Jim's Book

Coming in September - a book by JimPalmer from the Ooze. Of course I'm expecting an autographed copy when I purchase mine. :) Jim blogs here

Celebration

The act of celebration is honoring and remembering a past event or
person, the lifting up of a memory. Celebrating Holy Communion is
the common act of lifting up ourselves, a kind of reaching out and
asking God to be especially present.

On the other hand, I know that for me God is always present, and I
seek each day to celebrate the God in us, and make my sharing with
the people around me a lifting up , a sacred act - the ritual of
being. The highest act of celebration is knowing and honoring the
presence of God in each other, experiencing the Knowing of God and
sharing of it. Sharing love, anger, defeat, joy - being is the real
stuff of celebrating.

When I am bringing it off, I experience a tingle that is near that
of being in the arms of my lover in tight embrace. My insides jump
with joy at the sight and fresh smells of a spring morning as old man sun explodes over the horizon. This is celebrating - experiencing God.
I try to share God, inhale God, celebrate being with whoever I am
with in the present moment of Now.

Life is a total possibility of celebration; the steaming hot smells
of a shared breakfast after a long refreshing sleep is for me a
Eucharist of quiet joy. Hearing the sounds of joy, seeing the
bright smiling faces of children on a playground is a sacred rite. Being
trusted with the pain of sorrow and loss of a friend is High Mass.

Walking in the solitary woods of fall, hearing and tasting its
crispness, being with the year's last insects and their late sounds
is a solemn ritual.

Life and celebration form the word "being" and being is; and being
is only to be experienced in the beginning - in the Now, celebration is
a total possibility. The time for the High Mass of life is now.

Hope is now; God is in the Beginning.

Bishop Allan W. Frink

Celebration

The act of celebration is honoring and remembering a past event or
person, the lifting up of a memory. Celebrating Holy Communion is
the common act of lifting up ourselves, a kind of reaching out and
asking God to be especially present.

On the other hand, I know that for me God is always present, and I
seek each day to celebrate the God in us, and make my sharing with
the people around me a lifting up , a sacred act - the ritual of
being. The highest act of celebration is knowing and honoring the
presence of God in each other, experiencing the Knowing of God and
sharing of it. Sharing love, anger, defeat, joy - being is the real
stuff of celebrating.

When I am bringing it off, I experience a tingle that is near that
of being in the arms of my lover in tight embrace. My insides jump
with joy at the sight and fresh smells of a spring morning as old man sun
explodes over the horizon. This is celebrating - experiencing God.
I try to share God, inhale God, celebrate being with whoever I am
with in the present moment of Now.

Life is a total possibility of celebration; the steaming hot smells
of a shared breakfast after a long refreshing sleep is for me a
Eucharist of quiet joy. Hearing the sounds of joy, seeing the
bright smiling faces of children on a playground is a sacred rite. Being
trusted with the pain of sorrow and loss of a friend is High Mass.

Walking in the solitary woods of fall, hearing and tasting its
crispness, being with the year's last insects and their late sounds
is a solemn ritual.

Life and celebration form the word "being" and being is; and being
is only to be experienced in the beginning - in the Now, celebration is
a total possibility. The time for the High Mass of life is now.

Hope is now; God is in the Beginning.

Bishop Allan W. Frink

Indeed

I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.
Blessed Mother Teresa

Carman's Eyes

Carman told me later that he usually wins at staring contests. He can go for minutes on end without blinking. He and a cohort from school finally called it a draw one time after an eight-minute long competition.

This morning I broke him in about 60 seconds flat. Out of the blue he engaged me in a staring contest; something I haven't done in several years, I would guess. He flared his nostrils at me to try and get me to laugh; I flared mine back at him. It's a gift we share, this nostril-flaring talent we possess. Then while looking in his eyes I thought, There's no way I'm going to be able to be stupid and make him laugh. Then I just started looking deeply into his eyes, and I had this thought of how seldom I get to peer so intently straight into his eyes, down, down into his soul. What incredibly beautiful eyes he has, I thought. Instantly I was filled so profoundly with love for this man-child of mine, and as I stood there cherishing him, my heart must have spilled out through my eyes. Carman suddenly giggled and blushed. Blushed! Did it make you laugh because you saw how much I love you? I asked him. Yes.

Love wins! Love wins! Love wins! In staring contests and life.

