In a flurried trip to Wal-Mart…which is usually done with my gaze averted, because 85% of the “Wal-Mart People” pictures travelling around the internet must frequent the Wallmart in my area… I was suddenly overwhelmed with the most intoxicating smell.  I slowly raised my gaze to a table full of beautiful purple plants.  I don’t really have a green thumb, but since the table was labeled, “hyacinth”  I figured that would be my new favorite flower.  I brought it with me to work, and it’s effect on all our patients was unbelievable.  Everyone stopped for a moment and asked what that new fresh smell was (just a note, I have aromatherapy candles going all day so it already smells great at our clinic).  It was the perfect introduction to Easter weekend, that glorious smell was the best evidence that the last vestiges of winter are finally gone, and spring has arrived in all her glory.  To be able to sit outside and enjoy Easter brunch with my family in beautiful warm weather just magnified the spirit of the day.  The world is truly resurrected.

So, I had these great thoughts about honing in on what the word “rich” truly means…and why it shouldn’t revolve around material things, you know it’s harder for a rich person to go through the eye of a needle than to get into heaven, and all sorts of anecdotes about true wealth is health, family and love in your life.  Then a sequence of events happened that changed the whole tenor of my musings, 1) I had one of several altercations with my teenagers ranging from cleaning the buggers off the wall in their bathroom..(I told them I didn’t care whose they were)..to not standing in the shower for a half hour doing nothing but soaking up all our natural resources and leaving nothing left for their parents to shower with; 2) Seeing Donald Trump on the Today show pontificating how sick he is of the world treating us badly and how he would tell China to go and stick it…(my paraphrase) all with his ridiculous comb over and the fact that he is richer than Mitt Romney is one reason that he is the better GOP candidate; and last, and not least 3) Sitting and waiting at the clinic on my day off waiting for FedEx to pick up a package that was supposed to be picked up at 9, and it’s now 1:00…( I could actually say screw it and wait until tomorrow, but said packages contains excrement for lab testing making it is very time sensitive…) 

So, when I think of riches in this moment, I think that  being truly rich means living in a world where people understand on a fundamental level that the success of this planet depends on 1) cleaning up your own mess, and doing it a way that saves resources for others: 2) understanding that extreme wealth is in no way equivalent to or remotely related to good leadership and 3): no matter how hard you plan, sometimes you get stuck…with shit.

We have had some tumultuous times with the young men in our house lately.   The struggles of growing up have caused a lot of heart-ache and conflict, and I know I can’t fix their problems anymore…they are young men after all.  While it is hard to watch them be hurt because they dance their individual dances and others don’t  like them for it, I know that in the long run they will be so much better men because of it.  In those moments after someone has bullied them, or acted cruelly and I think my heart will break…just for a moment, I think of Mary.  I try and imagine what must have been going through her head in the days following her son’s arrest and then the moments leading up to his death.  How would I feel after being blessed with this great gift and watch as his ministry unfolded only to seem to collapse at the last moment?  How could she handle those that betrayed and abused him, and be powerless while he went through the degradation and pain of his torture and death?  When I measure her faith against mine, I am obviously  found wanting.  But as much as her faith was great, I never wanted to rationalize my way around my own limitations by putting her in another category of super human to which no one could ever come close… because it just doesn’t seem fair.  I don’t ever want to devalue how difficult it must have been to continue having faith that God knew what he was doing, that her son knew what he was doing.  Her great faith in such a horrendous time, gives me faith to tolerate the simple growing pains that my children go through.  Sure, I still want to beat anyone who hurts them into a pile of mushy organic matter, but then I breathe and have faith in those difficult lessons that help us grow, and in turn give us even greater faith in our future.  Hopefully my sons will learn that it is the times of the greatest pain, when faith is most necessary.