The several days this past weekend brought significant “ups” and “downs” for me. I sincerely hope you have found “ups” to calm the “downs.”
“Downs” last weekend included page 8 of the morning paper: the obituary for the actor Matthew Perry. Mr. Perry was a key actor for the show “Friends.” He was called “the funniest person in the room” by many, and was a favorite of my daughter who has watched every Friends episode at least once.
To the left of the obituary was the story of how the residents of Maine spent their Sunday mourning after eighteen people were gunned down in the worst mass shooting in state history.
At the top of the page were stories about the 43 people from Mexico who died from a Category 5 hurricane named Otis, Brazil suffered the death of twelve people who died in the crash of a small aircraft, and finally, the “celebratory” reading of the names of Russian people killed by Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930’s.”
In case you are wondering, the status of war in the Middle East was on another page with plenty of the horrific details.
I found, for me, that with the news of horror and sudden unexpected deaths, there can be joyous times on a beautiful sunny and pleasant weather weekend.
My “ups” on Saturday started with the participation of our dog in a Halloween Pup Parade, a fund raiser for a walking and biking trail in our town. Our dog, Brody, was decked-out in a tuxedo which many of the people in the parade said was quite dignified. Brody walked the complete parade with his head held high and I was pleased to lead him.
On Sunday morning, I took on my role of Deacon at my church reading many prayers from the congregation with another Deacon. We offered to God these heartfelt messages with permission of the folks attending two of our worship services. I consider reading these prayers to be a privilege and an opportunity to reach out to people sharing gratitude for joys in their life, while others struggle with illness and grief and loss.
I also had three of my grandchildren, ages five and twins seven, on Sunday afternoon. They enjoyed making and eating their own pizza for lunch, playing on a playground, and eating some delicious ice cream. But perhaps the best part of the visit from these kids was their super loud screams when they saw their father’s truck parked in the driveway upon their arrival home. He was away from them this weekend and they made it very clear how much they missed him. Seeing their beautiful faces and hearing their booming voices of love and laughter touched me greatly.Friends, our world is struggling. We struggle with hate and violence. People are impacted by horrible fatal physical illness and mental health and losses. Yet our world also provides life lessons of compassion and love which, to some degree, help us smooth over the existing troubles. My sincere hope is that each of you can locate these life messages and be At Peace.
At Peace 