Tag Archives: Ring it

It used to bother me (more) — how I once observed Lent, compared to the present: just going with the flow, on the outside.

It used to bother me (more) — how I once co-celebrated the limousine waiting outside of the church doors of a Saturday morning, compared to this invisible eye-roll of so many years.

It used to bother me (more) — how in reading of a new baby, I would one day, along with rejoicing, come to pray that the parental disappointments to come would hold off for a long, long time.

A parish priest once likened the distancing — call it whatever one will: disillusionment, lukewarmness, or even acedia — to a happy couple when first dating. She couldn’t get close enough to the driver, all snuggled up at his beloved side, even were a pickup truck’s stick shift impeding perfect knee alignment. Then, come a few years later, we see the same couple but they’re on each side of the truck’s bench seat… The priest said, “Well, who moved?”

Indeed, it is not God Who moved away.

So, it used to bother me (more) — how I grieved so hard that my children were the ones who moved; it wasn’t the Sacraments who did so! At the very least, these will be their loving parents, once we’re gone.

It used to bother me (more) — how the joy and trust rushed forth seemingly honestly, compared to this nodding to the holy dirge that Leonard wrote so well (which I try to hide everywhere but here).

This is one reason we cannot let go of the importance of the arts in our lives, because, yes, the crack in everything IS how the light gets in. It’s the brutally honest light that darkness does not and shall not grasp. The light that says through all the cracks through all the ages, both, “Father, forgive them…” and “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may also be.”

❤️
.
.
.
—
.
.
.