Living These Days

Author: Mary Patricia Trainor

  • Sacred Text

    Sacred Text

    Luke 5:1-11

    Seaside miracles

    Jesus does much of his ministry at, around, or in the Sea of Galilee. He teaches from the back of a boat, he overfills nets with fishes, he even walks on the water. He demonstrates his strengths for all to see and believe. But only a fraction of folks join him. It must have been astounding, yet only a few respond to such powerful deeds.

    I can testify as to how challenging it can be to sustain a faith once proclaimed. Across a lifetime. Thickenings and thinnings. My dear mother once said all relationships go back and forth on a continuum. Even our relationship with God.

    As to seaside miracles, I have one of my own.

    In the early 1950s, my family lived in Southern California. We were near enough to the Pacific Ocean to go there on the spur of the moment.

    My father’s favorite last-minute jaunt was to Newport Beach, where massive stones formed a breakwater to calm the sea for incoming vessels.

    When I say massive stones, these are house-sized rocks that look like a failed Jenga effort, dumped there to form an irregular string.

    Daddy liked to walk to the sea across them. My mother and brother loved hopping from one big rock to another, despite the enormous chasms that sometimes had to be breached.

    On one particular trip, the stones seemed larger than ever and the gaps between them wider and deeper.

    As the three of them bounced on ahead, I froze in place at the first major chasm.

    It was awhile before they noticed, and were horrified to realize I was not with them.

    Daddy ran back and reached down to me, his arm outstretched, his hand open.

    I squirmed. I cried. I  looked down through the big space to see water roiling below, then up to see Daddy’s arm still outstretched.

    That seaside “rescue” comes to mind today. It’s a precious memory of my father—and, more currently, a beautiful metaphor of how near God is at every moment—and how willing to help.

    Mary Patricia Trainor

  • Sacred Text

    Keep awake

    Repetition is a great teacher. Repetition is how we learn things that are vital to our lives, but of themselves may not secure a place in our memory.

    Repeat. The alphabet.

    Repeat. The times tables.

    Repeat. EGBDF.

    So, if we want to remember something, repetition may be a good first step.

    Jesus, we know, was a teacher who repeated things he wanted his people to recall. Stay awake. Be alert. Watch, for the day is surely coming. You will know when. The time is now.

    The purpose is to keep key truths before us, within us, etched in minds, carried out by hands. Or, bad outcomes avoided because we are attentive.

    It may be, also, that we use repetition as a way to keep certain important worldly things ever present in our minds.

    ZIP code. Phone number. Numerical address. PINs. Birthdates, anniversaries. Last four digits of our SSN.

    As we age, many things we committed to memory through repetition begin to elude our grasp.

    At first, we fake it, change the topic, crack a joke. Oft times we lose many pieces of what once composed a life.

    A dear friend of mine in California received the Alzheimer’s diagnosis this week. Those of us who loved her in brighter days, love her still. And long after she loses the memories of us, we will always love her.

    Maybe there’s a lesson here. Love is passed along like the proverbial torch, from one of us to another, generation to generation. 

    Remembering the details of our lives makes living them more efficient.

    But the greatest meaning of our lives is not captured by remembering details. Rather, it is the measure of love that comes to us, carried along, shared with others, that softens the edges of who we might have been. Love makes us the best us we can be. And, hopefully, love lingers in our wake, free to all who follow along.

  • Sacred Text

    What is an idol?

    Opinions on this seem to have softened over the years. Every once in a while, though, the idea of something being an “idol” can still kick up some dust.

    You may recall the Old Testament story in Exodus 32.  Moses had gone up the mount to speak with God. The people thought his lengthened absence meant trouble for them.

    Aaron, next in charge, suggested that the restless people melt their gold possessions. From the melted gold, they created the Golden Calf for sacrifice in worship.

    Every once in a while the idea of idolatry kicks up some dust, and it pays to re-examine just exactly who or what it is we worship.

    Money? Fame? Power? First place in line?

    Another way to look at the question is this: What or who do I choose over God?

    Taken seriously, such questions may lead to some squirming. Maybe that’s good for us.

  • Sacred Text

    It’s still in there

    Years ago, as a newly ordained Episcopal priest, I received my share of pastoral calls to make.

    Often, these calls involved visiting memory care clients.

    Often, these calls involved people who wouldn’t know they didn’t know me. The staff called in a local pastor when they felt “something like that” might be helpful.

    And I learned something I have held onto all these years.

    Today’s Gospel reminds me of that truth. In a teaching moment with his disciples, Jesus taught them how to pray. 

    If you’re a church regular, or maybe attended reliably as a child, the words Jesus offered a couple of thousand years ago are still in your heart. If someone starts them off, more than likely you find you can step into them as though it was yesterday.

    Embedded in our souls as they are, these words can often come from memory care receivers—even when they cannot remember loved ones.

    Old, familiar words, learned years ago through repetition, come rolling out of us as needed.

    When my father was in the last days of a long cancer journey, he would say very vile things to my mother. Long, laborious recollections of her failures. Hurtful, biting things spewed forth from him. Sometimes things that were true, sometimes things that were not true, simply the result of a brain that was dying.

    Sometimes she would call me in the middle of those tirades. Sometimes that helped, but I wasn’t always available. So, I asked what she does when she couldn’t get me by phone.

    “I say the Lord’s Prayer, over and over. It calms me down.”

