Dear Friends,
I was the primary parent at home for our three (now adult) children. For many years, I did a string of part-time jobs that allowed me to make my own hours, preferably after the kids were in bed. Like most parents, I was always tired, always feeling behind, and generally deep-down afraid I was seriously inadequate as a mom.
For a while, I worked 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. a couple of nights a week for a video production company two towns over. Driving home in the middle of the night, I always drove past a stately property owned by the Catholic Church. Posted in the side lawn was a sign that was literally billboard-size. It was readable in daylight, but at night it was spectacularly lit up and visible far down the road. “God loves you.”
That sign, glowing in the night, was like a visit from the angels. It frequently brought me to tears, assuring me that I was known, appreciated, and unequivocally loved—faults, messiness, hurts, and emotions. I may have lost my temper at my children that day, forgotten to return multiple phone calls, not prayed for even 30 seconds, and left the house a mess. Still, I was enough.
That sign, and the wisdom and comfort it gave me, was a significant part of the early years of my call into ministry. It still is. What does it mean to be unconditionally loved by the Divine? Why do we so yearn for it? Why is it so transforming? And since it is, how can we help ourselves and each other, and especially our children, know this Loving Presence and humbly but courageously live from this place of knowing?
Very soon after Father Phil Kelly died, the beloved priest who put up and maintained that sign as his primary message in ministry, the Holy Cross Fathers took it down. The lawn is now a respectable, bucolic green vista. But I still think of that sign when I drive by, especially at night. It’s still sending its radical message. It remains one of my lighthouses.
I’m realizing that the shortest days of the year provided more hours for the sign to be seen in all its glory. The challenges of this time right now provide such opportunities for each of us. What simple, essential Light or love shines through us in this dark time that might be of comfort, reassurance, or even transformation to someone else? And if we’re perhaps too far from our grounding power source, where can we get an extension cord?
Sending Love,
Gretchen