Today starts my least favorite week of the year- Mothers Day and Gabriel's birthday. I woke up so tense and my entire body aches. There are such physical symptoms associated with grief! I am going to really try to practice relaxation techniques this week and try to avoid unnecessary stress. And I think I'll start by unfriending my husband's aunt on facebook who feels the need to come to my wall and start spouting politics. And by scheduling a massage.
I have noticed a difference in how I pray after the death of Gabriel. I no longer feel I can ask for things specifically. I do not feel I can pray for situations to be resolved or for things to work out how I want. Instead, I find that I pray that I am given the strength to deal with whatever the situation is. Just another way my son has changed me.
Ok, this one is pretty religiousy, needfully so. But there's one part I want to tell you about.
I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop open, holding my phone in my hand, when I read Jesus' words. I'm waiting for my mom to text me, as I scanned through this list of all who are blessed. Some of them are the most unlikely characters: the poor in spirit, the meek, the contrite, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst to be good and upright people. Those who are abused. It's strange how the words of Scripture can travel. And these blessings in particular have made an incredible voyage. Jesus spoke the words, while sitting on a mountain.
"Be the comfort you want to see in the world"
Since Christmas Day has just passed, I have an obligation to remind you of what you already know: "Christmas is not just one day of the year! It is a whole season. There are twelve wonderful days of Christmas!" It's my job as a preacher to say that; but, now, here's a confession. I don't care how many times I countdown that holiday song...the one with the drummers drumming and the ladies dancing and the swans a-swimming...all the way down to today, "on the second day of Christmas," with its duet of doves...though I know it is still Christmas...in a way...it feels lik
Her keening came from the depths. I had never heard a sound like it, nor have I heard a sound like it since. She walked to the coffin and looked in on her beloved son and wailed, a deep primordial call to God, to the ancients, to her child--to the still, cold body. She called from out of her depths.
A little over a year ago Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, was assassinated. Bhutto had recently returned to her country following several years of exile. She was a leading voice calling for democracy and change in Pakistan. Following a large campaign rally, as many people crowded around her vehicle, shots rang out and a suicide bomber detonated a bomb. Many of her supporters died along with her in the senseless violence. Photographs taken at the scene were on the covers of newspapers around the world. The picture on the front of the
