Well, today it is raining and a wonderful time for it to start since we spent all last week playing hosts to our kids who were visiting.  We walked the Mall and the Monuments, went to the Smithsonian and quietly strolled the halls of the National Art Gallery.  It was a beautiful time and one we will not soon forget.

Our son’s girlfriend had never been to the East Coast, so of course, we had to try to include everything.  And, of course, that’s totally impossible.  To add to all the excitement of the city itself, the kids did some preliminary work and scheduled a “gig” at a DC night club.  They came ready to play guitar and sing for a totally new crowd.  And, it was fun to play tourist and go to see them perform.

We enjoyed the singing; walking; conversation; bus riding; sight seeing; eating; and even watching movies together in the evenings after we were completely spent.  Their excitement and enthusiasm allowed us to see our surroundings with new eyes.  Their presence and their joyful attitude were grace.

Receiving guests and being hosts was grace as well.  Who can you host and share grace with?  Who allows you to see with new eyes?  Make some plans today to spend some time with them.

And, still I wait!  But, in the meantime over the long weekend we had a lovely side trip through seven states:  DC; Maryland; Delaware; New Jersey; New York; Connecticut  and Pennsylvania.  It was intended to take our minds off of waiting.  And, it did the trick, as well as being beautiful! Fall was in full display and we enjoyed many points of interest as well as the lovely countryside.  More about our trip and the graces we encountered in the future.

But, about the still waiting:  Our son and his girlfriend are finally in the air and on their way to visit.  I got a call early this morning to say they had missed their flight, which means they missed their connecting flight, which means . . .

But through the grace of a sympathetic airline scheduler, they were able to get other connections getting them here only one hour later!

So those of you who come here regularly, I will be suspended for about 5 days while I enjoy their company and show them the sights of this fair city.  Come back in a week and I’ll have stories to tell.  Grace abounds!

There is a line from a song – long forgotten now who sang it or even the name of the song – that keeps floating through my head these days.  The line says “I’ve waited longer for lesser things.”  Why does this keep coming back to me now?  Because I’m waiting.

Much of our days seem to be taken up with waiting as there are few things in this life that are instant.  The challenge for us is to use this time of waiting to our advantage.  That sounds much easier than it actually is.  But we are encouraged to make the most of each moment and to find the grace that is disguised in the waiting.

This interminable waiting could be a call for us to be ever more attentive to the environment around us and to deepen our appreciation for what is.   It could be an invitation for us to simply “be” and not to worry about the past or the future, but simply “be” in the present moment without trying to design tomorrow.  It could be an exercise in sharpening our desire by asking ourselves:  do we really desire what we are waiting for?  Or, it could be an opportunity to divert our attentions to other things and not be so consumed with the waiting.  Yes, it does sound so much easier than it actually is!

And yet, there is grace in this moment also.  Wait with grace.  Perhaps this time is an invitation to make the very time of waiting itself a prayer.

How would you describe the grace of movement over the passage of time?

There are no better words to describe how Vatican II moved through the church than these by John W. O’Malley, S.J. taken from an article in National Catholic Reporter this week titled Vatican II has already made us free by Robert Blair Kaiser.

Kaiser says “The council moved us to a new vision of the church.”  And, in the words of O’Malley that movement was

“. . . from commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to service, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptance to active engagement, from fault finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principled, from behavior modification to inner appropriation.”

I can only pray that this movement continues to grace the church and that we continue moving in these directions.

What are we doing to make sure the momentum of this graced movement continues?

Fall has brought with it a flurry of activity here in the neighborhood.  There are jackhammers, saws, bulldozers, mowers and trimmers all abuzz from morning until night.  It seems Fall is the time to put things back in shape, renew them, revitalize, renovate, and restore them to some previous picture of quality.

With so much activity all of the sudden, I can’t help but think what I need to be working on.  What should we be doing with these Fall days to make ourselves renewed, restored, and back in shape?

I know there are any number of things I should be doing – like continuing to exercise, getting adequate sleep, reading and praying, and all the regular suggestions.  But, what might we need to renovate on a deeper level?  What might we need to reconstruct so that we might be able to be the picture of quality that God intends for us to be?

Is it a renewed sense of forgiveness with the actions to accompany it?  Or, perhaps, is it a restored relationship that we have let languish with the passage of time?  Could it be revitalized communication with co-workers or neighbors?  Or, perhaps, is it a deeper commitment to life in the Spirit and a discipleship that lives and acts on what it believes?

Perhaps this Fall would be a great time to take up the grace of renovation and ask ourselves what needs to be renewed and reshaped in our own lives.  The jackhammers, saws and bulldozers will provide the background music for our efforts.

My walk this morning has been preempted by the rain – three solid hours of it.  And, I’m not talking about the misty, delicate, light rain of the Northwest.  This is real rain with a beat, a rhythm, a cadence, and real volume running down the streets and sidewalks.

The temps are still very mild and I have all the windows open so the sound of the rain is overwhelming.  I’m reminded of a story a friend told me years ago.  She said when she was a little girl she had a teacher (a religious Sister) who had once stopped the class in the middle of the lesson because it had begun to rain.  Sister asked the students to put their books away and lay their heads down on the desk and just listen to the rain.

