Over the hills and through the woods, to Grandmother's House we go. Song!
This was a big song with Grandmother's generation, my mother and my memories.
Today, we had a Memorial Service for my mother, Anne Anderson, in the Church she joined when my parents married in 1956. St. Michael and All Angels, Episcopal Church, Dallas, Texas. Seven decades saw my mother in vastly different aspects of life. And returning to the Church, as Dallas has vastly changed, from 300,000 people to a land of Skyscrapers, is still astonishing.
To walk in to St. Michael's and All Angel's Church, hear the Children's Choir practicing for Christmas, seeing the unchanging beauty, white vestments, Saints, is to feel spectacular comfort in a changing world. To feel spring will arrive after Christmas is Celebrated and Hope will become a New Direction for us All.
Heaven has Horses, here, and in Revelation, with other references in Scripture.
Interesting, these horses are faster than what we produce.
The Sermon was honest and loving and completely blessed.
Sorrow was overcome. We read passages about God overcoming Plague. So many aspects of Plague in our today, for all of us. And to know and believe and understand in the beauty of God's Loving Church, God will Win. And in this Glory, of His Love, we will all be Blessed. Glimpsing Abundant Life.
I felt and understood, this day so filled with emotion, so much better to pray with Father Greg. To hear the Music, to see the Holiness, to participate. To be filled with Love. To have hope and encouragement. This was to have encouragement in Community. The Communion of Saints.
This Celebration of Life created a Joy in Overcoming. Finding Plague doesn't win, God Wins. And will continue to Win. Continue to find Life worth Celebrating for not the sweet talk, but the meaningful path made by plowing with Courage and Hope. Determination and encouragement not to turn back from the plow. This was a spectacular Celebration of Life. Thanks to Father Greg and his heart telling of Jesus' Heart.
My family, like much of the Nation, covers different states. And we all know this isn't geography and is. To grow past our loving parental marriage, plunged into alcoholism and divorce, is to grow far apart to recover. Not unusual with the United States, openly understands substance abuse is 1 in 3 adults. Inside this situation, we also know the prayer life of our Nation is vast and personal. About 2/3rds of all of this Nation believe they know of answered prayers only God could provide. A Miracle, a Work of God. God displaying His Heart. Telling us like the days of Jesus, Grace up Grace, alive and sailing to His Work, God Himself is still upholding the fallen, the weak, the hopeful and the unaware. Blissfully, we know and believe and proclaim, God Loves to Encourage, make strong, embolden, comfort the world in Jesus Christ.
We have had a small rebirth. Wounds are healed. This Post is about my family. With the way being a little better, I thought I'd share this with you. Not that we are perfect or have grabbed hold of perfection. We are going on and hope to share some better news with you.
To gather as family, we have to do as God has done. And lay down the warfare of easy to do humanity. And finally, we find ourselves, not only willing but able to be on the High Road. To have done like the Prodigal Son, found time and memories with love and encouragement have made space for a basic ingredient - Love.
Ever just the same
Ever a surprise
Ever as before
Ever just as sure
As the sun will rise
Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
Bitter sweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
Tale as old as time
Dinner the night before Mother's Memorial was like most pre-memorials.
We dug out our, "what is hard to discuss." And surrounded this with the victories and hardships of four generations and touched on six generations. My grandmother Anita, b.1898, crossed Washington Parrish, Louisiana in two covered wagons to visit the beloved Grandmother Melissa.
We talked about the history of Great Grandfathers who had good, worthy, and personality accomplishments and one home-grown book by Grandmother Anita about her Pappa. Churches were built. Libraries created. A way forward for the family men to find employment and experience. But the women set the stage for the conversations and meals. Grandmother wrote a book of her Pappa. But he died in his early forties and his wife lived to be 100.
