Tuesday - February, 12, 2008
Hilton Head Island, SC
I drink gunpowder…
Okay all you writers/poets out there. Have fun making up a profound reason for my preference for Gunpowder over White Blueberry in the selection of teas my niece sent to me after her visit in December. We took her family into the Magic Kingdom one day last year and this year her parents came down so the children could show “Mima and Grandpa” the “World”. At the end of each day her family went back to their Log Cabin at the campground while her folks stayed with us which gave her dad, my brother Geoff, and me time for the quality conversations we had had when we washed the dishes together in high school. Was that yesterday? And now he’s a Grandpa like my Dad – absorbing every bit of joy he can from the children around him.
In the Christmas story, three wise men search for and find the child the stars tell them will save the world. The ability to find something in a child that no one else sees except maybe his parents was one of my Dad’s greatest gifts, which may be why the Epiphany, January 6th, is one of my favorite holidays. We made it a point to be in St. Augustine that day because with its Spanish influence I thought we’d find celebrations everywhere. We took pictures of every church in the city and then went to Mass at the Cathedral Basilica. However, even gentle Art was offended by the priest who did fifteen minutes on the idea that the wealthy men on camels were astrologers, whose only redeeming quality was to “realize their way of life, like witchcraft, was a sin when they encountered Christ.” Fortunately the sermon is only a small part of the liturgy and afterward we visited the Creche along with the few Mexican families who called the cathedral home and to whom the holiday means as much as it does to me. (I’ve always liked the tradition of giving gifts on El Dia de los Tres Reyes instead of Christmas morning, but could never get my family into thatJ)
Have you seen A Day Without a Mexican? This 2004 film uses satire to help us understand our dependence on undocumented workers. The week before the Florida Presidential primary an op-ed piece by Orlando’s Catholic Bishop Wenski called on Catholic voters in Florida to acknowledge the complexity of “the immigration issue” and to hold the candidates to a commitment to resolving them in a just and merciful way. I took his challenge as my Lenten commitment and bought A Forty Day Journey with Sr. Joan Chittister, a book of reflections by one of the world’s most respected speakers on human rights.
In 1968 I thought working for justice meant being a Freedom Rider, or Active War Protester and felt a little guilty that the closest I came was to make phone calls for Gene McCarthy. In 1972 I stood Art up several times to work at Humphrey’s headquarters. After forty years of campaigning for the least popular presidential candidate as a way to work for justice I could be discouraged, but I have confidence in Sr. Joan’s perspective.
So where has she brought us in the first days of our Forty Day Journey? Into reflection on our own self worth and giftedness and a process of defining community that goes beyond boundaries and borders. My sense is that by Easter we’ll be more confident in our passion for good and will more quickly answer the mean-spirited with gentle truth, the selfish with generosity and to make the interactions we have everyday reflect the wisdom of the Wise Men.
Today the reflection was on gratitude. Our lives are ones of such privilege. Tuesday we watched the speeches of three major candidates speak after the “Potomac Primaries” from a couch in a Disney’s Vacation Club Villa on Hilton Head Island. Art asked me in the middle of Senator Obama’s speech if I’d written it. No, but maybe he had some help … from my Dad.
Peace and good_________,
Beth
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