Month: June 2019

This past June 11th was the 70th wedding anniversary of my mother and father. Dad died in 2004, and mom died this past June 30th, 2018. I believe that death never separates two people who love each other. Their love keeps them united. I am sure that mom, who was a bit OCD, has tidied up Heaven to her specifications. Heaven has never seen such cleaner clouds!

At the time of my mother’s death, I composed this song and this meditation in memory of my mother and father.

Psalm 71

For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you. I have been like a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge. My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have rescued. (Psalm 71: 5-8, 22-23, NRSV)

There are certain psalms that have a great deal of meaning for people. Psalm 71 is one of those psalms for me. This song is based on the verses above. As I reflect on this psalm, I find myself a child so very much loved by my God, who is both mother and father to me. God is the parent who never abandons me but is always looking after me.

As a young child, I remember going to the big Chicago department store, Marshall Fields, with my mother. It was right before Christmas and the store was crowded with people. My mother was shopping for clothes, a very tedious task for a four year old child. Marshall Fields’ toy store was a veritable treasure trove of toys, something more akin to my interest then women’s undergarments and the like. The toy section of the store called to me like the song of the Greek Sirens luring Greek mariners to their destruction. Tempted by the thought of all the toys beckoning to me in the toy section of the store, I wandered away from my mother. My mother knew me all too well and let me wander, keeping a watchful eye on me. After tiring of looking at the toys I suddenly realized that I was lost and alone in this vast store filled with people, my mother nowhere in sight. Little did I know that she was keeping an eye on me, just an aisle over from me. I became frightened to the point of panic! Suddenly, there she was in front of me, simultaneously comforting me and gently scolding me for having wandered away from her.

This is the God, the gentle loving parent that this psalm portrays so vividly to me. I dedicate this to my mom and my dad, who cared for me, protected me, allowed me to make mistakes all the while loving me so very greatly. Their death has not separated them from me. As they did, when I was a child, they keep a watchful, loving eye on me, just as my mother did at Marshall Fields in Chicago so very long ago.

Ruthie has had a very tough year. It has been approximately 8 months since she was first run over by a pickup truck, suffered two broken ankles, one which healed on its own, and one which later needed surgery. She was cleared to go back to work in February and lasted only one night. It hurt her to walk. An MRI discovered that the top of her right foot (the surgery ankle) was broken. Another long period of healing and finally cleared to go back to work in May, only to last 4 days when it became too painful to walk. Another MRI revealed that she has osteoporosis in her lower back and multiple fractures in her lower spine and cracked vertebrae. It has been one setback after another and she is quite depressed about it. She has finally made the decision to retire at the beginning of August. Hopefully, her back will be more healed than broken by that time.

This poem is about God incarnate within others. So often when we are in the midst of crises in our lives, whether it be health, or work related, or relationship, we wonder, “Where are you God?” We are not alone in this. In both Mark’s and Matthew’s Passion accounts, Jesus in Gethsemane calls on God to assist him and God remains silent. Jesus’ last words in both of those Passion accounts, “My God, my God why have you forsaken (or abandoned) me?” is a cry of one who feels abandoned by God and is perplexed by God’s seeming absence. Jesus was no stranger to the human condition.

Well I know these feelings of abandonment. A simple hip replacement turned into a medical nightmare when a MRSA infection set in that would not be cured. After 8 weeks the artificial hip would have to be removed. The normal antibiotic for MRSA came close to killing me. I went 5 1/2 months without a left hip as infectious disease doctors tried to find antibiotics in combination that would kill the MRSA but not kill me. It would take 3 more surgeries on the same area (it got to the point where surgical staples were no longer effective. The surgeon used 50 lb weight fish line as sutures toward the end.) before finally I would receive a second hip, 8 months after I had received the first artificial hip and begin to walk again.

It is from out of this dark and frightening time that I address this poem to my beloved, Ruth.

FINDING GOD

Eight months.
Has it been that long?
Chair bound, waiting,
bones knit slowly,
far slower than
the many sweaters
you have crocheted.
Healing and wholeness
seemingly, just out of reach.

I remember my crucible.
Eleven weary, hapless months,
six of which hopping around
like Long John Silver
cutting deals with God,
groping blindly for
God’s presence, wondering,
asking, “Where are you?”
as the infectious disease
doctors groped for
a cure for my MRSA.

Within the silence
was the answer I sought.
God was present
all the time.
God present
in your touch.
God’s comfort
in your words.
The last face I beheld
before slipping into
surgical sleep
was yours.
The first face I beheld
as I awakened
into the haze of post-op
was yours.

It was always you,
God present to me.
At home, in the waiting,
those sterile rooms
of hospitals and
doctors offices,
the long car rides
to appointments.
Always God present
to me in you, in
your smile, in the
changing of many
surgical dressings,
God in you for me.

Now it is my turn
to be God for you.

