That’s what you get for lovin’ me That’s what you get for lovin’ me Everything you had is gone, as you can see That’s what you get for lovin’ me
(from For Lovin’ Me written by Gordon Lightfoot)
My grandmother Eleanora worked at the Dan Electro factory in Neptune, New Jersey when I was young. As a result, at very young ages, my brother Carl, my sister Pat, and I all received transistor radios for Christmas. And maybe Gary did too and I just wasn’t paying attention by that time. I think I got my first radio when I was five or six so maybe 1961 or 1962.
My wife hates music from the 1960s. She says it causes her great anxiety. Sometimes I will turn on the Sirius XM 60’s station in the car, it makes her crazy.
Me, on the other hand, I love it, it puts me in my happy place.
If I ever wanted to make my wife crazier than I have already made her, I could lock her in a room and play Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen over and over.
That would surely trigger some anxiety.
But I wouldn’t do that.
That would be mean.
That would be abusive.
The lyrics from the song above are from the 60’s. They are from the 1965 song “For Lovin’ Me” sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary and written by Gordon Lightfoot.
I heard this song a couple of weeks ago while listening to the 60’s channel on Sirius XM.
It has been haunting me ever since, causing me anxiety, causing me to lose sleep even.
I listened to it a few more times, then I read the lyrics.
I interpreted it as narcissistic.
I researched the meaning of the lyrics, toxic masculinity was proposed.
I researched toxic masculinity.
It brought me back to narcissism.
I know of a father who once had to endure listening to an audio recording of his daughter being beaten by her husband:
“Don’t hit me in the face,” he heard his daughter pleading desperately.
She was not pleading to not be beaten, she knew that was going to happen, that wasn’t an option.
She, having no doubt been through this before, was specifically pleading not to be hit in the face.
And this was real stuff, not television, not Law and Order, not Chicago PD.
If you are a father of daughters like I am, can you imagine?
Can you imagine hearing your daughter getting beat up by some jerk?
Probably not, and we definitely couldn’t imagine what this young woman had to endure.
But as a father what would you do?
Would you cry?
Would you want to treat violence with violence?
Would you want to put your Christian values to the test?
Would you feel helpless?
I have read that it is hard to intervene in these situations, intervening can often make things worse.
You just have to love them, and be there when the time comes, to be ready to help when the decision to escape is finally made.
And be supportive.
I guess sometimes, what you get for loving someone, is not always what you expect to get.
Sometimes relationships come with mental abuse, and sometimes physical abuse, sometimes worse.
And sometimes even though everything you had was gone; money, credit, self-esteem, confidence, and dreams maybe, you were lucky enough to still have your life.
Lucky enough to escape.
Lucky enough to be able to build a new life once again.
Boards on the window, mail by the door
What would anybody leave so quickly for?
Ophelia
Where have you gone?
(from “Ophelia”)
“Ophelia” is a song written by Robbie Robertson, a member of The Band. “Ophelia” was first released by the band called The Band on their 1975 album Northern Lights-Southern Cross.
If you are a fan of The Band, you know that Robbie Robertson passed away this past August 9, another sad loss. If you grew into your teens in the late sixties and early 70’s, then music performed by The Band no doubt made up a part of the musical score of your growing up. Whether it was the iconic Music From Big Pink in 1968 or the self-titled brown album, Stage Fright, or Cahoots or whichever, music by The Band was no doubt playing somewhere in your background.
But of course, this week we weren’t focused on an old tune by The Band named “Ophelia,” it was tropical storm Ophelia that got our attention in the Delmarva area, though the verse above seemed somewhat fitting for an impending storm.
I was still in bed Friday morning when Kim and I got the message via Messenger, a warning from my grandson Christian.
Christian is our family Hurricane Tracker.
I hadn’t planned on going anywhere this past weekend, and I hadn’t heard of any impending weather event.
