Day 3 of 4 -Gratitude Challenge

“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever.” Psalm 118 from Sunday Morning Prayer, Liturgy of the Hours.


This has been a full day from the time my feet hit the floor until now. Beginning with Morning Prayer, the fullness itself is reason enough to be grateful. After Morning Prayer came Sunday morning coffee with quiet conversation and a half-hearted perusal of the newspaper in the company of Lori and her brother Brian while we discussed how the day – Lori’s birthday would play out. I am always grateful for those quiet moments on a weekend morning as way of starting out the day together.


Next up was Sunday Mass and I was fortunate to be asked to fill in as Sacristan for the 11 o’clock Mass. While I greatly enjoy being able to sit with Lori and to participate in the Liturgy with her, being Sacristan is a huge honor and it allows me to be as close you can be to the heartbeat of a Mass without being the ordained celebrant. I would like to share those of you reading one of the reasons I am grateful to have been called to this particular ministry. This morning, in the moments after we distributed the vessels of the Eucharist and the Eucharist Ministers moved their positions, I looked over the church and saw hundreds of hearts coming together as one to receive the body and blood of Christ. Since this exercise has made me more aware of gratitude, the experience was nearly overwhelming. How can you not respond to the Eucharist without being washed over with waves of appreciation?


For what else I am grateful? I am grateful to have been in the company of a string of yellow Labradors going back over 55 years with only a few years gap right after college and again just after we had children. My current dog, Oakley, is the sweetest, happiest and best natured one of the bunch. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness never purchased a Labrador puppy. All dogs seem to have the capacity to minister to us in ways we can’t even begin to understand. Labradors, however, seem to have particular affinity for knowing exactly what I need.


The only shortcoming I have found in the theology of Thomas Aquinas was pointed out by my friend Michael Sheridan showed me where Aquinas dogs did not have a place in the afterlife of humans. In this matter the Irish have it right. They say if you need your dogs to be heaven; your dogs will be in heaven for you. Frankly, if my dogs aren’t heaven, I want to go wherever it is they are being sent because I know it has to be special. For me to be writing about Labradors at this very instant is not a coincidence. There is a yellow nose pushing under my laptop just in case I had forgotten a walk had been promised earlier this evening…. I have to push the nose away for now because there is more to say.


I am grateful for my family, the family I was born into, the family I married into and the family who came along in other ways. I have an ever faithful mother who has loved me always, a sister with whom I share a fierce devotion. From there I have cousins, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces who all in their unique way enrich, broaden and deepen my life and help me define who I am and I how I relate to the world. While they are not numbered hugely, each and everyone is numbered vitally. Thank you to each and every one of you.


Today is day 3. Tomorrow is day 4. There is still so much to be said.

Day 2 of 4 Gratitude Challenge

1. Let’s start this morning with some simple things. As is said in Ireland, “Isn't a grand soft day for ye.” We have had string of what the Irish would call “brilliant” days with brilliant being the highest superlative possible with incredible warm sunny days. Today begins with dramatic shift, rain falling softly. Raindrops are hanging onto reddened fall-struck leaves before sliding off to finally reach a welcoming grassy lawn. I am grateful for this day the Lord has made for us. Let us rejoice with the earth as the dryness gives way live giving softness.


2. First on the list today are my sons, Richard and Brian. They now sail on boats of their own and have thrown off the hawsers that connected our boats together but they remain nearby so we are now a small fleet. They have grown into smart, sensitive, kind, loving and funny humans with a sense of mission and commitment to fulfill the one thing I have challenged them to strive for as adults – to make a positive difference in the world. I could not be prouder of what they have become. I am grateful they call me by my favorite name, dad.


3. It gets even better, Richard and Michaela Finnegan became engaged a few weeks ago and I am so excited to have her join our family. Like Richard, she is passionate, devoted, wickedly smart, funny and principled - not to mention beautiful. I will be proud to have her as a daughter in law. For her, I am also grateful.


