It's All Saints Day--A Time to Remember

"Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.  

It took me years to understand

that this, too was a gift."

                             --Mary Oliver

photo by Reji / flickr

It's All Saints time. And today I remember William Armstrong's wonderful book, Through Troubled Waters. It is an old book but on this day I want to share a story with you. 

He wrote that one morning his wife had some pain and she went to the Doctor while he took their children to school. Hours later the phone rang. "Your wife is dead," the Doctor said. Out of the dark a hurricane struck his little family and they were all devastated. He had three children to raise by himself. He wondered, again and again, how could he possibly get through this ordeal. He likened his situation to the flood story that old Noah and his family faced in the ark. It rained and rained. The water covered everything. But one day the rain stopped. Bored and desperate Noah sent a dove out to see if somewhere there might be dry land. The dove did not come back. Days later--Noah sent a second dove out and the bird came back with an olive leaf in her beak. For Noah and his family it was a sign that the water had gone down and life would begin again. The writer, Armstrong likened the death of his wife to the flood that came and swept almost everything away.

He felt he could not go on. Weeks, months later--he said little Mary, his four-year-old-daughter

came bearing an olive leaf. He would write, she would be the dove for him. Hugging him and saying in her own little way the message he needed most. Hope. Their water was going down and life would begin again.

On this day the church comes to remember the dove-bringers in all our lives. We all have them.  And All Saints Day provides for us with time to look back and around us and remember the doves that came when we needed them most.

I remember that all-too-typical church that surrounded me and taught me the wonder and magic of faith. Teachers all along the way that nudged me on. High School...College and Seminary. They showed me what I just might do. I still remember many of their names and faces, who held my hand as our first child was being born. All those who believed in me when I did not believe in myself. They opened the doors.

And that starry night when my girl friend said yes. And 61 anniversaries later I know she brought so many doves when I was desperate. She pushed me. She loved me. She believed in me and thank God she stayed when the days were bad and I was sure I could not go on.

My children, Leslie and Matthew have brought hope as they let me be their Daddy. One Sunday morning I stepped up to the pulpit and there was a note in my son's childish handwriting: "Dear Daddy tell everybody out there today that I love you."

I remember Churches, some wild and wooly that brought us casseroles and endured those Sunday night sermons and took care of our kids and loved and accepted them. And those deacons that fought fiercely for those fifteen dollar raises.

My daughter leaves a hard week as a teacher and drives a long drive to check on us, She keeps us going. And the friends that came to my rescue so often. One friend was going through a terrible divorce and week after week I would send him those crazy off-the-wall Far Side cartoons. Like two deer stood talking and one says to the other: "Now don't forget to eat the roses!" A couple of years later I was going through my own hard time and in the mail there fell out all those Far Side cartoons I had sent him.

Back to Armstrong's story. He said little Mary, his four-year-old daughter, would be his dove and help him step out on his own dry land. This says to me we have to keep our eyes open because those dove-bringers that keep us going sometimes come from the unlikely of places.

I could go on and on remembering my own unlikely saints that cheered me on and brought me hope and faith and love. I hope I have not bored you too much. But maybe reading the names that came to me in hope will nudge something deep inside you and on this All Saints Day you will remember and remember and remember.

But as I close I fall back on the words of Paul: "He has comforted us in our afflictions that we might comfort someone else in their hard times." So let us open our bird cages and take out that fragile dove and set her free for all those whose lives we touch.

"And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong,

Alleluia!  Alleluia!" 

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com