Dear Family,
This afternoon (Sunday the 14th) as you recall, we have our Synod Gathering. As of last Sunday, we had around 30 people signed up for the session. I’m looking forward to the feedback. We also received written responses which we will feed into the mix.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A WRITTEN RESPONSE, YOU HAVE UNTIL THIS WEDNESDAY THE 17TH, TO GET IT YO THE OFFICE. THERE ARE COPIES OF THE QUESTIONS AT THE CHURCH DOORS.
Our representatives. Jill and Ed Rebholz and Maryellen Maher will work you in because the more input we have the better it will be.
Last Thursday, Veterans Day, gave us the opportunity to offer our gratitude and appreciation for all the people we know who served in the military. My brother, Dennis, was a career Navy man, and among other things flew in a PBY and ran the submarine detection equipment. He was a Master Chief, and according to him Master Chiefs ran the Navy. His service bridged the whole Vietnam era.
Nearly 60,000 U.S. military died in that war. Those were hard times for returning veterans because of the atmosphere that grew from opposition to that war and its continuance. It’s hard to believe that was more than 50 years ago.
I had the chance to visit that memorial in Washington, D.C. along with the other extraordinary memorials to men and women who died in war.
As I recall walking among the memorials, I remember feeling very challenged, trying to reconcile the nobility and beauty of those monuments with the reason for their existence in the first place. It was like saying if we can’t find a way to stop the horror of war death, at least let us honor the lives that could have been with beautiful memorials.
Lord, teach us to be grateful for all those who serve, in any and every capacity.
Someone remarked to me that when the vaccinated among us were able to “retire” our Masks at Mass, they had to stop for a moment because they didn’t recognize someone without a mask. I was still working on trying to recognize folks with masks.
Tomorrow, our Pastoral Council will meet to mull over the weighty matters of parish life in the coming months. Slowly but surely, we will move toward something resembling what we used to call “normal.” We’ll map out a tentative schedule and then hopefully, keep it.
Frank Krauser sent me some wonderful quotes from Will Rogers, but one of them seemed good for today. It was on aging, and Rogers said, “The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting for in line.” What made me think of it was wanting to thank the many of you who have been so good and cooperative about the spacing and masking and washing over the last 18 months.
There were a few people who just never quite seemed to get the memo. I’m not talking about folks who really had good reasons for not being able to follow all the recommendations exactly. But there are always the few who just could never get with the program. More than anything else, it just seemed to be a case of, “No one can tell me what to do.” Maybe their mothers didn’t train them to wipe their noses correctly.
I’d think to myself, “Just how selfish can you get?” Of course, now I’m becoming judgmental and all the things I really don’t want to be. And the sad truth is, I’m the only one responsible for the judgements I make. ...and so it goes. If it’s not masking, it’s something else, and all because I forgot another Roger witticism: “If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old.” We continue to age as gracefully as we can, and always trying to do it,
In Jesus,
