On this date in 1867, baseball's greatest and winningest pitcher, Cy Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio.  His 511 wins will stand without threat of ever being overtaken.  Every year one pitcher from each league is named the Cy Young winner and, thus, Cy Young is honored and remembered.  Sort of.  On this date in 1953, Jim Thorpe died in Lomita, California.  He was named the greatest athlete in the world in the first half of the 20th Century.  Most will not remember too much about why he was so named, but that's life.  Great achievements in the realm of sports are big news for a while, but time passes and memories fade and even the glory of our greatest sports heroes fade.  Anyone know the name of the current heavy weight boxing champ of the world?  Who holds the record for the fastest mile?  Longest long jump?  Highest high jump?  Fame and glory are fleeting.  I tell you that not because you don't already know it, but because it can be a reminder to us that being the best or first or fastest or most honored will not always be the most important thing about us.  Precious few of us will be remembered outside our families a hundred years from now.  That's just a fact.  What matters now is how we live now and how we love now and how we bear witness now, because we only have now to do these things.  These things that make for peace and joy matter now.  Later may not be ours to have.  And that is why our faith is not confined to our immediate circumstance.  Let the Easter Season be a time for remembering how privileged we are to have these days.

Holy Week.  It's a time when the Church makes ready for the Passion into which Jesus enters for us and all of creation.  This is a gruesome week for him.  Lauded with praise and waiving palm branches on Sunday.  By Thursday he's betrayed.  On Friday he dies. And Saturday.  His shroud wrapped body lies within a stone sealed tomb.  It's come to this.  It's a shock.  Bewilderment attaches to disciples and friends and ordinary folk who thought he was heaven sent.  This year Holy Week finds President Obama in Cuba, the mania of March Madness consumes hours and hours of television time, and terrorists show forth their evil with a deadly bombing in Belgium. Where's the Holy in this week?  Where does the devout heart turn when the world seems to confound and constrict?  How often must suffering and death blare from the headlines? Do we need yet one more reminder about how fallen creation is?  Have we not already enough dust that more must be poured into the cauldron?  Will there ever be a Holy Week free of such stuff?  Well, yes.  One day creation will be swallowed up into the Kingdom and then every week will be holy.  Until then, we wait, as in every Passion season.  We wait for God to reconcile the world to Himself from behind the stone that seals Jesus' tomb.

I miss my Uncle Jeff.  He was married to my dad's youngest sister, Anita.  His name was Henry Bando, but calling him Uncle Henry, when my last name was Henry, was more than a bit weird.  Besides, all his buddies called him Jeff.  He was a great teacher.  He worked as a purchasing agent at US Steel in Gary.  But that didn't stop him from teaching my brother and I and his two sons about golf.  Uncle Jeff played it well and had a 3 or 4 handicap.  Not bad for a weekend golfer.  One summer when he and our two cousins (Jim and Mark) and my brother Keith and I were playing golf at Green Acres in Kokomo, he proceeded to teach us some of his golfing skills.  On one particular hole, there was a rather lengthy water hazard to our left.  After telling us how to avoid hooking our tee shot into the water, he stepped to the tee and demonstrated.  His first shot entered the water a couple hundred yards down the fairway.  We did our best not to snicker.  He re-teed and, sure enough, that ball also made waves, if you know what I mean.  He told us again what not to do and then it was our turn.  My hand to God, all four of us hooked our tee shots into the water.  And by the time we were through laughing we marched down the fairway for another lesson.  I'm not sure what brought all this to mind on this Lenten Tuesday.  Perhaps it's the deep rumblings within about being ready to learn a lesson or two about life and death from Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem.  Next week will be heavy laden with lessons worth remembering.  Will we pay attention?  Will we take them to heart?  Will we be prepared to teach them to our children?  Time will tell.

My reading list is rather eclectic.  I alternate between modern fiction and something religious.  Back and forth, one after another.  I do most of this reading at lunch, consequently, it takes me a fair bit of time to finish the book.  My current lunch book is Diarmaid MacCulloch's "Silence: A Christian History."  I've have it on my shelf for a couple of years before I began reading it and it is fascinating.  It's history and I must say, it's fun.  MacCulloch is a lay Anglican professor of history and religion at the University of Oxford.  Two things I've learned (among many) while just half way through his book surprised me.  He used the phrase "a starting of hares."  I had no idea what he meant and upon doing a bit of searching, I found it to be phrase of American origin meaning the "introduction of a topic in the midst of an ongoing conversation that changes the trajectory of that conversation."  For example, in a heated debate on current administration's fiscal tax policy someone might say "How about those Cubs?"  It changes the subject and may give pause to heated emotions.  "Reprobate."  It's a word I learned from my mother.  She used it in the common sense of a "rogue or scoundrel."  It's more ancient meaning is this: A sinner who is not of the elect and is predestined to damnation.  This Calvinistic notion was once widely held and, in some corners of the Church, is still believed and taught.  Reading is a wonderful pastime.  It enriches, informs, and provokes.  I never know what I will learn when I begin reading.  And that unknowing is a place I never fear to go.  So, how about those Cubs?  Do they stand a chance against all those other reprobates in the National League?

I took ten years of piano lessons.  My teacher was the soul of patience.  She needed to be, believe you me.  Mrs. Domasco was fabulous.  She has perfect pitch.  That was an advantage for her and the bane of my lessons.  Nothing slipped by her.  Not one wrong note.  I think she could even sense if I was using the wrong fingering for a scale or intricate passage of notes.  She is one of those persons with a condition known as synesthesia, a rare neurological condition in which two or more of the senses entwine.  Mrs, Domasco could hear colors.  Don't ask me how it works; it just does.  All these years later, I wish I had been a better student.  I wish I had learned to "sight read" music.  I can still play, but couldn't make a dime at it.  So I'm relegated to "Happy Birthday" and church hymns and a Christmas Carol or two.  Today she lives in Texas and, among other things, composes Advent Hymns for her church.  As any church musician knows, there is always need for liturgically and theologically correct Advent Hymns.  The occasion for this pastor's memo is Fredrick Chopin's birthday; March 1, 1810.  Mrs. Domasco introduced me to his Preludes and for that I am forever thankful.  Maybe one day I'll sit down and re-learn a couple of them.  It would sure bring back happy memories.