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Of Aslan, Scotty, and the Last Battle…….

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As a summer project, Scotty and I have been reading “The Chronicles of Narnia” together, though “together” generally means I am way ahead of him. Many years ago, Steph and I read “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” together, but that was as far as I went. When Scott and I decided to read the series, I asked Steph about it. Steph, who is an avid reader, was able to provide us with two full sets of the series from her personal library!

It amazes me at how much I love to read, but how little I actually do. I find it very relaxing AND, I find that it also helps in my rehab. This series in particular has been so much fun for me too. As a priest, CS Lewis was a theologian, not a fiction writer. But “The Chronicles of Narnia” seems to contain both fiction and theology. It has been a real blessing to me, as well as a privilege to read them with Scott.

I began to read “The Last Battle” this evening, which is the last book in the series, and I am both excited and depressed about getting to its end! I know there are other books I can read, but there have been few books I have enjoyed as much as these.

Anyway, I’m off to stay ahead! I hope to finish “The Last Battle” by bedtime. Of course the last battle is never really over……..I still have to push that 15 year old boy of mine to catch up! But in truth, it is still easier than getting him to clean his room!

Nite and God bless!

Fr. Tom+

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Elvis is in the building………well, kind of…….

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I saw him today, and he is here, in Indiana, and even has a home here! Oh no, it’s not really Elvis, but rather Father Sean Templeton who joins our staff beginning August 1st! (In my mind, Sean is definitely better than Elvis anyway!)

We met Sean up at the house he is renting in Muncie and helped him move some things and unpack a bunch of books (thousands, maybe millions). We then held our clergy meeting at the Bob Evans there in Muncie. Now I have been to a lot of clergy meetings in my time, and I have to say that I like the ones at Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel the best. (Ideally, they would be best if the first half was at one and the second at the other, but I digress) There is nothing like hanging out with the very guys who will be visiting you in the hospital when all that fat you are eating plugs up your arteries. (Elvis would be proud) But I can truly confess that a great time was had by all.

Anyway, Sean will be heading back to Ohio tomorrow for his final weekend preaching and celebrating in the parish he was erving there. I am sure they will hold a big party for him, but I also know there will be a lot of tears. Though people I am certain are happy for him, it will indeed be hard for them to see him go.

But here we will be planning another party…..one to welcome him as one of our own!

Keep him in your prayers as he travels!

Nite my friends and God Bless.

Tom+

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Okay, morning MUST BE a relative term……..

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What a goofball I am! I really thought I had accomplished so much today, and yet as I sat down tonight to type this, thinking I could complete it and go to bed early, I read the promise yesterday (of an apparent lunatic) saying he would be up early and write in the morning! What would possess him to say those things???? Probably just the same flawed gene that is responsible in my life for the lines, “sure mom, I cleaned my room,” “if we just get a puppy I will ALWAYS take care of him,” “don’t worry about those cookies, I will just have one,” and of course the famous, “I promise I’ll do it tomorrow” which is of course just a comprehensive excuse that not only gets one out of a lot of responsibilites, but which also implies a very noble intention…..a great distraction for those of us with forgetful minds!

Anyway, sorry to dissapoint you, but this post will be the only one I will ,or even can, offer today. I and my memory appear to be about as reliable as Brittany Spears in a Mother of the Year Contest.

So for tonight, I am out on the porch with the door to the house open, and the cat coming in and out, which is not just her job, but her prerogative. My body is adjusting back to the long day I had yesterday, and hopefully by morning it will be back on track. Our regular clergy meeting tomorrow will be in Muncie where our new assistant priest is moving. We will meet there at 10am (now I just heard 9am!!) to unload his furniture into the house he is going to live in. He will head back to Ohio for his final weekend at his Church there and before leaving to join our staff on August 1st. He (Father Sean) is a great guy, and we love him to death, but tonight my prayers will be for his furniture to be light!!!!

