Odds And Ends

*Treat yourself.
Go see the new Disney/Pixar animated film, Up, which opened May 29.
Okay, okay, I know it's animation and supposed to be for kids. But there's something in it for everybody. Awesome creativity. Neat story. Incredible detailing. It's a visual feast.
What I liked were the powerfully depicted themes of adventure-seeking and risk-taking. Of a long, rich, fulfilling marriage. Of the sobering losses that come with old age as well as the opportunities to mentor and nurture future generations. Of coming to the realization that, in looking back,we find that our best days were not the real dramatic ones but rather the mundane, routine ones that we hardly noticed in passing. I guess you could say that getting to the place where we accept the past and arriving at the point where we're best positioned for the future are two emphases beautifully illustrated in this story of a flying house, a grieving old man, and an eager but already slightly wounded young boy.
Carve out a couple of hours, get some popcorn, and enjoy this cinematic experience that just might bring a tear or two to your eyes even as you laugh. Children will get a kick out of this movie on one level, but adults will find much here on which to reflect as well.


*I had a pleasant afternoon last Sunday at, of all places, a funeral home visitation in Wakefield, VA(yes, I went to the famous Virginia Diner while I was over there!).
I went because a 92-year old cousin, a most beautiful woman in her day, had died. She was on my late mother's side of the family and I suppose I made the effort to attend the wake because this lady and my mom had been so very close growing up and, of course, my mother could not be there.
I'm glad I went.
I didn't know anyone there except for another cousin and her daughter. This cousin, much younger than my mom but growing up around her, has always been good at answering my many, many questions about the childhood and teen years of my mother. My sources for that information are now very few. And there's so much I want to know! I think I'm more inquisitive than most folks my age about the family backgrounds and history of their parents, but even so, it's sad that we sometimes wait too late to seek and dig out those memories and stories and facts of familial context that would enrich us if we knew them.
Once again I peppered this relative with my inquiries.
I have this insatiable hunger to know more and more about what my mom was like in her younger years. When I get bits and pieces of clues, I try to picture her in the imagination of my mind as to those days long before I knew her.
Dorothy came through again last Sunday with more vignettes and wispy glimmers and images of a life well-lived and thoroughly enjoyed some 70 years ago. I was reminded of how my mother loved to dance back then(something I've never been any good at). I learned for the first time that Mama really adored cats(don't get me started on that!) I also heard yet again how playful and fun-loving she was.
Each person's journey is rich and packed with treasures waiting to be unwrapped and shared by and with somebody else. All of us need to be having those deep, intimate, rewarding conversations now before the sand in the hourglass runs down and the seconds on the scoreboard run out to that final buzzer. We become fuller, deeper, riper individuals when we breathe in and revel in the stories of our loved ones.
My time in that funeral home chapel last week was not wasted.
Incidentally, it was during that trip to Wakefield that I learned, by glancing at a Petersburg newspaper headline, that a 92-year old funeral director in Colonial Heights(site of my first pastorate)had died. I well remember riding in the lead car of many a funeral procession with Alvin Small in the late 1970's and early 1980's. We talked about churches and funeral home practices and burials and cremations and all kinds of things. I learned much from him, and he was always so courteous and complimentary and encouraging to this very young(then!) preacher. He prepared me well to receive very similar responses and assistance from the always kind and gentlemanly Eddie Faulkner here in Newport News. There is something of a bond between pastors and funeral directors! We have to work together, as a team, with people who are walking through the dark valley of losing loved ones. Colonial Heights, and especially the ministers there, have lost a dear friend.