Religion

My name is Scott, and I’m old enough to be your dad unless you’re super-young, in which case I’m old enough to be your grandpa. I love you, so I want to tell you something to encourage you today. (If you’re an older person reading this, please consider sharing what I’ve written here with the young people in your life.)

Coming out of three years of forced isolation, were do we begin to rebuild our sense of community? Community is the one thing that is important and universal to our shared humanity. Community gives us our sense of belonging in the world. It provides for us our special place in the world. Community connects us to the world.

The other day, I was talking to a coworker about how some people can predict the weather with their bodies or their arthritis, or at least knowing when a storm front is approaching. His wife developed this ability after a couple major surgeries. She was saying she felt as if a martial arts fighter had punched her in the gut really hard. He pulled up a weather radar image, showing rain on the horizon.

I love Sundays; they bring their own sense of relaxation. Sundays at our house are set aside for more time with God and each other as a family. In a sense it’s much like a mini vacation; it gives us a breath of fresh air and rejuvenation for the week ahead. Isn’t it amazing that even God rested after six days of work? His example, coupled with teachings in the Scripture, gives us a day off with no feelings of guilt about all the work waiting for us.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:”

Okay, what I would really like is an open house and host all of you for a meal, get acquainted, and the like. I know it’s impossible, but I won’t stop wishing for it. Daniel was bound and determined that we should travel to Ohio or somewhere closer to you to allow me to meet you. He was going to make it happen by this year, but plans have changed since he went to heaven. We’ll see what comes together- one day.

Opening the mailbox back in late April, letters filled it up on this particularly heavy mail day. Nestled in the very back corner and folded into the many letters though sat an envelope. The envelope had a handwritten address on the outside and a neatly embossed return address in the front top corner. This envelope was by no means junk. It was important.

Owning sheep has been a dream of mine for years.

A gravestone isn’t something I ever gave much thought to, it’s something I thought was distant and in the future, but events last year changed that.

I read a book a long time ago called “Praying Our Goodbyes” by Joyce Rupp, OSM. That book has never left me. At the time I was facing a change in my life. I was having to say goodbye to something that was very familiar and turn to something that was completely unfamiliar. Sometimes, I think we stay in an uncomfortable, unhealthy situation because at least it is known. Knowing is better than not knowing or at least it is predictable.