It was nine years ago, on my birthday, when I received the surreal news that our former pastor had drowned with his dad in a nearby lake on which they'd been snowmobiling. It's the kind of stuff one never thinks he'll hear. The kind of stuff that stays with you and comes back time and time again through various memories. The kind of stuff you shuffle aside quickly by remembering something happy instead.
I thought of Father Joe today - about a sermon he once gave. He talked about any two kids. You give one of them two cookies each, and all is well. If you give one of them two cookies and the other only one, all hell breaks loose. He ended his sermon with - and I paraphrase, "Sometimes in life you only get one cookie. You can waste all of your time crying about somebody else getting two, but you really need to enjoy the one you have instead." He packed a lot of wisdom into that cookie.
A photo of Father Joe Ziobro at his memorial Mass.
He was right, of course, in that way that none of us wants to admit when we're the ones who are dealt but the single cookie. I lament that my dad might not be with us to celebrate his birthday again next year, forgetting that so many others, him included, lost their own dads at much earlier times in their lives. I feel cheated in my salary when I compare it to that of many others doing the same job, overlooking that I love what I'm doing, where I'm doing it, and that I'm doing it with the best of them.
We waste so many words - so much language in the course of a typical day. We argue and fight and debate about crap that either doesn't matter at all or not nearly as much as we pretend that it does.
It's not about that. It's not about any of that stuff on which we waste our time, our energy, our words at all.
Sometimes it's just all about happening to be passing Krispy Kreme when the "HOT NOW" sign is lit.
I think Father Joe might have meant hot doughnuts when he talked about those cookies that day. I don't know about the other 11 glazed originals in that box, but the one I got was excellent!
4 comments:
Nice reminder.
That last picture has some provocative elements in it!
Dan! Shhhhhhhhh! It's supposed to be like Where's Waldo!
-Joe
There is good wisdom in this post. I sometimes tell my clients that numbers are relative, some just have more zeroes behind them than others. People are seldom happy with what they have.
Aside from that, my kids got me a shirt like that for Christmas a few years ago. Still wondering if they were trying to say something.
Joe:
Wow, that's some HOT crispy creme chef appearing to be holding up the building, and smirking like he ate the whole box
bob
Wet Coast Scootin
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