4. There is still more. While I have loved Richard and Brian with a father’s love from the moment of their births, there was a long period of years when I was not the father I should have been and certainly not the father they needed but time has proven to be a great healer. I have been granted forgiveness. To have a wonderful relationship with two men who are the adult son’s of an alcoholic is gift with beyond measure. I have run out of superlatives so let’s start over again with a simple statement of gratitude. I am grateful.


5. It turns out I still have more to say about my children. I am grateful for adoption being an option for couples struggling to have children and for mothers who think they have only one option. I am grateful to the young woman who, in the face of an overwhelming situation, chose to entrust her child to strangers to raise as if the child were born to them naturally. That she turned away from the choice of abortion and from that choice grew a magnificent young man who is our son Richard is something the entire world should be grateful for having happened. Richard has been the perfect brother for Brian, our naturally born son, who followed Richard into the world. God blessed all of us richly and for these things I am also grateful.


6. I will close today by expressing gratitude for all of the people in my life who have taught me to be grateful and to use gratitude as a tool for recovery. You know who are. Thank you.


This ends day 2. Tomorrow will be day 3.

On gratitude....

This is day one of a 4 day gratitude challenge raised by friend/brother Rick Ahmann.

The first thing on my list is gratitude itself. I am grateful to have discovered, albeit later in life, just how powerful tool gratitude is in being able to create a happy life. Gratitude opens up relationships with God, family, friends and the world based upon appreciation and acceptance. Gratitude, applied, at first, in itty bitty steps can lead a soul out of depression. It smooths rough edges in relationships and gratitude can edge us away from fear and anxiety by helping us focus on what is positive in our lives. Gratitude works.

While gratitude works, however, it does not grow solely out of human consciousness. It is a gift that is measured and expressed through the grace of a loving God who kept His covenant with me even though years passed by in which I was not capable of keeping my part of the bargain with Him. The simple basic foundation of our existence is that God declared, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” We quickly understand that is the summit of Judeo-Christian theology and, for me, the understanding is ultimately comforting. That we have a loving God who has claimed us for himself is the source and wellspring of all gratitude. For that, I am grateful.

My next expression of gratitude should be directed at my wife Lori. We met 41 years ago and this past June we achieved 37 years of marriage. The depth of my gratitude cannot be expressed in a mere sentence of two but rather must be demonstrated through a re-dedication of the rest of my life. The 20 years I spent drifting in an unbounded sea of hopeless and despair would have been the end of me but she kept beacon light burning brightly to help me find my way home. She prayed that I might recover the life I was losing and she never, ever let go of my hand regardless of whether I was holding on or trying to pull away. While I am capable of sailing my ship of life, she has been and will always be my navigator. The good that I do is directly related to her willingness to always be the compass of my life and to help me back on course if I drift off the line to our next port.

Gratitude cannot grow out of obligation because true gratitude must always be freely expressed and freely lived. I learned that from her and that is the greatest gift one human can share with another.

Tomorrow will be day two. There is so much to say! Thank you, Rick Ahmann!

Bunratty Church and Graveyard.

Day 1 - Ireland

On our first evening in Ireland we saw the ruins of an abandoned church from the window of the room we were staying in at the Bunratty Castle Hotel. 

We quickly went out the side door of the hotel and went into the cemetery surrounding the ruins. Gravestones reflected that the small cemetery, perhaps an acre but certainly not more in size, had first been used back in the 1700’s, prior to the time of the repeal of the Penal Laws which outlawed the practice of Catholicism in Ireland. The most recent grave dated only back to 2011.

In short order we learned the Irish traditionally converted abandoned and ruined abbeys, monasteries, churches and other religious sites which had been destroyed by the English, or which had simply been a victim of history, into graveyards. 

On this first evening, though, we did not know any of this.

There were scores of vertical and horizontal monuments and headstones which called out to us so we just wandered back and forth reading names and epitaphs. I very much felt I was walking in a cemetery in Butte or Anaconda; the names were the names from my childhood. O’Donnell, Sullivan, McKittrick, McKernan and Fitzgerald to name just a few of the familiar names we found.

