Tag Archives: home

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Home Sweet Home, with qualifications…..

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I am SO HAPPY to finally be home. The sad part is that Amanda and Ben are not here, but are in Kansas visiting Amanda’s mother. It disappoints me greatly to not be able to lay down on the floor and have him run and jump on me like he loves to. But I am going to wait on that until Monday, because Steph and Scott would not only jump at the chance, but it would probably hurt!

So anyway, it’s going to be the three Musketeers until Monday, but we will do our best to get by. I was originally worried that without Amanda here that Scott and I might not know when we were wrong, but apparently Steph is working for the darkside and will not just remind us of the rules, but certainly will tattle. She is on Amanda’s team and deeply devoted to Ben, but one day she will see that Ben is really on our team, and drawn to the ever rule-avoiding world of guy-dom! Scotty and I can hardly wait.

Anyway, my trip home, though slow, was good. My dad’s family is from Brooklyn, New York, but my mom’s side is from Ohio. So, as I often do when traveling through, I stopped at the cemeteries to visit the graves of my Great-Grandparents. It was a difficult time, because though I had been to both cemeteries often, the need to think in a linear fashion and handle confusion made itself well-known. The cemetery office was open in Urbana, and they were helpful in getting me to my grandfather’s parents. (I had actually buried my great grandma during Holy Week in 1998 at 103!!) But the office in Springfield was closed, and despite my “remembering” I could not find the graves. I intend however, to call before I go back.

I know many people believe visiting the cemetery is unnecessary, but it is important to me. Though I didn’t grow up knowing my grandma’s dad, I did know everyone else. They were all important to me too, and the parents of the most influential people in my life, my grandparents. I owe them all a lot and going to their graves is an important way for me to remember. I am glad I did…I am just sorry I was just 50% successful.

They say that home is where the heart is. I believe that to be true. I also know that cemeteries are just places……but I don’t worry, because I still hold all of them in my heart. Who you are and what you become is often a reflection of the people in your life, particularly those who love you. I am truly blessed, and I am glad I went.

Anyway, it is great to be home. Pray for my wife….I am sure she misses me terribly!!!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tom+

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Conferencing my brains out……..

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Today has been an exhausting day. I have worked hard to pace myself, particularly since our conference today was loaded with some of the most influential Bishops in the Church. It was a blessed day! And the conference ended for the day with a service where the preacher was Bishop Bob Duncan, the Bishop of Pittsburgh. He has been the lead Bishop of most the reformation in the American Anglican Church for years, and he was recently charged, tried, and deposed by the Episcopal Church for “abandonment of the Communion.” What a farce! He, like me and many others run through the Kangaroo Court, all seem to be still hard at work for the Lord. I just thank God for brave leaders like him.

Tomorrow however is the final day, and after a 6 hour drive home, I hope to get my life back to normal! I have lots of work to do when I get there, but the very fact that my bed will be there waiting for me is kind of exciting! Hotels can be nice, but Dorothy was right, there really is no place like home. I look forward to getting there!

Anyway, I will sign off for now. Please keep me in your prayers as I travel tomorrow afternoon. I am looking forward to coming home!

Good night and God Bless.

Tom+

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A great excuse to be short……..

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It’s midnight on Saturday and I am just getting home from a long day of meetings and travel. Since I am getting up in just four hours to polish up my sermon and then head to Nashville for a 9am service, I thought I would just pop in and ask for your prayers for me tomorrow. Today, and even the last few days, though productive, were extremely challenging. And though I apparently have survived them since I do think at least that I am home, tomorrow with the 9am in Nashville and the launch of St. Paul’s Greenfield at 1:00pm will take a lot out of me. It concerns me in that I feel way beyond my limit now. Hopefully, with God’s help, all will work out the way He wants it too.

Anyway, all this is to say I am going to just post this cheap excuse tonight and head to bed. God Bless you my friends. It is so great to be back home again in Indiana! Come join us tomorrow in Greenfield if you can. I will be the one sleeping through my own sermon!

Fr. Tom+

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Of the blessings of conflict and change…….

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I have spent the entire day in a meeting, and Lord knows I am tired. It has been well worth it to me though. I have been around some very strong and committed Christians whom I admire very much for both their courage and their witness in faith. It is a remarkable contrast to the majority of my ordained ministry where many of the people (even clergy) seemed more universalist than Christian, and where every move seemed calculated rather than courageous. I used to share how we as Americans really didn’t have to risk much to live our faith, but now, in this new paradigm, that is no longer true. I have spent the day among some very real saints of God, and for it, and for their witness, I am thankful.

I do miss home though. I miss my family, my back porch, my bed, and even the cat. I will be there tomorrow, but with a lot yet to go here, somehow that seems so far away. God willing however, tomorrow’s blog will be written in Indiana, and my life will return to normal. You have no idea how hard it is for me to be in a place without my wife……..I have no idea anymore when I am wrong!

I have been struck here by how the Lord brings people in and out of our lives at different times and for different purposes. Some of the people here I have worked with before. Others I have heard of and know their work. (Being as important as I am, I am sure that few had any clue to who I was!) But my point is that Lord is, as always, in control. His purposes are revealed to us as we come to Him in faith. As Anglicanism has exploded over these past few years, He has raised many a good Christian up to meet these new challenges, showing us that the direction we are heading now is far better than had it not exploded at all. Through conflict and change, the Lord is doing a new thing! And though it has been a challenge, I believe we are all blessed through it…..at least I believe I have been. I feel blessed and more alive each day!

As the Scripture says, “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” Amen.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Fr. Tom+

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The ramblings of a mind quite thankful for its own pillow…….

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Well we are finally back from Akron, and I have to tell you, it is great to be home! Sadly however, both Ben and Steph have colds, which is unusual I suppose for August, but they seem to be getting along okay. AND TONIGHT I am not sitting in some hotel room, but am back out on my back porch listening to K-Love and hanging with Puddy the cat!!!! The only not so peaceful part is that my neighbors stereo is up so loud that you can hear it from space, let alone from 100 feet, but after I put on these headphones…..well then, everything was and is quite peaceful!! I really don’t want to give the impression that my neighbors and my neighborhood is a bad one. I know the stereo is loud tonight, but it is never really that loud normally, and all the fireworks I have complained about seem to have stopped. The Bible tells us to “love our neighbor” and I intend to! They are as they say where I grew up, “good people.”

Tomorrow we only have two services….one in Noblesville and the other in Anderson. It will be good to be there. It’s not that I don’t enjoy gathering with other Christians in our denomination, particularly at national events, it’s just that I am always more comfortable at home…..I suppose we all are. Dorothy was right, there’s no place like home, and I am quite thankful to be back at mine!

Amanda and her mom are talking in the living room, and I am certain they will outlast me. Amanda is a great co-pilot for long trips if you like a co-pilot who sleeps all the way. So she is well rested and they are catching up, and particularly talking about the genetic superiority of “Ben the Wonderful” I’d bet. I will join Ben in sleeping through that conversation, because I too am going to bed! I do have a bit I want to share, but am far to cloudy to write about it tonight. Please however keep Deacon Dan, his wife Merry Ann, and Father Sean in your prayers as they will be returning home from Akron tomorrow.

Once again, it is great to be home!! Keep the faith….it’s the most important thing you can do!! And may your day be filled with the most wonderful blessings! Nite!

Fr. Tom+