On a disconnected note, let me say, I hope you are enjoying this blog. I have to confess, it has not turned out the way I intended….anywhere near what I intended in fact! I really did think it would be more theological (which in priest’s terms means smarty-pants stuff, but in the regular world means “dull”) but I suppose it is what it is. I NEEDED to write to help myself recover from the stroke, and in truth all that I have written has been helpful. But here’s the confession…..it has also pointed out a piece that I will need to share with my doctors in September if things have not changed. I have indeed lost a big important thinking part of my brain.

But before you fret, or even panic, please remember I process most of my life through my faith. I believe this not to be a tragedy as much as a call to a new direction. Time will tell, and we will see….but I KNOW I will be a priest until the day that I die. I just think how and what I am doing is beginning to change. Please pray for me. For more than anything else right now, I both want and NEED the Lord to intervene to let me know that moving furniture tomorrow to be a bad idea.

But I am not holding my breath.

Nite my friends, and God Bless!

Fr. Tom+

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Getting in when the cows come home…….

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Well I have plenty to say, it just would be irresponsible at this point to be saying it. We just returned from taking Steph and Scott on a day trip, and it is 2:12 am! My body has been pushed over the limit, not by doing too much, but by staying up too long! So I will ask for forgiveness, and promise to write in the morning!

Thanks for understanding! I am sometimes up this late/early, but it usually means something is wrong! Of course tonight/this morning something is……..I am clearly not smart enough to go to bed!

Nite and God bless! I will write in a few hours!

Tom+

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Forgetting that which I thought I would remember……ouch!

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One of the up-sides of having a stroke is that when you forget things, people seem to give you a lot of room for your mistake. Take this blog for instance…..yesterday I just plum forgot! Could it have been the stroke? Sure. Is it really likely that it was my stroke? Well, probably not.

Of course as a Christian, I suppose I could make the excuse that it was Sunday and the Sabbath. Fine and good, had I not already worked most of the day…..plus it would have been a lie (you don’t take 75% Sabbaths)!

I will admit that I sat down early last night and did attempt to get some thoughts together, which never did come, but at least I tried. Was that failed attempt the stroke? Maybe, but without constant CT scans, doctors and therapists to tell me if it was or not, who’s to know? It probably really doesn’t matter. What mind I have is going to be there with or without excuses! I can no more replace it than I can my arm!

Anyway, Amanda reminded me about the blog tonight as I got home from Nashville and an Alpha Course preview at around 10pm, and she did so in a “I seem to need to be reminding you in a worrisome way.” That’s a sure and certain sign that she thinks it’s a stroke-thing. As for me, I appreciate her concern and gentle nudge…..it is welcome sympathy. I will not let it go to waste. If forgetfulness and confusion get me gentle reminders, maybe a few more forgetful episodes will relieve me from loading the dishwasher and mowing the lawn.

It’s worth a try…….but I won’t hold my hopes too high. After all, I am not crazy….I’ve just had a stroke.

Nite my friends and I am sorry to have forgotten to come back to my typing last night!

God bless. forgetting

Tom+

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There can be no more gunpowder left in China………

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It is July 19th, and it absolutely amazes me the amount of fireworks I am seeing and hearing from my back porch tonight at 10:30 at night. It finally led to my looking up the law, and sure enough it has been changed. In Indiana, not only are all types of fireworks legal, but you apparently can shoot them off on the big holidays from 9am to midnight. Less we think we have become unreasonable here in the Hoosier State, if it is not a big holiday (so this means ANY OTHER day of the year) we now have to respect our neighbors and stop firing them off by 11pm! IT’S ABSOLUTE LUNACY!!! My neighbors can complain if my stereo is too loud, but not if I am lighting off explosives! (If I were just 35 years younger I would think this was the coolest law in the world, but clearly I am not!)

But I suppose lots of things in our modern world don’t make sense to me, and fireworks is just one of them (and I do not think it is my age). For instance, as a third generation American, I wonder how people can break the immigration laws and come here illegally, and we just turn our heads. My family didn’t come here that way. We followed the rules, and I believe we all should!

