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love

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

All You Need is Love                                  2020

There’s a sign that I drive past on my way to work every day, it reads: This billboard available and there’s a phone number in large digits. Would it seem I was squandering money to rent that space to say – the Beatles were right, all you need is love…but Jesus said it first! Now that I have this in my head, I smile every time I see that sign. One day, I’ll get the nerve (and the money) to do it!

I’ve been reading a book in which I thought the author said the opposite of love is fear. I was sure that’s what he said, because in my mind I immediately thought – no, the opposite of love is hate. When I went back to check this fact, I couldn’t find that statement anywhere. He says we need to transform fear into love; he says fear and love cannot exist within us at the same time, he never says one is the antithesis of the other. But let’s look at it that way for a moment (since I have so many thoughts already supporting that point of view).

When we consider all the civil unrest happening around us – are these actions driven by hate, or fear? Is fear perhaps the very thing that feeds the hate which drives the violence? How can we stop the cycle? We might think it’s impossible for us, ourselves, to do anything to stop this madness. But let’s think again. Do we take part in hateful, hurtful dialogue on Facebook? Do we get into heated discussions with people who don’t think the same way we do? Do we get angry just thinking about these people who express views different than our own? How can we change this pattern? We should always consider, if we think things need changing, how we ourselves might change. How can we bring more positivity into the world around us?

If we take a moment, in quiet prayer and meditation, we’ll soon realize – love is key. We can’t always agree with everyone, even by educating ourselves; trying to see things from another’s perspective. But we can accept their thoughts and opinions with love. Jesus got angry on occasion, but he did not lash out at everyone who opposed his teachings; love was at the heart of everything he did.

When my sons were small I would say to them ‘do not use the word hate, it’s a bad word. You can say I dislike intensely, but never say hate!’ If hate is fueled by fear, let’s replace fear with love. Sing it with me – sing it loud – All you need is love! 

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Active Ageing coping Humor Uncategorized

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

An Undeniable Fact of Life
I’ve come screaming up to my 72nd birthday and yes, screaming is the right word to describe it – kicking and screaming would be more accurate.
What I’d like to know is: how did this happen so fast? It was only a short while ago, it seems, that I was longing for my 16th birthday, living for my driver’s license. Then, in the blink of an eye, I was out in the real world, making a living (of sorts) and longing to find a forever love.
Finding my forever love and getting on with my grown-up life was exciting, thrilling even…then I couldn’t wait to become a mommy. Well, that period, though slow in the day-to-day, sped by in another blink, maybe two. Surviving my sons’ teens was a rollercoaster ride, but that quickly passed.
When the grandchildren came along, I felt I had died and gone to heaven. But they, too, are moving through life far too quickly for my liking. And now, here we are, the oldest grandchild turning 16 and living for his driver’s license…and I am 72!
I wake up in the morning with a sore thumb; the joint in my thumb throbs if I try to do anything with it – pull open a drawer, pick up a spoon, push a button. What is that all about?
The thumb pain dissolves, only to be replaced by an excruciating knee pain when I walk the dog. That goes away too, replaced by a throbbing toe…neck, finger, arm, shoulder, eye…take your pick, it’s a merry-go-round of afflicted limbs. Why? I exercise, I eat properly (most of the time), I keep my weight down, so as not to burden my joints and add to their pain.
It’s just ageing, plain and simple. But I refuse to take it lying down, I will fight it to my dying day. And, by fighting, I’m not talking about trying to look younger. I stopped colouring my hair years ago because a blonde, with more wrinkles than hairs on her head looks a little scary. I won’t pay money for plastic surgery; do they still call it that? Oh, it’s cosmetic surgery, as if that makes all the difference. But I will continue to walk everywhere around town, ride my bike to the post office and the library and down to the park along the waterfront. I will go to line dancing and act in Murder Mysteries, read my book club books and keep my writing group together and write and write and write.
I will work hard to show my grandchildren that ageing, though an undeniable fact of life, is not something to be dreaded or feared. It’s a fun time of life and the busier you are, the less time you will have to dwell on the aches and the pains.
And, speaking of the grandchildren, they are the future. Let us not bring them down with negativity, there is so much of it in the world, but let us lift them up, give them hope and promise of a bright future. And when, in the blink of an eye, they are staring 72 in the face, may they laugh, hop on their bikes and ride on without fear. Perhaps, by the time they’ve reached this age, old age pain will be eliminated. One can only hope.

