“One of the most convicting things I have recently come to realize about
Jesus is that He was never, not once, in a hurry.”
Mark Buchanan,
Your God Is Too Safe: Rediscovering the Wonder of a God You Can’t Control
(blooming lilly / Julie Cook / 2018)
It was Sunday evening after a long busy day—
7:30 PM, and I was sitting in my car in the Publix shopping center
in Atlanta near dad’s house, aka my son’s, waiting for my daughter-n-law who
had run in the store.
She had run in to pick up a few items for my son who would be staying behind
while the rest of us hit the road back home to Carrollton.
Ode to the logistics of our lives right now.
We’d spent the day visiting my dad’s side of the family…they all had wanted my
94-year-old aunt to be able to “get to know” her new great, great niece.
My aunt is in a word, a hoot.
She’s never met a stranger.
She is elegant and high class yet one of the funniest people you’d have the
pleasure of spending time with.
She still drives, solo travels, drinks… and yes…smokes regularly.
And has been a widow now for nearly 10 years.
She’s old school Atlanta and old school southern.
But not pretentious whatsoever.
She was my dad’s sister-n-law who had married, what I always said, was the better
of the two brothers.
She married the older and more “normal” of the two—and so we’ll leave it at that.
Growing up, I did feel a bit intimidated by her and their whole side of the family
as my parents were quieter, more subdued and not social whatsoever.
We were a more casual family, more simple and yet more splintered and dysfunctional.
Yet she always went out of her way to make me feel welcomed and a part of their clan
when I’d be sent off for weekends to spend time with my older cousins.
There are only two of my dad’s “people” who remain—his sister-n-law and his first cousin,
both now in their mid 90’s.
Today, it was my cousins and me who are now the grandparents…
Complete with greying hair, extra pounds, wrinkles, pains, and wobbles.
These are the days, these sorts of gatherings, of which are now both few and far between,
which only make me long for day’s long gone…
Yet as I sat in the parking lot of the grocery store, I grabbed my phone and pulled up
the latest homily offering by my favorite rouge Anglican Bishop.
It was a homily offered for the third Sunday after Easter and focused on the
Resurrected body of Christ and the Renewed Mind…
A comfort as I sat in my car, on a chilly, wet Sunday evening,
ruminating over the whats that once were, as I sat pondering those yet unanswerable whats will be…
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