second time around = second chances

My Way Sunday
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youth is wasted on the young -
they don't know what to do with it

the bells were ringing
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Saturday was quite a busy day. First it got started later than usual. I slept in until 7:30am and had an appointment with a computer technician at 9am. The computer guy was to help put together one or two 'good' complete units [a cpu with monitor and mouse] out of 4 units of varying age and speed and capacities and functionality.

We met at my office at 9am and he got started. When I left him at 12:30pm, he had one complete set up and running. He was well started on getting second one going - he had already swapped some memory cards and had 'trashed' one monitor. The cpu from which he was stealing pieces and parts would probably be scrapped once he was finished. There was a fourth unit that, while still functioning, was so old and slow that it wasn't deemed suitable to our needs and would end up in a reclamation station.

I'll check on that all today sometime and see where he ended up.

I left him because I needed to get home to shower and shave and dress appropriately for a 2pm wedding. I made it.

Marriage is such a wonderful event - this one in particular. The bride is a friend and neighbor of ours. When we're on vacation, she gets our mail. When one of her kids needs to use the internet for homework because their machine is down, they come to our house. When she has a fire in the kitchen, one of the kids runs down and gets me to help put it out. If she needs to be gone a day or two, the kids stay with us. It has been a good neighborly relationship. The missus and I admire her so much.

She has been a single mom for some time and she has done an absolutely marvelous job. Her oldest son is getting ready to graduate from an Ivy League College. Her daughter just graduated from High School - with honors. Her youngest son just graduated from 8th grade and starts high school in the Fall. She is a practicing RN and is loved by everyone at the hospital at which she works.

Her new husband is a former successful business man who is now teaching in an inner-city 'at risk' middle school in a large city in Florida. He grew up here in our fair city, and we've known his parents and one of his brothers, and one of his sisters, for years - there are 8 children in all, and we've met them all from time to time. He, likewise, has adult children from a previous non-marriage.

The wedding Mass was wonderful. They planned it so well - and they knew exactly what they wanted it to be. It was God centered and so richly reflective of their deep abiding faith. Their faith has been nurtured and has grown through the years of their life experience. They were like two young people getting married - all excited and happy - and their life experience allowed them to bring all that to the Lord's table. "and the two shall become one."

The reception party that they planned and put together with a lot of help from their close friends was truly a celebration of new love.

Wow! What a day Saturday was.

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slot machines & weddings

My Way Sunday
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Tony stories #4

It IS who you know that counts
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I had been working out of the company's headquarters in the Detroit area for about a year when my past snuck-up on me. The main part of our office building was pretty plain and straight forward. It was a two story rectangular structure, approximately 150' wide and 75' deep. It was divided into two halves at about the middle across the width - this provided two sections on each floor, with each section approximately 75' by 75' .

The section to the right of center was used by the operations departments: dispatch office, drivers' break room, shower facilities, bunk-rooms for sleeping - all the things needed by an over-the-road trucking company to keep it moving freight.

The section to the left of center housed all the support departments: sales & marketing, personnel, accounting, payroll, pricing, etc.

That was the main part of the building.

There was, also, an Executive wing, where all the big-shots hung out - the owner, the president, a couple of vice-presidents, associated secretaries, a conference room, main entrance and reception area, etc. This part of the building was connected to the left half of the building, coming off to form an 'L' shape. It was only one floor high, not two.

The two story and the one-story were joined by a common hall-way and a staircase to the 2nd floor of the main part of the building. My office was at the top of the stairs on the left - that kept me closer to the bosses so if they need to chew on me, they didn't need to go as far, or yell as loud.

I mention yelling because the owner - after all he was the owner - would walk out of his office, look around to be sure there were no visitors in the area, turn facing down the hallway towards the stairs, and YELL:

"Jimmy - come down here ... NOW!"

He was the only one who called me "Jimmy".

I guess that's how he reminded everyone that he was the owner. I don't want to paint a bad picture of him - he liked me ... that's why I was working in our company's headquarters. He was sometimes like a father, or an older brother - always the boss, but friendly at times.

I charged down the stairs, headed down the hallway towards his office, accepting the looks and stares from the secretaries in the area. They knew the owner well enough to know that you could never tell if his yelling up the stairs meant trouble, or not. If the yelling continued once I entered his office, then they knew.

Today, he was charming. He small talked for awhile about nothing in particular; "So, how's everything going today?" "Had any problems with the people at ABC Company lately?" "How's the wife and kids?"

At least there was no more yelling. The secretaries outside could continue working instead of straining their ears to listen to what was going on inside.

Then the weird questions started. "So, how long did we have you working in the Chicago area?" "You probably made a lot of acquaintances while you were there, didn't you? I mean, besides our customers and vendors." "There sure are a lot of different kind of people in that area, aren't there? I mean Detroit is very cosmopolitan, but nothing like Chicago."

I really had no idea where this conversation was going. I was searching for clues in his words - but I was lost. Finally, he got to the point. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Trite, I know, but I was caught off-balance when he asked me: "SO, did you ever meet anyone with connections to the underworld elements of Chicago - like people that might be connected to gambling and stuff like that?"