Categories
family God love Mother's Day

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Love                                                                       

May 2017

When my sons were in their teens, the protestations began about attending Mass. I explained to them that this was my job, part of the job of raising them – to build a solid foundation of faith. They rolled their eyes and simply chalked it up with all the other restrictions and limitations I placed on their lives. I speak singularly, as if my husband wasn’t in the picture. He certainly was, but he was the softy; I was the one who held them to the house rules. I never felt I was a strict disciplinarian, but once we decided on a certain plan of action – I didn’t waffle, as someone else might have.

Skip ahead two decades and we have finally reached that point I had always heard about and had only dreamed of – that point in their lives when they see us differently; they actually believe we are wise. Our one son, with three children, now realizes the importance of rules and holding kids to them.  His younger brother – soon to be a father, is observant. Our daughters-in-law often swell our heads, complimenting us on raising wonderful sons. I simply look heavenward, with thankful praise. They are not church goers, these sons of ours, but they were given a foundation of faith, they were taught respect and were respected, and they were immersed in love.

On Mother’s Day, our oldest, invited not only his parents to his house, but his in-laws, his brother and his wife (the expectant parents) and his brother’s mother-in-law. We mothers were honoured but I, and most especially my son’s wife, were very proud. He worked tirelessly to ensure everything was just so, for these many women in his life.

I learned from my own parents that lecturing and preaching to non-practicing children does nothing to increase their desire to return to the Church. In many instances, it alienates grown children from their parents. That does no one any good. Sitting and observing all the busyness of Mother’s Day, what I witnessed everywhere I looked was love. My husband and my son, busy in the kitchen; my younger son and his pregnant wife, cuddled up on the chaise in the living room; the grandchildren playing on the floor with their other grandpa, and we ladies sitting around the dining room table, sipping wine, laughing and sharing stories. Everywhere I looked, I saw love. God’s love. God is love. What more can we ask of life than that?

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family

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

John McDonald – October 14, 1944 – December 20, 2022

December 23, 2022

I have felt compelled to sit down and write these last few days – ever since my brother died. I try to remember the John of my childhood and I draw many blanks. He was eight years older and to a child that’s a huge chasm. We certainly didn’t hang out together; play together or have many meaningful conversations together.

I do remember all of us crowded into the tiny cottage in Maine on rainy, foggy days and John reading the Courier Gazette in a Maine accent. We’d be in stitches, laughing so hard it hurt. Little did any of us know that would become a career for John – entertaining people, telling stories in that Maine accent he perfected.

In high school, when it was time to renew my eye glass prescription, I got round horn-rimmed glasses, at John’s urging. My T.S. Elliott glasses, he called them. I was, at first, embarrassed to wear them at school, but, with all of his positive attention, I finally got past that; feeling so with it, as no one else in my school sported such cool eyewear.

When I was in high school, John was working, but also acting. He got a part in Twelfth Night, a Trinity Square production. We were all terribly impressed – Trinity Square was renowned in Rhode Island; their actors exceptional! Through John, I was able to usher for that production – I got to see it umpteen times, never tiring of it; John’s acting having a profound impression on me. I wanted to do that too, I decided.

I was 17 when John and Ann got married in Maryland – the same weekend as Woodstock. I felt I was missing something terribly important, not that there was a hope in hell I would have been allowed to go. I was 18 when Josh was born. For the occasion of his baptism, I did a painting – a picture for a child’s room. Though I can’t even remember what it was, I was thrilled beyond measure when John opened the wrapped picture and said, ‘Now I know this is from Jean.’  He was surprised and impressed that it was my creation. His praise made me ridiculously happy.

I had completed my first year at Lesley, when, in the summer, John and Ann and Joshua packed up their belongings and moved from Rhode Island to Maine – 1971. They invited me along to spend the summer, to help out with Josh as they settled into a whole new lifestyle in Cherryfield. John opened a gift shop in Milbridge, a slightly larger town a short distance away. The Great North American Gift Company was the modest name he gave the little shop. He ordered gifts from various places, and took in consigned items. The Cherryfield potters elevated the shop to a level of sophistication John had not anticipated. The gift shop was a nice addition to the town and a moderately successful one too.