(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

In a Confirmation at St Wenceslaus in the early 80’s, the confirmandi stood as Archbishop Roach prayed, invoking the Holy Spirit to come down upon them. As he prayed, what appeared to be a bird soared over the heads of the confirmandi. Upon closer examination, it wasn’t a dove flying over their heads. It was a bat. Apparently, the Archbishop’s prayer awakened a bat up in the choir loft, and the bat decided to check out all the activity below in the church. It was all rather amusing as ushers grabbed the collection baskets and chased the bat up and down the aisles eventually into one of the bell towers.

The most ancient Hebrew symbol of God’s Spirit in Hebrew scriptures is not a dove (nor a bat). It is the breath of God. God breathed upon the waters in Genesis, and life came forth. Ruah, is the Hebrew word for God’s breath. It is the Wind from all 4 directions that restored a valley of bones to life in the book of Ezechial. It is God’s Wind roaring through the streets of Jerusalem that fills the upper room on Pentecost day. The dove as a symbol, heavily influenced by Greek mythology, came much later.

As I finished up my studies to be a spiritual director, I spent five days at a hermitage located on a lake. It was early May, and nature was blossoming everywhere. I spent most of my solitude on the shore of that lake, meditating. I observed how the wind moved the clouds in the sky and the waters on the lake. Remembering how God breathed upon the waters in Genesis, I marveled that the Holy Spirit is God’s life force in the world. It is God’s breath that moves the clouds and causes the waves upon the lake. God’s Spirit is above us, below us, and to the sides of us. As I took a deep breath, I became aware that it is God’s breath that I was breathing. We are never isolated from God’s Holy Spirit. Rather, we move, live, and have our being within the Spirit of God.

God’s Spirit is not trapped in some church building. The Holy Spirit is all around us. On this Pentecost, walk outside. Listen to nature. Feel the breeze on your skin. Take a deep breath and become aware of God’s Spirit around and within you.

My mom, aka “Jean”, “Regina”, “Queenie” (Regina is Latin for Queen), would be 98 years old on June 4th. She died last year on June 30th, shortly after her 97th birthday. Susceptible to pneumonia over the last year of her life, she was being treated for pneumonia when osteoporosis caused a spontaneous break of her left femur. At 97 years, bones so brittle that they could break easily, there was no way she would have gotten a femur nailing to fix the break. She would have died either in surgery or following shortly afterward. The hospice nurse and I sat down and I told her that the only thing we could do for mom was keep her comfortable and allow her to die. I suffered a very high femur break in 2002, and knew how hard it is to recover from a femur break. As I as recovering, I overheard my surgeon talking to another surgeon, that initially he was not too sure I was going to survive the break. The shock of a high femur break can kill you. (Note: it’s nice to prove doctors wrong from time to time. I am still alive and sinning, as they sing in an Irish song.).

My mom was a great woman of faith. It was her faith that helped her at the age of 12 years, when her mother died, and the death of her little sister, Mary Greta on Christmas Day, two weeks following her mother’s death. My mom’s faith supported her when at 25 years of age, her dad died. My mom received her degree in Home Economics and taught in the Pittsburgh school system. Religious prejudice still abounded then, and though she was a very good educator, she was fired for being a Catholic. She went on to work for the Union Gas Company in Pennsylvania and taught cooking schools all over the State of Pennsylvania. She met my father and was not too sure about him at first. But he eventually charmed her, and her pastor, Father Coglin (who at the death of her dad kind of became her surrogate father … not just anyone was going to marry Queenie, according Fr Coglin).

Mom’s faith sustained her through the ups and the downs of family life. All those 25 years of my sister, Mary Ruth’s Crohn’s disease were tough on all of us, but especially my mom and dad who walked with Mary Ruth through those days and numerous surgeries that were apart of their lives. When Crohn’s disease finally took Mary Ruth’s life in 1997, at the age of 42 years, it was their Catholic faith that sustained both of my parents.

Mom told me that a month or so after Mary’s death, she had a very vivid dream. Mom found her self at a house and knocked on the door. A very beautiful woman answered the door and invited my mom inside. Mom told the woman she was looking for Mary Ruth. The woman smiled and led mom to a room with a two way mirror. Mom, undetected, looked into the room and saw my sister sitting on the floor playing with some little children. My sister was no longer gaunt and broken by her illness, but looked very much alive, healthy and happy. Also, in the room, there was a very handsome young man with a brown beard smiling at my sister. Mom noticed that the beautiful woman, who had invited her in and led her to this observation room, was no longer with her. She then saw that woman enter the room my sister was in, and walk up to her and whisper some words to my sister. Mary Ruth got up and left with the woman. Mom turned around and saw that my sister and the beautiful woman enter the room my mom was in. Mary Ruth hugged my mom and said, “Don’t worry mom, I am okay and am very, very happy.” The dream then ended. Mom said to me, “I know that that beautiful woman was the Blessed Mother, and the young man with the beard was Jesus. I am at peace knowing that your sister is very happy and at peace.”

