All Saints Day ~ 2006

All Saints Day. I know a lot of them right around me. Like the mother who took her 40 year old son to the grave last week. The same mother who years ago lost one of her children when a bookshelf fell on top of him. That saddened woman who can never stop mourning. Quiet saints like she show us how to go on trusting in God. . . And maybe these too.

Amish ~

Look to the Amish with humble respect. It was reported that fifty percent of the people attending the funeral of the man who murdered their children in the school house were Amish. That is a lesson.

A Compliment ~

There were two one-year-olds in the waiting room at the doctor's this morning. Their mothers had to wait a full two hours. The children played on the floor the whole time. The one wimpered quietly and wanted to go home, the other tried to humor him by playing with the balls on an incline plane or by setting up blocks. They got along nicely and the patient young mothers had a chance to try out all their newly-learned motherly competencies, in public -- and looked on with pride.

Face of the Newly Born ~

There is no end to looking — We look and look at a baby's face and can never get enough. What is it that we see? Is it something virginal, unspotted, something beautiful that was ours that we have lost and are seeing there again for a limited time, knowing that it will soon disappear?