In the past two weeks, I’ve written a couple posts on the crazy busy-ness of May with three teens and a kindergartner in the house, a globetrotting college student returning home, and a 10-month-old puppy in a dog’s body underfoot. The schedule has not relented: Continue reading
Jodi
This Week Has Been Good to Us
It’s been a heck of a spring so far. I’ve been buried in work, not to mention snow and unexpected auto repairs. Jodi and I are like ships passing much of the time, except morning prayer, which we’ve managed to maintain. I’ve missed as many of the kids’ activities as I’ve made in the past month, but I see them in while I run, stop to stop, dropping them off and picking them up.
And Bruno waits at the top of the stairs, watching for someone to come in and up, casually stretching, closer and closer, straining for a pet or a pat, hoping for a walk or a car ride at least.
It’s go, go, go as the school year winds down—but this week has been something else entirely. Continue reading
Easter Greetings from the Thorp Gang
Holy Saturday
“Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” – John 20:29
How dark a Sabbath dawned the day after Jesus’s crucifixion: the so-called savior dead and in the ground; his disciples scattered, and the Passover at hand—a remembrance of freedom for God’s chosen people, once again marked under Roman rule.
Our Holy Saturday is not so dark, for although we did not walk with the living Lord or see His risen self, we know the story and believe what we have heard—that fear-filled seventh day was followed by an eighth, a day of resurrection and re-creation. A day of joy and wonder.
So we rise this Holy Saturday, not with trepidation, but anticipation. We rise to the same hell-bent, broken world the apostles did, still filled with pride and pain and broken people; we look with wonder this morning at four inches of fresh snow fallen silently over night and rejoice that God has seen fit to grace us with another day, another hour, another breath. Continue reading
Airdale Chronicles: Blesséd Bruno
Bruno is eight months old today, napping in his crate in a Super 8 outside of Green Bay while Gabe and Trevor read and I write. We spent the past few days at my folks’ place in Michigan, which means Bruno got to spend time with their dog, Maggie, an older, big-boned Oorang type Airedale. Too old to roughhouse too much, but not too old for Bruno to begin to notice something different about her.
What’s it like having an eight-week-old male Airdale pup? I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: like having a preschool boy who’s somehow going through puberty.
He got his first adult haircut a week ago. What a difference a day makes: he went in a big, woolly pup and came out a much lighter, leaner dog, clearly an Airedale despite a shorter than average cut (due to matting) and his corkscrew ear. He seemed an odd combination of energetic and embarrassed when we brought him back from our groomer—especially when Rosebud said he was naked. Continue reading
You Did It For Me
It is the first full week of Lent, and already I struggle. I must have chosen well which things to uproot from my life—my family and I are enjoying great sport pointing out my unconscious consumption and countless offhand comments, both of which I’m attempting to quit.
Additionally, each Lent we notice how little we focus specifically, consciously, on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. During our morning prayers, Jodi and I shared today’s Gospel reading, Matthew 25:31-46, which includes these words of warning:
“‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ … ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
It’s sobering each time we hear it: another year flown by, and what did we do for the least of His brothers? Our brothers? Continue reading
Archangel Stomp 