What a beautiful grace-filled lesson!  And my friend never forgot it.  Years after I learned of that story, I met this Sister and she became my Spiritual Director for a time.  She was filled with great spiritual wisdom and deep and beautiful suggestions for how to recognize, see, listen and talk to God.  And, I have never forgotten her.  I think of her often, but especially whenever the rains pour down so steadily that I can think of little else.

Who are the people who have taught you to recognize, see, listen and talk to God?  Say a prayer of thanks for the grace of their presence in your life.  And let the rain continue to dance and sing.

There is grace in anticipation and it can be an incredible gift.  We are expecting our son and his girlfriend to arrive a week from tomorrow and I find myself filled with anticipation – the good kind.  It’s a feeling of excitement and of not being able to wait until they get here.

There are so many things we want to share with them about our life here and so many things to talk about and to catch up on . . . like how their life has been and the new things they are doing and accomplishing.   And I am filled with anticipation for the four days we will have together.

What do you anticipate?  There is grace in anticipation and it can be an incredible gift.

Still getting accustomed to the weather patterns here, the thunderstorm last night surprised me, and I must admit, scared me a little.  As I laid in bed trying to sleep, the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed    . . .loudly and very close!

Trying to find some calm in the midst of the storm, I settled myself into prayer while the booming and cracking continued.  And in my prayer I was reminded of another time when there was thunder in my life.

I was tired and confused and teetering on new decisions and new directions.  As I drove home one evening I cried in exasperation “Oh, Lord, if only I had a sign that I’m doing the right thing!”  Just as the thought had become a cry in my mind, there was a huge thunderclap!  Just one thunderclap, mind you.  And you must understand, this was in the Pacific Northwest where thunder and lightning are rare to non-existent!

Remembering that event last night in the midst of this long and active thunderstorm, I roused myself to a new level of wakefulness.  I opened the ears of my heart and listened intently.  “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening,” I prayed with some intensity.

When did you last hear the grace of God speaking?  When did you last listen?

Fall is coming to DC, but oh so gradually!  I can’t help noticing how gracefully the trees are turning this year.  First I notice a little tip of yellow or red, then with the passage of days it deepens and moves toward all the edges.  Each morning I notice that gradually the color has seeped toward the center, while the brilliance of the greens still dominate each leaf.

I can’t help but think that there is a message for us in this gradual grace of changing colors.  When we are faced with difficulties or decisions or new avenues in life, we shouldn’t think that we must make some change all at once!  Not even Nature requires that the landscape change in an instant.

So, if we want change in our lives, if we want to make a decision to do something differently, we must be kind to ourselves and allow the change to take place gradually.  Love, forgiveness, compassion, altruism, new job, retirement – or any change we may want to make in our lives –  does not happen in an instant.  It gradually grows.  Perhaps we must be like the fall leaves and let the graceful change of colors and attitudes, decisions and life’s choices paint their beauty gradually on the palette of our souls.

The best learning from history allows us to make decisions and live more positively in the present because we can see the outcome of whatever the issue was in the past.  And, with reflection, hindsight is always 20/20.  I was thinking about this after reading an article in this month’s Smithsonian Magazine titled Unmasking Thomas Jefferson by Henry Wiencek.  Wiencek states that while we credit Jefferson with the noble ideals that founded our country – such as “all men are created equal,” Jefferson himself did not live his life true to that belief.  There has been much documentation of Jefferson’s slave holdings.  Now there is new evidence that was buried during research in the 1950’s that documents Jefferson’s harsh treatment of his slaves.  Jefferson himself didn’t do the punishing but certainly allowed, if not encouraged it, to take place through hired overseers who kept production lucrative at Monticello with slave labor.

Quoted in the article is the statement of a Virginia abolitionist, Moncure Conway, who said “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.”

Not to discredit the great contributions of Thomas Jefferson, as he lived in an era I can hardly imagine, but the words that stay with me are  “. . . what he did not do.”  Obviously, others in his time believed in equality enough to actually make changes in their lives and workplaces to see that their actions were consistent with what they believed.  Take for instance George Washington.  He made provisions in his will to free all his slaves, where Jefferson did nothing of the kind.  I’m sure Jefferson’s beliefs were strong – they have been the building blocks of this great nation.  But, how could he have lived his personal life inconsistent with such noble beliefs?

As I reflect on this my mind wanders to our time and the issues we face today in the Church.  How can so many believe in equality of genders while so few are willing to make whatever changes they can to see that actually come to fruition?  Obviously, we still have a very difficult time learning from history.  For any progress to occur many things need to change, and we need to do much more than merely talk or write about those changes.  We might actually need to accept the gift of grace and make our actions consistent with our beliefs.  Or else history may look upon us in our time as having achieved some kind of fame for what we did not do.

The old adage, “Actions speak louder than words,” is pertinent here.  Jesus was not afraid to act on what he believed.  As his disciples, why are we?