Koukla!

During church, I hear my daughter chant the harmonies of all of the hymns of our church throughout the whole service. It soothes my spirit in the midst of my sadness. I see the newly baptized, little baby girl being held by her daddy looking at everyone behind her with alert and innocent eyes. The proud grandpa kisses his cherished little granddauhter. Our priest gives communion to every single person in line. He doesn't allow our deacon to join him this time because he "selfishly" wants to not miss anyone. Many people look how I feel, kind of emotionally spent, kind of worried, and kind of lonely. Tears in lots of people's eyes. The altar boys come out from behind the altar...a brotherhood of servants. A little girl with wide eyes unabashedly kisses her tall daddy's cheeks while his face gets all squinched up.

The very young children don't know what is happening, so they are as happy as ever. The older people seem to have more of a look of grim determination. They've lost priests before, but even they feel sad.

This is our last Sunday for our priest to officially serve as OUR priest.

Tobias asks quietly,"Can you believe this is the last time we'll see Father."

I say, "Oh no. We'll see him. We'll go visit him in Houston, and he'll visit Austin sometimes, too. I guarantee this is not the last time we'll see him."

"Well, this is the last time he'll be at our church as OUR priest," his voice trails off.

In order to make both of us feel better, I insist, "No, he'll always be our priest, but yeah, I know what you mean. It is really sad."

Tobias wonders, "Well, do you think our church will still be here when I grow up?" Some of the security he feels about our church must be temporarily crumbling with the leaving of our priest. I tell him with great confidence, "Of course! It will definitely still be here."

"Well, we're talking 30 years from now. Will it still be here, then?"

"Oh yeah, there are churches that have been here for hundreds of years."

I should have told him that Christ's church has been here for 2000+ years, but I knew he was thinking about our physical church here in Austin. So that's where my mind was, too.

"Well, will there still be some of the same people at our church?" I told him there would. "Will I get to be an usher then? Don't I have to be voted onto the parish council to do that? How much longer will dad be on the parish council? Will you try to get on the council when dad finishes?"

All of Tobias's questions reflect his uneasiness about losing the rock of our church, our beloved priest.

I was blessed to have confession with Father yesterday. He told me that our bishop refers to our church as a "Koukla", which is an affectionate Greek word for a sweet young girl who is a doll. Father said that as beautiful as our physical church is, the people of our church are even more beautiful and our bishop knows this. Hearing this term of endearment from our ex-Marine bishop to describe our church made my heart soften towards him. "Koukla" does fit our church quite well because we are a young parish. There is a liveliness and a sweetness in our church which I'm so grateful for. Koukla!

Today during his homily, Father talked about three widows in our community who quietly gave $250,000 of their money in order to start our parish. He talked about how they invested what they had for something that would last...our church, something that would help so many people...our church.

Something that would last until Christ's return.....our church.

Such a perfect thing to say for Tobias, for me, for all of us as we go through this insecure time without a priest.

Father thoughtfully made a point to hug every single person at church today on our way out which further demonstrated the kind of individual care he gave to all of us. What a kind parting gift. My older friend, Koula, watched him and said, "I'll be happy if we can just get a priest half as good as him. Our loss is Houston's gain."

I know it won't be easy for him and his family as they are in a brand new place with added pressure, but I have confidence that he and his family will bring new energy, love, and light to this older parish in Houston. I believe their presence will cause the Houston church to become a little more like a Koukla.

And we, as a church, will continue on until the second coming of Christ.

I couldn't live with it like that

Stuart does not like our computer room downstairs. Plain and simple. For lots of reasons. One of the reasons is that I painted the walls two different colors of blue. It's not the color he has a problem with. It's the fact that I didn't do such a good paint job. I like this room alot because the walls are overall the color I want them, and to me, it feels like a warm, friendly room. I don't notice the details that the corners and the top of the walls are not painted in a straight line. However, Stuart does notice that, among other things.

So the other day were over here. They complimented the pictures on the wall in the computer room. I said, "Well, Stuart can hardly stand to look at this room because of the bad paint job I did."

