Saying Grace at a Restaurant

Here is another one of those stories sent to me from the Internet that is too good not to share. I have no idea who the author is.

Last week, I took my grandchildren to a restaurant.

My six-year-old grandson asked if he could say grace.

As we bowed our heads he said, "God is good, God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Nana gets us ice cream for dessert. And liberty and justice for all! Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby, I heard a woman remark, "That's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice cream! Why, I never!"

Hearing this, my grandson burst into tears and asked me, "Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.

He winked at my grandson and said, "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."

"Really?" my grandson asked.

"Cross my heart," the man replied.

Then, in a theatrical whisper, he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing), "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes."

Naturally, I bought my grandchildren ice cream at the end of the meal. My grandson stared at his for a moment and then did something I will remember the rest of my life.

He picked up his sundae and, without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her, "Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes, and my soul is good already."

Also posted on Mahlou Musings

Monday Morning Meditation #103: On Not Understanding

I have now finished the Book of Daniel. Amazing, the number of visions and dreams he had and moreover was able to interpret. I rarely remember any of my dreams, and when I do, they seem to be pure nonsense. (I suppose Freud might have some idea about how to interpret them -- whether correctly or incorrectly would be another story.) One might envy Daniel's ability at dream interpretation, but then one must consider that Daniel had some divine help. Therefore, I found some great relief when I read verse 8 of the last chapter (chapter 12) of Daniel: "I heard but I did not understand."

Reading: Daniel 12:8
Meditation: When I first came to faith, I wanted to know everything. I tracked down books on apologetics, the catechism of the church, the mystics, and anything else that would explain "everything" to me. It took me some time before I understood that there is much that I cannot understand, will not understand, and should not understand. Accepting not understanding was one of the hardest things ever for me to do because I am a scholar by nature. Initially, I resisted the thought that grace alone is enough, faith alone is enough, trust alone is enough, and that knowing why is not essential. Over time, I have become more comfortable with not knowing. It is like a child's seesaw: as one side goes up, the other comes down, as trust in God goes up, the need to know everything comes down. Being grounded in not knowing I now understand to be a good thing.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to praise God for His grace and to thank Him for teaching me how to trust without understanding. I will ask forgiveness for those times that I have resisted not knowing and insisted on an answer "why" -- which I did not get, anyway (and should not have). I will also ask God to continue to build my trust and my willingness to accept without knowing; somehow I think God likes to honor those kinds of requests. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

The Grace of a Lost Wallet, Part II

God always answers my prayers but rarely in the way I expect or intend when asking. My lost wallet is a great example. Mind you, I never did ask for any help with that wallet. I just went on with my life and figured it would find its way home or not. But first, before I can continue with this story, I will have to direct you to the previous post about the wallet, or the follow-on details will make no sense. So, have a look here (The Grace of a Lost Wallet), then continue below.

Now, while I did not pray about that lost wallet, I did pray about something else. Earlier in the day, I had taken a Super Shuttle ride from Dulles Airport to my Washington office in Arlington, Virginia. The driver was a friendly guy, and when he found out that I did not have a ticket and the shuttle was going to leave in a few minutes, he personally walked me through the convoluted path to the ticket counter and back. Nice guy. Arab, I believe. It took nearly an hour to reach my office in the DC rush hour traffic, during which I added to the five hours of sleep I had just gathered on the red-eye from California, dozing during most of the trip in to town. I had no luggage, and I was the first person off the shuttle. So, I hopped off, with a thank you to the driver, who graciously wished me a good day.

As I entered the building, it slowly dawned on me that Super Shuttle is a taxi and not a company-supplied van, which I usually take but could not this time because the trip came at such short notice, given my early hour of arrival. I should have tipped the driver. I headed back out the door, just as the driver re-started the van and pulled out of the driveway. Feeling a bit stingy over the matter, I asked God to take care of the driver that day and see to it that he got good tips. I felt confident that as a result of that prayer the driver would indeed have a good-tip day.

The rest of the day was filled with successful meetings, at the end of which I grabbed a hotel taxi back to the hotel since our company van was occupied with taking the CEO to Regan National Airport to catch a flight to another of our locations. I returned to Dulles, where I discovered the loss of my wallet. Fortunately, I do not keep my credit cards in my wallet, and so I had my company card to pay the cab driver -- and, this time, to include a tip. The rest of the wallet story is in my previous post.

I arrived home early Friday morning from my redeye and went in to work. I had sent an enote to someone in the Washington office to check in the conference room for my wallet, which is the only place I remembered having opened my purse. Waiting for me was her reply: she had looked everywhere but had seen no wallet. So, all those other options as to who might find it and what s/he might do remained open.

