Conversations with Mom

Visiting with Mom, we're doing that regularly to make sure she is eating properly, and carrying on a 'conversation' with her. Now, mind you,the conversations are pretty much one way.
I was telling Mom about one of my Lucy triathalons. We took a slightly different route just to give me some new scenery. We came around a corner and we noticed a CAT sitting in the flower bed.
Lucy gets excited, and starts growling and barking. The cat tenses. Lucy jumps toward the cat, I hit the leash brake and she comes up way short. The cat jumps up and starts to move. Lucy leaps and runs as hard as she can toward the street growling and making threatening noises, away from the cat. If she hadn't hit the end of the leash, she would have been clear across the street. The cat was running as hard as it could in the opposite direction.
Mom was giggling about it. "Not a very brave dog," she says.
Yeah you got to be careful about those tabby cats. They're killers.
It was good to see Mom smile and laugh.
Thank you for that moment, Lord.

"I am", I said. "I am", said I. I am lost and I don’t even know why.

Just finished up a workout and was laying on the pad, demonstrating my best yoga pose – the corpse – with my iPod playing. As I relaxed, listening to the Neil Diamond song – I wondered if Neil intended it as a spiritual song – a quest for peace, for meaning.

As I pondered to consider this, it struck me we are in the same position, personally and nationally. We look for ways to matter in life, to be remembered, to have some significance. We search for it in homes, cars, jobs, the accoutrements of life – and come up empty. Don’t get me wrong – I love my house, wife, family, grandkids, the stuff of life. They make me happy. At the same time, I know they are transitory. These do not give me peace, fulfillment, meaning. We look to the politicians – state and national – to show us the way. But they prove to be as lost as we.

I wish I could say with conviction that in the still, small moments in the quiet of the night, people reflect and come to the conclusion “There must be something more than this.” But we are coaxed by our culture to believe those with the most (or best) stuff wins. With instant gratification, instant access via the internet, instant credit, fifteen minutes of fame, what more could you want?

Blaise Pascal said it better than I, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, which cannot be filled by anything created by man, but by God, through Jesus Christ.” All of our efforts lead to a sad refrain. We are desperately seeking - we don’t know what - knowing we are alone.

We are not left to our own devices, because Jesus said, “Listen. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and lets me in, I will come in…” We have significance – who else but Christ sacrificed himself for you, me, so we could be with Him? We are loved. We are in His family when we accept Him.

In this life we can buy, sell, lie, cheat and steal, grasp for significance – but without finding Christ – we echo Neil: “’I am’, I said, to no one there. No one cared, not even the chair. Leaving me lonely, still.”

It doesn’t have to be that way.