But thanks to Christian I was made aware of a tropical storm named Ophelia heading towards the Chesapeake Bay.
I immediately went to the Woolford, Maryland weather forecast on the internet and read Woolford was smack in the middle of the Tropical Storm Warning.
Kim and I began to discuss our options as I pondered what to do.
Was there some unwritten rule that said you couldn’t let your almost 90-year-old mother fend for herself in a Tropical Storm?
I thought about the time I helped my dad put plywood over the windows on the river side of the house before a threatening hurricane came up the bay some years ago.
Then I remembered my dad paddling around the neighborhood when the water came up after Hurricane Isabel.
I envisioned the tide up over the bulkhead, the aluminum rowboat floating and banging up against the tree in the 70 mile an hour winds, and my 89-year-old mother out in knee deep water, her ninety-five-pound body getting knocked around in the white caps as she tried to secure the boat before it floated away…
Yeah, okay, so needless to say, I got to packing.
So, after dinner on Friday evening after traffic died down but before the worst of storm arrived in our area, I headed out to the eastern shore to batten down the hatches and erase the image from my mind of my mother fending for herself in the floods, the wind, and the rain.
I have been in kind of a funk lately.
Summer is winding down, impending darkness in the coming weeks.
I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it is not uncommon for me as the summer ends to get like this. But then I heard of a theory worth serious consideration.
The Vice President of the United States introduced the threat of Climate Anxiety.
Yes, Climate Anxiety.
And according to the VP, it’s causing people to not want to have children and not want to buy houses.
Oh, my goodness, I thought.
That’s me!
That must be what I am suffering from.
I too don’t want to have any more children, but I actually attributed that to Daughter Anxiety but, maybe that is not so.
And I don’t want to buy any new houses either.
Yes, Climate Anxiety, I am sure that is the cause of my recent funk.
But, I digress.
So early Saturday morning I secured the four kayaks, the deck furniture, and the aluminum boat. I took down the Steelers flag flying on the flagpole on the dock because the rope was fraying, and it was taking a serious beating. I didn’t want to lose it.
And then my mother and I settled in for whatever Ophelia was to deliver.
We watched the river.
We watched the wind intensity and direction in the trees and the flag.
We watched the weather on CNN.
We watched the Hallmark Channel.
We watched Fox News.
(That’s how I learned I had climate anxiety.)
And in the end, compared to other storms that visited in the past,
Ophelia was a yawner.
Ashes of laughter, the ghost is clear
Why do the best things always disappear
Like Ophelia
Please darken my door
(from “Ophelia”)
And I should say thankfully Ophelia was a yawner, because no one wants what could have been.
So, Sunday morning, three hours before high tide, with the water already over the dock, but comfortable that it wouldn’t get much worse, I dipped out and went back home.
I got to spend some time with my mother and was now able to substitute my daughter anxiety with the real culprit, climate anxiety.
Life was good again.
And speaking of daughter anxiety, I read this morning that yesterday was National Daughters Day.
On this day in 1981 Picasso’s Guernica, his anti-war mural, was returned to Spain after forty years of hanging in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Picasso had requested the painting not be returned to Spain until Spain restored democratic liberties in the country.
The subject of the mural was the brutal bombing of the town of Guernica in 1937, by the Nazi Luftwaffe, who were allies of Fransisco Franco’s right-wing Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso was commissioned to paint the mural showing the horrors of war to be exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition in 1939.
Today is also Grandparent’s Day.
We didn’t have a Grandparent’s Day when I was a kid. According to the internet, Grandparent’s Day was made official in 1978 as the first Sunday after Labor Day by then President Jimmy Carter.
I think relationships with my grandparents when I was young were a bit more formal than today. In fact, in my family, when we referred to them we always used their last name as in Grandma Rosch or Grandpa Christiansen.
All of my four grandparents lived in Oceanport, the town I grew up in.
I have written about my father’s parents, my Norwegian grandparents Sophie and Carl before.