Eventually we worked our way into the church itself. All 4 walls were still intact but the roof was long gone but it was easy to recognize it was Catholic in origin. There was a large main altar on the east end and bedside the main altar where side altars which would have been dedicated to Joseph and Mary. There was no way to really tell how old the church was but it was probably built in the 12^th Century because the structure seems to be Norman in nature and that is the period when the Norman influence spread widely through Ireland.

The light was fading but there is a long twilight in Ireland at the time of the summer solstice so we had plenty of time to explore and let ourselves become part of the tapestry of a place without time. The gray stone blocks of the church stood out in contrast to a sky falling from day to evening to night. My wife returned to the Hotel but I stayed on and found a place to sit on a fallen block with my back against the still standing wall. An evening star winked on and shimmering in the cobalt colored western sky. Despite the proximity of the church and graveyard to the bustle of Bunratty and a 4 lane highway there was virtual silence to invite contemplation.

I placed my hand against a stone on the wall beside me and it remained warm to the touch, the substance of daylight which warmed the stone had faded but its essence remained. As I reflected on the interconnectedness of substance and essence, the voices of those who had ever celebrated the Eucharist, weddings and funerals in this place began to fill the void of history which is never truly empty. I understood in that instant that while the substance of all those who had visited and worshipped within the walls of the church were gone, their essence remained. The walls heard the words and songs of the long ago people and the walls remember them. The stone blocks call the forgotten out of the darkness of time to share the mysteries of worship with anyone chooses to sit and listen.

The rocks came before us and we carved them out of the mountains of history and put them into a shape meant to give praise to the Creator who created all. The stones which are built into the form of a church become hollow in order to capture all things they witnessed. The stones have eternal memory and we are blessed with eternal recall. The eternal memory of the stones does not belong to the stones, all memories are eternal because they were heard by eternal Divine who hears all, sees all and remembers all. The eternal Divine stored the memories in the walls for us to call to mind if we simply abide. The eternal recall was gifted to us when the finger of God touched our hearts and awoke the desire to seek Him.

The cobalt sky darkened into blackness peppered by stars and tinged in the west with the last rays of the departed sun. It was past time for Evening Prayer so I sang Night prayer to the rocks. They listened. They will remember. My single voice is now joined with the voices of time. The words and songs are different and the language is different but there is no matter there. There is a commonness shared by all – the worship of loving God who called me to this place and gave me the ears to hear with my heart and soul.

My substance returned to the place a called home but my some of my essence remains in the unforgotten church with walls which retain eternal memories remembered by God. 

I am now part of the mystery to be understood by those who follow me.

Hallelujah!

Amen.

JoAnn Hope Roullier

A eulogy for my aunt

March 22, 2014

Reading - John 14

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” 

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 

Reflection:

Thank you for joining us here today. I am really pleased we are able to have a memorial service in this church because it was such important part of JoAnn’s life. When JoAnn’s son Bill, whom we still call Rusty, called to tell me of my aunt’s passing he knew he would not likely be able to come to Helena for a this service and he asked me stand in for him. I am honored more than I can say to do so. I am not only here on his behalf but I am also here for Jill, a privilege I share with her sons.

I am a guy who has been greatly blessed in life. Not only I do have a wonderful birth mother who is sitting right but there was a second wonderful woman who was a nurturing presence in my life from my birth to this very day and whose life we celebrate today.

While I was still on the phone with Rusty, chapter 14 of John, which I just read for you, flashed through my mind. I suspect the choice of John 14 was inevitable. I have been to three funerals since JoAnn died and the Gospel reading for all three services was John 14. Since there are no such things as coincidences in God’s world, I have taken it as a pretty powerful sign I should build my reflection of JoAnn around John 14.

