Donald Lastinger taught me to be honest with myself by letting me know him as a real person even though he was much older and my pastor. Shirley Richards called me more deeply into pastoral ministry at a time when few would have imagined that was the right path for me. “Aunt” Ruth Hightower showed me how to make a life for myself by offering hospitality to others.

I doubt any one of these three would have thought they would rate as having had the greatest impact on my life and maybe they are not really in the top three. However, when I look back across the years of my life this morning, Brother Don, Shirley, and Ruth gave me immense gifts.

Two kindnesses from last night. 1) A woman told me how much she liked a talk I gave 2 months ago and detailed why. I don’t do much speaking anymore and I enjoyed the praise. 2) I was tired from a long day and was standing around with another person whose day was just as long as mine, but she had a shorter distance to travel when the event we were at ended. I said I was thinking of running away. She encouraged me to go immediately. I would have stayed longer to help clean up, but left when she “gave me permission.” It was nice to get home when I did.

Walker Knight died at age 95 on 1 December of this year. He donated money to my friend Paula when she was planning a trip to serve as an unpaid Visiting Professor of Pastoral Care at a seminary in Bangalore, India. When she saw his donation, she celebrated the memory of the time some 30 years earlier when Walker had gone with her to her hearing before the Social Security Administration about going on disability after a head injury sustained in a car crash. Walker, a busy journalist and editor, said no one should have to go to a disability hearing alone. He went with her all day and then brought her home to have supper with him and his wife Nell that night. I want to have a quiet history of kindness and care like Walker Knight.

I have been saying thank you when I awake most mornings lately because I have had a good night of sleep. Sleeping is not my super power. I have trouble sleeping when I become stressed even if the stress is from doing too many things that I enjoy doing. If I don’t keep my pace somewhat measured, I tend to suffer by waking in the night and, sometimes, not being able to fall back to sleep. I have been sleeping well lately! And on the nights when I spend too much time awake, I still arise in the morning thankful because I can identify where I went too far and have a chance to do better in the new day. This gratitude stuff is infectious!

Joy keeps showing up! My daily practice is to pray my own version of the Lord’s Prayer. Since it is my version, the words change every once in a while as I grow. A few months ago I prayed, “Give us today what we need to live” and followed with the petition, “Help us to sort out among ourselves the sharing necessary for all to live in health and safety.” The food and shelter necessary for health and safety can be delivered by a refugee camp or warming shelter, but that is not enough. Joy wanted in, so my prayer became “Help us to sort out among ourselves the sharing necessary for all to live in health and safety and joy.” I don’t know how to deliver joy, but I knew that living with joy is what people are made for.

Since including joy in my prayer, joy has been showing up all around me. I am experiencing joy as I see the growth and progress of people around me. A few weeks ago, a woman whispered to me at the start of a 12-step meeting that this was the first meeting she had ever come back to. She said she came back because of what I shared the week before and she was really glad to find me there again. Joy!

A world where complexes of communities create a place for everyone. I benefited from welcoming communities all my life. Most communities have welcomed me. Some because I am a rich white man and some in spite of my being a rich white man. A better world would offer such welcome to every person.

I am a relatively new member of Al-Anon. The Al-Anon Declaration often makes me teary… “When anyone anywhere reaches out for help, let the hand of Al-Anon and Alateen always be there, and let it begin with me.” That is the attitude I want to become common in the world.

That my spiritual life is more important than everything else. I believed that as a child and it certainly surprised my mother when I shared my thinking on the topic. It happened like this… There was a boy with developmental disabilities whose mother and father brought him to Mass in a wheel chair. He could not talk or do anything to take care of himself. I asked how he could meet all of God’s requirements when he could not kneel or make the sign of the cross or talk or take communion at the front of the church. I asked if he would go to hell. My mother told me that God made special provisions for boys like him and that he would go automatically to heaven when he died. I said that I wished I had developmental disabilities so that I could go to heaven automatically without worrying that I would screw up my chance. That really disturbed my mother! She assured me that I did not have to worry about satisfying God. I shrugged off her assurances and repeated that I liked the idea of a sure thing and that I thought the other boy was getting a good deal. Side note: I told that story at my mother’s funeral. The priest from my mother’s church was there and after the service told me that boy was still living in a nursing home in the area, only now he would be in his 60s like me. I no longer think he got a better deal than me, but I do appreciate how wondering about him helped me to clarify my sense of what was really important.

I have been obsessively ruminating on what is missing from my life and disappointments with experiences that are long past. These ruminations have high jacked my focus several times this morning. I may have ignored my needs and desires too much over the years. There are things I need to consider and make decisions about. But I do not want to lose my serenity and and the joy of being conscious of how full of beauty and love my life is already. Thank you for helping me become more conscious of managing my focus today.

Years ago I created some art that I believe was inspired by my readings of Teilhard de Chardin. I gave it away to someone whose name I can no longer remember, but I think it had something to do with recognizing that the man who tightened the lug nuts on the wheels of my car was every bit as important to my well being as the surgeon who cut out the tumor that was growing on the front edge of my spine in 1991. My surgeon’s name was Orville (first name. I have forgotten his last name). I don’t believe I have ever known the name of the dozens of men who have tightened the lug nuts of the wheels of the cars I have had serviced over the past 47 years, but I am grateful for their faithful service to me. Years ago when I was the interim pastor of a small town church, a young boy in the congregation won his school’s patriotic speech contest. He gave his speech in church during the Sunday morning service for all of us to hear. I reflected after he spoke of how I had always imagined I would be more important in the world than I was – I imagined that the President would ask me to come to Washington to help him somehow, but he never asked. But now I could see that maybe this boy would go to Washington one day. I did not imagine that I was very important to the boy, but I was important to his father. I thought my role was to be a good influence on the boy’s father and through the father, the boy. I might never go to Washington, but the boy might and my having a small part in that would be an honor. This is all a long way of saying that to be faithful in doing our work in the world is a great service to the world, no matter the value that society places on our work. And we make important contributions every day whether we know it or not.

They get up, they lie down. They eat, they sleep. They work, they play. They love, they are sad. They want, they need. They see, they are blind. Just like me. The reason I fail to see how much like me they are is because I don’t want to see. Some time ago, I became incensed about something a state political leader was saying and doing. Six months later I turned on the radio and found someone being interviewed about an issue and I liked what he was saying. It turned out he was the political leader I hated. We obviously shared some values. That experience made me realize that I share values with people I hate. I know that I could love those persons if I was not so narrow. God sees more and God loves. I see too little and sometimes that lets me hate. Help me, Lord, to see more.