The Return

If you know me, you may think the title is about the return of Jesus. 

Nope. 

This is about my return to my childhood home on Lake Huron in Michigan (pointing to thumb). 

It's been a bit over...many...years and I've hardly changed:

I was showing Oldest Son photos yesterday and it struck me how often our riding lawnmower made an appearance. In Michigan a riding lawnmower doubles as a snowplow in the winter. There's an attachment you can get that shoves snow into giant mounds. Think: I am the king of the castle. Here my Dad is pulling my sister and I around on a toboggan. In the American South a toboggan is a woven hat. Up north it is a long wooden sled curled up on the front end like an elf's shoe.

Those were dark days when even the children worked. According to the date on the photo, my sister was 7 here. That can't be right. She was paid $1 an acre to mow our yard, but that was when she was about 12 I think. Maybe she is just playing here. That's me on the swingset, not working. Dad with rake. He worked too. We all worked and everyone smoked and no one wore seatbelts. How did we survive? 

My sister has hardly changed either, by the way. It's uncanny! 

My sister seems to have worked a lot, while I am a lady of leisure even then:

I'll be home soon. 

The house is a vacation rental these days and hubby and I are taking our now grown kids to see it. I won't make them mow the yard. Promise. 

But I will post pictures!

Tito's Grave

 

Vladimir Vladimirovich sat in front of the stone. On one side Ti, the beginning of the first name, was visible and on the other, To, at what seemed to be the end of the last name. A small 1836 could be made out at the bottom. The rest of the tombstone had been weathered smooth. Behind it a tree grew. It was tall enough to have been growing when the man was alive, but strong and fresh like it was new. Beyond the field of this lone grave was a house, the ruins of it rather. It appeared to have been a castle at one time. Great stones stood there too, like this one, some perched against the others, some by themselves on the ground. 

"Why am I here?" Vladimir asked nobody. 

No one answered, but he already knew why he was there, to say good-bye. All he knew of Tito was chiseled on this slab and mostly worn away. He knew the memory better than he knew the man. Somehow the impact of its presence was profound. It reminded him to count his days. Comparing himself, his life felt fleeting and small. VV wondered what would be said on his burial marker and how long into the future it would be read. Would it be only the first and last letters of his name, like Tito's, VL and CH? Valch? He smiled at the absurdity of it.

How would he be remembered? Kindness to a friend, or unkindness. Celebrations. Songs. Sunrises. Good blackberry jam. He thought of his wife and his daughters.

Did Tito know God? Did this man wealthy enough to have a carved memorial and a castle, if it had been his, take the time to know the most important thing or had he been rushed through life planting all the daisies and picking none? There was no mention of the Almighty on the inscription, though it may have been washed away by the sands of time and the distractions of life like in many lives. VV set his mind then and there that not only would Valch remain on his stone, but a message too. Maybe not even Valch. Maybe only the message. What would it be? Seek God while He may be found. That was how Vladimir Vladimirovich hoped to be remembered. All else would fade away. Everything goes. 

What had happened since the beginning, the beginning, and 1836 and now? Vladimir wondered about life. We see the sun a number of times, then we are gone.

***

Vadim Shefner 

Moment

Don't get used to miracles - 

Marvel at them, marvel! 

Don't get used to the skies, 

Reach out to them with your eyes. 

Look closely at the clouds, 

Listen to the birds, 

Apply to the springs, 

Nothing will be repeated. 

Moment by moment, step by step 

Fall into amazement. 

Everything will be so - and everything will be different 

In one moment.

Do you ever dance on air?

 

Deeply Moved

 

John 11:38-44

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see  f the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out,  l his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It's true, this story. 

He has raised the dead. Surely He can raise the living.

God has not Forgotten You

 

Yoram opened the door and found his young son studying the Jewish scriptures, the Tanakh, and the Christian New Testament. His heart was bruised by it and he demanded an explanation.

"I have found something, Father," the boy said respectfully.

"What did you find?"

He steadied himself and said clearly, "Father, He is the Messiah. He is the one sent to our people. We are His people. He is one of us."

Is. The word stung Yoram. Did his son now believe this man had been raised from the dead?

"I do," he said.

Yoram's mind filled with all he had been taught about why Jesus is not the Messiah. Words, diagrams, books and archaeology. He was furious and in mourning and afraid for his child. He reached out his hand for the New Testament. He meant to destroy it. 

His son gently closed the book and simply handed it to him.

He said, "It's yours, Father."

Yoram's heart changed as he took hold of it. Now all he wanted was to read it for himself.

“In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”

John 8:17-18

 

Pay attention to the problems that make themselves yours.

Jordan Peterson

 

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

And my soul sings!

To All Who Celebrate (and those who don't!)

 

Happy Passover!