Our brother was moving The small apartment was almost empty — a few paper bags remained scattered across the floor, a clock still on the wall ticked off our last few minutes together, a vacuum cleaner waited for the last sweep. Out front, the rental truck needed only to be closed up. This move was not just across town; it was across several states. After eight years with us, our brother is headed back home to further his education and take on a new job.
A few days later we repeated the procedure with another brother and sister who also had educational and work opportunities in a distant place.
Along with these, there is the couple and their young son who will be leaving us. They have aging parents in another state who need their help. We do understand the necessity, but we feel a selfish emptiness as they, too, will take a piece of our hearts. They have made a difficult choice to leave a good job and home and begin anew.
Growth has occurred over the years
These goings and comings within our ecclesia are deeper in meaning than just a change in location for those we love. All of us were so much younger with the comings. Now we see older, more mature brothers and sisters who have weathered the ups and downs of ecclesial life. They have learned to exhort, to give classes, to help with the sick and the CYC. Yes, we have all changed.
These last few weeks, and finally the last few hours, are precious. Suddenly, each day takes on a new intensity. Each smile is to be remembered, each word and story stashed away in “memory boxes.” The sounds of life seem more important, the colors more intense, the feelings more significant.
And so we prepare to say our good-byes. As we do, we remember the “comings” and the subsequent events of the years that followed.
Our brothers and sisters become dearer to us in these last weeks — we wonder why it couldn’t always have been so. Maybe we took them for granted, and it is only now, faced with separation, that we can thank God for being able to share their company for a few years.
The coming of a new baby
Recently, during all the goings, a coming of a different kind occurred. A new baby came into our lives. She had been wanted for a long time. At first, we “knew” her by the pre-natal reports from her parents-to-be, or by an ultrasound view. But now we know her for real. Now we hold her and burp her and talk to her and play with her. We thank God for a safe, but difficult, pregnancy and an “easy” delivery. This arrival, this little bundle of God’s handiwork, though diminutive in size, is most welcome to our midst.
The need to appreciate one another
So we wonder: Why is it that brothers and sisters in Christ cannot appreciate the day-to-day preciousness of each other? There is the old brother who constantly sings off key, the elderly sister who is deaf in one ear and can’t hear out of the other, the loquacious (or sometimes moody) teenager. The list is endless. Why does it take a “going” (and there are many forms) to make us appreciate each other?
How empty it seems sending expensive flowers for a funeral when we have neglected to spend a few moments on a regular basis — a few cards, a few calls, a few less quarrels — which would have deepened friendships and exhibited love and concern. Why do we hold back from embracing our brethren? Why can’t we enjoy the short span our Father has seen fit to allot us to enjoy it together before the trumpet raises the dead and calls us all to the great judgment?
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One