Miracles for Easter

Easter Sunday 2007. He Who Must Be Obeyed went to celebrate at Holy Cross without me. I was hopeful at 6:30, but the occasional relief didn't occur, so I thought I might just have a pity party alone under the down in our bed, which has become a little too familiar since spine surgery in January.

It was "Grace Matters" on the radio that gave me hope this morning with a stern lecture about clinging to dirty sheets to savor ones own painful pitiful self. It was just the thing I needed to realize healing is moment by moment right now. So I got up and enjoyed a few miracles.

One was in our Omaha World Herald on the front page. It was about an Ashton, NE man who has rang the bells at St. Francis Catholic Church nearly every day since about 1960. "He is 66 and has had a knee surgery...in spite of all of that he has climbed the 17 steps up the loft, consulted his pocket watch and pulled the rope to ring the "Angelus" bell at 7 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. for three minutes, as part of a Catholic tradition calling the faithful to prayer." I learned seven paragraphs into the article that the faithful bell ringer is developmentally disabled. God chooses people that are weak and imperfect and calls them by name. Sometimes if I turn off the televison, and pull the ear buds out of my ears, and set the radio aside, I can hear even my own name being called.

The second miracle was an email from a relative on my maternal great grandmother's side of the family. He has discovered through history going back to the 1600's that we are also related through my paternal grandmother. It makes me happy to find another distant double cousin. And it makes me happy that in genetics mothers matter.