And how about all these people we hear about who commit MAJOR CRIMES, who not only have been in jail many times before, but who then never complete anywhere near their sentence. Or how many times do we need to hear about a drunk hitting someone with their car only to find out that they have had a ton of DUI’s before this one? AND ALL THIS OF COURSE IS JUST A SHORT LIST!!! What has happened to order? Where in the world is our common sense? We really need to get a grip on things before it’s too late!

I worry about where we are and where we are headed, and that’s part of why I do what I do. Our world needs to make a turn and head in a better direction, and I believe that a life of faith, and the discipline it requires, is just the ticket we need to get where we need to go.

You see, life is more than fireworks, or just doing what in the heck you want. Following Jesus means loving God and your neighbor, and loving both requires a life of personal responsibility and respect. We are clearly not there, but through Christ I believe we can get there!

It’s quiet now, but I guarantee you Ben is already in my bed. If that’s what it takes to get him through the night tonight peacefully, then so be it. But the world we see still waits for him and for all our children, and I believe we should be concerned. We are its current stewards and they are tomorrow’s. What we will hand them should offer more than we offer now.

I still however have hope for the future, for with God all things are possible. I prayed for the fireworks to stop and they have. I am certain it was not the prayers as much as the neighbors running out of ammo! But nonetheless, if we are going to change anything and make it last, God must be in it! My hope and prayer is that you too want more for our children that the culture we see, and that you will join me in praying for better, and commit yourself to working for better with me as well!

A peaceful night to you my friends, and God Bless!

Fr. Tom+

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It’s late, I’m bored, and I am tired…..thank GOD!

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Well tonight there is no moon, no fireworks, and no distractions because I am writing this early. It has been a busy day and I can’t even begin to express how ready I am to get some sleep! So tonight my daughter’s beliefs that I am “so old” will not be dispelled. I will hit the bed before 10pm tonight (which I believe is pretty late anyhow, but please don’t tell Steph)

In addition to wearing myself out today however I got a lot of things done. We made some progress on our plans for St. Paul’s Greenfield. I was able to speak with my friend Sister Sarah Masterson who is a nun in the northern part of the state. I finished up some final touches on my sermon for tomorrow. And in addition to the usual office stuff, Ben and I also did a few home repairs between the macaroni and cheese and sippy cups. (That’s all Amanda allows me to use, she says I’m messy)

But regardless, lately it seems it always comes down to Puddy and I out here on the porch typing at the end of the day. She’s the perfect assistant to be out here with me as I type, because unlike her canine companions, she never drops a wet ball into my lap or eats the porch rails or the chairs. She just watches birds and bugs till I finish up and we go in. I appreciate her company for the hour or so we are usually out here together….it’s clearly quality time. After all she sleeps about 22 hours a day, and to give me half of her awake time in a day makes me feel tremendously important.

Though I rarely watched it, Jerry Seinfeld made a great living in starring in a show about nothing. Somehow I feel like my day today could be one of his episodes. Not everyday in the life of a priest contains an amazing transformation, an interrupted wedding (at the objection part), the confession of a murder, or an exorcism! If you are expecting any of that, you are watching way too much TV…..(or it may be happening tomorrow). Today was pretty routine!

But today, more than anything, was just a day I got to enjoy with my youngest boy where not a whole lot happened…..thank God for that too!

I will count it as a win, and hit the bed for hopefully some quality sleep.

It has been a great day…..I pray that yours has been one too!

Nite and God bless!

Tom+

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Of blasting away the effectiveness of my fragile mind…….

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The day is done, the moon is full, and I am once again out on the back porch. I was going to say something about how peaceful it was out here, but apparently someone has taken it upon themselves to light a bunch of firecrackers out front our house in the street. Perfect timing!

