I am a teacher. When I complete this year I will have taught for 28 years, 26 of them at one high school.

I was looking up different profiles today and feeling kind of like I hadn’t done enough in life or with my life. Funny how that works. Comparison, the thief of contentment.

The gospel last Sunday was about the parable of the workers in the Vineyard, they all got paid the same wage at the end of the day and the workers who started work first felt cheated. Mathew 20:1-16

I feel cheated sometimes. I don’t have all the things I hoped to have.

I don’t have all the skills other people have. I don’t have all the money, prestige, acknowledgment some people have. I can feel sorry for myself sometimes and start to ask why? Why?

It seems to me we all have different jobs that Jesus wants us to accomplish and God will give us what we need to accomplish them regardless of whether or not we love Him. There are numerous examples of that in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Mathew 5:45

Sometimes the rain is good and needed and sometimes the rain creates havoc, crazy unpredictable storms or roads we have to drive down in order to get back home, but they can be slippery and dangerous and scary.

Lately, at least for me, the latter seems to be happening, although we seem to currently be in a calm patch.

Three years ago that wasn’t the case. Two week ago, September 19th, was my Dad’s anniversary of heading home. Three years and still like yesterday. All we were able to do was talk to him on video phone and then one night without any warning, we couldn’t talk to him any more. My Dad was beloved. My Dad loved God. My Dad loved his family and we tried so hard to be there with him but our government set in place restrictions that didn’t allow it. When my Dad was within minutes of death my mom, brother and pastor were allowed to be with him, so much rain, a downpour and since that day I have been wondering how someone like my Dad, a good man with a loving family ended up in a hospital alone, with no one to hold his hand or advocate for him, feed him ice chips, pray with him, comfort him. My family and I were cheated out of time with Dad during what would be his final days. 7 days, 2:00AM phone calls telling me things were going wrong, facetime chats with doctors and nurses. Reading his advanced health directive to my brother and sister at 2 in the morning, in the end it didn’t matter, the choice was made for us, an act of mercy.

The government imposed restrictions continued after his death, mourning him in a traditional manner with family in a church was against the rules. We sat in a church built for 900 people, but only 10 were allowed, with masks, and had my Dad’s funeral Mass. His oldest two grand-children were not allowed. The cemetery was a little more open since it was outside and we were told we could be there for 30 minutes. Later I helped my Mom pick out their gravestone, it was so hard, it was so very hard.

The parable about the vineyard speaks to me of the enormous mercy and love that God has for all his people. We can not comprehend the mind of God. 1Corinthians 2:11 We can’t understand his ways.

In the time that followed my Dad’s passing it gave me great comfort to attend daily Mass. We were still teaching and learning from home so every morning I got up, got dressed and went to Mass. There was no place else for me to go. I think I sort of understood what Peter meant. (John 6:68)

When we would say the Our Father most mornings, when we got to “Give us this day” it would feel like someone was holding my hand, my hand felt warm and heavy, like it does when someone is holding it, and I thought for awhile it was my Dad. I realized a year later it probably wasn’t my Dad. My guess is it was Jesus, always by my side, ever present and true. Funny how slow we are to see Jesus in our lives. When I sat quietly and thought about it I could see all the ways Jesus was there and I know my Dad wasn’t all alone even though our government said his family couldn’t be there. That brings me comfort, in a way. I know it was never it God’s plan for my Dad to die and I don’t blame God for any of it but oh how I wish somedays he was still here sitting in his chair in the morning when I would stop by, drinking coffee with my mom and sharing some news story with us or complaining about his water bill or taxes.

I guess this turned out to be mostly about my Dad and not teaching, it’s been awhile since I’ve written. I’ve kind of been hiding out I guess. Two years after my Dad died, our good friend Hector passed away, then my Dad’s sister, the family matriarch, we were with her as much as we could be, prayed with her and held her hand, tried to comfort her and gave her ice chips and then Great-Grandma, we were holding her hands and praying when she took her last breaths. They all passed within a month of each other and so close to the anniversary of my Dad’s passing, it was hard, so very hard.

I am glad, most days, that I decided to become a teacher. I get a chance every day to model God’s love for the kids, even if they don’t see it, understand it or know it. I get a chance to help them learn a science that I love, that I see God’s mind in, complicated and intricate.

In our letter today Paul told us to “complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others. Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.” Phil 2:1-5

I will try to do these things and when I find myself jealous of what others have or who others are or where others are able to go, I’ll remember all I ever need to aspire to be is like Jesus, as Father Brian said today, “nothing else matters.”

As for my friends and family who’ve moved on, “I look forward to the resurrection of the the dead, and the life of the world to come.”

For Jesus…I Give Thanks!

We did run this week, not very far but enjoyed some time up at the lake not far from our house. We are currently very slow, still rebuilding, I guess in more ways than one.

KOR