Saturday, August 10, 2024
Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
A different kind of week in Austin
Solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God’s even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry. In such a ministry there is hardly any difference left between doing and being. When we are filled with God’s merciful presence, we can do nothing other than minister because our whole being witnesses to the light that has come into the darkness. – Henri Nouwen
We have spent hours each day with our Austin grandkids over the last seven days. In early June we spent a 40 hour week with our older grandkids in Springfield.
And now, we will be on our own for awhile.
Miles and Jasper start 2nd grade and kindergarten next week, and we’ll have time with them on Fridays, mostly. Yesterday we watched the Olympics, ate hot dogs and watermelon, and read half a dozen of the many great picture books we have on our shelves, including Doctor Squash, the Doll Doctor and The Mystery of the Monkey’s Maze (from the Casebook of Seymour Sleuth).
Next week we’ll go to the dentist.
A couple nights ago we were thinking of our own grandparents, and glad we are taking plenty of time with Jack and Aly, Miles and Jasper. Our memories will fade into our older years, and their memories will blossom as the same time passes in their lives.
Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. God is able to make every grace abundant in your life so that in all things – always having all you need – you may have an abundance for every good work.
I’m sure at the top of that pile of abundance is what Henri Nouwen calls “God’s even greater mercy.” I often recall my Primary Doctor Ho’s observation that we are human beings, not human doings. He worked hard in Vietnam and continues in Champaign, Illinois, well into his 80’s. He recognizes his “being” and exercises his doing. As Fr. Nouwen so beautifully puts it, “We can do nothing other than minister (DO), because our whole being (BE) witnesses to the light that has come into the darkness.”
Grandparents participate in all of this being and doing, when we have the opportunity and choose to accept it. It is hardly a Mission Impossible. It brings us great joy and satisfaction. The Ho family included children and grandparents, as does ours – seed from the past  brought into the present, sown for future harvests.
The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply, and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
Jesus sometimes seemed caught between his earthly family and the family of God. I’ll bet that was not the case except on the surface. “Whoever serves me must follow me,” he said. But he knew how being interacted with doing, when he recognized the sower and his responsibility to sacrifice:
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But then, watch: when it dies, it produces much fruit. Do you have eyes to see?
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.
(2 Corinthians 9, Psalm 112, John 8, John 12)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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