Travels about town

Thursday in the Octave of Easter, April 21, 2022                

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Travels about town

At our Easter Sunday family banquet Miles and Jasper took center stage, Jasper in his red vest and Miles in his gray suit. They shared the memory verse from their class. Or rather, they shouted it.

He is not here! He is risen!!

And now Jesus is appearing once more.

Why do questions arise in your hearts? Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.

In my travels across Champaign and Urbana I touch and see, and sometimes I feel amazed, or overwhelmed, caught in crosswinds of experience. Two sisters in our local convent have passed away, and I visited with a third, my friend and former spiritual director. She shared several stories about her friends. On their last mornings, they simply did not come out of their rooms. “We went in, and they were gone.”

Another friend is getting married on May 14. He’s a former leader of men, a military man; now he wonders how well he’ll do as head of a household. He hasn’t been married before, and he’s excited, happy and ready to begin a new life.

He asked his friends, “Do you have anything to eat? They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them.

I slept fitfully Tuesday night, but I don’t blame it on the food; the Mexican food was wonderful. We took pride, Marc and I, eating it in front of each other. Jesus of course was proving he was not a ghost. We weren’t proving anything, just loving the tastes and smells and textures … all of that.

Last night we found ourselves eating meat, along with salad and potatoes. We had to decide on expensive meat, or less so. Is $37 for a six ounce filet too much? That’s about $6 per bite. We decided it was too much. We went to an everyday kitchen instead … that is the actual name, Everyday Kitchen. With outstanding out-of-the-everyday food.

I stopped to ask my mechanic friend to check my tires and look up an error code. Nothing needed done today. Good thing, I thought, as I looked at the pile of unfinished business on the edge of his desk, keys attached. “We aren’t making appointments until the middle of May.” I realized how much that bothered him, saying no to customers, seeing the surprised and disappointed look in their eyes.

“No problem for me,” I said. “How about sometime in mid-June?” I could almost see tension roll off his shoulders.

“How about June 8?” Sure, I said. Living six weeks in advance gave him some margin, gave me a sense of Kairos time. There is no hurry.

While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Kairos time. Eternity on earth. Over and over I think of Mary’s words, “I have seen the Lord!”

(Acts 3, Psalm 8, Psalm 118, Luke 24)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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