As the chapter begins, the disciples are gathered with Jesus in the Upper Room for the Last Supper. Jesus has been explaining to the disciples what was going to happen in the next few hours and days. Some of the things they heard must have almost impossible to grasp. I can imagine the disciples were confused and frightened by what they were hearing. Jesus assured them, saying “Don’t let your hearts be troubled, you have faith in God, have faith in me.

In the face of the death of someone we love, we could be like the disciples, frightened, confused and but also deeply grieved by the loss. Of course we are sad about JoAnn’s passing and it is ok to be sad. Remember Jesus wept when Lazarus died and he was about to bring Lazarus back to life. Sad we might be but we are not frightened or confused because we know what Jesus said to the disciples is also true for us.

Please consider this. The first fruit of faith is hope. Our faith gives us hope our separation from JoAnn will be only temporary as was her separation from my Uncle Bill, my grandparents and all who have gone before us. And where have they gone? Jesus tells us his father’s house has many rooms and he went before us to prepare a place for us. He promises to take us there himself.

My mother has several times said if she were the one talking at this service, she talk about JoAnn and hope and how hope defined her life right up to her last breath. I promised to talk about hope because my mother is right. JoAnn’s name at birth was JoAnn Hope Trent. My grandparents named her for a special person named Hope but truly Hope became her middle name. She was foremost and always a person of hope.

Hope sustained her, it nourishes her, it bound her to us, it motivated her, and it carried her forward when the only direction that seemed possible was backward.

But because we live in a world of free choice and where both good and bad things happen to good people, our prayers of hope may not be answered in the way we expect or desire but our faith sustains us through the dark times and reminds us the troubles we face here are short lived and we should hope for better things to come. God’s promise to us is not for a perfect life on earth but he promises us the strength to endure whatever we must so we might experience perfect life with him on the other side of the veil.

So then the strength to endure comes from hope.

Where did the hope which defines JoAnn come from? The answer is obvious. It came from her faith in God, something inherited from her parents and grandparents and something bequeathed to us. Her faith as not a just a Sunday morning faith but one she grew, nurtured, challenged and shared all of the days of her life.

If any of you ever visited her house, you visited a home which was place of warmth. It was also an orderly place. She was a meticulous housekeeper. There were never crumbs on the table or coffee grounds on the counter. Everything had a place and everything was in its place.

There was another side to JoAnn’s house. She had stuff. Lots of stuff. An amazing, staggering amount of stuff that ranged from exquisite antiques and heirlooms to more than enough arts and crafts stuff to stock a fair sized hobby store. When it came time clean out her house we were all stunned by what she had accumulated over the years. But here was what surprised me even more. I knew she was a voracious reader but what I did not know was how much Christian based material she read.

Out of her house came every Max Lucado book ever written including some Max may not even known he had written. Along with the Lucado books was a nearly endless string of books on faith, spirituality and Christianity. There were books on Methodism, bible studies, discussion workbooks and seminar and class materials. Now I have a fair amount of that kind of stuff myself but the difference between her Bible study workbooks and my mine is hers were all filled out from cover to cover in her small, precise handwriting. Mine might have a couple of sentences scribbled in here and there.

Her faith came from effort, action, study and a lifelong desire to learn more about her God. It was from that faith her hope flowed.

Let’s come back to the gospel again. Jesus tells us where we are going we will know the way. Thomas asked the question we all want to know the answer to – how can we know the way? I love Thomas. I think he gets a bad rap – referring to that doubting Thomas nickname we all know him by. The thing is I don’t think he doubted Jesus. I think he was seeking Jesus the same way we all seek Jesus. He asked the question for us so we don’t have to ask it ourselves. How will we know the way? Jesus gives Thomas the answer we all crave to hear. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.”

I don’t need to tell you these things about our faith and our belief in life eternal for those who seek the father through Jesus are true. You know them to be true. Your presence here at this celebration of my aunt’s life is proof of that. We know they are true because we have faith in God and we have faith in Jesus.

