A Touch of Encouragement

Are you going to honor your mother this Mother's Day or just give her a present?

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I find that little things that I might otherwise not notice this week are reminding me of my mother just because we're getting close to Mother's Day. "Keep on keepin' on" are the words of encouragement my mother would say to me whenever I needed a pep talk. I hadn't heard anyone say that in years, and suddenly I've heard it twice recently. I find myself humming a favorite song of hers. I see a dress in the window of a vintage clothing store and I could swear it's a copy of one she used to wear.

A question to all of you today: When you think of God, what do you "see" ?

I got to thinking about that this morning when I read this funny little story forwarded to me by my favorite high school English teacher, Ann Campbell:

I was just thinking about what I could say about Easter that hasn't been said before. I recalled the Easter Sunday when I made a choice between writing a philosophy paper or spending the first gorgeous day of Spring at a brunch and an Easter egg hunt with my friends in my last year of college. I don't remember what grade I received for that philosophy paper, but still regret walking down that green Berkshire hill and leaving my friends behind that beautiful morning.

I remember another Easter brunch about ten years ago. I was sitting outside beside a lake with a new friend. He looked out at the families arriving at the restaurant after church and said "I'm a Christian, too, you know. I think Jesus was amazing."

I looked up. Was? Jesus was, or is?

The night before St. Patrick's Day my six year-old asked, "do we get presents tomorrow?" I shook my head and said no, it's not that kind of holiday.

But then I started thinking and I realized that St. Patrick's Day is something quite unique and worth celebrating as a kind of gift in itself. It's the only day I can think of where we all adopt a culture as our own for a day. Folks of every color and heritage are wearing green today.