A post that began to take seed a few weeks ago will become a memorial to a dear friend. Read on.

Dear Friend,

Although I know we all die, for we are finite beings as God meant us to be from the start, knowing your time was growing short made it all to close to home for me. Isn’t that a funny statement? Your failing health becomes about how I feel about your very private state of health. “Me Centric” to the tenth degree, yet this is what I can deal with – my feelings, my interpretation of my own finite life, and ultimately my own ending. As John Eldredge would say, I am the main character in my own life story and that is ever unfolding.

I have had the honor of knowing you since the beginning of this walk we call ministry for you were the welcoming arms at Church of the Apostles. You were the man who was there when we had questions, when I had doubts, ever sure in The Vicar’s call to ministry and the impact that ministry could have on others. You were the stable force in the chaos around the closing of that same church. Did you know you filled that role? Did I ever tell you how much that meant? And then when you rejoined our congregational family at Grace we were all made better for you being there. Again, you acted as the rock during tumultuous times. Now, you are leaving for the long term.

Thinking of what a difference you have made in my life leads me to think about your legacy. I do not know all of the ways your life has touched others. I think you would be hard pressed to know yourself because we often don’t know the depth we touch others that brush up against our lives until we are gone. The ways we impact others lives becomes one part of our legacy that we leave behind. I wonder if my legacy will be what I want it to be or will it be worse than I want it to be? When it is time I will have my own stories to revisit while letting you go, but I would ask that it was later rather than sooner.

Legacy is also about what we physically leave behind when our time is up. Someone asked me not too long ago who was going to get the Little Green Car when I was gone. Yes, they did. I can see you laugh about this one, my friend. Your smile is always so quick and warm. The memory of your smile is something else you are leaving behind for us to remember. A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller how much of his wealth he was leaving behind. He pinned the reporter with a stare and straight as an arrow said, “Why, all of it.”

Dear Friend, as I begin to say goodbye to you I grieve the loss of you in my life but realize I am a better person for having the short time with you in it than I ever would have been not knowing you at all. And that is the legacy I hope to leave behind as well. In the words of Father Charles Strobel, founder of the Room in the Inn program, “When you see The Father, tell him we are doing the best we can down here, but we could use some help. We just lost one of the best.”

After not so many hours of deep thought, I have boiled the reasons everyone should have a car with a convertible top at least once in their lives. I may be biased since my Little Green Car is a convertible, but this also makes me think I have solid reasoning I can share with you on this topic. Maybe by the end of this post you will agree.

Reason Number One: Spring – Beyond the automatic “Duh” that leaps to mind after reading that spring is my number one reason, give this some thought. After a particularly hard winter, spring can literally be a breath of fresh air. The first day the temperature reached 60 degrees down goes the top on my car. This year that day came a little sooner than years past, for which I am grateful since I am NOT a winter person. Riding around town with the car top down allows the budding trees to become my roof. I see white clouds in a sky so blue that can hurt your eyes and break your heart if you look too long at its beauty. I see the Vanderbilt Lifeflight helicopter lift off from the hospital roof just about every day on my way home from work, and I say a prayer for the person who needs that flying hospital. They are much worse off than am I. Every day I learn to be grateful for something new.

Reason Number Two: Fall – I love fall as much as spring. Fall in Tennessee can be breath-taking. With the top down on the car, I bring it all in and savor each leaf that changes colors. I relish in the cooler air, but grieve to know shortly it will be too cool to put the top down until spring. Fall teaches me about balance in life. We will never have a fall without a preceding spring. In the fabled land of Narnia the winter did not give way to summer but to spring and the awakening of life. Summer, therefore, needs to give way to fall to allow all things to prepare for the rest and rejuvenation of winter. While I may not count the leaves that fall from the trees, each reminds me of this delicate balance of bloom and rest. Bloom and rest. Balance.

Reason Number Three: Perspective – Both of the reasons I put before you lends itself to perspective. Bringing the world closer to you by interacting with it in a different way allows your perspective of that world to change. You see things you would never have seen on a particular day at a particular time – like the entirety of a double rainbow in the distance. Stars become constellations, clouds become dinosaurs, and the beauty and majesty of God’s creation becomes more vivid. This view also reminds me that I am but a small part in this larger world. When my world gets too overwhelming, I take a drive with the top down and remind myself of God’s creation and my small place in it. Talk about humbling.

Here is my point with this post (as The Vicar says, take it off the shelf and walk around in it): We all need reminders to stop and look around us to appreciate what we have and what we don’t have. We all put up barriers to experiencing life, but sometimes removing those barriers can lead to a new understanding of ourselves. If we are paying attention, we may even experience and understand God in a different way through these reminders. Find your own means to experiencing the world in a deeper way. Before you ask, no, you may not borrow my Little Green Car.

