A Moment in Time

This weekend is the Brickyard 400  Nascar race which means I am housebound today.  I won’t even bother to go out and get that 88 cent dish soap on sale at CVS that I’ve had my eye on.  All that can wait for tomorrow.

The race also means that Ismael’s entire weekend is spent either sleeping or working, so I definitely had to find my own free fun for a Saturday night.  My college girlfriend, Beth, invited Adam and I to come over after mass.  I could enjoy adult conversation while Adam laughed at her boys throwing paper airplanes.  Win-win.

I decided to attempt a 5:30 PM mass at Fr. Bill’s church as it is close to Beth’s.  Adam has been staying up a little later and I figured he could make it through.  I didn’t anticipate, however, that he has standing independently on his mind.  He spent the entire mass either wallowing on me or standing between my knees using my hands as a fun hammock to swing in.

I determined that wrestling an octopus into a wetsuit would have been easier than keeping him still and quiet.

I gave up at communion time, gathered my bag and my baby octopus, and headed for the car.

I’m pretty sure I heard cheering from the row behind me.

Father’s sermon was on the fishes and loaves Gospel.  He had brought a large, old looking clock to mass.  He talked about how there are moments in time that we have realizations, that in just a moment something becomes clear to us that we haven’t been able to see all along.

For him, one moment was when his parents gave him that clock.  The clock had always been on a high shelf out of reach of the children.  They were never allowed to touch it.

Father came home for a short visit while he was in seminary and to his surprise his parents sent the clock back with him.

On the drive back to seminary he came to two realizations:

1.  His parents now saw him as an adult who could be trusted with the responsibility of keeping this item that was precious to them.

2.  His parents, who had both been diagnosed with cancer, knew that they were dying.  They were giving away their most precious items to their children.

A moment of joy.  A moment of sorrow.

He contends that no matter how young or old we are, we have all had our own moments of time that we hold dear to ourselves.  What are they?

Usually this question would have me digging deep into my heart and memory to unearth these moments, to think about them, cherish them, relive them, relish them and consider how God has transformed them.

For some reason, I just can’t right now.  I have a lot on my mind in the present that is worrying me.  The present is challenging enough; I don’t have the energy to deal with the past.

One moment that readily comes to mind, though, was my decision to say yes to Ismael’s many marriage proposals.  He had been asking me for months to marry him and I kept putting him off.  It was too soon, I felt.  And then in a single moment, during a conversation with my friend Tommy, I knew that I wanted to marry Ismael.  My answer was yes.  It was a solitary moment in time where my heart spoke loudly without my mind getting in the way.

God has taken that moment and transformed it into the life we have today which has many struggles but a lot of joy as well.

What are your moments in time?

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