Awakening a Keen Observer

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Worth the Price of Admission

Grace and Happiness,
The scene we observed in the airport last night was worth the price of admission.

We went to the airport to pick up Johnny and Molly from their trip to a friend's wedding in France. Their flight had been diverted and delayed and they came in at 11:30p instead of 4p . We were standing at the bottom of the escalator waiting for them to come. There was a young family, woman and two little girls. One of the girls was probably 5-6 and the other was
3. Daddy spotted them first and leaned down and began waving. Suddenly the older girl saw him and yelled at the top of her voice..
. DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY ...

The Daddy, who we found out was returning from Iraq, hugged the younger girl knelt down and the older girl threw her arms tight around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder and cried.. Their mom cried and looked at the three of them also tearing up. Others had started watching, we couldn't help and it was beautiful. A beautiful moment.

Ok so everyone was tearing up. I mean really tearing up. As all of us watched and were wrapped into this scene this scene we realized none of us were watching the folks coming down now and one family missed greeting their family. So we all went to meet someone else we all were embraced by that incredible sight of love. Of surrender to all that was real...of hope that reunions do happen.

Daddy daddy daddy... I flashed back to my childhood and thought how it would be that little girl running into my Daddy's arms to be embraced and enfolded in love. I thought of all the children welcoming home their parents. I thought of the incredible love on the Mom's face as she watched her family reunited and how she let her girls have that moment. What love on her part surrendered that moment to her children.

Welcome home good and faithful servant... we long for that... or am I the only one...I don't think so.

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2010

Monday, August 02, 2010

Is it a mystery?

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Eagle

HE clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

My third college English class was great. The first two were interesting but the third was one I so completely enjoyed. (In the first one if you had an incomplete or run-on sentence in the final you flunked the course. We had to write about the book Under the Volcano. I remember writing some of the shortest most structured sentences throughout the in class essay).

OK back to the Eagle
It was the third day or so in the class and he read this poem three times. He asked for us to pause and then to say what we thought this was all about. There were many 'theories' about the metaphorical and symbolic meanings hidden in the poem. This poem was becoming quite complicated and I thought I must be over my head in the class. He looked at me and said OK, you are the only one who hasn't answered. I said, "I think it is about a bird." So OK, I was an ornithology major but still the beauty of the poem to me was the amazing image, true to form, of the eagle- painted with so few words.

The professor asked me my name. Said you get an A for today. Not everyone was pleased with his response.

Later, some time later, in some of the theology classes I had there were times that reminded me so much of this poem and this class. There were layers upon layers of meaning, context, historical setting, etc in some of the debates we had. One guy knew how to really throw around the big words that honestly LOST me.

Then I visited India, later, some time later, and looked and saw the Gospel completely alive. A worker goes to the field--see over there! A woman had two coins--look she put in everything she had to the offering after walking for 2 hours to church. The poverty was evident but there was a woman sweeping the rectangle in front of her cardboard house and a tiny potted plant outside. The folks in the Leper colony washing the hard packed dirt and smiling.

Let us not forget when we read the texts that although the 'theological thinkers' can help us wrestle with some of the tougher ones, that many many many of the Gospel stories are to be seen and not imagined. Fear not little flock for God has plans for you...

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2010

facebook: bobbiemcgarey