church

Friday night I helped my son change his brake pads on his car. We ate together and talked about our changing hearts and how different we both are and about redemption. We did church.

After he left a person that has not been all that kind to me from the church I used to attend stopped by. He is going through a rough spot with his ex-wife and wanted to talk. We spent three hours together talking about Jesus and forgiveness and redemption. We did church.

Saturday morning an usher from the church stopped by (in our neighborhood) and we caught up and shared our lives and we did church.

Saturday afternoon a old old friend called and we spent a couple hours on the phone talking about his severe arthritis and heaven and hell and Jesus and old men in our lives and how we are not far from it (he's 42, former concrete finisher with two kids left at home and now crippled with arthritis) and yes we did church.

Saturday evening a very good friend of mine that I just seem to hit it off with stopped in to see if I needed some help from him (I rented a jackhammer to break concrete but was blind-sided with a plumbing problem and since he works at the hardware he knew all about it) but we sat and talked about life a little and just a little about Jesus and about his upcoming trip to England and about loving your neighbor and about growing up tall (he's really tall) and we did church.

Sunday I jackhammered all day but did get interrupted by a good friend who was excited about the pastor and christian author that moved in a block down my street and right across the street from him. Our conversation was very short but I know why he stopped and in that little act of love we did church.

This morning I and four of my co-workers and two of their wives drove 3 1/2 hours north to attend a funeral mass for a 23 yr. old man who found life much to difficult for him to bear and put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger last Wednesday morning. His sister works with us. I didn't know Adam. I know his family loved him very much. On the way up I rode with two other guys and the subject turned to Sodom and Gomorrha (I can't remember why we got on that subject, I think it had to do with Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt) and we had differing interpretations so we read it and we talked about it and it ended by following Lot's lineage through Moab through Ruth and through Tamar and on through to Jesus. We then talked about evil and lessons and growing and redemption and GOOD and we finished about 2 miles from the church when I read Revelations 21. It was spooky cool when the same scripture was read by the priest at the funeral. The mass was so beautiful and the service so rich that I was compelled to get up and go to the elements before the priest even called the body to recieve them. I stayed in my seat though because I've gone up front with my hand outstretched and been blessed when asking for nourishment and the rejection burned angrily within me. I remained seated so as to not rush into the same sin. Afterward a catholic friend of mine told me how to hold my hands to "look like a good catholic" so I could recieve communion. I know it seems as though it shouldn't be that important but my spirit longed for those elements. If it happens again I'll know how to hold my hands like a good catholic. After bagpipes cried out Amazing Grace and we walked the shady procession to the cemetary (the first time I've ever seen that done and it too was just beautiful) we joined together for great pans of scalloped potatoes, polish sausage and saurkraut, potato salad, cakes of every description, jello molds and Kool-aid to wash it all down. We followed Adam's sister to the family farm, where they'd all grown up, and had a little cry out by the pig pen overlooking the alfalfa field that leads to the woods where Adam was found in his deer blind. With the fresh, cool, slightly-fishy breeze of nearby Lake Huron in our tear-stained faces, we did church.

God this is a rough and beautiful place. I know you must be both rough and beautiful (warrior and nurturer that you are) and I am with you and I ask you to please hold Adams family very tight and very long because they are in that suffocating parched throat pain that only you can provide relief from.