My mind raced as I tried to figure out why he would ask something like that. Was there something in my past that he had heard about and he was now trying to figure out? Or was he in some kind of trouble? Or...?

I knew he owned a couple of thoroughbred horses - maybe he knew somebody who knew somebody I knew and had heard about Tony ... or worse.

My confusion must have shown. He then came out with what I was looking for - a reason for his weird line of questions.

"Jimmy - what I'm looking for is a slot machine. Do you know anyone who could help you get me a slot machine? I just want it as a conversation piece for my office here. People are fascinated by those things - I just wanted to have one they could drop a few quarters into when they're meeting with me - just a way to loosen them up ... to take the edge off before or after we conduct our business. Do you know anyone?"

Without divulging my connections and sources, I acknowledged that I was confident I could help him out. A few phone calls and two days later a machine was en-route to me ... via my old friend Tony. I never thought I'd see Tony again as an actual customer for his 'other line of equipment'.

Talk about nervous. You should have seen me. An illegal gambling machine in my house overnight. Yep - in my house. Tony arrived Saturday evening. We put him up in our house overnight ... along with the machine. After traveling in the trunk of his car, he said the machine needed to be 'gone through' to make sure all weights and balances and wheels were in place and properly set. He used the bar-counter in our basement family-room as a work bench. He tore that machine almost completely apart. He apparently had learned a few things from his friend the local city cop, Sal.

We had it arranged with the company owner to have access to his office on Sunday afternoon while there were very few people in the building. Once it was delivered, we took Tony out for dinner, and sent him on his way home.

I may have crossed the line but, have you ever seen the look on the face of a small child looking at the toys under the Christmas tree? That's what it was like when the owner came in on Monday morning and saw the present I delivered to him. He was ecstatic. He set it in a very prominent place in his office. It was the talk of the building for weeks. I went up in his esteem ... and my nervousness went away.

So, you see, 'it is who you know that counts' - well sometimes, anyways. I'll tell another Tony story in a future post.
[Previous Tony Stories found on June 1, May 25, and May 20 posts]

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unity sand

A wedding on the north-coast shore
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The Erie Islands Inn & Marina Resort
Port Clinton Ohio on Lake Erie

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There's the west-coast, and the east-coast, and the gulf-coast. Ever been to the north-coast?

The Great Lakes are our nation's north-coast.

Yesterday, Saturday, on the shores of Lake Erie, the southern most and shallowest of the Great Lakes, between Toledo and Cleveland Ohio, we attended the wedding of one of our nephews. Outdoors at a resort Inn and marina, on a platform overlooking the water, on one of the most beautiful days of the year, our nephew committed to traditional marriage vows and married his sweetheart. They've been together for a couple of years now and decided they wanted to commit to each other for the rest of their natural lives.

The minister, a woman who was a family friend of the bride, gave a very nice reflection on how a 'complete' man and a 'complete' woman can come together in marriage and use the power and the energy and the 'vibrations' of the Creator of the universe to become one. Each supports and challenges and draws from and gives to the other. They tune-in to the other's energy, and vibrations, to key-in to the power they possess to make each other the very best each can be.

A friend of the bride gave a reading of a poem on love. An Aunt of the groom gave a reading from the Christan Bible in 1 Corinthians 13. The minister offered prayer to 'the Lord' and made it in "...your name"...she just never mentioned His name.

Instead of the now traditional Unity Candle, they used "Unity Sand". There were two clear crystal [or maybe plastic] decanters filled with layered different colored sands - one decanter for each of the two families represented in the marriage.

First, the mothers each poured from one of the decanters into a common receptacle. The colors all blended together as they poured, and the two families were now symbolically joined.

Then came the couple to be married. They each poured the last of the layers, now a solid common color, from their respective decanter into the top of the receiving container. They were now symbolically joined. In a few minutes, after repeating vows to each other, they would in fact be joined.

A beautiful setting, a beautiful couple, a chance for life to be better for two people in love. I'm very happy we could be there.

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Entertaining Fallen Angels

They walked in the door and it took all of my experience, training, and disciplined self-control to welcome them - attributes needed in the arsenal of all parents of teen-agers. At times we are successful in their application, at other times we fail miserably. I was already praying for the grace to not fail miserably.

Experience has taught us that our children will do things to: a] shock us; b] run-up a trial balloon; c] really test us; d] prove to themselves that we are either 1: completely incompetent, or 2: the really outstanding, the know all the answers, parents they really want us to be but will never admit out loud. Tonight looked like all the above.

Our home is just 1/2 a block from our Catholic parish church. The parish property is a square of 3 blocks by 3 blocks. Extending from the central-north side to one block east of the northeast corner of the square is a state supported residential high school for the academically gifted from around the state - students in their 11th and 12th grades.

The school is an assemblage of bright minor children mostly below the legal age of 18. There are many rules, regulations, policies, and guidelines for the protection of those minor children whose home and parents can be located anywhere in the state ... including our son.

