june 12, 2011

Road Trip! I remember taking a trip my freshman year of college. My friend, Sue Flickinger, and I headed from GRand Forks, North Dakota and drove due south through South Dakota and Nebraska all the way to Memphis and then east to Florida. Our destination was of course my grandparent's house in Winter Park, a suburb of Orlando. All I remember about the drive was the fact that we switched drivers, (it was her car or her brother's car) and that we could sleep in the back if we needed to. We didn't stop til we got to Memphis! where we hung out with her older brother and then presumably took a shower and slept. Then we drove all the way to Orlando. My grandparents welcomed us and we ate, showered and slept some more where in I enjoyed my first and only hallucinations. I closed my eyes, but all I could see were traffic lights and rear and headlights. It was a little disturbing, but hey, I'd asked for it! Other memories of that trip? we stayed in a beach house w/ Gammy and Grandfather at New Smyrna Beach and that we played bridge or cards with them. I know that I really appreciated the generosity and graciousness of my grandparents.. and I don't know what they made of the two of us. They didn't say anything about the fact that while playing cards, my friend Sue had a habit of making mouth noises when she had to play her cards. She and I got along really well, generally. But the mouth noises really got under my skin. Never said anything though. She was an ace otherwise. So our alpha and omega children are off on their adventure with a friend.. and they will be making their own memories. Via Con Dios, Tommy, Chris, and John.

June 10, 2011

My parents have been married 55 years today. I'm almost 55 years old and I can say that that is a lotta years. In today's gospel, Jesus asks Peter "Do you love me?" and Peter says "You know that I love you." and after three times asking Peter the same questions and Peter acknowledges that yes, he does love our Lord, then Jesus says: Feed my sheep. Peter would go on to spread the good news and in the end was a martyr in Rome. I wonder if Peter ever fished again? or if he abandoned that livelihood and depended on others to feed him as he worked to establish communities of believers. Pete and i met a young woman at the BART station Wednesday night. She had an enormous green backpack on her back and a day pack on her front and looked confused. She was looking for a shuttle that would take her to Amtrak. She had just flown in from Mexico, had taken BART to the Embarcadero in San Francisco, and despite the name -did not provide the embarkation place for her journey. So we tried to help her find her way.. and accompanied her across the Bay on BART to the Oakland City Center stop, where we wished her well.. and advised her to take a taxi if there was no shuttle there. She was headed to Klamath Falls. I hope she made it. Does that count as "feeding my sheep"? It felt like it.. and in the end, as she stepped off of the train, she said with the sweetest sincerity: "Love and Light to you both!" Amen. (Photo: Breton Bay at sunset, May 29, 2011)

June 9, 2011, Thursday

Pictured: the view from my grandparents' and now my sister Jennie's home taken May 29, 2011.
We saw "The Tree of Life" last night in San Francisco. It was a mindbender. I think I need to see it again and again. In order to fully appreciate and see the artistry of the filmmaker, I need to see again the images and listen to the whisperings and the music and the very minimal dialogue. I had a personal experience of "the tree of life". Pete and I were walking through Muir Woods a year ago or so. There was a light mist..we were wearing our raincoats. Along the wooden path we stopped to admire a circle of redwoods to our right just off the trail. The trees in the middle were the lowly remnants of once "parent" trees. Around them soared the offspring of these trees. It hit me in a flash that we, Pete and I , are like those trees in the middle, who started something with our children. We will diminish as they grow tall and strong. We will die and they will flourish and the cycle will continue. In that moment, I received this as a gift.. that while sometimes I am bereft at
"losing" the boys, the truth is much bigger than that.. that I am a part of a living story that will continue and that we have done our parts and that we remain fixed in that ground together as parents of our children... nothing will change that. When Tommy was born one miracle that struck me then was that this newborn would be OURS forever. He was OURS. to love and to cherish. I was cemented (planted) now in time forever. and the tree of life continues to grow.

friday, june 4, 2011

We're still in the Easter season. Not sure how many days til Pentecost. Had some glimpses this past month of Church coming together to celebrate God's action in our life. Tommy's birthday party at his house, John's volleyball team, John's class at De La Salle, both at the baccalaureate mass and at graduation, our family's graduation party for John, John's team banquet, our nephew's wedding in Virginia, our great niece's baptism in Fairfax... with numerous meals with friends and family scattered in between. I know I'm missing some things. So much to celebrate.. God with us.

I had a thought one day.. about how amazing we creatures of God are. I shared this thought with a woman I drive to visit her hospitaled husband. We were driving along and it just bubbled up:"If you think about it, we are really amazing. The fact that we do what we do every day is amazing." and I had this sense, which I'm not sure I communicated, that we are ablaze with magnificence. We radiate wonder. I think that's how God sees us! every cell of our being is bursting with love and life, both gifts intended to share. Don't you think that's amazing?