My friend looked at the walls and said,"Well, you know I couldn't live with it like this. I'd have to fix the lines so that it was straight." Wow. Okay.

Then, her husband said, "You know, you could put some molding up there and that would take care of it at the top of the walls." I said, "Oh, yeah....that would be pretty easy." I think he then said something like, "All you'd have to do would be to measure the walls. Get a miter saw and cut the molding to the right lengths, paint it, and then nail it up there." As soon as he said, "miter saw", I said, "Oh no. I couldn't do that." He said, "Okay. Why don't we do this. We'll come over, and I'll put the molding up, and Irene will touch up the lines in the corners. Believe me, she will get it perfectly straight." Anyone who knows Irene knows that, yes, 100%, she will get it absolutely straight! Irene agreed,"Yeah, we could do that one day. It wouldn't take more than a couple of hours, and we could paint your baseboards, too. Because they need it, too," she said with a bit of a smirk. I punched her arm at that point and laughed, "Okay...enough of your opinions, now!"

They said that in exchanged of them helping us out, we could take them out for dinner and a movie.

While I would be glad to take them up on it, Stuart won't because he is plenty capable of fixing this room and wouldn't feel good about having someone else do something he could easily do. However, I really liked this whole exchange because to me it defined what I consider a true friend: Someone who will tell you the truth about what they honestly believe. Someone who is willing to come along side you and help you. I almost always value honesty and openness over polite evasiveness, as long as I know that the person still accepts me in my weaknesses or if I disagree with them. I know they understand that I'm not detailed oriented visually, and they accept that. Finally, a true friend is someone who enjoys spending time together whether it is in work or play.

We are so blessed to have true friends like that!

Enjoy the good stuff!

 I know I should focus on and enjoy the good stuff, so I wonder: Why do I seem to like to think so much about the person who is critical or negative? Why do I want to think about who I think MIGHT be upset with me, who has failed me, who MIGHT not like me, or who has disappointed me? Why do I like to think about THOSE people as I'm driving, doing the dishes, or folding the clothes instead of my dear friends and the people that I love and want to support? Maybe the negative seems more interesting to figure out. Maybe it is my sinful bent that kind of wants to be in conflict with my fellow man. It would be one thing if I wanted to think about it in order to resolve it somehow, but instead, I want to think about what is wrong with them, or, I want to think about what is wrong with me, or what they think is wrong with me. I just enjoying cogitating on it in my mind. Sometimes through prayer, though, I do actually come to a place of acceptance and move on, but it does take prayer and God's love and peace.

And when I think about my past, I usually think about the most negative parts of my past, the parts that make me just want to emotionally crumple up. I'm not sure why that is my tendency, but I can see in my own kids that some of them tend to remember the positive more and some seem to remember the negative more. As I watch my kids grow up, and I relive my growing up years through their experiences, I am very surprised by how many wonderful memories of the good times, good friends, and good experiences begin to surface! For some reason, the hurtful, sad experiences and memories of my enemies typically have played a much larger role in my perspective of the past. While I do believe it's an innate part of my personality, I realize that it might help me to work harder to remember the good stuff from my past, and relish in the blessings of today. While I do tend to view my past in an overall negative light, I would say that I'm usually fairly positive about the present. I do appreciate my blessings, but still, I dwell on the negative or my fear of the negative more than I should. Yet, if someone was to ask me how I would describe my life, I would say that I have been blessed way more than I deserve.

In reality, bad things have and will happen. Challenges have come my way and will continue to come my way. Some people never liked me, and some people never will. I need to accept it, deal with it, and do whatever I can that would be beneficial, but I don't need to keep replaying it over and over in my mind. Doing this makes me think of someone habitually stepping on a plant that was made to grow up and out, but it can't because it is down and closed off and is unable to drink in the water and the sunlight. However, to instead enjoy and savor the good stuff, makes me think of a plant that is drinking in the moisture of the earth and reaching up towards the nice, warm, life-producing sunlight.