Easter Moments

Renee Miller: A few years ago when I was on the diocesan staff in Idaho, I was making a visitation on our church in Pocatello, Idaho. I usually stayed at the Quality Inn when I was in Pocatello. On this particular evening, I went in to register and found a long line, and a young woman at the reservation desk who was frazzled. Someone was butting in line to complain about something in their room. The phone was ringing. Other people were exasperated at the length of time it was taking to get checked in. This young woman was trying to be congenial, but she was not having one of her "better nights!"

At a rather crucial moment, yet another couple pushed their way into the line and put a small styrofoam box down on the desk right in front of the young woman. "It's banana cream," they said. It seems that before they had gone to dinner they had asked the young woman for the name of a good restaurant. She told them of one that had the best pies ever made, and she mentioned that her favorite was banana cream. So this couple, without provocation, simply brought goodness into that young woman's life that night. She looked at the styrofoam box, looked up at them with a face that shone with joy, and thanked them. Her night was changed by a miracle piece of banana cream pie! She was given an Easter moment and I saw God peeking through in the action of the couple who brought her that piece of pie.

There are hundreds and thousands of those kind of Easter moments, and they're the signs and tokens of the promises of Easter that even though everything is not perfect yet, life is good. Resurrection is happening all around us if we have "eyes to see and ears to hear," even when bleakness stands very close. Those Easter moments are for us a way to witness God peeking out.

Explore Faith

To Own a Dragon

I had a little tax return money. Not much, and I could have used it all for bills, but I took Carman to Barnes and Noble and splurged on new books for both of us. I felt kind of bad because I decided that he could only have one, so he chose the XBox 360 guide to Oblivion, when he really wanted Oblivion and Velvet Elvis. As soon as I can, I'll have to go back and buy Velvet Elvis. But now I'm reading Don Miller's new book To Own a Dragon to him, and he's becoming enamored of Miller, so Blue Like Jazz might be next on his list.

I wanted to read out loud because I wanted us to share this together. I was just going to read one chapter, but neither of us wanted to stop, so I read another. And then another. We're well into Chapter 5 now, and he was falling asleep in his bed when I stopped. I haven't read a book out loud to him in a long time; most mothers don't get to read their 16-year-old sons to sleep anymore.

What I didn't expect was that this book would be so emotional for me. As I'm reading Don Miller's story of life without a father, I am reading my son's story. And because I am his mother, I feel the unavoidable heartache my son must go through, and a sense of responsibility for giving him a father who has chosen not to be a dad. There's a lot that choked me up tonight, and tears aren't something that come that easily to me unless I'm watching some sappy TV show. But Carman asked me lots of questions about his own father, and about my dad, who died when I was 17, and then wanted to know what I thought my dad would think of him. The thought of my dad knowing my son, just that thought alone, brought a lump to my throat. I know without a doubt how much my dad would love him, and I told Carman all the reasons why my dad would love him so much.

But when I was reading this part of the book, I had to stop for a moment because I lost my voice in tears when Miller's words echoed what I think so many fatherless sons must face:

...It was the week before Father's Day, and a few of my friends had told me they were planning large dinners or trips to be with their dads. Perhaps it was because I was operating on so little sleep following a trip I had take - or perhaps it was because Father's Day is a foreign concept to me, like celebrating relationships with aliens - but on a particular night, I felt my soul collapsing. I was struggling against a writing deadline and feeling, as I often do, that whatever book I wrote would only hit the world as a burden to its library. I wanted a father to walk through the door and tell me this wasn't true, that I was here on purpose, and I had a purpose, and that a family and a father and even a world needed me to exist to make himself and themselves more happy. And it occurred ot me, then, that a father was not going to walk through the door, that there would be no encouragement, there would be no voice of calm, there would be no larger, mature elephant whose presence would correct the stray thoughts in my mind. It occurred to me this would never, ever happen. For the first time in my life, I realized, deep down, I never had a dad.

I don't cry much, but on that night I did. I lost it. I shoved my computer aside and bured my head in my pillow like a child and sobbed. I sobbed for nearly an hour. I hate saying this because it sounds so weak, and I don't like dramatics, but I remember the night quite well and there was no question something busted open.

Somebody said that realizing we are broken is the beginning of healing. And for me, some of the healing began that night.