My grandparents on my mother’s side (Rosch) lived right across the street. Technically their address was Main Street but the back lots of their property were on Willow Court, the street I grew up on, and right across from my house. My grandfather William H. Rosch however died in August of 1960 at the age of 75 when I was just four years old.
But I have nice memories growing up to adulthood with my three grandparents.
Kim and I are grandparents too now.
We have three grandsons, Cameron, Christian, and Ethan. I have written about them many times as well. But maybe not so much about Ethan.
Ethan is six.
He is very headstrong and determined but gets a little frustrated at times.
Recently at school, he and his classmates were assigned the task of drawing a self-portrait.
Ethan also happens to be very good at drawing, a talent that seems to run in my family, my grandfather Carl was an oil painter, my father worked with pastels, and my siblings are talented artistically as well.
However, Ethan apparently didn’t approve of being assigned the task of drawing a self-portrait.
As a result, he took on the brutality and the horror of being asked to do such a thing in a very Picassoesque way.
So, as all the other kids in the class drew their images as you might expect them to, Ethan created his Guernica, expressing his raw feelings on the matter.
And as his proud grandfather, I thought it was brilliant.
Happy Grandparents Day!
The class self portraits, Ethan’s is top rightIsn’t he cute? He had his first baseball game this weekend.Ethan’s GuernicaPicasso’s GuernicaEthan, Cameron, and Christian
I often find myself singing that line when I feel I am nearing the end of something. A good vacation, a good bottle of wine maybe, or as it was this week, the end of another summer.
A post popped up on my Facebook feed on Labor Day that was the top thirty songs of the week of September 4, 1970. The week of September 4, 1970, was significant to me because it was the week that I started high school. My first days at Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
Labor Day in 1970 was September 7. My first day of high school would have been September 8 since schools at that time always remained closed until after Labor Day.
Hard to believe that was fifty-three years ago.
Back then we only got new clothes twice a year, at the start of school and at Christmas. And it didn’t matter how silly those bell bottoms looked as you went through your growth spurt, you had to wait it out.
I was fortunate (I guess) to have finished most of my growing early. I weighed 110 pounds when I started high school and 120 pounds when I graduated.
I also got a haircut to go along with those new school clothes and a new beaded necklace.
And that would be another end for me, the end of haircuts, well at least for the next four years. I didn’t get another haircut until sometime after I graduated high school.
The number one song that week of my first day of high school was “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon & War.
The photo above was taken by a neighbor on the last Sunday evening of the last unofficial weekend of summer, Labor Day weekend.
The end.
The unofficial end of summer.
I was fighting it a bit, trying to squeeze in some last-minute fishing as the sun went down. Kim and I were leaving early the next day to beat the holiday traffic so this was it for me. And just before the bait ran out, in the darkness, I snagged a keeper.
It was a good weekend, we ate crabs with friends, did some kayaking, rode our bikes to Taylor’s Island, and found a new place called Palm Beach Willies to take a break from cycling.
And I got to fish a little.
So, with the end of some things, there are often new beginnings. In September of 1970 the anticipation of high school, meeting new friends, learning new things, and experiencing growing up outside of my familiar boundaries was high. And I guess, since it was the early 1970’s, so was I at times.
Now fifty-three years later, the unofficial end of summer doesn’t have that same level of anticipation of something new and never experienced. Those familiar boundaries are back, but this time they don’t feel so confining, more comforting really. And who knows what new and unanticipated life change might be waiting in the next season.
I haven’t written anything to share since the end of June when my dad died.
This is the first time I have felt motivated to write.
So hopefully maybe that is the end of that.
The week of September 4, 1970, the number three song on the list was kind of a silly song in my opinion, a song by Mungo Jerry called “In the Summertime:”
When the weather’s fine we go fishing or go swimming in the sea
We’re always happy, life’s for living
Yeah that’s our philosophy
Life’s for living, we go fishing, we’re always happy?
Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.
And, this, is the end.
Postscript:
After all those years of singing that line from The End, I decided to visit the lyrics for the entire song and Lord have mercy, I wouldn’t recommend doing that.
I kissed him on his forehead to say goodbye as I typically do, but this time, in his wheelchair, he raised his left arm and tried to reach around my back like he was attempting to hug me. I was surprised. I got closer to allow his arm to rest on my back and I put my face against his as he pulled me in. We stayed in that position for a while. It was comforting, it had been a long time.
Thanks, Dad, I really needed that.
Needs.
We all have them.
We all need them fulfilled.
Jesus once said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone…”
My mother would probably finish that statement by saying, “yeah how about I make a pork roll, egg, and cheese to put on that bread.”
That’s one way I suppose.
We might think our needs are all different, but they are probably surprisingly similar, never the less, they are ours.
And they change from year to year, month to month, and even day to day.
The truth is we are born into this world needy.
As infants and children, unable to take care of ourselves, we rely on others for even our most basic needs.
Feeding, housing, safety, learning, emotional support, and development, are provided to us by our mother, our father, or sometimes another family member or other loving person. They are our lifelines.
Let’s face it, even Jesus needed his Eema and his earthly Abba.
Then the day comes when we have children of our own and we become their lifeline.
And we begin to better understand what our parents did for us.
How much effort it took, how much time, and how much money.
How much joy it provided.
And as our kids grew and got more independent, we saw their needs change, but our needs changed too.
We still had those basic requirements needed in order to live, but as we aged life got more complicated.
And sometimes, as it might be with an aging parent, unable to care for him or herself, the parent becomes like the child again.
As a result of my father’s inability to care for himself, as his age advanced and his disease progressed, the decision had to be made to place him in a facility where he could be taken care of safely. My mom, not able to physically manage him at home, now spends each day with him at the nursing home providing those things the staff may not be able to. Things like conversation, memories, games for stimulation and thought, and of course, love. The rest of us, challenged by geography and the continued need to provide for ourselves, do the best we can.
The last few visits I had had with my father, I left feeling greatly depressed. My visits were met with silence, eyes that wouldn’t open, the inability to make any connection. On one visit in fact he was even trying to hit me with his fists, which I attributed to him acting out a dream, something not uncommon with my dad’s condition. Though I didn’t take it personally, it was another missed opportunity, and yeah, I guess I did take it a little personally.
Last weekend, however, he was different. His eyes were wide open though his sight is still limited. He was participating in conversation, smiling and laughing at things I said, and laughing at himself at times for things he said.
And he initiated that hug.
It was awesome.
I needed a weekend like that with him and, I am guessing, he felt like he had a similar need.
However fleeting the event or the moment may have been, or prove to be in the future, I was grateful.
We all have the need to feel loved, no matter how old we get.
Jesus said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone…”
But there is more, the scripture goes on to say “… but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
You see Ma? Not everything can be fixed by pork roll, even when you are from New Jersey.
It’s the word of God that fulfills our needs.
That’s what keeps us living and loving.
But sometimes a little hug doesn’t hurt either.
On Saturday I was trying to get him to look at old photos on my laptop. The next thing I knew he had his face planted in the side of my face. I asked him what he was doing and he said, ” I looking at your face.” Fair enough.
Postscript:
On the six Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church. The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture. Today’s word is Needs . If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.
I remember the first time I met Pastor Jim Snow. Kim and I were just starting to go out together and she brought me to a Sterling United Methodist Church picnic at Claude Moore Park in Sterling. As a kid, in my experience attending Sunday School at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in West Long Branch New Jersey, pastors always wore long black robes, collars, and were a bit intimidating. Jim on the other hand had a mustache, was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and a driver’s hat and he was cracking jokes. And best of all, I was able to call him “Jim”!
Kim had two requirements of me if I wanted to get to know her better, she wanted to be courted and I had to go to church.
