2009
This has been one of the most difficult years of my life. It was the thirtieth anniversary of my father’s death and my grandfather, the one who who be my father and confidant for my formative years, passed away. Megan’s grandfather passed away a couple days after Christmas; he was the one who represented refuge to so many. It was a incredible change professionally, with my new appointment and Megan’s return to work outside the home. There have been friends who were distanced and relationships changed seemingly forever. Today, we asked the veterinarian to put our cat of 15 years to sleep.
Leonardo da Vinci said, “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.” How I have contemplated my own living this last year. As a young person, I used to fear death as an end, but, as I have experienced it this year, death is a beginning to the knowledge of the essence of life itself. Flowers at a funeral, a 21-gun salute, apples on a head-stone, a robe hanging in my closet, an empty dish, these are mere beginnings of how I ought to live: blossoming, celebratory, sentimental, sacramental and satisfied. Maybe, just maybe, if I live fully in the present, I would be a better husband, father, son, brother, pastor . . . well, person.
Zen Buddhists have something to teach Christians: how to let go. Letting go does not mean forgetting; it is an embrace of what’s actually here and now. Memories, friendships, relationships, grace, to name a few. Maybe that’s what Jesus was saying in his parable of the worker’s in the vineyard. As the story goes, a manager of a vineyard hired workers all day long, morning, noon, and night. The manager paid each of the workers the same wage, no matter how long they worked. Let’s pick up from Matthew 20, “Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last’ (vv.10-16, NRSV). God is good, all the time. No matter my wage, or my stage, or my malaise, or my praise, God promises to be in the depths and in the heights.
Happy New Year.
May the God who promised to walk with the enslaved, the ex-slaves, the lost, the found, the weak, the powerful, the hungry, the filled, continue to walk. From dust I came, to dust I will return; in the meantime, I’d like to make a pretty big dust storm: blowing on the winds of Justice, whirling on the swirls of Grace, and rising on the up-drafts of Hope.