Same title above, different texts
As Roman soldiers were there to arrest Jesus and after Peter had brought a sword to the Garden of Gethsemane at Jesus’ request, he used that sword to slice off the ear of a servant and Jesus stops to heal the servant. The purpose of Jesus in a single image.
Good Friday
The day Jesus was tortured and hung on a cross.
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief…
The grief of this world IS enormous.
I built the house in which I sit, something like 50 years ago. It wasn’t a terrific idea; in that I’d never built anything larger than an end table. I had spent the previous five years securing a degree in Architecture. Never wanted to be one; I wanted to draw [mechanical pencils, Back When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth]. The college I chose, was because my cousin went there, and it didn’t have illustration classes. I enjoyed Technical Illustration in high school; I assumed that a University ought to have Illustration classes. I chose architecture because I did not want to learn to be an artist. I’d heard about ‘starving artists’ for years. It seemed like an odd job choice.
So, I designed a house for my parents, hired a friend from college to help me get the house out of the ground, and as far as we could build before he went back to school in the Fall. His dad, a volunteer[?], taught me how to build what I had drawn. It was still a foolish idea, and I learned why it was a foolish idea while working for the Bureau of Buildings in Portland, for 14 years. Not Code Compliant.
My wife and I have been living here for 40 years. After my Dad died, Mom decided to buy a condo unit. We moved her out of this house into her condo unit, and us out of our rental to this house, and then to the hospital where our third child was born…
I started writing technical opinions while working for the City and continued after I left that job in 1998 and worked as a Code Consultant until the Pandemic. I started writing to my children shortly after our daughter was born—I realized I would never be able to discuss ideas with her for a long time.
Judy and I both have ‘visual filing systems’ a polite expression involving boxes all over the place. Some of the boxes haven’t been opened for years or decades. Some were filled again, days ago. In a box, last week, Judy found the words below. They are in my handwriting, back when my hands could be used for that work—I lost that ability a few years ago. I googled the text; it does not appear to be copied from someone else. It’s a little more ‘highbrow’ than I write now, but not “Inconceivable”—thank you, Princess Bride.
When a man has seen a light, or been captured by an ideal, or possessed by a dream, he must not rest until that light or that ideal or that dream has been shared with his fellowman.
He dare not hold that treasure for himself alone, or it will disappear as dew drops in the sunlight.
The sharing of dreams and ideals can be a very lonely business, and a few blessed souls must plead with the masses to look up at the light or to tune their ears to the voices of angels. For the angels are always singing and their light is always shining and only our human limitations cause us to miss them.
Thanks be to God for men and women who do see the light and who do hear the angelic sounds and dare to call the fellow man to share this blessing.
Maybe from a sermon, but unlikely—my notes were never that complete.
I find it difficult to see Wonder these days. My grandchildren help.
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 