I was prepared to do whatever it took.
The first time I attended church at Sterling UMC, I remember we sat about four rows back from the front on the center aisle on the left side. I think I wanted to sit on the end in case I had a panic attack. I don’t think that at the time I had attended church as a worshipper in thirty years. Hayley and Alexa were raised in the synagogue so I had spent some time in temple. But church, only for weddings and funerals.
I remember looking up at the ceiling and hoping the roof didn’t cave in. But when it was over, also I remember feeling good, like I had been lost, but now I was found.
I was supposed to be in this place.
We would continue to go to church as our relationship developed and I would continue to push my comfort levels as I got reintroduced.
I had never in my life taken communion and my hand would shake as I took the cup and raised it to my lips.
In April of 2000 Kim and I stood at the rail with our hands on Donny and Savannah as they were confirmed.
And thankfully, I met the requirements imposed on me as a suitor and our courtship worked out, because we had it all arranged for Jim Snow to marry Kim and I on the first day of July that year. But Jim’s cancer had other plans and he passed away that spring. Instead, we were married by Lee Crosby on his first official day as a pastor. And with Alexa, Hayley, Donny, and Savannah beside us, we stood in front of the cross and were married.
We continued to go to church and I continued to get reacquainted with being a Christian.
For a brief period, because we wanted Donny and Savannah to be active in Youth Group, we started attending Herndon UMC because the kids had school friends in that group. But whenever I could, if for some reason I found myself alone on a Sunday morning, I would dip back into Sterling UMC and sit in the back row. It felt more like home.
I had never been baptized so in January of 2002 I requested of our pastor at the time, Alan Reifsnyder to join the church and be baptized on the next available date. On January 27, 2002 in front of my family, except for Donny who was away that weekend, but including my parents and my new church family, I was baptized at the age of forty five.
In June of that year we met the new pastor Ralph Goodman and his family, who would be starting on the first day of July. Donny was really excited because Ralph had two very pretty daughters.
Not too long after that, on July 23, 2002 Kim and I would stand at the rail again and place our hands on Donny, this time for the last time. A tragic accident had taken Donny’s life on Friday, July 19th. On that Tuesday we celebrated Donny’s life and gave his spirit up to God. The church overflowed with people that day. Even the Sterling Volunteer Fire Department came because mysteriously the fire alarm went off in the middle of the service.
Ralph Goodman, in his first month on the job, walked that walk with Kim and I, and with the Herndon community that surrounded Donny. He joined the impromptu gatherings of grieving kids, walked the neighborhood, spent time at “the rock” at Herndon High School. For that we will be forever grateful. I cried on his last day preaching at Sterling UMC.
A life event like that couldn’t be survived without friends, family, church family, and most important, God and faith. To this day however I struggle to attend funerals at the church and generally find myself staying as busy in the background as I can, and fighting back tears whenever I hear “Amazing Grace.”
But with Jesus and Kim’s faith as our rock we kept moving, becoming more active in church.
My level of comfort was greatly tested when Kim and Savannah signed up to participate in a week long mission trip to Jamaica and Savannah dropped out at the last minute.
“Curt will go” Kim said.
“But Kim, I don’t want to go on a mission trip” I pleaded.
But all she would say is “Then you need to pray about.”
So, I did.
But my prayers weren’t answered. I found myself in Jamaica that summer.
And in the end, it was a life changing experience.
And we even went back the following year.
Our church life continued. We would share our Jamaica experiences with Pastor Randy Duncan and his wife Robin and get to know them better. Randy came to Sterling after Ralph left and remained for eleven years, the years Kim and I were most active in the church.
I would have another “first” at the rail when we took Cameron up for Communion for the first time. He took the bread, but when offered the cup he said politely “no thank you, I don’t like grape juice.” The server told him “that’s okay, you don’t have to drink it.” But after some hesitation he did anyway, and when we returned to our pew in the back, he asked Kim and I if he could say another prayer. Then he had us bow our heads and fold our hands and Cameron prayed “Dear God, thank you for bringing me back to church, Amen.”
