The Good We Do Never Dies

The oven at Maggie’s home never worked and her front two burners flamed like a torch. A Sonshine Friend forwarded an email with the message that he had purchased a new oven for Maggie. However, the night before the installation, I was informed that the store does not install ovens that have propane gas. Did I know someone who could install the oven with its propane conversion kit? Now the fun begins…

Beginning at midnight and until eight in the morning, I received five plumber referrals. However, only two out of the five called me back but they were either too booked up or her home was outside their service area. Now comes “the good that never dies.” Enter Harry, a generous and talented Christian man.

He goes on YouTube the night before the delivery to learn how to install the conversion kit. I’m returning from a crisis in Rochester and received a phone call that the delivery truck was at her home, but the men refused to take the old oven away. It was in their contract, but just another hurdle to jump.

Harry arrives and we grab some tools and together drive to Maggie’s rescue. The oven was still wrapped in its box, sadly the delivery men came and left. We unboxed, found the conversion nuts, but of course did not have the correct metric screw driver, so off to Ace Hardware to get some tools.

Next hurdle was the frozen bolts from many years of rust, and Harry pulled with all his strength with my pipe wretch until it broke loose. Some screw cement to make contacts secure, test all burners to be safe and Maggie had her new oven. She simply said after ten years of no working oven “now she could bake a cake.”

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who make no excuses but make the time to help those in need. Thank you, Harry for being Christ and an inspiration in a time when good deeds never die, and live on forever, for other people, for other places, and for another time.

You're So Sweet

I have come home from the funeral Mass for my dear friend, Jeanette. The image I have of her is sitting on the left side of the chapel in the Neuman Center for Sunday Mass together with best friends at her side, Walter, Anne and Fran.

When a family member, Brockport College colleague, student or neighbor would visit her at her home or the assisted living center, she would be sitting in her chair with tons of paperwork on her bed. Her first words in your direction, “Oh, you are so sweet” it was her gratitude for taking the time to visit and shares stories. Her bed was full of paperwork, she was working on several projects that included scholarship funding for students. She had a passion that students should be given every opportunity to succeed in life and that included getting closer to the Lord. Her passion was a belief that young people need our support and never leave anyone behind. She wished  that each student would grow in mind and spirit in an environment that nourished their intellectual and spiritual life to be the best person they could be.

Jeanette shared that she was grateful for her doctors who kept her going with their medicines and treatments but she told them that she was ready.

This meant that she was at peace with her decision because she had learned from her Lord to mend the wrongs when relationships gone south. Not every wrong can be righted, not every relationship can be healed, but she did her part to convey the mercy and love of her Lord to all her family and friends.

I firmly believe that all who shared fellowship with Jeanette are a better person for in her presence we have walked in the house of our God.

We pray… “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Luke 2:29-30.

Now before I ended this reflection, I overheard the local wildlife outside having a “yelling” match that sent one kitty up a tree, a very tall tree. Here’s Jeanette smiling and telling me “get that poor thing off the limb before its hurts itself.” So this priest farmer, gets his ladder, but it’s too short. Mind you, Jeannette is having a wonderful time telling the kitty to hold on, “Father Matt will be right up.”  Of course, I climb up the ladder and starts pleading, “please come down Velvie.” Yes, we have personal names for all our wildlife.

 Now I know Jeanette is here because when I pulled the ladder away from the tree, Velvie gingerly starts her way down the tree. Good kitty, and finally she jumps off the last branch, while I’m trying to coax her down into a kitty crate to take her to the vet.

At that precise moment, I heard Jeanette whisper in my ear: “You’re so Sweet.”

How Unlikely Is Your Love?

The best part of Superbowl are the commercials. We taped the game for the commercials and selected our favorite ads. The Doritos commercial featured a horse who shook his head in a gesture that said “no way” when the cowboy turned to him about doing a dance.

Our other winner was a Jeep commercial that featured the comedian Bill Murray running around with his ground hound. At the end of the commercial, Bill speaks to the ground hound and says: “I forget where I parked the car because I was following you.”