I loved spending that summer with them. The Cherryfield house needed a lot of work (to put it mildly) – there was no indoor plumbing, at least no bathroom. Our living conditions were pretty primitive, but at the same time – (for me) it was a fun adventure!

That summer cemented a relationship with my brother that never would have otherwise developed. And for that I am eternally grateful. It wasn’t just John I got to know, but his beautiful wife, Ann too. And I truly believe a bond with Josh grew from that time as well. I was 19, but I loved it when, while babysitting him, people thought he was my baby – we shared a lot of giggles and stories and songs. The summer of 1971 was and forever will remain a happy memory for me.

I followed John into acting. I began to write about that time I taught on Matinicus Island, encouraged by John all along the way. I got into storytelling, but not the kind that John did. As children’s librarian, I looked up old nursery stories, memorized them and told them in libraries and classrooms, satisfying that thespian spirit. Never got into radio, but our interests and pursuits, John’s and mine, ran along a similar vein. I always looked to him with admiration.

Now my brother is gone and there’s a hole in my heart – one of many holes that have formed there, through the death of loved ones. It’s not a time to be morbid though, this is right about the time John would tell a funny story.

Love you and miss you, big brother…

Categories
Bargaining Catholic God Humor Prayer

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Pushing the Limit

Driving along the highway in my little yellow bug, I find I’m always pushing the limit – the speed limit, that is.  If it’s 50 k/h, I bump it up to 60.  If it’s 60 k/h, I take it to 70.  80, to me, means keep it under 100.  Driving along recently, in my meditative state, I thought about how we push the limit in so many ways.  The quick check-out at the grocery store – ‘no more than 12 items’ – we sneak through with 15…or more.  ‘No trespassing!’  ‘Do not walk on the grass!’  If we’re not actually breaking, we’re at least bending the rules more often than not.  Even in the ways we pray and talk to God – we push.

In prayer, it seems, we are always bargaining, but God must be used to that. Look at the way God and Abraham haggled over Sodom.  Being fed up with the sinfulness of the place, God planned to destroy it.  Abraham dared to argue with the Lord  – “But what if there are 50 just people to be found there?  Would you wipe them away too, along with the wicked?” 

“Well, no,” says God, “for the sake of the fifty, I would not destroy the city.”  Abraham wears God down with his haggling and God, walking away (and throwing up his hands, no doubt) agrees to spare Sodom if he finds 10 just people living there.  I have always loved this bible story.  Now I know that Abraham was quite new to monotheistic worship – you know, one Deity as opposed to the many gods he had previously worshipped.  And we, on the other hand, are not.  Still, this reading tells us that God was (and still is) approachable.  And isn’t that good news? 

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coping Faith family God Humor love Patience

Knocking on Heaven’s door

Lessons Learned

I am my mother’s daughter. My family will sometimes call me T. Way, when I sound or act like my father – worrying about everything. But I am very much like my mother too. She had numerous admirable qualities, making the raising of seven children appear effortless. Unfortunately, those qualities I did not inherit.

If you were sick, in a household of nine, on a busy school morning, you got short shrift. Mother didn’t spend a lot of time fussing over you. In later years, when she got cancer, most of her friends didn’t know. Never knew about the weeks and weeks of radiation treatments. She continued going to meetings and offering to help on various committees. My sister Patti was truly mother’s daughter, working fulltime through her cancer treatments up until the last few months before she died.

These women taught me that sickness is not something to be pitied or rued. So what am I supposed to do with a man cold? Seriously, I grew up in an unsympathetic household in which sickness was no big deal. So, when my sweet, affable husband turns into a different being entirely, how am I supposed to react? It has always mystified me, for we have been here many times before.

All the day long, never stirring from the bed, then thrashing the sheets and blankets off at 3:00 in the morning, turning on lights, coughing and hacking his way to the bathroom, coming back and falling into bed, wheezing with ragged breaths, too exhausted to care or notice that all the lights have been left on. I get up, rearrange the sheets and blankets, and turn out the lights. Is this done in saintly fashion? Heavens no! It’s more than mild annoyance that propels me out of bed to set things straight. Then I lie there at 3:00 in the morning – wide awake and fuming.

