| Mark's Musings |
| |
| As I write this, I am reminded that earlier today we buried one of
our own: Champ Holland. |
| |
| A funeral is always a sad time for family and friends left behind,
but we must remember that as Catholics we believe that our departed are
still with us in the community of |
| of faith. Although
we can't see them, they are still with us in our worship of God.
They are part of the communion of saints. In fact, Champ and all
others who died in |
| faith are closer to God
than we can ever be here on Earth. And their suffering is over.
In reality, it is a time of joy for the departed. I want to tell
you of a dream I had a |
| few weeks after my mother
passed away following a fifteen year battle with Alzheimer's
disease. First, however, I have a story of one of the most
shocking events of my |
| children's experience with "Grammy." |
| |
| Although my oldest, Cortney, has some memories of her grandmother
before the disease robbed her of her personality and dignity, m y other
kids, John, Jessica and |
| Amanda, never really knew
my mother. I think John's most vivid memory of Mom has to be when
she attacked him at a Thanksgiving dinner. He was about 14 or |
| so at the time. He got up from where he was sitting after
dinner and started gathering other family members' plates. Mom got
up suddenly, came at him and started |
| beating him in the chest while he
was trying to take plates back to the kitchen. |
| |
| I remember his eyes as she was hammering her small fists into his
chest. Wide-eyed and unbelieving, he couldn't understand what
was happening. Quickly, I got up and |
| grabbed Mom's
wrists. When she stopped struggling, she looked at me and said, "I
love you." |
| |
| I pleaded, "Then stop hitting my son, Mom." |
| |
| Alzheimer's is a despicable disease and Mom's journey with it was
particularly tortuous. But back to my dream. Mom had been
gone for some time when one night in my |
| sleep, I heard a knock at the door. I found myself in our old
house on Parker Street where we grew up. I went to the door and looked
through the glass and couldn't |
| believe my eyes. |
| |
| "Mom?" |
| I opened the door and she came in looking like she did just before
her dementia scourged her body and brain of the spirit. She came
into the house and started looking |
| around, at the windows, the
walls, the piano by the door, the stairway -- everything. She was
taking it all in. |
| |
| "Mom," I said, "are you okay?" |
| |
| Smiling, she turned her face to look me right in the eye and said,
"Yes. Everything is fine now. I remember everything ... all
of the children. I remember them all, I'm fine." |
| In tears, I sat bolt upright in my bed with chills running up and
down my spine. |
| |
| I know Mom came to me that night and I thank God for allowing me to
let me know without a doubt that she is completely healed and happy.
She's not the only one. |
| |
| Heaven waits for us all. |
| |
| Have faith. |
| |
| Mark King |
| |
| |
| |
| Diane Osterreicher - on the Food Pantry |
| |
| Hi, my name is Diane and I run the food pantry for our church.
We have been open for about a year and a half. It amazes me |
| sometimes. We have never run out of food.
We have been very close, but when people heard we needed food, there was |
| always someone to help our cause. This is from the kindess and
generosity of our parishioners. I myself was very fortunate. |
| |
| I don't ever remember going
hungry for I was raised on a farm and my father was a hunter. We
always had fresh vegetables |
| and some kind of meat on the table. |
| |
| Today people are not that lucky. Where are they going to get
their food? In today's world we have to look out for and take |
| care of those who cannot put food on their table. Thank God
for your blessings. |
| A Taste of What It's Like from the Other Side
by Carrie Brown |
| |
| Lots of us have jobs that lead us down a path of spirituality and
faith, and nursing is often in that category. Nurses can grow
stronger along with their patients. Working |
| with dying and
birthing and illness leaves wide open doors of opportunity for
reflecting Christ's love to others while growing in Him. Still,
most caregivers don't imagine |
| themselves as the patient in need
of being strengthened. |
| |
| One morning after I had worked all night, I suddenly had a sharp
pain like a hot poker in my breast. The pain caught my breath and
when I put my finger tips on it I felt |
| a lump the size of a marble. I soon had an appointment at the
breast health center and within a couple of weeks, had surgery.
Now, I was having a good taste of what it |
| is like from the other side. |
| |
| Nurses were there for me from the start. In post op, they held
my basin. They mopped my face. They loved me through it, all
the while taking care of my family. |
| Chemo was going to be
given (in case any cells were sitting on my liver holding hands, my
oncologist said.) Would fire shoot out of my eye sockets?
Chemo had changed |
| a lot since the early years when I had hung it on other
people. But nurses were loving me through it. Then
radiation, and nurses were there. |
| |
| People seemed to come out of the woodwork to share their stories and
their spiritual healings. They even came to our home. I
could feel the Holy Spirit supporting me |
| and helping me because of
their willingness to be vulnerable. I prayed for a good attitude
and it came to me that I could have been hit by a truck on the way home
that day |
| instead of finding a lump. I still had time! What
a blessing! I wanted to live it out "in the blessing." |
| |
| God put many people in front of me to help me. And ...
amazingly, he still put me in front of others to help them ... in the
chemo waiting room, in the radiation area, in the |
| support groups,
and even in a couple of work peers who found lumps. It was hard to
tell who was helping who. It was my own crisis that let me peek
into a tiny bit of |
| what God sees. From there, I learned what
it felt like to have people up and down the east coast and across the
west coast, praying for me. Because of my struggles, I |
| had the opportunity to truly feel the momentum of prayer and how it
changes outcomes. |
| |
| I know things now that I only hoped were true before. God
really can use everything to strengthen us when we love him. I
read a wonderul book called |
| "Broken in
the Right Place," by Alan E. Nelson,
while I was pondering the whys... It taught me that God tames us
like we tame wild stallions who are beautiful to look at, |
| but not much good to the master who needs obedient horses to do his
work. |
| |
| The following is a quote from that book: |
| |
| "Those trials which do not break us, makes us
stronger. |
| Scottish patriarchs looking for walking sticks,
always passed over the untried wood |
| of the lower slopes, climbing to the weathered
heights to search for rods made strong by sotrm and wind. |
| For these young trees once fought the icy
Northers and with each fight they bent and twisted and |
| broke a bit inside. But gradually each
inner scar became the steely fiber, brought by every storm they indured. |
| These are the rods of God! |
| Ask Moses! |
| Such road can speak to a threatened Pharaoh, or
order Suez water-walls to let the children pass. |
| Such rods will make a cobra. Lightning
rises off their knobby heads. But do not let their majesty |
| delude you! These mighty rods were once
just spindly trees. Bless not the rod, but rather bless the |
| gales that broke their sinews, lacing them with
stone, 'till the storms they so despised had changed |
| them into scepters." |
| |
| While it is hard to "bless the gales," that are breaking our sinews,
we can relax in Christ, knowing he is making us strong and taming us to
help him to do his work. |
| |
|