Sadly, it has taken my mind away from what I was going to write about tonight and I just cannot seem to get it back! Immediately I began to think about those blasts scaring Ben and waking him up, and then that’s right where my mind stays! Dear Lord I love my stroke-damaged mind! I get distracted, my mind goes there, and there it stays until it’s ready to leave! Oh well, I will not worry about it. I have learned that when I do I only frustrate myself. (I also have learned that I never get distracted thinking about a nice big cheeseburger or a beach either!)

Anyway, let me just say I will try again tomorrow. Sleep is great therapy for me and the Lord seems to be giving me new chances to write this each day! I hope to make the best of it tomorrow. Jesus tells us not to worry, and I try not to…but the firecrackers tonight make that hard. But the sun will bring a new day, and with it God’s Son will bring us all more opportunities!

Nite and God Bless!

Tom+

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Profits and loss……..

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As I was considering what to write about today I once again was drawn to the “Verse of the Day” found on the front page of our website, a pretty neat feature sponsored by Christ Notes. Today it is Matthew 16:26 which says, “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?” In other translations instead of “life” it uses the word “soul.” The idea however is the same. As Christians we are called not to amass treasures on earth, where the Bible points out moth and rust consume, but we are instead called to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven….for where our treasure is so will our hearts be also!

If we look around however, we can see that many people seem to head in the other direction. TV is filled with tons of ways you can get rich. We glamorize (and sometimes idolize) wealth and celebrity. And there’s a lot of anxiety, especially these days, about OUR economy, and the effects it will have upon US.

But we live in a world that needs to focus less on us, and more upon the Lord. Our economy may have it’s ups and downs, but we should always remember that God’s economy always grows!

You know every person any of us has ever known has come into the world naked and with nothing, and here’s a big secret….the “with nothing” is how they all leave it too (and that includes us). It doesn’t matter how important we are, or how much we have made or have…..in the end we can not take anything with us. You see, it profits us nothing to gain even all we could imagine. The only thing that really matters in the end is our belief in Jesus Christ, for it is through that belief that we indeed gain everything we need…..through Him we gain eternal life!

This life we live really is important and it has a lot of meaning! But we do not find that meaning in things, we find it in our relationship with the very One who created all that we see!

Nite my friends and God bless…..I hope today and all your days are full of the kind of profit that will pay off for eternity!

Fr. Tom+

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Trust me, I am a doctor………………..

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A few years back, after I graduated with my doctoral degree, someone gave me a t-shirt as a joke that says, “Trust me, I am a doctor.”

It of course was good for a laugh. It is one of those kind of shirts that guys sometimes wear because they actually think girls will fall for it. But in truth, girls are pretty smart and they know that most of the guys who wear those shirts are not really doctors, nor do their “property of the Indianapolis Colts Training Camp” or “FBI” shirts mean they are pro football players or special agents. (As a side note, my “property of the Indiana Pacers” shirt DID WORK on Amanda…even though I am just 5’9″ I believe she was distracted by my “I have decided to give up my career in the NBA for the ministry” line….clearly she was spellbound by my noble character)

But as for my “Trust me I am a doctor “shirt, I sometimes wear it around the house. If I wear it out however it is always under something. I guess I am a bit embarrassed by it, but tonight as I was out (wearing it under a jersey) I was thinking, “why should I be embarrassed?”

If the truth be told, I really am a doctor, no not an MD, but a kind that really can be trusted. And I suppose if you think about it, I am the kind that can provide people with what they really need! I can’t fix all that ails you, but I can give you what you need to live forever. I cannot keep you pain free, but I can introduce you to the very One who made the heavens and the earth, who knows pain Himself, and who will walk alongside you, or even carry you through it. What better kind of doctor could I be?

Maybe I should be wearing that shirt out after all…..I don’t need another girl, after all I have one……but I’m seeing that there’s really a lot of truth in its words. And it just might lead to the writing of some very helpful prescriptions!

Nite my friends and God bless….

Tom+