What’s the lesson here? I know there’s a lesson to be learned. I know God is smiling, trying so hard not to laugh – at me…at us. My silent annoyance begins to fade and I too smile. One thing God has blessed me with and for which I am eternally grateful, is a healthy sense of humor. It has carried me through 40-plus years of marriage – and marriage, as we all know, can try the patience of a saint. Though, what saints have and what I sorely lack is patience. God tests me on this attribute (or lack thereof) often. It’s a daily struggle for me, though it is often an easier hurdle to overcome at any other time of the day.3:00 in the morning is really pushing it!

But, let’s look on the bright side – 3:00 am is an ideal time to have a chat with God, who will always calm us down and set us back on the right path. (And that path for me, to the relief of many, has never included a career in nursing.)

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Uncategorized

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Till We Meet Again                a woman’s perspective

Well, my time at St. Mary’s is quickly drawing to a close. I never suspected, when my husband and I took our little holiday in September, that it would initiate such a life change for us. Our heads are spinning!

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately. I wander through our house, remembering the building of it, the slow progression – invisible walls (studs only); plywood floors…and my sister writing, ‘I’d like to send you a housewarming gift, what’s your color scheme?’ We’ve come a long way since then.

I reflect on my first day of work at St. Mary’s, showing up on the 2nd of January, 2009, excited to be joining the office staff. Darryl buzzed me into the office and stared quizzically at me as I tried to explain to her why I was there. She did not know I was coming, certainly unaware that I was going to be in training for her job, and Fr. Dave was nowhere in sight. It was a memorable day and one that made me think I had made a terrible mistake. We’ve come a long way since then.

God leads us, whether we are aware of it or not. We think our choices are our ideas, but I believe we are continually guided. If the choice is a wrong one, perhaps we were not paying particular attention, but God will make it right in time. That’s happened again and again in my life and I’m sure you’ve experienced it too.

When I married in 1978, I followed my husband to Montreal, leaving my family behind. It was difficult, of course. For at least a decade I cried with every letter that arrived from my family. I was not unhappy, I had no regrets about the choice I had made, there was just that ache in my heart, where I held my parents and siblings.

Now I’m leaving a job that I love; we’re moving away from our kids and grandkids. It will not be easy, there will be that same ache in my heart, but I have no regrets. I believe God is leading us to a new and significant calling. We are excited and eager to discover what that might be. We will listen carefully; we will let ourselves be guided by the Spirit.

Of course, in the dead of winter, when our move is done and the unpacked boxes loom large; in a new environment, unfamiliar and uncertain, that tug of regret just might show itself. Was this a mistake? Did we make the right choice? Right or wrong, all will be made right in time. My sister Patti and I used to love to sing the old, traditional round – Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. You are all GOLD, my friends. You will remain in my prayers and I will take you with me in my heart. Have a Blessed Christmas, and may God bless you all – till we meet again!

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Catholic Faith family God Humor

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Travel Light?                     

A Gospel reading recently told us of Jesus sending out the Twelve, ‘Take nothing for your journey,’ he said, ‘no staff, no bag, nor bread, nor money – not even an extra tunic.’ These words made me cringe.

My husband and I went on a little camping trip in September, hauling our tiny trailer…and so much stuff! We had clothing for every type of weather, hiking boots, running shoes and sandals. We had food for two weeks when we were only gone one. We brought books, journals, meditations and daily readings (ok, those were important and used). At the last minute my husband put his guitar in the back seat of the car…it never came out of the case.

We laughed when we’d see enormous motorhomes lumbering along the road, hauling their SUVs behind. ‘Oh, they’re really roughing it,’ we’d say with a sarcastic laugh – but were we any different? No.

Away from the distractions of home, we talked of future plans, and our desire to sell our house was reignited. Where we had recently been dragging our feet, upon our return home we jumped right in and began the frightening process of preparing our house for sale. Talk about stuff! Anyone who has resided in one place for 30 years knows what I’m talking about.

How and why do we accumulate more than we need; more than we could possibly use in a lifetime? We’ve been donating like mad, so many trips to the second hand stores…so many trips to the dump…and so much still to hide and store!

Our house is now ‘staged’ for sale – not practical, not comfortable, but staged – to give the feeling of beauty and spaciousness. I have to admit I love the uncluttered feel of it.

