A time for every purpose...

To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die...

One of my life lessons has been learning the art of celebration... not having fun, that is a different proposition, but how to celebrate. Celebration is a rich paradoxical experience that lives on the breaking wave, balanced between life and death, joy and sorrow, grace and judgement. It is laughter with tears. Celebration is joy with a ritual. I celebrate with eyes that see the other side of light, with ears that hear the sound of weeping, a mouth that sings a glad song and a soul that knows all is well in the purpose of this moment. My weekend was filled with celebration.
Michael and I drove to Charlotte to visit with our son Adam and his wife Michelle. They have just learned they are expecting their first child and we wanted to put our arms around them in blessing. We spent time celebrating the hard work they have done on their new house, talking about babies and family, cleaning furnace filters and checking out wiring. Adam’s birthday is in September so his present was a trip to IKEA for some baby furniture. There is a new purpose under heaven for Adam and Michelle, a new life coming into being that will be a part of each of them. This miraculous affirmation of life is both commonplace and unique, but sheer joy always takes my breath away as I watch my children bear children. Now we enter the time of grateful waiting as our next grandchild grows and gets ready to join the family.
In the middle of the IKEA store, the phone rings. Jeannie is calling to tell us Vince is close to death. We made a pact that Vince would not be left alone as he died. His wife, Tina, had just left and Jeannie was staying with him. An hour later, the news comes that Vince has died, quietly and with Jeannie by his side, five days after he entered Solace. Laughter with tears, gratitude with grief, a beginning and an ending... a true celebration of life in the most unlikely of places...
So today we will be cooking food for the family as they gather. Diane is bringing chicken and dessert, Jeanie a salad, mama is fixing potatoes, I am bringing creamed corn and tuna salad. The eggs in the tuna salad come from the chickens living in the last project Vince designed for us. Too sick by then to help build it, he drew the chicken house and came to see it under construction. This food is one way to say thank you for the gift of your presence in our lives, one more way we can honor Vince and care for those he loved. We will gather in the log barn chapel that he helped put together, sit on the puncheon log benches he made, laugh and cry as we tell stories remembering the man who worked with his hands and built with joy.
A time to be born and a time to die... Thanks be to God for the gift of Vince Snyder in our lives and for the new life he has entered into with his Maker. Thanks be to God for the new life coming into being with Adam and Michelle. I pray for health and happiness for our new baby. The celebration of season and purpose gives me strength and joy, Lord, and I am grateful. Amen.