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Tag: thankful

An Impressive Response

Fri, August 13, 2021 Published by

On behalf of all of us on campus, I would like to thank all of the staff that worked tirelessly Wednesday night, Thursday and through the weekend as well as thank the residents for their patience and cooperation in dealing with the flood and temporary relocation. We know this hasn’t been easy but we appreciate everyone coming together for the good of Beatitudes. I am once again reminded of how special the people on this campus are and how blessed I am to be a part of the Beatitudes Family.

Holidays and Empty Chairs

Sun, December 2, 2018 Published by

‘Tis the season to surround ourselves with friends and family, count our blessings and enjoy the excuse to overindulge in food.  It is a time to take inventory and acknowledge all that is good and sweet and right.  It is about celebrating presence but sometimes what this season is marked by more than anything else—is absence. Pastor John Pavlovitz writes: “Surrounded by noise and activity and life, your eyes and your heart can’t help but drift to that quiet space that now remains unoccupied: the cruel vacancy of the empty chair.  The empty chair is different for everyone, though it is equally intrusive. For some it is a place of a vigil; the persistent hope of a prodigal returning, of a severed tie to soon be repaired, of a long overdue reunion to come. It is a place of painful but patient waiting for what is unlikely, yet still possible.  For some, the chair is a memorial; the stark reminder of what was and no longer is, of that which never will be again. It is a household headstone where we eulogize and grieve and remember; a face we squint to see, a hand we stretch to hold, a voice we strain to hear. This may be the first time the chair has been empty for you, or you may have grown quite accustomed to the subtraction. Either way it hurts.”

I know that hurt as do you.  My father died twenty-one years ago on November 25th, so when my family gathers around the Thanksgiving table every year we are acutely aware of the empty chair which he filled.  The holidays are supposed to be filled with celebration, joy and peace but often they have a way of magnifying loss; reminding us of our incompleteness, our lack, our mourning.  The lessons that the empty chair teaches us are about living in the moment and being thankful for what we have, and about growing through our struggles.  Sometimes we acquire that wisdom and find that healing in our own way and in our own time and sometimes we don’t.  Life is unpredictable and messy that way.  In some way during the holidays, we all sit together gathered around this same incomplete table and one thing we can offer one another is our compassionate presence in the face of the terrible absence.  Pavlovitz suggests that “in this season each of us learns to have fellowship with sadness, to celebrate accompanied by sorrow. This is the paradox of loving and being wounded simultaneously.”  May we each make peace with the holidays and the empty chairs.*

On Keeping Score

Sun, July 29, 2018 Published by

As human beings we love to keep score.  The first question you want to know when you turn on a game already in progress is, “What’s the score?!”  The first important scorekeepers in our lives are our parents.  As we grow up, we are eager to learn how to win their attention, their smiles, their approval.  Teachers may be next as they keep score with report cards.  Coaches teach us to keep score and, later on, it’s our bosses, co workers, or neighbors.  Our educational system is based on test scores, GPAs, AP, ACT and SAT scores. An online magazine recently posted a list of the 50 most beautiful women in the world ranked from 1 to 50. Honestly, I thought that #50 was just as beautiful as #1 but I wonder if the one at the bottom of the list was upset? Unfortunately, our inner sense of worth and well-being is often tied to the scores that we get.

One of the ways we tend to keep score is by comparisons.  My father used to say, “Comparisons are odious” when any of his girls would play the game of comparisons.  Psychologists say people engage in three types of comparing.  They compare their situation to those who are better off—upward comparison.  They compare themselves to those at the same level—lateral comparison.  And they compare themselves to those who are worse off—downward comparison.  Each type carries dangers: the first incites envy, the second competition, and the third arrogance.  If we define our own value and the value of others in terms of the world scoring system we probably will always be unhappy.

How does God keep score? Thankfully, God doesn’t keep score.  Every morning as the sun rises we have a brand new day to live and to love.  Fresh start.  God works with totally different rules and has a different way of accounting.  There’s a passage of scripture where Paul says: “Your attitude should be the same  as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God  something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.”  Jesus wasn’t somebody who spent his life trying to climb up a ladder even though he was “at the top of the organizational chart of the universe.” Jesus looked like a failure in the world scoring system.  He wasn’t a   success by the standards of efficiency, good management, or outward success and his life ended in what seemed to be a colossal failure.  However, the cross shows us a different way of measuring success, a way that overturns our desire to keep score. Love keeps no record of wrongs.  True happiness starts when there is no need for score keeping anymore.*