psalmist sings, “For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” 

I have been wading hip deep in love all my life, Lord, even when I didn’t know it. Thank you for my gift of life that came through the years of others loving. Thank you for the years of loving yet to come in our family. Most of all, thank you for the Love that does not let me go, the Love that endures through all generations. Amen.

Old woman, old donkey, new tricks

I thought I was losing what little mind I had left. Three mornings this week I walked down to the stable to find Shirley standing in the door of the donkey stall. Usually I put her up at night in the stall and leave Kate outside. If I put them both in together, they spend much of the night kicking each other and walking in circles. With Shirley in the stall, Kate stays close by and the problem of all night binge eating is solved… until this week.

 Routine is both savior and hobgoblin for my mind. If I do the same thing the same way every time, I begin to forget whether I have actually done it or not. So I blamed Shirley’s freedom on my absentmindedness until it happened three days in a row. Yesterday, a Eureka moment, I realized Kate had learned a new trick… how to lift the door latch and set Shirley free!  Old donkeys and old women can still learn and what a surprise that is!

Like Kate, I have been learning some new lessons this season. Cleaning out my closet for summer has become a metaphor for my life as I age. Bag after bag of clothing, loved in its time, culled from shelves and hangers, is on its way to a thrift shop. Some of the clothes I kept are old and have meaning beyond covering my body… old overalls, dresses worn to childrens’ weddings, my favorite jeans, a sweater my great-aunt Polly knitted for me… and some just no longer look good on me or I have tired of them. My closet is still full and there is no shortage of choices, but choosing is less complicated when I can see what my choices are.

One of the great gifts of aging for those who choose to welcome the gift, is the exploration of wisdom that comes as we begin to clean out the closets of our lives. We make choices about what has meaning, what suits us, what is no longer necessary, what to keep and what to let go of. I am making choices based on the reality of my limits, not the endless possibilities of youth, and it is exhilarating. Much like Kate learning to set her mother Shirley free, I am learning to set myself free from old patterns and once valuable restraints.

My reading this week has been a book, Wisdom Jesus, written by Cynthia Bourgeault.  One paragraph highlighted a closet keeper of mine, tears. “At any rate, I have often suspected that the most profound product of this world is tears…I mean that tears express that vulnerability in which we can endure having our heart broken and go right on loving. In the tears flows a sweetness not of our own making, which has been known in our tradition as the Divine Mercy. Our jagged and hard-edged earth plane is the realm in which this mercy is the most deeply, excruciatingly, and beautifully released. That’s our business down here. That’s what we’re here for.” One does justice, an action. Mercy, the gift I experience most fully in my relationship with God, is undeserved love and compassion accompanied frequently by tears in the midst of jagged and hard-edged times.

Have mercy on me, God whom I love, as I clean out the clutter that keeps me from seeing you more clearly, loving you more dearly. I am a creature of habit and sometimes my habits keep me in the stall where it is safe and comfortable. Set me free, Lord, to be mercy for myself and mercy for others, your faithful daughter in loving kindness. And if I cry, Lord, at odd times, help me see my tears as your sweetness bubbling up and over. Thank you for all the ways you are present in my life, seen and unseen.