Goodbye

A WOMAN WITH A scarf over her head hoists her six-year-old up onto the first step of the school bus. "Goodbye," she says. 

A father on the phone with his freshman son has just finished bawling him out for his poor grades. There is mostly silence at the other end of the line. "Well, goodbye," the father says. 

When the girl at the airport hears the announcement that her plane is starting to board, she turns to the boy who is seeing her off. " I guess this is goodbye," she says. 

The noise of the traffic almost drowns out the sound of the word, but the shape of it lingers on the old man's lips. He tries to look vigorous and resourceful as he holds out his hand to the other old man. "Goodbye." This time they say it so nearly in unison that it makes them both smile. 

It was a long while ago that the words God be with you disappeared into the word goodbye, but every now and again some trace of them still glimmers through.  

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark

Goodbye

A WOMAN WITH A scarf over her head hoists her six-year-old up onto the first step of the school bus. "Goodbye," she says. 

A father on the phone with his freshman son has just finished bawling him out for his poor grades. There is mostly silence at the other end of the line. "Well, goodbye," the father says. 

When the girl at the airport hears the announcement that her plane is starting to board, she turns to the boy who is seeing her off. " I guess this is goodbye," she says. 

The noise of the traffic almost drowns out the sound of the word, but the shape of it lingers on the old man's lips. He tries to look vigorous and resourceful as he holds out his hand to the other old man. "Goodbye." This time they say it so nearly in unison that it makes them both smile. 

It was a long while ago that the words God be with you disappeared into the word goodbye, but every now and again some trace of them still glimmers through.  

-Originally published in Whistling in the Dark

Saint

IN HIS HOLY FLIRTATION WITH THE WORLD, God occasionally drops a pocket handkerchief. These handkerchiefs are called saints.

Many people think of saints as plaster saints, men and women of such paralyzing virtue that they never thought a nasty thought or did an evil deed their whole lives long. As far as I know, real saints never even come close to characterizing themselves that way. On the contrary, no less a saint than Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, "I am foremost among sinners" ( l Timothy 1:15), and Jesus himself prayed God to forgive him his trespasses, and when the rich young man addressed him as "good Teacher," answered, "No one is good but God alone" (Mark 10:18).

In other words, the feet of saints are as much of clay as everybody else's, and their sainthood consists less of what they have done than of what God has for some reason chosen to do through them. When you consider that Saint Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven devils, that Saint Augustine prayed, "Give me chastity and continence, but not now," that Saint Francis started out as a high-living young dude in downtown Assisi, and that Saint Simeon Stylites spent years on top of a sixty-foot pillar, you figure that maybe there's nobody God can't use as a means of grace, including even ourselves.

The Holy Spirit has been called "the Lord, the giver of life" and, drawing their power from that source, saints are essentially life-givers. To be with them is to become more alive.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words  

Sacrafice

TO SACRIFICE SOMETHING is to make it holy by giving it away for love.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words 

Sacrament

A SACRAMENT IS WHEN something holy happens. It is transparent time, time you can see through to something deep inside time.

Generally speaking, Protestants have two official sacraments (the Lord's Supper, Baptism) and Roman Catholics have these two plus five others (Confirmation, Penance, Extreme Unction, Ordination, and Matrimony). In other words, at such milestone moments as seeing a baby baptized or being baptized yourself, confessing your sins, getting married, dying, you are apt to catch a glimpse of the almost unbearable preciousness and mystery of life.

Needless to say, church isn't the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, at any place, and to anybody. Watching something get born. Making love. A walk on the beach. Somebody coming to see you when you're sick. A meal with people you love. Looking into a stranger's eyes and finding out they are not a stranger's.

If we weren't blind as bats, we might see that life itself is sacramental.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words