I did not have to wait long. During a morning meeting, my phone rang. I glanced at the number: an unknown 240 number. So, I let voice mail take the call. After the meeting, I called voice mail. There was a man, who called himself Amr, speaking with a distinctively Arabic accent, saying that I had dropped my wallet in the Super Shuttle van. He had been the driver (whom I had not tipped). He wanted to return the wallet to me and asked for me to return his call.

I was about to return Amr's call when the phone rang again. This time it was Amr's supervisor, who was a native speaker of English. He had given the wallet to her and asked her to call because he thought perhaps I was not able to understand Arabic-accented English. (Little did he know how much time I have spent with people who speak Arabic-accented English!) The supervisor told me that my checkbook was in there (had forgotten about that), along with the business cards that had my coordinates so that they knew whom to call, stamps, and $56 in cash. Yep, that is exactly as it should have been. She offered to fedex the wallet to me. I told her to use some of the cash in the wallet for fedex and give the remainder of the money to Amr. She was surprised and said that Amr did not expect that but would obviously be pleased.

So, God did answer my prayer. Amr did have a good-tip day. As with so many of my answered prayers, I could not have predicted the outcome that I, the one who had not tipped him, would ultimately be the one to provide the good-tip day for Amr. Moreover, it was not even an expenditure for me because my per diem would be double that. I had taken about half of my per diem from an ATM just to have some money for meals. However, because I was all day with the CEO, my office provided all the meals, and I am allowed to keep the per diem. So, Amr made nearly $50 on a tip, and I made nearly $50 on per diem post-tip. Win-win. I could never have planned that, let alone even thought of an outcome of this nature. I have reached the conclusion that I don't ever want God to answer my prayers in the way I anticipate because His ways are always so much better than I can dream up!

I just love watching the many ways, so often unusual, in which God sprinkles His grace onto all of His children! Amazing!

The Grace of a Lost Wallet

This evening as the cab driver pulled up in front of Dulles International Airport, I reached into my purse for my wallet... Oh, perhaps that introductory sentence had better be explained since the last time I posted here I was in Ohio. As Donnie and I wended our way back across the USA to California with Noelle and Doah, following my nephew's wedding this past weekend, I received a phone call from my boss.

"Where are you right now?" he asked.

I looked out the window. This was an easy question. "Somewhere in the middle of the Mohave Desert," I replied.

The next question was not as easy, but there was clearly only one right answer. "Can you attend a meeting in Washington, DC tomorrow morning? It is an urgent matter, and the CEO has asked for you to accompany him."

Hm. Let's see. I looked at the GPS. We were on a two-way road, meandering through the desert in the same way that desert plants spring up from seeds strewn by meandering breezes, i.e. without much direction except as the road took us. Almost 400 miles still to go. Hm. Projected arrival time: 7:30 p.m. I read the stats to my boss.

"Oh, that will be cutting it too close to catch a transcontinental flight."

"Ah, wait," Donnie chimed in. "That time is with dropping off both Noelle and Doah." They live in different cities from us.

Donnie punched in our home address. Up popped a pleasant time: 4:30. "Yes, I can do it," I told my boss, "if I take the red-eye from San Francisco." United Airlines has a wonderfully efficient 5-hour non-stop flight from San Francisco to Washington, DC, and since I can sleep easily on planes, I would not arrive too tired.

So, Donnie dropped me off at home, then went on to deliver Noelle and Doah to their homes. He returned right on schedule: 7:30. Then he drove me, newly washed and dressed in business attire, to San Francisco to catch my plane.

And that is why I was in the cab this evening, searching for my wallet. I wanted to give the cabbie cash and not put the tip on my business credit card. I searched, and I searched again. The wallet is large, not small. It could not hide. It was definitely gone, lost, but not likely purloined. I think I must have dropped/left it somewhere.

After entering the airport, I sat down and zipped off a note to one of the people who work in our Washington office, where the CEO and I had spent some time preparing for our "urgent" meeting downtown. Perhaps the wallet fell out there and was still on the floor. So, I await her response because clearly by the time I had made it to the airport, she had left for the day.

While I wait, all kinds of scenarios pop into my mind. Who might find the wallet, and what might he/she/they do with it? It contained sixty dollars. Fortunately, the money was withdrawn on a credit card -- yes, I will have to repay it, but at least it wasn't my grocery money for the week or a draw-down of my checking account, and my per diem will be more than that. It contained no credit cards; I keep my money and credit cards in separate places just because I am ditsy enough to lose one or the other periodically. It did have some stamps from by-gone years; none that would send a letter anywhere this year. It also had some of my business cards so anyone who finds it will know where to send it!