I cried that day too.
On Easter Sunday April 16, 2017, I was a proud dad whose family practically filled the whole pew. Savannah and Cameron were there. Hayley and her new family with her husband and two stepchildren were with us too. Pastor Steve Vineyard delivered the sermon called “Who Will Roll Away the Stone,” the stone representing the heavy weight keeping us from facing all those tough things we had going on in our lives. A month or so later I would get a phone call from Hayley asking for my assistance to help her get out of the physically and emotionally abusive marriage she was in. Hayley attributed the courage she needed to make that decision to Pastor Steve’s sermon that Easter Sunday. “Who Will Roll Away the Stone” may have saved Hayley’s life.
In October of 2021 our entire family would return to the rail once again and witness the wedding of Savannah and Leon performed by Pastor Linda Monroe.
Kim and I have been less active the last few years. The Pandemic, trying to care for aging parents in different states, the challenges sometimes of working and worshipping in the same place.
But I was blessed to have been given a second chance in life to find love in this church.
The love of a new marriage.
The love of a new blended family.
The love realized in the experiences of my kids, the joyful ones and the sad ones, and learning love overcomes the sad ones.
The love of a church family I had never experienced.
And most importantly, the Love of God.
For me, Love was lost, but then I found it again.
I was lost, and somehow, I was found.
Because God’s Love and God’s Grace,
Are Amazing.
Postscript:
On the six Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church. The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture. Today’s word is Love. If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:1-5)
If you know me, you know I am big fan of horse racing. In the world of horse racing when you talk about works, it is referring to the training runs, the workouts the horse performs typically in the mornings. For instance, the trainer may have the horse “work” four furlongs (a half mile) to keep the horse in good condition in between races. These works are typically timed and published for handicappers. A bullet work occurs when a horse runs the fastest work of all the horses training that particular morning.
Bullet works are good works.
Afleet Alex like all other thoroughbreds born in 2002, as far as the racing world is concerned, turned three years old on January 1, 2005. After winning a couple of Grade One stakes races as a two year old, he went on to win the Arkansas Derby and qualify to be eligible for the Kentucky Derby.
In the traffic of the Kentucky Derby Afleet Alex finished third. Two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes, Afleet Alex, stumbled at the top of the stretch and nearly dropped to his knees with his nose almost going into the dirt, but miraculously he recovered. Jeremy Rose, the jockey, had no idea how he was able to remain on the horse. He did, and not only did they manage to recover, but they also went on to win the Preakness Stakes by almost 5 lengths.
Three weeks later Afleet Alex would win the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown by exploding in the final turn and winning by seven lengths.
Three of the children of the ownership syndicate of Afleet Alex were named Alex or Alexandria which is how the son of Northern Afleet and grandson of Afleet earned the Alex portion of his name.
Alexandra “Alex” Scott was born in January of 1996. Shortly before her first birthday Alex was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer. In the year 2000 after her fourth birthday, she received a stem cell transplant and told her mother if she if she got out of the hospital, she wanted to have a lemonade stand. She wanted to give the money she earned to the doctors to “help other kids, like they helped me.”
Later that year she held her first lemonade stand and raised $2000.
Despite her battle with cancer Alex and her family would continue to hold lemonade stands to raise money to fight childhood cancer. As news spread about the little girl with neuroblastoma who was dedicating her frail life to raising money to help other sick children like her, more lemonade stands popped up with the proceeds going to Alex’s cause.
The owners of Afleet Alex had become aware of the efforts of young Alex and her lemonade stand by reading an article in a local newspaper one day. They felt some connection between their Alex and the little girl working to help fight cancer and they began to donate a portion of Afleet Alex’s winnings to Alex’s Lemonade Stand. At first the donations were anonymous but as Afleet Alex became more successful a partnership was established and little Alex’s cause was shared with the world.
