He named them Gift of God and
Little Lamb of God because they
were God’s and he was granted
stewardship of them for only a few
years, hopefully enough time for
them to see themselves as gifts
and lambs of God, which apparently
was sufficient because they have
really good self-esteem, a realistic
view of themselves and the fortitude
to have seen them through the un-
timely, tragic death of their mother.
And then he received a gift not for
having been a good steward because
that wouldn’t have been a gift but
simply because…. The Christ Carrier
came into his life just when he
needed care and carrying and he
calls her Christi and he calls his
children Matthew and Rachel. One
James or One Who Protects came
with the Christ Carrier and he
stood by and protected his mother
when she needed it as she protected
him. And so he gives thanks for
the providential love of God — for
his family, for Christi, Matthew,
Rachel and James. And that’s what’s
in a name.

They recognized him in the breaking of bread.
Is that always good? It seems always honest,
but are we all ready for honesty — seeing things
as they really are in the breaking of bread?
Perhaps the presence of Jesus would evoke
shame, guilt, anger or denial apparently as it
did when the couples met for dinner and the
conversation turned to inclusivity and the
common threads woven through world
religions and one felt her Jesus was being
attacked when a bigger, brighter more
loving Jesus appeared at the table. That
wasn’t the kind of appearing she expected
and it sure wasn’t Jesus to her. She shouted,
“You can’t talk about the Buddha and my
Jesus in the same sentence,” got up and ran
away from the table; she ran away from
those couples; she ran away from breaking
bread with them; from then on she only
broke bread with those who never, ever
invited the Buddha or Lao Tzu either. From
that day on she only ate at tables with a
very exclusive company of like-minded com-
panions. Apparently, the “my” in my Jesus
was the operative word.

He was falling asleep in a comfortable
chair when Prince Igor and the Polovtsian
Dances by Borodin started to dance in his
head and he was transported back to when
he was a high school student listening to
the music on the stereo his father had built
from individual components. It was fall
and he was home after school. He could
smell dinner cooking in the kitchen. Soon
he would turn off the stereo when his mother
called him to dinner over the singing of the
maidens’ chorus. The man felt warm and
wonderful in the remembrance of a good
time in his life. He rose from the chair,
looked at his wife and sang, “Take my hand,
I’m a stranger in paradise,” and remembered
that was a line from Kismet not Prince Igor
even if it was the same music. That’s okay,
he thought. He doesn’t know Russian. And
then he spoke to her in his best Russian
accent, “Trust me, daahhlink; I’m a very
nice Russian (rolling the r) spy.” She said,
tongue in cheek, “It’s time for dinner, Boris.”

In his mind he remained physically
invulnerable. In part, this was to com-
pensate for the vulnerability and lack
of control he felt in losing love. If he
couldn’t control that, he sure as hell
could control how to tempt fate in
physical daring do’s, which he did
until a mountain biking accident where
one nano-second made the difference
and he just missed being a vegetable.
He liked the meat on his bones so he
put away childish things and grew up
at the young and tender age of fifty-
four. He thinks about those lost loves
and as he looks in his heart he realizes
that the love for them has not gone away
and so, neither have they.