For the love of Pete!

 The phrase "For the love of Pete!" usually reveals a certain level of frustration from the individual that it erupts from. A smidgen of research and I found this explanation as to its origin: "Think of hitting your thumb with a hammer in the presence of the omnipresent medieval church. You couldn't swear, or else your local priest would have you up before the Bishop and Lord alone knows the outcome of that. So you would tersely state "For Saint Peter's Sake."  But now it is a euphemism for " for the love of God/Christ/ or "for God's/Christ's sake." I prefer that use. Our parish uses that phrase to refer to a fundraiser for our elementary school, but every time I travel down North Seventh I smile at what that phrase means to me.

Bernard "Pete" Kin died a couple of months ago.  Various commitments prevented me from attending the viewing or the funeral, but I thought about him a great deal during that week. Pete was one of  my father's cousins and the first time I actually talked to him I was rendered speechless at his eyes. I was taken aback by how I saw my heritage in those eyes. His eyes looked exactly like those of my grandfather and my great-grandfather father as well. I remember thinking "How could I feel so at ease in the presence of someone I had never met before just by looking in his eyes?" Oblivious to my initial reaction to his gaze, Pete smiled that gentle, relaxed smile and started to tell several actual stories of our shared heritage. I  listened to those stories and more over the course of time, and each time I left with a certain satisfaction that over time, everything works out.

Pete's physical legacy to me exist in a pair of rosaries. Pete was known for making, and repairing, more rosaries that I have ever, or will ever, see in my lifetime and giving them away to others.One beautiful gray rosary, constructed of 'Job's Tears' seeds from his garden, lies draped over the back of my parlor sitting chair and is the one that I pray with most often. Each time I pray with Pete's handiwork, I have in my hands beads that gently remind me of my heritage of faith and farming.

The other rosary from North Seventh Street was one that I specifically stopped and asked Pete for one summer's day. I wanted a rosary to leave at the grotto on the Chapel grounds. There were days when I thought about stopping before the statue of Mary to pray, but never had a rosary with me in the car. As soon as I related my intentions to Pete, he quickly smiled, and let me pick a rosary from his collection. He also  made sure that I knew the history of a small burial place nearby on the chapel grounds. I haven't prayed there for a while, but am intending to make an informal pilgrimage  in the next couple of weeks.

Many people strive all their lives to be remembered by future generations. Yet, there are those who never wonder about their legacy, they simply link themselves quietly with the people they come into contact with everyday. Pete spent a great deal of his life linking beads together  so that others could link their lives to the Lord. Each time I sit in the parlor or kneel at the grotto, I am privileged  to pray for that very special "love" of Pete's.

A visit from an old friend

"Here, I had forgotten I had this." My sister handed me my copy of "Falling Upward" by Richard Rohr and I swear all I could do was utter a small gasp! All of Father Rohr's works render me speechless, but "Falling Upward" had ushered me along to new paths. As I thumbed through a couple of pages, I smiled and thought, "Yes, I had forgotten I had this to." For the life of me, right now I could not tell you one line from the book. I had read all those pages quickly the first time through, then  gave it away to others. Those that read those pages of Rohr's insights,simply smiled as they gave it back. That look said it all. Sharing Rohr binds people.  Now, though, I seem to have  amnesia about who I had promised to give the book to. Maybe a slow read will jog my memory? Only a  slow read, the memorization of  lines, and  resting with Rohr will convince me to part with those pages again. I  need Father Rohr right now in my life.

I flipped through  the pages of the book and found quotes from Thomas Merton's "When in the Soul of the Seren Disciple".  I also found:

"When you have made it all the way to the bottom of who you think you are, or need to be, when your humiliating shadow work never stops, and when your securities and protective boundaries mean less and less, and your "salvation project" had failed you"

"When you have faced the hurt and the immense self-doubt brought on by good people , family, and even friends who do not understand you, who criticize you, or even delight at your wrongness"

"The inner life of quiet, solitude, and contemplation is the only way to find your ground and purpose now. Go nowhere else for sustenance."    

I will not go elsewhere. I have an old friend to visit.