Luky
THE DAY THE HEADLINES REPORTED A CELEBRITY BIRTH, SOMEONE I WORKED WITH DIED IN HOSPITAL.
One comes, another goes; it certainly set me thinking.
A couple of weeks previously, another friend at work had lost her mother.
She asked me to type out the funeral hymns and order of service.
Her mother and I shared the same birth date.
It occurred to me that one day someone else might be typing such a funeral service for me, and it made my pursuit of security seem paltry and nonsensical.
When I handed the pamphlets over to my friend, I tried to forget about the whole thing, but the death of the man in the hospital brought it back to me.
He was such a vitally alive person - always a joke or a quip.
And now he had gone to God. May he rest in peace.
Same both ways
"If you worry you die, if you don't worry you also die", goes the saying, and it is during such times of ultimate realities that we reflect on such words.
The new baby could do nothing for himself, yet by the grace of God and the God-given skills of the doctors and nursing staff, he had been safely born.
The old man often worried. I know, he used to tell me about it, and now he was gone.
Did he waste his time worrying?
As an arch worrier, I feel ill-qualified to pass judgement.
"A coward dies many times, a brave man only once." I must have died a thousand deaths in my time.
General flap
Years ago there was a spot of bother at the mine where my husband was employed.
He was standing in the office, waiting for instructions, when his boss turned on him:
"For heaven's sake, Paddy, don't just stand there, do something!" he snapped.
Eager to oblige - what father of six would not be - my husband stood to attention and said: "Yes sir, what would you like me to do?"
"Well, if you can't think of anything else, at least you can panic, can't you?"
I'm the one who panics in our family. I panic about the poor, about the spiritual and moral welfare in my family, about what happens to orphans.
I panic about all the times I have been weighed and found wanting.
I panicked when I could not fit my office work into the eight hours available.
I panic when I wake up in the night and when I drive through heavy traffic.
The right attitude
Sean did not panic. He panicked until he had five heart attacks.
Thereafter, whenever he felt uptight, he relaxed and said: "Sure Ma, this is the life of Reilly." Good for him.
When the apostles were in the boat and implored Jesus to quell the storm, saying
"Lord, save us lest we perish", they acted the same way I do every day.
And Christ's words: "Why are ye fearful, oh ye of little faith?" have never yet managed to shame me into letting go.
We were caught in a dreadful storm on the sea once.
The waves were like mountains, and I was so terrified I froze and could not even speak.
Catherine Nicolette and my second oldest were about three and four years old, and the more the ship dipped and shook, the more blissfully they slept.
God protected them and they lived, not to tell the tale, because they didn't know about it, but they lived.
But I relive that boat journey and ponder on the uselessness of fretting, every time I hear Catherine Nicolette sing one of her favourite songs:
"Rocked in the cradle of the deep
I lay me down in peaceful sleep.
Secure, I rest upon the waves.
For Thou, O Lord, hast power to save."
Catherine Nicolette
The beautiful words of the hymn:
Rocked in the cradle of the deep,
I lay me down in peaceful sleep.
Secure I rest upon the wave
For Thou, O Lord, has power to save.
I known Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow's fall.
Chorus:
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And such the trust that still were mine,
Tho' stormy winds swept o'er the brine,
Or tho' the tempest's fiery breath,
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean cave still safe with Thee,
The hope of immortality.
Chorus;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
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