“Lent is a time when many Christians prepare for Easter by observing a period of fasting, repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline. The purpose is to set aside time for reflection on Jesus Christ – his suffering and his sacrifice, his life, death, burial and resurrection.” (Thanks to About.com for the succinct definition.) Fasting can take several forms, but the most common type of fasting is from food. “I can’t have (insert your favorite food item here). I gave it up for Lent.” Overall, if you give something up for Lent it is something you don’t want to give up normally and it will cost you to abstain for 40 days. Can we step outside of fasting from food for a moment to consider fasting in a different light?

Is it possible to fast from something as nebulous as excuses? How about hardness of heart? Sarcasm toward others is another challenge for those of us that are master practitioners. Thinking of fasting in this way, not from a solid tangible something, changes the meaning of the act itself. Wouldn’t fasting from any of the above acts encourage repentance, moderation and spiritual discipline? In my mind it would. For me, fasting from sarcasm would force me to seek repentance on more than one occasion during the day, which would lead to a moderation of the use of sarcasm, and thus encourage me to pray more for the strength to make it all 40 days.

What about some act that encourages you to follow your own agenda rather than God’s agenda? For me, gardening fits this bill. Gardening is a spiritual act for me in many ways. I connect with God through tending the plot of land He has given me to steward. I nurture the plants, feed them with water and fertilizer to make them strong and healthy, and I thank God for the blessings of blooms after the long winters. Here is where my agenda comes into the picture with my gardens. I covet other gardener’s plants. It sounds like a silly little thing, doesn’t it? I walk by other gardens and covet other’s possessions. I go to garden shows and begin to be discontent with what I have created, thinking “The garden could be so much better if….” This is where I need to be more aware of putting what Christ taught first (“Be content in every circumstance” – Philippians 4: 11-13). This is where fasting might bring clarity to the real reason I garden and tend so carefully to my plants – for that connection to God.

Fasting from gardening will help me to focus on the areas of my inner life that need to be cleaned out (just like my flower beds that have been fallow since September). The dried leaves (harbored resentments that have become brittle and broken), the fallen sticks (anger, harsh words to those I love), and the destructive bugs (anything that eats away at my relationship with God). I need to set aside my planting spade and pay attention to cleaning out those corners of my inner life so I can continue to bloom. In my thinking, God is the Master Gardener of Master Gardeners. He is tending to me as carefully as I am tending to my plants. He feeds me, fertilizes me, and trims me when I no longer produce fruits for my labors. He wants me to bloom all year round.

With Him guiding the way, I may just make it the 40 days.

Peace.

"Make me humble so I give the glory to You." That was my prayer that Sunday morning. The Bishop was coming to visit, friends were being confirmed, it was a BIG morning around Grace Church. My husband, The Vicar, had asked me to be a sponsor for one of the confirmands. (Note: A confirmand is an individual being confirmed as a member of the Episcopal Church. This individual has been baptized but may be coming from a different faith tradition.)

Back to the story.

Before the service The Vicar told all of the sponsors to write our confirmands names in the bulletin, which I did. "We all get nervous when we are standing up there, this will just be a reminder." No problem. I've got this. As a group we enter the sanctuary and practice our roles in the service. Great idea, I've got this. I'm excited. I'm honored to stand with LaRue and present her to the Bishop for confirmation. The service started, we did everything we were supposed to do when we were supposed to do it. I practiced her name in my head-over and over. "Please God, don't let me mess this up for her."

Then it was time to present her to the Bishop. Standing in front of the congregation, being sure to project so everyone in the back could hear me, I said, "I present LeeAnn..." and I smiled because I knew I had that down. I had practiced in my head, I had written it down in my bulletin, I nailed the dismount time to go sit back down. Then LaRue leaned over and said to me ever so quietly, "It's LaRue." I did what I could to bounce back from this. I swore quietly (I hope) and reintroduced her to the Bishop then went back to my seat and tried to blend into the pew. LaRue was confirmed and returned to the pew next to me. After the remaining first part of the service was over and the peace was being passed (could I please have an extra helping?) I apologized to LaRue.

Now, this is where grace comes into the story. She forgave me and told me that I had not ruined her special moment, but had made it a human moment. Then she smiled and gave me a great big hug. Grace. Forgiveness. A balm on my mortification.

If you take nothing else from this story, as The Vicar says, remember this: What you pray for may come to you in unexpected ways. I asked God to humble me and boy did He answer that prayer. In front of the entire church. And the Bishop. Thank you LaRue, for allowing me to be a part of your moment. But also for your understanding, grace (did I say grace?), and most of all for being the person who hugged me and keeps talking to me.