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Call me blessedMonday, December 22, 2008
Luke 1:46-50
"From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation."
I listen to the howling wind outside. It has been howling for hours. I remember the way my dad wore long underwear and overalls and at least two coats, always blue denim; and I remember how he walked out of the house into the winter dawn to break ice off the water so our cattle could drink, and to feed them ground corn (or to grind it), and of course to do the milking. He got sick, like we all do. He had pneumonia, he had back problems, he got the flu. But the cows were milked twice a day. Year after year after year. Mary felt God's blessing deep down inside her, touched as she was by the Holy Spirit. Even as she was shunned by her friends she could praise God with Elizabeth. She could know that we would call her blessed. She knew better than anyone what God was doing inside her, what he would do through her, what Jesus would bring to her people, to all the people. God said thousands of years earlier, "Through painful toil ... by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, for dust you are ..." (Genesis 3). Jesus would be changing that. He died, but did not return to dust. And neither will my dad. Jesus ascended into heaven. And so has my dad. This is what you give us, Lord, what you have made for us. No bangs, no whimpers, no dust to dust, but something new, something like morning that never ends, something we can only glimpse far off, touch a tiny wisp of, your life in us forever ... Jesus. |
Inside in the warm. Lights blazing, furnace firing up, and I have to sit awhile without moving to just simply remember the possibility of not being tightened-up cold and nearly frozen. Gradually my mind clears.