January 6, 2018 Maybe it’s because the wind chill is minus 14 degrees that a summer afternoon floats to mind. Relatives from California were in town and I took them to our empty church sanctuary, a special place to me. I hesitated, however, at the threshold; something was missing.

To me, our sanctuary it’s beyond beautiful with its towering white columns and rows of long pastel windows. The next time I went it was Sunday morning and I had an epiphany. Colonial architecture isn’t what makes the church striking. It’s the people. Filled with people who are filled with God’s Spirit, it vibrates with life.

These thoughts from 1983 remain vivid because it was my brother’s family visiting. Over the years we’ve rarely been together, but on the last Sunday of 2017 I sat in our church with my Roman Catholic brother, George, beside me. He had flown East for the holidays, his first Christmas as a widower.

I was rather astonished that he was well enough to be there after suffering a heart attack on Christmas Eve at my nephew’s home in Pittsburgh. Friendly greetings and lively worship warmed and strengthened us. He felt it, and so did I. I felt the same way the night before, attending Mass with him at St. Thomas More University Parish. The Spirit prevailed at both services, like a magnet, pulling us into community.

Churches are far from perfect or even serene places. Church-goers mess up, like everybody else, sometimes more. Through God’s grace, we also offer and find forgiveness, healing and new beginnings.

January, named for the Roman god Janus, is a natural time to start something new. Janus’ two stone faces look backward and forward, over gates and doorways, transitions and seasons, passages and endings.

Jesus was more than an idol carved in rock. He entered time and space in human flesh and declared He was the Alpha and Omega, First and Last, Beginning and the End. The handiwork of this Creator God was on display outside our windows as 2018 arrived—for miles around, trees that morning were coated in icy diamonds. It brought a smile to my brother’s face, a Californian since his 20s. At our kitchen table, spread wide with extra planks for the holidays, we shared memories from winters past.

I remembered George taking care of my twin and me one New Year’s Eve. We folded sailor hats—pirate style—from newspapers, banged pans, and paraded through doorways inside our red brick home, crossing the threshold into another year. We were all kids then, unaware he would soon enter the Navy and never live with us again.

George recalled New Year’s Eve, 1959. “Dad sat in that wing back chair of his with his feet on an ottoman and said at midnight, ‘Well that’s it for the ’50s.’ The ’60s were supposed to be a golden time, but it didn’t work out that way.”

Isn’t that the truth! Vietnam, assassinations and social tumult stormed through the decade. Crises continue sixty years later—this is a restless, dangerous world. As of a few days ago, the local unit of the National Guard is again traveling to some Mid-Eastern desert. Do we throw our hands up in frustration, or find a better response?

And how exactly do we do that?

The answer came for me on a purple magnet that randomly fell off the refrigerator when I brushed by: “Every day, find a way to practice the presence of God.” This epiphany, paraphrasing Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), provides a starting place, a threshold to approach everything else.

When I first wrote this piece, I thought cancer was behind me, its door closed and bolted. Now, more than ever, I need to be attentive to God’s gentle servant, Brother Lawrence. A kitchen worker, he found peace in the midst of the clamor of his monastery’s pots and pans, proving you can meet God anywhere.

Among the many ways to draw near to the Holy One is a slender key that opens an innermost chamber to fresh epiphanies. Henri Nouwen describes it as solitary communion: “Solitude begins with a time and a place for God, and Him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists, but that He is actively present in our lives—healing, teaching and guiding—we need to set aside a time and space to give Him our undivided attention.” (Making all Things New and other Classics)

Jesus says in Matthew 6:6 (NIV): “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette

(This week I’ve updated an entry from two years ago. It seems appropriate, with the week we just experienced.)

textingthrucancer@gmail.com

Images of Jim and me by Brett Woodard

Info on Janus from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus