Sitting on the couch with John

                       (today’s lectionary)

Sitting on the couch with John

I trust in the Lord, my soul trusts in his word. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchman wait for the dawn.

I realized again yesterday, having catfish for lunch with my brother John, that we are really good friends. He was 65 yesterday, which, regarding newfound privileges, is kind of like becoming 16. Now we can compare our experiences with Medicare!

We both remembered a picture I took of him, sitting up in his pajamas at age 4 or 5, peek-a-booing me from below the sheets. I would have been 11 or so and using my first 35mm camera, the one Dad and I picked out in a Springfield camera store. Probably we had been having a pillow fight in our males-only bedroom at the back of the house where we grew up. He and Karen live there now, after several substantial remodels.

As I sat across the room I looked over at him and thought I saw that same smiling kid boy look he had when he was 5. I know he is just as ticklish now as he was then. He still has a more hilarious happy laugh than anyone else I know.

He gave me a bag of winter caps from seed companies, especially Pioneer caps with a bunch of different designs. Karen was getting things ready to sell or discard. We watched “The Great British Baking Show” for a few minutes. Their three year old grandson Gabe was taking a nap. I felt peaceful as we sat in their living room. Neither John nor I are as active as we used to be. It feels good to just sit and joke and laugh, and be ourselves.

I am the way and the truth and the life, says the Lord. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

We often express different politics. We certainly have lived in different ways and different places. I collect books, he collects fishing reels.

But we do not express different spiritualities.

What occasion is there for comparison? It is ruled out. On what principle, that of works? No, rather on the principle of faith.

In the course of our own human events, I think John and I have come to a familiar, quiet resting place with God. I think he would like this poem, written from God’s point of view:

A New Creation

I didn’t create you to be grateful.

I didn’t create you to praise me.

I didn’t create you to be my hands to serve others

or to fix what’s wrong in this world.

I created you to share myself.

I cannot be contained.

I cannot be limited.

I created you to enter into the mystery

of life, of living, of me.

I created you as part of the beauty of the universe

and to carry in your soul the essence of all that is.

You have the freedom to claim your essence as mine,

to share in the life that is me.

And you have the freedom to say no,

or not yet, or not so much.

You have, and you will

(remember I know you as well as I know myself).

 So let us continue this journey

with the next steps of patience and kindness –

with each other,

with ourselves. – Clarence Heller

(Romans 3, Psalm 130, John 14, Luke 11)        

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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