After Mary Ruth’s death, mom got gravely ill and was in the hospital from Thanksgiving through Christmas. The doctors were puzzled as to why she was so sick. They finally decided shortly before Christmas to do an exploratory surgery on her. My dad, stalwart as he was, was very worried. My mom was a wee bit OCD (her dirt was always the cleanest of dirt), and as we walked her down to the surgical ward, she looked at my dad and said, “Walt, you’ve been wearing the same shirt for the last week. You’ve got to change that shirt. People will think you haven’t any other clothes.” We both gave her a kiss as she went into preop and then went to the surgery waiting room. Dad looked amused. He said to me, “She thinks I have been wearing the same shirt for the last two weeks. She forgets I have more than one of these shirts.”

I think that this heavenly visit in a dream helped mom greatly when my dad died from congested heart failure in 2004. Mom and dad had only been living in New Prague one year before his death. Mom, made friends easily, something not always done in this small town of large, closely knit Czechoslovakian families. She was always entertaining guests. She had her falls and surgeries, but she was always determined to return home and managed to continue to live at home until her dementia grew to the point that she had to move into Mala Strana nursing home. Once she adjusted, she made a point of welcoming all new residents coming to Mala Strana, and letting them know that someone cared for them.

She would be at all the activities, be present at whatever religious services were being held. The home economics teacher in her was always present with mom giving nutritional advice to the other women at her table, especially one woman of 95 years that announced that she was pregnant. The woman received, much to her dismay, a lot of nutritional advice from mom e.g. “You can’t have two ice creams for dessert! That’s not good for the baby!” (I did ask mom how she thought the woman got pregnant. Mom said, “The nuns (mom’s label for the nursing home staff) caught her drinking beer in the basement with the boys.” I replied that just might produce an occasion in which pregnancy could happen.). Mom loved it when children from the elementary school would come to the nursing home and read to her.

Of course, mom’s OCD never went away. She would wheel herself into residents’ rooms and announce that she was there to clean the room. When the residents would object, mom would say that’s okay. I will cross your name off the list for cleaning today, at which point, the residents would agree to mom cleaning their room. To keep mom from watering plants (to prevent mom from falling from her wheel chair), Ruthie bought her some really beautiful artificial flowers and put them in a decorative vase. Mom would say, “people pass by and want to smell them they look so real. They touch them and then ask me, “where did you get them?” And I say to them, “My husband’s wife got them for me.” I looked at Ruthie and quietly said, “Not only am I a bigamist, I have a Oedipal complex.”

On her birthday in 1970, I composed this piano music for her as a gift.

Happy 98th birthday, mom!

Love,

Bob

“Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”  (Jn 17:24)

With the Feast of the Ascension  moved to the 7^th Sunday of Easter in most Catholic dioceses of the United States, we no longer hear the readings from the 7^th Sunday of Easter. In this Gospel verse from the 7^th Sunday of Easter, we hear Jesus’ intimate prayer to the Father, asking the Father to protect his disciples,  and to allow his disciples to dwell with him forever.

Jesus speaks of the Father loving him before the creation of the world. Do we feel similarly loved by God? The psalmist writes in Psalm 139, that even before we were conceived in our mother’s womb, we were named and loved by God. Our self worth is measured in how much God loves us, and is not defined by how the world sees us.  As Jesus was a gift from God to our world, so we, too, are gifts of God’s love to our world.

To be “God’s gift to the world” does not imply that we think the whole world revolves around us. That kind of narcissism is the antithesis of being a gift from God. Rather it is measured by humility, realizing the gifts God has given us are meant to be shared, and by serving others as Jesus served. Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving. As his disciples, we, too, must be gifts that keep on giving. In this way, we will be one with Jesus in his glory.

While they (the disciples) were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

Think of the extraordinary events that the disciples experienced. They traveled with Jesus as he taught, healed, and performed miracles like the feeding of the 5000 and the calming of the storm at sea. Then they witnessed  Jesus’ arrest, torture and execution. And, then, the crème de le crème event, Jesus rises from the dead and interacts with them again. Is it any wonder, that as Jesus ascended into heaven, they stood their gawking into the sky? Yet, the angels gently reprimand them by saying essentially, “Quit your gawking and twiddling your thumbs. You’ve got work to do.” The angels’ gentle reprimand is addressed to us, as well.

I remember arriving at the hospital shortly after my father had died. My dad was the wisdom figure of not only my own family, but of all our extended family on the East Coast. Dad was constantly being called and asked for his counsel. As I sat next to my dad’s lifeless body, I thought to myself, “The wisdom figure of my family has died.” Then it suddenly dawned on me, “Oh my God! Now I am suppose to be the wisdom figure of the family! Man, everyone is so SOL!” The torch my father had carried in life had been passed on to me at his death. The time had come for me to grow up and carry on the legacy of my father.

It falls not only to a small group of individuals to carry on the saving mission of Jesus. The mission of Jesus  has been passed on to all of us! It is now our responsibility to allow God’s Reign to enter our world through us. Our “mission field” is our homes, our places of work, and our communities. Jesus has no use for “lazy” disciples who sit around “twiddling their thumbs”. The Feast of the Ascension reminds us that it is time for us to “grow up” and carry on the saving mission of Jesus.