‘When we move, let’s keep it simple in our new home,’ I tell my husband. He readily agrees…but will we? It’s difficult to change habits of decades, but in our daily lives; in our spiritual practices too, it helps to clean out the cobwebs (figuratively as well as literally) more regularly than we actually do. The trick is to keep the cobwebs from reappearing; keep the clutter out of our houses…our minds and our hearts as well – not staged for show, but transformed with a greater understanding of what’s important to God…and where he is leading us.                                   

Categories
Faith family love Patience Social Action Social Awareness

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

What’s your story?        

For Mother’s Day I was given a gift by my family. Well, to be honest, I begged to be given this gift, acting like a little kid who had to have what her friend had gotten for her birthday. Storyworth is a gift of weekly questions. Each week you receive a question, sent by email and chosen by a member of your family. These questions come weekly for an entire year and at the end of it, your answers are compiled into a book for your family. The questions pertain to your life; some are fun and easy: What fads did you embrace growing up? Some really make you think: What is your favorite memory of your mother? …and some make you want to take serious stock of your life, like last week’s question: What is one of the most selfless things you have done in life?

The fact that your family members are posing the questions makes you feel, at times, as if you’re taking a test. An important grade hangs in the balance. Your answers should impart the wisdom of a life lived; and, most importantly for me – a life lived by faith. These answers pose an opportunity that we are not often given with our children and grandchildren, an opportunity to expound on those issues, beliefs and practices that have helped and guided us through our lives -.no eye-rolling, no talk-back, no walking away – they asked.

Back to last week’s question – though I did send in my response, I’m still pondering that one. I had to search long and hard for answers. Was I more selfish than selfless in my many years on this earth? Have I done enough in a selfless vein? Have I already done my most selfless thing, or is it yet to come? I don’t think we can live our lives believing we’ve accomplished our most selfless act – how do we grow, continue to care for and nurture this needy world if we’ve already been our most selfless?

Thought provoking and self-searching – I was the one who asked for this. Little did I realize where these questions would take me; searching my memory, recalling happy vignettes and not-so-pleasant experiences; much soul searching, coming up short at times, opening my eyes to more flaws than one would care to reveal. It’s a healthy practice, if you share with your family your honest look at the world and your place in it.

This is how I ended my answer to that soul-searching question: Life is made up of tiny, often going unnoticed, acts-of-love that we don’t even think twice about. Those are the best kinds of selfless acts. We should all strive for them every day!

And so we should!

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Uncategorized

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Mediation                             

When I was a child, living with my large and crazy family, my father once told me I was the mediator of all the siblings. I think I had to go look the word up in the dictionary – what’s a mediator? When I learned the meaning of the word, I felt proud that I, one of the youngest, was deemed the one to settle disputes and bring about truces.

Where my sibling are concerned, I haven’t had to use this skill in a very long while. I hope this gift hasn’t become rusty with lack of use though, because this pandemic seems to be creating a rift between my sons and it weighs heavy on my heart. I bring this concern to God daily in my prayers and I ask for the ability to find the words to say to each of them that will smooth out these troubled waters.

There have not been angry words spoken, just hurt feelings. One is not afraid to get together; wants to see his brother and family, the other is taking every precaution and is fearful of contracting the virus. He was the one eager to get the vaccine, his brother is refusing to get it. Will the one ever feel it’s safe to be around his brother again? The tension builds and I am squarely in the middle.

Though I do talk to each of them gently, softly and, I hope, with very little applied pressure, I do constantly remind them of their strong familial love for each other. Differences of opinion on a pandemic that will one day pass should not destroy what a lifetime has built up.

Prayer has been my constant. Of all the hardships the pandemic has brought about, I never thought it would rock this foundation of love. Deep down in my heart I know the foundation is strong, and I know my prayers will one day be answered, but isn’t it typical to want and expect immediate results from our prayers?

I’ve been reading about St. Alphonsus Liguori, who died on the 1st of August in 1787 and whose feast we celebrate today. A writer of over 100 books, his Prayer, the Great Means of Salvation, eventually gained him the title “Doctor of Prayer” by the Catholic Church. He, and his strong devotion to the Mother of God, has inspired me.

I strongly believe in the power of prayer and I am certain it will get all of us through these difficult situations the pandemic has created in our lives. And, as a mother, I am also compelled to invoke the intercession of Our Blessed Mother – the greatest mediator of them all. Hear our prayer!