We have come here to celebrate JoAnn’s life in this thing we call a memorial service. Yes we remember her, her sharp sense of humor, her devotion to this church, her life with her family and her love for all of us. I have memories enough to sustain me until we meet again.

The thing about grief and joy is this. Grief shared is reduced by half. Joy shared is doubled. So thank you for sharing our grief at her passing but also our sharing our joy for the life in Christ she lived all of her days.

As we leave here today to go from this house of God into the corridors of our lives let’s not go empty handed. JoAnn has left us measure of hope she would have us each take with us. Take as much as you might need. There is more than enough to share.

Thank you.

Reflections on Paul

Number 14

Paul says of the value of Jewishness, "Much, in every respect. [For] in the first place, they were entrusted with the utterances of God."

Paul is not referring to the gift of the Law through Moses. He is referring to the fact that God's path for the revelation of his word and the fulfillment of the scriptural prophecy of the coming of the savior in the person of Jesus. The utterances refer to our faith history as lived out through Jewish history. The utterances were the words of the prophets who called out to the people of the time to maintain faith only in God and live in awe of his dominion over this world and his gifts of justice of mercy. The old testament, in Paul's view, serves only to remind us of God's call to us and that every pointed to the coming of Jesus which brought an end to the Messianic prophecy. To be the carriers of the seeds of faith, however, was not enough. The Jews were called to recognize how Jesus gave their history an end purpose. Jesus restored humanity to the original covenant with Abraham. As is said often in the Old Testament, "He is our God, and we are his people, the flock he shepherds." His people are were not just Jews, much to the surprise of the Jewish leaders, but all humanity, all people, Jews and gentiles alike.

Peace

Reflections on Paul

Number 13

After the close of the chat last evening, I turned to review the Mass readings for today. After slogging through the seemingly endless reading from Tobit, I encountered the Gospel reading for the day from Mark. Jesus was asked by a scribe about which was first of all the commandments and Jesus responded, famously, the first commandment was to “love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” And then he said, second, we are to love our neighbor as our self.

So there it was it for me - the biggest rock of all to roll around until I could find a proper resting spot for it. I was thunderstruck by the timing. Minutes after coming to the end of several weeks of study of the letters of Paul, the whole point of what he was trying to teach us jumped out of the lectionary and struck me squarely in the head.

The letter to Romans beautifully set this all up. God, we quickly learn in Chapter 1, is wrathful and will actively respond to disbelief and unfaithfulness by handing “them” (us) over to impurity, degrading passions and improper actions. From there we quickly move toward the description of a righteous God who through his justice and mercy sent us salvation from our wickedness in the form of Jesus. Over and over again, Paul reminds us all peoples, Jew and gentile alike, were initially granted God’s mercy through our creation. Through the fall of Adam we all fell from mercy into his wrath and we all became needful of his continued just judgment and mercy.

In Romans Paul continued to argue, as in the previous letters read, Jewish reliance on the law was foolish because it focused our attention on our behavior which, through the all of Adam, would never lead us toward God. To be sons and daughters of Abraham requires to not having faith in the law but, rather, to have faith in God and only in God because salvation does not come from the law but salvation comes only from God.

In Chapter 5 we learn more about faith, hope and love. If we have faith, hope in salvation will grow and hope will always be rewarded through God’s enduring life. Love becomes the first commandment 13:8-10 since we are loved and we, in turn, love, that love will govern our actions. Love will become all the law we need because if we allow love to direct us, we will fulfill the law.

With that long circle, we return to where we started with today’s Gospel. In our return, my return, to the beginning, we understand we are not governed by law. We are fulfilled in the law by God’s mercy and right justice through the faith we inherited from our father Abraham. Our fulfillment comes through saving death and resurrection of God’s only son who was sent by God restore the faith covenant made with Abraham. I think I get the message….

Peace, my brothers, and live in the joy we know only through our acceptance of faith in the Risen Christ and our willingness to respond to his call to love. While we may be sons of Abraham, we are truly the beloved children of an ever loving God. 

Peace