Having a sense of humor might be the secret in putting people back in the pews. It contagious that people will come back for the laughter and hear stories about Jesus’ compassionate love. 

For Christmas, I was given a book called “Unlikely Loves”, a collection of stories of animals who crossed the lines between species, to create bonds of love and friendship.

A Great Dane in Canada found an orphaned baby fawn near the house, and took charge of raising it till it was old enough to go back to the forest – but the grown deer came back for tender reunions every now and then.

A homeless dog in Florida found its way to a farm that rehabilitated abused horses, and took one particularly ill and beaten horse into its heart.  Together, they dug a hole under the fence that separated them, so the dog could lie near the horse and guard it, a relationship that lasted till the horse died, and then the dog accompanied the horse to its grave.

Jesus taught not to reject, insult, treat angrily, or murder one other, seems to fly in the face of reality, until we look at our animal examples of the behavior he is calling for, behavior which took place in situations where the humans would not have expected it, encouraged it, or objected to animal aloofness. 

Sadly, common is the hush with which people speak of a divorce, afraid if it were known in the congregation they would endure snubs, frosty looks, suspicion.  Once, before church, a person spouted off about ‘the trouble with the world today is divorce!’  I remember a long-divorced single mom of two, wilting in pain.  I spoke up, “Sometimes a divorce is the best thing to do – and some single moms are doing a fine job with their kids.” 

Divorce, in Jesus’ day, was different in that women had no ability to own homes or earn money, nor could they inherit any. Jesus, chastising men for divorce in the Sermon on the Mount, gave the first cup of eternal life to a woman who had had five husbands.  And Jesus, in his day, stood protectively within the stoning circle with an adulteress.

Who are we to withhold blessing for love avowed, and who are we to refuse the confession of those whose love has died?

Valentine’s Day brings these questions:
Who do you love?
Who will you let interrupt your life with their needs?
Who will you defend, in grave danger?
How unlikely is your love?

So God Made a Rectory Housekeeper

And on the 9th day, God looked down on his planned paradise in North Java and said, “The pastor needs a caretaker”. So God made a rectory housekeeper. 

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn and put the coffee on in the rectory, then come over to church to say their morning prayers and return to the rectory and make breakfast for the pastor, work all day, plan meals, make the beds, clean the rooms, answer the door, shop for healthy food and the pastor’s favorite snacks. Then wash the laundry, have dinner ready when father returned from his communion calls, and then go to the lady’s church meeting to plan the next fund drive to make baked goods for the school and leave on the kitchen table a bedtime snack after father returned from another late night parish meeting. So God made a rectory housekeeper.

I need somebody with arms strong enough to keep up with the pastor yet gentle enough to cuddle their newborn baby from her home. Somebody to run for parts for the custodian, help in the fields, move trucks, deliver meals, look the pastor in the eyes and tell him ‘The people love you for all your kindness and the community you built – and mean it”. So God made a rectory housekeeper.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with their newborn baby. And raise her right. I need somebody who can use a wrench and know where to find it, doesn’t mind getting dirty, who can remove stains, and keep a house clean. 

God had to have somebody willing to make appointments and change plans and be ready in a minute’s notice and yet would never stop and complain about this way of life. So God made a rectory housekeeper.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clean windows, vacuum the rooms, scrub the potties, empty the trash then come over to church to dust the statues and pews and clean linens for Sunday services, and then make more baked goods for the next parish fund drive and pack bags of food for the poor, yet gentle enough to raise kids and bottle feed the newborn kittens and tend to the house, who will drive the car to doctor appointments and pray to God about the weather. It had to be somebody who’d be able to handle her own house and church work and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and wash and dry, cook and clean and remember scheduled events and feed the pastor and stock the cupboards and finish a hard week’s work with a pray on Sunday for her family, her kids and all the people she welcomed in the rectory in gratitude for all the gifts she had received from the Lord.

Somebody who’d held her family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, a strong faith and love for God, and all her neighbors in North Java, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when her kids say they want to spend their life “being kind and generous to all because that’s what a mom does.” So God made a rectory housekeeper.