Students are required to sign-out when they leave the locked-down, alarmed building that is their home-away-from home - in pairs, and return in pairs, the same pair that signed-out together. They are not allowed to enter the homes of local private citizens without prior knowledge and permission of a school official - even our son when he visited home, which he didn't do all that often.

It was Sunday evening and there was a High School Youth Bible Study going on in our front room. Our son knew the woman leading the group, and he introduced his friend to her and the members of the study group. They were all cordial, yet seemed as taken aback by his friend as we were.

We invited our son and friend to come to the kitchen and have a snack and something to drink. We could talk and not disturb the others. His guest was several years older. Our policy raising our children was "Home is a place you can always come ... and your friends are always welcome here." That is not to say that we might not ask someone to leave for some serious breach of behavior or speech. SO, in a sense, "We asked for this."

It wasn't the dark clothes, or the full-length coat, or even the stringy long hair that caught our more immediate attention. The visible body piercings in the eyebrows, the nose, the ears ... the partially visible tattoos around his neck and just above the cuff-lines of his coat ... the dark mood of his presence - it was these things that caught us and tested our mettle.

We learned that our son met this young man in a retail area near the college campus. Our son stated that his friend didn't have a lot of places he could go, so he invited him to our house for a bite to eat. The young man did have family in the city, but did not live with them. He was currently 'living in the streets' and with some acquaintances in a crack house - but it was getting a little too wild for even him. Our son told me that he thought the guy was looking for a way out of his current lifestyle but didn't know where to turn ... so he brought him to us.

Small talk dominated to put him, and us, at ease. After 10 minutes they went back to the front room with the Bible Study kids. The woman leading this group is very good. She let him participate to the degree he could and wanted. She did a lot of explaining for him, as he had very little Bible knowledge ... and before the evening was over, she asked him if she and the other kids could pray over him. He agreed.

After that, they decided it was time to leave and said good-bye to the group. I think we surprised ourselves at how accepting we had become in about a 45-minute period. Our son looked back at us as they left, and said "Thanks!"

I was concerned for the younger kids in that Youth Group. I told our son I knew a young man on the college campus who headed up a Christian outreach. I asked if I could introduce them. My son he'd try to get with his street friend and pose the suggestion.

Within about a week I had introduced the college ministry guy to our long-haired, body-pierced friend. After a few weeks, the 'street' kid got a haircut. Some of his body jewelry was disappearing. In the next couple of months he moved into a house the Ministry group had, that consisted of 4 or 5 male students. They lived together and tried to be good Christian students - a concept he was working on but one that was far from his recent reality.

About a year later, our new found baby Christian started studying to become a Catholic. He didn't finish that walk before he made his next major decision. He joined the U S Marine Corp. He said he felt he needed the physical and mental discipline he lacked and believed the Marines could build that in him. He left ... but he stayed in touch with the young man that had been mentoring him here.

That Campus minister left the following year and took a position just outside Washington DC. The young Marine was now completing his enlistment and was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. When he had free weekends, he would go up to DC and visit his old friend. When he finished his tour, he moved to the DC area and hooked-up with his old buddy.

He became a Catholic and started attending Catholic University of America. While there he met lots of the Campus minister's friends and acquaintances. One of them was a young lady who was a medical student at Georgetown University. She was from the pacific northwest. He finished his undergraduate studies and entered law school. She finished Medical School. They became engaged and were planning to get married.

All of this was unknown to us. We had lost contact with him when he left for the Marines. Imagine our surprise when we received a wedding invitation. We could not imagine how or why we were being invited. We decided there was no way on this earth that we were going to miss this event, so we made plans to attend. The wedding was to be in a chapel at Georgetown University. Here we come Washington DC.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful. The reception was outstanding. Her parents from the west coast and all their family made the trip. His family from our hometown came, but looked and felt out of place in this very obviously Catholic environment.

At the reception, we learned the answer to our question - the question as to why and how we were there. The bride and groom were making the rounds of the tables, visiting with everybody. At some point they came to our table, and her mother was with them. He introduced us to her mother. "Mom," he said, "these are the people that saved my life."

You could have knocked either one or both of us over with a puff of wind. We had no idea!

Remember way back at that first meeting when we could see hints of tattoos at the neck and above the wrists? Well those were the tip of the iceberg. His entire upper torso was one massive tattoo, front and back. It caused him a considerable amount of ridicule in the Marines. It was still a topic of casual mention to people who were now his friends but had never been around that culture.

His mother-in-law made her way back to our table a short time later. She talked about when her daughter first called her and told her about this man she had met. She told her mom she thought it was 'serious' and she and dad needed to come visit soon. And mom said she had heard some things that bothered her at first, about her new soon-to-be son-in-law ... and she said she just had to ask us: "What did you think the first time you saw him? I've seen some pictures, and truthfully, they're a little frightening."

Time has passed. She is a doctor ... he is a corporate lawyer. They now live in the pacific northwest. They have three adopted children from Ethiopia, and have one child of their own.

'A second chance' is afforded all of God's children. You just never know when it will be your turn to put the plan into action. You may be entertaining fallen angels - treat them with love and respect ... they belong to the Father who is waiting to offer them 'a second chance'.