Now, it will be interesting to see if I get it back. With the money? Without the money?

One happy scenario has a kindly and honest person finding it and, seeing the business cards, dropping the wallet into the mail to me, money and all. Or, without the money.

Another happy scenario has an honest person calling me or writing me at the coordinates on my business card and letting me offer to pay for the mailing of the wallet and/or letting me offer an award.

Another scenario, sadly, has a person finding it, seeing the money, taking the money, and throwing the wallet away. Hm, what might that person do with the money? Give it to someone who needs it? Use it because he or she is desperate for money for his/her family and sees the wallet as an unrequested gift or a requested one. Use it out of sense of entitlement or with an internal commitment to return it when able (but not realistically likely ever to be able). Or, using it, and years from now, having not returned it, deciding that since the money cannot be returned, s/he could pass on the same amount to another person -- any person anywhere in need.

I really like to think that perhaps my lost wallet will help someone. (And, since giving up frustration for Lent last spring, I surprisingly -- or maybe not so surprisingly -- feel no frustration at losing the wallet; after all, at this point, I personally have no way to control the outcome.)

I know, though, that it is just as likely that it will be found by a reprobate, who will take the money without a twinge of conscience, and use it to buy booze or something else equally unsavory and unhealthy. Sigh! My first reaction is, "Well, s/he will get his or her comeuppance when everything is over and done with. God will make sure that this person gets punished for his/her dishonesty."

But wait, what if that person repents at some point for all his/her acts of dishonesty. Then, there is no punishment. The grace of God forgives completely -- even the expenditure of my money by someone else. So, I lose the money, and someone else gains it, unfairly, and ultimately, perhaps even sooner rather than later, is washed clean of any wrong doing by the grace of God!?? Now, is this fair? Am I supposed to like this scenario?

Oh, yes, I do like even this scenario. After all, I have needed the grace of God; still do. So, if the choice is between getting my money back and having someone receive the grace of God, is there really any need to think about a preference? Is there really any need even to ask that question?

Oh, I do believe in the grace of a lost wallet!

Monday Morning Meditation #121: Living in Grace

I was very much sidetracked this week from nearly everything: work, worship, and reading. Not my fault, really. I do hold my admin assistant and my deputy responsible to some extent, though. Because I was out of breath from walking up the flight of steps to my office, which I usually dash up, and was feeling some chest pains, they became concerned. I called my doctor, but when his nurse heard my symptoms and learned that my blood pressure during the night had soared to 208/116, she told me to go to the local hospital emergency room (not my hospital, but the one near my office). When my colleagues heard that, they herded me off to the hospital, no excuses accepted. When I got to the hospital, I thought I was doing well because my blood pressure had dropped to 202/100, but the doctors were not pleased, treated me as if I were having a heart attack (the nitroglycerin dropped my blood pressure nearly immediately to 115/56 -- it was interesting watching that nose dive), and, after some time had passed, admitted me. So, I spent part of the week lollygagging at the hospital and getting behind in nearly everything. The final analysis? Dunno. No one does. The doctors ruled out a heart attack, but they did not rule in anything else. So, there is my excuse for not making much reading progress this week.

I did move on a little in Matthew. I made it to the end of Chapter 5, where I found the following well-known verses:

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Reading: Matthew 5

Meditation:  I think that one of the most difficult things I have had to accept is that God "sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Telling me to forgive my mother, who was highly abusive to me, and saying that she lives in grace was a difficult thing for me to hear. Forgiving her, tracking her down, and calling her after ten years of being out of touch took all the strength and trust of God that I could muster. But I am glad I did that six years ago.

We have all needed God's grace. Is it any more fair that God forgive me than that God forgive the person who hurt me? I don't think so, but there was a time that I thought it unfair. I have, though, come to understand that our concept of fairness (getting what one's deserve, equal treatment, and the like) is quite different from God's sense of fairness (grace for all). I am glad that my mother lives in grace because it means that I, too, live in grace, just as do all of God's creatures.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning/afternoon. I now retire to private prayer to praise God for His boundless grace. I will, of course, also ask God to help me to avoid imposing my own concept of fairness, and I will repent for each time I have failed to love all of God's creatures as God will have me love them. As always,  I will thank God for loving me, even when I am the least deserving of love. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.