Lena, my grandmother's mother, passed on at age 100, was known to be relentlessly gardening, sewing and organizing the ten local adult children to have a noon luncheon for 20 ish people. For ... 62 years. No kidding. I asked my mother if she loved her grandmother. She replied she did, but wasn't sure Lena knew all the names of the 20 grandchildren. Lena had 12 children, 3 in her forties because the first daughter died suddenly at age 2, from strep throat. None of the other children would die. Pretty amazing. Lena and my great-grandfather quit having children because my grandmother's amazing and loving father passed on. Lena carried on with systems of organization and a great deal of determination.
My mother and grandmother would return to summers from Dallas to Franklinton and stay all summer.
Now Melissa, (don't you love ageless first names?!) was the one they all clamored to visit. Babies were born to travel to Melissa Burch. Maxine, died in 2010, discussing Great-grandmother Burch. Cousins clamor for a photo of the pretty house from 1840. Both Lena and her mother Melissa generate - Love. This was holding up all the children. And my grandmother grew from this basic ingredient - Love.
Grandmother Anita came over, we all watched men land on the Moon. On a Console TV. And Grandmother lived the indignity of not being given her just respect due to aging. And looking back on this hardship, her hard won life was her Victory. Given by her faith and determination in Jesus Christ.
Then our Reverend Wm Tate died in 1978, and the family seemed to splinter into 'do what you feel.' Some parts of the family have seen each other a dozen times in decades. Suddenly, in Pandemic, we needed to find out how the quilt of family, distress, Victories and time held us up in God and together.
And as we found shared memories and understanding forged family, we found new tragedies created need for understanding and Love. Now, with this shared uptick, we then had fall out fights. Some were ridiculous. We had to maintain our boundaries and not roll over to be mushy. Nor uncaring. We had to find new paths instead of the dog worn out easily ruts. Jesus wasn't kidding when He said turn the other cheek. We don't just love ourselves, we love others, and, then we love ourselves again. Jesus said prayer is going to a friend at midnight and being persistent. Not oozing in fake halos. Finding out why the friend was going to help the uncomfortable request in a time of comfort. The Scriptures aren't platitudes, the Scriptures are telling us of the Human condition of suffering from and for one another. The prayer at midnight was about Hope. Being turned down. Even for a loaf of bread.
Boundaries. No boundaries on earth are the basic geometric shapes. Boundaries instead are shaped like the proverbial bear hunt we have all sung about. Just like the statistics tell us about life. The New Testament tells us, all, if we are slaves, to find life in our slavery. Slavery to employment, miserliness, unfriendliness, hard work, unemployment, scant friends and the need for meaningful life. Boundaries, facts, and Living Word of God.
Even building to my mother's memorial, in short weeks, we have had: 4 sets of Covid to vaccinated people, employment change, victory, challenges, frank sharing of real life, a possible change in address and state. A medical ICU stay. The new understanding of depth of feeling. A major and permanent rift. A rift allowed to have the right of way. A healing of a misunderstanding and end of a rift. Boundaries are being - forged. And with Love - we are going to cover a multitude of miffy and of permanent to find solutions.
Malachi 3
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.
4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
6 “For I the Lord do not change;
Therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.
13 “Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ 14 You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? 15 And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”
16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
Behold, to be a land of delight, to be called blessed by the Lord of Hosts, to what shall we aspire?
We rely upon the Lord's gracious favor. His willingness to be forgiveness. His Steadfast Love and Mercy. As we stand on New Year's Eve, we willingly ask for the windows of heaven to open and pour down a blessing until there is no more need.
What kind of offering shall we give HIM? May the words of my lips and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing and acceptable to You, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Luke 18:13
The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
2 Kings 22:19
Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD.
1 Peter 3:4
Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
How shall we approach the LORD. Isaiah wondered.
Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying:
"I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness."
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
1 Corinthians 7:35
I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.
Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Acts 16:1-40
Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily ...
Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
“They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him."
God Himself Bless, Sustain, Comfort, Guide
Jesus Christ Live in us.
Help us to seek You first.
Amen!
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