In August of 2004 Alex passed away at the age of eight years old. Up to the time of her death, her charity had raised more than one million dollars.
But even after her death, Alex’s parents continued the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation Through their association with the owner’s of Afleet Alex they were invited to set up Alex’s Lemonade Stand at the 2005 Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont thus exposing the foundation to world.
After winning the Belmont it was determined that Afleet Alex had a leg injury that would end his racing career and he was retired to Gainseway Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.
When Afleet Alex stumbled and jockey Jeremy Rose surely should have been thrown from that horse, he would say “An angel kept me safe.” That angel in his mind was little Alex.
Alexandra Scott was very special, and to many so was Afleet Alex.
One of the owners tells a story of a visit to Gainseway Farm where she found two women openly weeping while standing in front of Afleet Alex. They were sisters and one of the sisters had recently been diagnosed with cancer. They had driven all the way from Maine to see this horse. The owner explained that the sister with cancer truly believed that if she could just touch the horse, she would be cured.
We don’t know why Alex Scott developed the cancer that took her life after just eight short years. But as the scripture above explains it wasn’t because she sinned, or her parents sinned. With her cancer Alex recognized the need to help other sick kids and the doctors working to find a cure. She answered her call to perform good works. As a team, the two Alex’s raised a lot of money to help to find cures for pediatric cancers. You might say the works of God were displayed in the efforts and generosity of the pairing of Alexandra Scott and her family with the owners of this horse and Afleet Alex himself though surely, he didn’t understand how much his work mattered in the cause. But others, like the sister who thought touching him might cure her cancer, understood how special he was.
I have read that Methodists believe “Faith is necessary to salvation unconditionally. Good works are necessary only conditionally, that is if there is time and opportunity.” We might find some comfort in that since we don’t always have the time or the opportunity to serve at certain stages of our lives, yet our faith remains strong.
For Alexandra night came sooner than expected, but she made the best of her opportunity.
“As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him…”
And they did.
You might even call them bullet works.
To find out more about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation or to donate here is a link.
Afleet AlexPhoto of me and my son in law Namaan in the Paddock at Gulfstream Park with other owners of Iron Works this past Sunday.
Postscript:
On the six Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church. The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture. Today’s word is Works. If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.
I can only imagine
What my eyes would see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine
(from the song “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me)
Exodus 34 verse 29 tells us that “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.”
Moses went up the mountain, and when he came down, his face was radiant.
Dazzling, you might say.
Moses had spoken to God.
Many years later Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. This story is told in Matthew 17:
“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.
Jesus’ face “shone like the sun.”
His clothes became “as white as the light.”
“A bright cloud covered them” and then God spoke.
Once again dazzling.
Me?
I can’t even imagine, witnessing all this.
And Peter didn’t show fear until he heard God speak.
I think I would have been halfway down the mountain seeing Moses and Elijah appear.
But Peter was ready to set up tents!
Hearing God speak.
Seeing Jesus transfigured before them.
Seeing Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus.
We can only imagine.
Our image of God is through Jesus.
Our images of Jesus are shaped and formed by the imaginations of others long before us.
However the way we picture or imagine Jesus to look, we can speak to him daily through prayer.
So talk to God.
Pray.
And when you speak to God in this way, let your face shine like the sun.
Be radiant, lit up, dazzling.
As you give up to God those burdens that may be dimming the brightness in your life.
And give thanks for the blessings.
And imagine yourself “Standing in the Son.”
So get up.
And don’t be afraid.
I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing in the Son
On this Tuesday and the next five Tuesdays during the period of Lent, I am participating in a daily writing that we are doing at my church, Sterling United Methodist Church. My assigned day is Tuesday. The daily themes are based on one word each day and some associated scripture. Today’s word is dazzle. If you would like to keep up with the posts from others click on this link in the postscript.
