This Bud's For You: A Blessing For Your Weekend

Photo Credit: Mark Grace

Linda was walking down one of the hallways at Parkland when one of her chaplain colleagues, Stacy Merlin, stopped her.

"What is this?" Stacy asked as she gently pressed her thumb on the spot right between and above her eyes.

Startled, Linda, said something like, "What do you mean?"

"This wrinkle in your brow," said Stacy.  

I've seen that wrinkle in Linda's brow before and I know what Stacy was talking about.  It is usually accompanied by a distinct down turn of the corners of her mouth and it usually means that she is wrestling with a particularly difficult issue.  Life is pretty intense at Parkland these days, so none of us are surprised to see a Parkland employee walking down the hallway wrestling over problems that need solving.

"I was startled out of my worry by that encounter," Linda told me later.  "That small gesture brought me back to myself."

Later she came into the office to find the rose in its vase with the note that you see in the picture above.  "For all you do, this bud's for you," says the note.  You can imagine how much those small gestures meant to my wife, and how much it helped to relieve unnecessary burdens.

For all you do, my prayer is that you find someone to smooth the wrinkle from your brow, to encourage you to pause mid-stride and to gift you with friendship and support.

Then maybe you can do it for someone else- either way, you are bound to be blessed.

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

Any Morning

A Blessing for Your Weekend
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

ANY MORNING

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People won’t even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

-- William Stafford

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com

A Blessing for your Weekend

Feeding Pigeons in St. Peter's Square
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

Feeding Pigeons In Saint Peter's Square

We rise early before the sun 

bounces out of bed, slipping behind gray 

clouds to light St. Peter's Square

standing there surrounded by statuesque

apostles and saints, popes and martyrs

we feel small, foreign, strangely

out of place, expecting any 

moment to see the heavens 

open, a ray to glance down 

on Paul or Peter, certainly not

Jesus, more than likely someone

unknown like Norberto or

Tibaldo, Costanza or Pietro

Nolasco, Atanasio, Andrea,

Filippo Neri or Giovanni,

enkindling marble, 
enlivening sightless eyes, 
lubricating mute tongues

to condemn our Protestant heresies,

prophesy against our tennis 
shoes and Bermuda shorts, 

pronounce us unfit,

unwelcome to stand on ground

venerated by ecclesiastical royalty,

we turn slowly, surrounded 

by God's lions unsmiling, 

preternaturally still, 

Instead comes an old man

and two girls, one with a pacifier 

clutched firmly between her teeth,

they lead a kit of pigeons all underfoot,

cooing birds, giggling girls, old

man offering seeds to his accomplices 

swinging arms toddler stiff, sowing

chaos among the all-too-busy 

pigeons as we watch, bemused,

Everyone speaks Italian, giggles and 

squeaks in Italian, coos and gurgles in 

Italian, so I cannot be sure,

But I think I hear a wisp of 
Latin, a blessing for a clutch of 
slow-tongued Baptists

"Dei plena sunt omnia"

R. Mark Grace

Photo Credit: www.crosscards.com