remain in Me

May 8, 2012 10:57 am

A friend of mine told me about his trip to the place of his most beautiful childhood memories. How disappointed he was to find a partly burned down, and partly demolished, ruin of a building. That’s when he understood that the house had been there only thanks to his grandpa’s concern and care for it.

When we heard this story,  we were just about to return home from our stay in the countryside. In “our countryside”, where everything has been arranged to give rest. “Heaven on earth” – that’s how our friends call it, but in the past it used to be just an ordinary farm, left by the autohthons after WW II and took over by my husband’s grandparents, forcibly repatriated from the eastern territories. Later, my husband’s family pulled the barn down, brick by brick, turned the farmhouse into a simple place of summer accomodation, and the yard – into a vast space of a loan with a small vineyard, orchard and pine grove.

So I may lie down in a hammock, because someone planted the trees. The kids may run about barefoot, because someone carefully collected all the stones and sharp twigs, and mowed the loan.

How much effort is necessary for things to REMAIN. Not just to “BE”. If things are to remain, you have to check, if nothing is breaking down, if there is something that should be repaired or improved.*

Home. The relationship with Him. Relationship with the husband. With the children. With relatives. Friends.

Without the effort of looking after things, everything – sooner or later – changes into barren land. So I’m taking a closer look at my relationships and check if I “remian” in them, or just “am” with no consiousness or sense of purpose. And if someone important does not miss me.

Małgosia

*Fr. Mariusz Białobłocki, parish priest in Rychtal, Poland; Homily from May 6, 2012.

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