Tag: hope

speech | grandpa’s funeral :: 2012

This was a list of iconic items that will forever remind me of my legendary grandfather, Robert David Goodrich…

This was a list of iconic items that will forever remind me of my legendary grandfather, Robert David Goodrich:

bb guns
baseball games
bus garage chats
blue spruce fields
froggin ponds
robbie the robin

early morning prayer
grandparents day
huge wheat cereal
allegan country roads
campgrounds
hiking trails

dollar bills in a birthday card
the smell of fish
funny songs that no-body knows
put er’ there and letting us win
a love note in a bible
a Christmas speech

a charge
to love
the women in our lives

grandpa,

you lived a life worth remembering
a life filled with deep hardships and pain
and a life filled with love and redemption
experienced even deeper as a result

in fact, I am convinced that your experiences
shaped you into being the man you became
a man who cared for and talked to anyone and everyone
with laughter and genuine concern for eternal wellbeing

we honor you today
as we remember and celebrate you
knowing full well, that without you,
none of us would be here in this moment now

The Gift of Understanding

If there is one thing we must do it is this: we must realize to the very depths of our being that this is a pure gift of God which no desire, no effort and no heroism of ours can do anything to deserve or obtain. There is nothing we can do directly either to procure it or to preserve it or to increase it. Our own activity is for the most part an obstacle to the infusion of this peaceful and pacifying light, with the exception that God may demand certain acts and works of us by charity or obedience, and maintain us in deep experimental union with Him through them all, by His own good pleasure, not by any fidelity of ours.

Thomas Merton had such an unprecedented and poetic ability to articulate dimensions of God’s mysterious grace:

“Only the greatest humility can give us the instinctive delicacy and caution that will prevent us from reaching out for pleasures and satisfactions that we can understand and savor in this darkness. The moment we demand anything for ourselves or even trust in any action of our own to procure a deeper intensification of this pure and serene rest in God, we defile and dissipate the perfect gift that He desires to communicate to us in the silence and repose of our own powers.

If there is one thing we must do it is this: we must realize to the very depths of our being that this is a pure gift of God which no desire, no effort and no heroism of ours can do anything to deserve or obtain. There is nothing we can do directly either to procure it or to preserve it or to increase it. Our own activity is for the most part an obstacle to the infusion of this peaceful and pacifying light, with the exception that God may demand certain acts and works of us by charity or obedience, and maintain us in deep experimental union with Him through them all, by His own good pleasure, not by any fidelity of ours.”

Merton, T. (2003). The gift of understanding. In New seeds of contemplation (p. 233). Boston: Shambhala.

a prayer for my community

a prayer for my community

This image was uploaded by n1colas to sxc.hu with a royalty free license. Abba in undetectable dimensions,

You are the one that we long to know and learn from.

Please make yourself known to us today in new and fresh ways.

And when we know you in these new and fresh ways, may that knowledge perculate into our new hearts and become radiant by the demonstrable love of our external lives.

May you give us eyes to see your provision in our lives. May you, in your grace, provide what we need, no more, and no less, so that we never forget our daily dependence on this grace.

Help us forgive as you do and so save us from ourselves, the world, and the evil forces that seek to destroy what you are doing and creating in and through us, even today.

Do all this for the sake of your reputation in the world, we plead.