Abandon or Abandonment? I will go for the latter.

I spent this past weekend with great friends celebrating the upcoming marriage of our dear friend Clare. We were tourists in Boston for the day (although don't tell anyone but we mostly just looked in clothing stores), we had an incredible dinner at the Wayside Inn, stayed at their Carriage House Hotel overnight, and then had a grand brunch there the next morning.  While at brunch we met a couple sitting behind us celebrating their 57th wedding anniversary.  They were so cute together and chatted with us for quite some time.

I was struck by their gentleness toward the other. It was a real gift for all of us to see. 

That evening I went to church. The plan was to go in the AM all together but clearly getting the opportunity to sleep in because the kids were home won out! 

Mass can be hard now that Dad isn't here.  It is a place where I have lots of moments to really pray and think. During the week I kind of run away from this and distract myself in any way possible, clearly running from my feelings. I think about him constantly and in the quiet moments of prayer and reflection his face immediately pops into my mind and a real sadness takes over me.  Half the time tears will be going down my face and I will be worried that someone might see me.  

That very thing happened again this past evening at Mass. I was doing fine and then the cantor started singing the song, "Make me a Channel of Your Peace" and well, I kind of started to lose it. The last few words, "In giving to all we receive, in dying we are restored to eternal life" was what struck me.  I have heard this song a zillion times -- I thank going to a Franciscan High School for that. I thought, "Wow Dad! You were such a Franciscan at heart!" Dad gave of his life to serve others and to share the words of hope that Jesus Christ gave to all of us -- that we might die but by God's eternal love for us we pray that we too will be "restored to eternal life."

During the midst of this intense moment the elderly little Filipino man sitting next to me probably thought I was a little nuts, but how much of a great blessing this little man was to me last night. I will get to that later.

The First Reading was Exodus 17:3-7.  Basically the Israelites were not happy campers -- they felt abandoned by God and didn't understand why they had to leave Egypt. They had no water or food and were left feeling (they thought) completely alone.

I was looking over Dad's Bible study notes and he did a whole section on this very chapter of Exodus. I thought it interesting that in his notes he wrote, "C.S. Lewis, the fatal word, 'Encore.'" How I wish Dad had written more than just a little note on this! So, of course I googled  this phrase since clearly I am not a C.S. Lewis guru like Dad was. In Lewis' last work (published after his death) he wrote letters to a friend about prayer. He said, "Greed. Instead of saying, ‘This also is Thou,’ one may say the fatal word Encore." Well, clearly I wish Dad was here right now because I would say, "Dad, can you explain what the heck that means??" But I can't and I am definitely not going to try to give my own interpretation. I found though this one thing online from an author that I thought made some good sense of it. Basically that by constantly asking God for an encore all the time we are not really seeing what God has already given us -- thus making us greedy.

This is where the whole abandonment thing comes in. I thought to myself, I could feel abandoned by God for allowing Dad to die. But, I think deep down I know that as much as I might feel in a desert (like the Israelites), I know in my heart that the Lord has not abandoned me and if I just abandon myself to let go and give all my sadness to Him that there will be great freedom in that. That instead of feeling alone and lost I will feel part of a community filled with others who probably are struggling with the same exact thing -- that when we are hurting we just want to be alone but God will never let us be alone, ever! This was confirmed for me when the little Filipino man standing next to me outstretched his hand for me to hold it during the Lord's prayer. We are not alone!