My Father's Father / The Civil Wars

This is completely haunting and beautiful to me, and speaks of the mystery of our past.  As I continue to research the history of my own family, 11 generations now in America, with members on opposite sides of the Civil War, these words have new meaning.

My Father's Father

I hear something hanging on the wind
I see black smoke up around the bend
I got my ticket and
I'm going to go home

The leaves have changed a time or two
Since the last time the train came through
I got my ticket and I'm going to go home

My father's father's blood is on the track
A sweet refrain drifts in from the past
I got my ticket and I'm going to go home

The winding roads they led me here
burn like coal and dry like tears
So here's my hope
My tired soul
So here's my ticket
I want to go home
Home
Home

My Friend Molly

Someday, I hope I get to meet Angela, who has written this beautiful piece about our family friend, Molly.....
 

Molly
She is the first reason
in 23 years
that I've ever had to wake up with the sun.
And her magic number is 21.

Born with an extra chromosome,
Molly is a miracle.

She loves musicals, math problems,
and literally refers to EVERY book she sees as her 'favorite'

Molly colors the world.

On ordinary days,
She reminds me to sing songs that aren't playing
And see things that aren't there.

At least, that is... to jaded eyes and ears like ours.

See, Molly has a gift:
She lives as if no one is watching.

A true freedom.

She lacks an ego,
Operates solely on love,
and doesn't respond well to anger.

She is hello hugs,
goodbye smiles,
and occasional slaps on the butt.

She is random questions
no; I mean REALLY random
(She once asked me what time Jesus was born)

She is beautiful compliments and peculiar observations.

Molly is bright purple boots, knee high socks, and umbrellas when its not raining.

She is cafeteria salads topped with,
of all things,
sweet relish.

She is chocolate milk.

Together, we are anything but 'disabled'
We are silly.
and it is not uncommon for both of us to laugh uncontrollably
when someone makes fart noises in the classroom.

I try to be an adult;
But it is hard when she makes the musings of childhood
seem so much more appealing.

We chase 'bad guys' around the track during gym,
and break into show tunes in the hallway,
and whenever she decides to
I let that girl dance.

because she is preserving my silly...
AND developing my patience.

Not every day is a bowl of cherries,
See, Molly likes to sass me from time to time.

She has an attitude that rivals my own,
and is not afraid to tell me,
straight up,
to "Get out of her face"

She is charming,
but some days she gets frustrated.

Not because she cannot communicate her thoughts,
but because we don't always speak her language.

I guess the only "down" to the syndrome
is that everyone else can't seem to catch up.

There is nothing 'disabled' about her.

The problem is with us;
see, the world likes to taint the beautiful with its "normal"

But Molly is a musical when the world is silent.

One of the goals of her education plan,
Is to become more "well-adjusted"

And I can't help but ask "...to what?"

To boring?
To egotistical?
To vain?

Molly is so many things that 'normal' is not
and because of that
I've yet to watch her interact with someone
who doesn't immediately fall in love.

She makes every day happenings anything but.

Once, at fifth period,
Molly was working on her times tables,
and I was taking notes...when in her loudest voice, with a smile on her face,
completely out of nowhere,
she yelled:
"Teach me how to fly!!"

..and after we laughed it off,

I picked her pencil up off the floor and said:

"ME teach YOU..?! Girl please,
you're the one with the wings...

now get back to work."
 
Angela Aguirre

Miles and Lilly

There is so much going on here in just 1:39, I could hardly begin to tell you.  But I will.  Begin, at least.

Beauty, simplicity, friendship, innocence, room for everyone to play, exploring new things, and love.  Lots of love. 

"This is Real"

The following is based on a true story.

Her life thus far, taken in the context of the all the possible kinds of lives of teenage girls, had been an easy one.

She had grown up in an affluent suburb of Southern California, gone to the finest private parochial schools, and had seldom touched real pain or loss.  Her parents were basically good people; her father a corporate attorney, and her mother an accountant turned community volunteer.  For her high school years, she had gone to a private, Catholic all girls high school on a mountain top, overlooking the green exclusive and private hillsides of her growing-up years.  Her grades were good, she had a nice group of friends, and  had been admitted at several highly ranked colleges.  She even attended mass.  Occasionally.  Everything was going along fine. 

But suddenly, in the final months of her senior year, a weekend came that would change her more than all the combined blessing of her charmed youth.  And it would happen in a place both expected, and, at the same time, entirely unanticipated.

Each year of high school, the girls would take a long weekend for a spiritual retreat, a time away from the busy rush of school, sports, and social life back home.  A two hour car ride away was a retreat center that offered a kind of separation from the rush of modern teenage life.  For many, if not most girls, this was not something particularly looked forward to; it was more of an obligation than an anticipation.  Some even counted the hours until it was over; bored by the lack of wireless connections, and the need for a "religious event".  Silence.  What could possibly happen of worth in a place that was known for its silence?

For many girls, these retreats were not given much thought.  A time away from the annoyances of family and studies, perhaps.  For others, this was merely a time to be with friends.  If the intent and setting was intended to be focused on faith, that was at best, tolerable.

And yet, in her senior year, even in the midst of this routine of routine religious practice, something happened to this girl that was surprising, transformational, and filled with joy.  Unexpected joy.  Over the course of several days, in the midst of a structure of reading, conversation with friends and leaders, from solitude and reflection, in the most unexpected ways for this girl, God became known, Jesus became present.  To even this high school senior girl with a "good life" and no apparent needs.

As the retreat weekend came to a close, this senior girl pondered the larger questions of her future away from home and off to college, and this new presence in her life.  What did this all mean?  She approached a retreat leader with these words:

"This is real.  All this conversation about God that I have heard, for all these years, that I never really thought much about.  If you take the time to think, and pray, and ask God.....it turns out, it's real!"

Real.  Over the past 32 years, since my senior year in college, this has been my experience as well.  Perhaps that is the reason my eyes filled with tears and my heart swelled when I heard this story.  And the same thing happens every time I hear a similar story of redemption and transformation.  The kind of business God is about on a daily basis.

This girl's story also made me think of the words of G. K. Chesterton in his book "Orthodoxy":

The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick-room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
 
Its real, my friends.  Real.

"The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots." - 1 Corinthians 1:17-18