Today I am literally going to ramble. There are a number of things for me to touch on briefly, so hang in there. First of all, after a fantastic homecoming weekend and Festival, I need to say, God is good! Thank you to all of you who made this a fabulous weekend, especially those of you who worked so hard at the first Fall Flower and Music Festival. We’ve already been asked by many people when we are going to do it again, and as of right now we don’t know. I can tell you it won’t be an annual event, but we will certainly try to do it again. As of now, it seems that the Festival reached nearly 900 people (not including volunteers and musicians, and not including our Saturday and Sunday morning attendance) and generated approximately $10,000 dollars in profits. By any measure, that makes this inaugural event a great success that we can all be proud of.
Many of you also saw that Becky was back with us for one of our Sunday liturgies this week. She is beginning to slowly make her way back into life on the staff, and she will be taking her time. One word of encouragement for the congregation though: Becky knows how sorry we all are for her loss, and she knows we loved Charles too. She also doesn’t want or need us to tell her how sorry we are or tell her of our favorite memory of Charles every time we see her. Those sorts of comments are hard to receive by the dozens when one is trying to keep one’s composure in a public setting. I would ask that if you feel a need to convey those sentiments that you do it in a note card which Becky can read in private when she’s ready. She knows we love and support her, and the best way we can help her do that now is to help her find a new normal. As many surviving spouses will tell you, they carry their grief with them for a long time, and learning to live with it is hard. If it is always brought to the surface, it makes it that much harder. What Becky would appreciate is knowing how happy we are that she is a part of our community and how pleased we are that she is making her way back. She needs to be back for her own spiritual and emotional health and nourishment, and I know we can help her find it.
Related to this, I found a new cartoon on my office door this week. It was from
Charles Lamkin! Becky found it in his truck and knew where it was supposed to go, so she taped it to my door. (You can see the cartoon to the right, with full credit going to the artist, Wiley Miller, who I hope will understand my inclusion of it here, admittedly without permission) Those of you who were at Charles’ funeral will remember that my touchstones for that homily were the cartoons he put on my door, and this one is particularly fitting giving all that took place. Ironically, it is from September 2014, so it was cut out well before Charles was even diagnosed. Indeed, failure was not an option! It was a nice surprise to find another one of Charles’ cartoons, although I’m sad to realize again that I won’t be getting any more.
The last thing to ramble on about today is to extend the same invitation we gave to all the men of the parish at our homecoming luncheon. In the last month or so the men on our staff began growing beards (John Rogers came after we
started!), and we will continue to grow them through November as a part of the Movember movement. The Movember Foundation has four areas of advocacy around men’s health: prostate cancer, testicular cancer, poor mental health, and physical activity. One way to build awareness is to grow a beard in November. Another is to move (be active) every day for the whole month. We’re going to grow our beards, feel free to grow yours, gentlemen. Even mine will get shaggy, despite the short length I try to keep on my facial hair. As the Lord said to Job in the Sunday lesson two weeks ago, gird your loins, folks. There’s going to be a lot of hairiness by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. To learn more about Movember or to support the cause, visit the foundation at their website: https://us.movember.com/?home. That’s enough rambling for one day. If you followed me down all those trails, bless you. Have a wonderful Wednesday. I’ll see you soon, I’m sure!
Tom +
O God, who alone canst uphold they minds of men, without whose beauty and goodness our souls are unfed, without whose truthfulness our reasons wither; Consecrate our lives to thy will, giving us such purity of heart, such depth of faith, such steadfastness of purpose, that, in thy good time, we may come to think thine own thoughts after thee; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.