    Over and over, written on hearts decades earlier, this prayer continues to console and protect:

    Our Father, who art in heaven,
    hallowed be thy Name,
    thy kingdom come,
    thy will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
    Give us this day our daily bread.
    And forgive us our trespasses,
    as we forgive those
    who trespass against us.
    And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
    For thine is the kingdom,
    and the power, and the glory,
    for ever and ever. Amen.

  • Sacred Text

    What keeps you going?

    The late Trappist monk Thomas Merton was a prolific writer. And his writing has been a source of comfort to me no matter what is going on in the world, or simply to me in my life. Consider the following:

    Speak words of hope.

    Be human in this most inhuman of ages.

    Guard the image of man,

    for it is the image of God.

    What I found novel and most helpful in this quote is the reminder that even the person who has harmed me the most—that person—deserves respect and care because there is more to him than his treatment of me. He, just as I am, just as you are, warrants guarding because we bear the image of God within us. It may be buried deep, crusted over, denied more than once, but it is there.

    Here’s another Merton gift:

    Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.

    Reminders such as these serve notice that each of us presents a bit of God to those whom we meet.

    I hope that anyone looking at me can recognize, if only briefly, some resemblance to the source of any goodness they see.

  • Public Square

    Janky vs.The Code vs. The Flu

    This morning, I was quickly overtaken by three stories:

    ● Michele Obama receiving criticism for describing current state of affairs as a “janky” period?

    ● Trump’s request to have the Nuclear Code?

    ● And, learning today the Trump administration is stopping mandatory flu vaccines for the U.S. military?

    As regards Michelle Obama’s remark, I also find everything coming out of Washington these days to be “janky.”

    True, I had to look up the word. But it’s more or less what I would imagine: 

    From Google: “It often implies that an object is shaky, faulty, or a ‘cobbled together, makeshift solution. Common examples include broken technology, rundown cars, or poor-quality, unreliable items. Synonyms include shoddy, sketchy, junky, shaky, or flimsy.”

    Now, thanks to Michelle Obama, I have a nifty, new word to describe current affairs.

    Moving on, as a child of the Cold War era, nothing can be more  horrifying than The Code falling into the President’s hands—any president. But especially this president and his janky administration.

    Moving on to flu  vaccines. Secretary Hegseth says the removal of mandated vaccines is a means of democratizing the individual military experience.

    Is that really what we need for the military? Sure, if there’s medical reason to forgo the shot, I’m sure there’s always been provision for an exception there.

    So what is it the secretary has really accomplished?

    Janky, janky , janky.

  • Public Square

    There comes a time…

    There comes a time when we cannot deny that Donald Trump is unfit to serve this country.

    He isn’t our crazy Uncle Donnie who the family rolls out at special events. 

    The whole family is on alert and, at the first hint of trouble, Uncle Donnie is led away, smiling and waving with his free arm.

    Mostly, this Uncle Donnie is harmless, though definitely someone capable of bringing shame at any moment.

    But whatever “Uncle Donnie” has done that harms those he theoretically cares about, it doesn’t begin to touch the dangerous, embarrassing, dishonorable, mean-spirited antics of the other Donnie, you know, the one in the White House.

    I don’t know if any remnants remain of the USA’s better days as the good guys and gals. But we have prayed that the President’s better angels would lead him to the right things.

    Well, I fear the better angels are fighting an uphill battle against greed, wealth, mistreatment of people, illness, and starting a war with provocation or congressional approval.

    And now, he apparently thinks he is God. What can we do?

    As a private citizen, neither you nor I can launch the two remedies available under the law: The 25th Amendment, and Impeachment.

    But we can create a clamor so thunderous it cannot be denied.

    If you do not believe how out of touch with reality this Uncle Donnie is, consider the picture he posted and has since taken down: Him as Jesus, or a Jesus wannabe, hovering over a man’s hospital bed.

    That is a serious distortion of reality. We all know it. But does he? That is the really worrisome concern.

    There comes a time. I think it has arrived. 

  • Verse

    Practice Resurrection 

    A good friend of mine posted a favorite poem of his on Facebook. It is also a favorite of mine: Wendell Berry’s, Practice Resurrection.

    Here, I may have given a wrong impression. While this poem often stands on its own it actually is the ending of a larger piece: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.

    Practice resurrection. What does that look like? For me it means doing the things that breathe life into duty, bring cheer into disarray, give meaning to my own life, and to another’s. Reaching out to another person, offering hope to those grown hopeless, bringing food to those who hunger. And, sometimes, we are the people in need of an encouraging word.

    I celebrate Berry’s work for offering us the term of practice resurrection. It reminds me that, like many worthy efforts in life, we are given the very shareable gift of resurrection.

    Enjoy the words:

    So, friends, every day do something
    that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
    Love the world. Work for nothing.
    Take all that you have and be poor.
    Love someone who does not deserve it.

    I hear God in the call to: 

    Ask the questions that have no answers.

    Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

    Say that your main crop is the forest

    that you did not plant,

    that you will not live to harvest.

  • Public Square

    Renewal of Vows

    Today, a good number of people ordained in the Episcopal Church will head to Phoenix for the Renewal of Vows service. I will be among them.

    The service is paired with receiving Holy Oils blessed by the Bishop for use in churches throughout the coming year.

    This is not only a local event. Across the country, deacons, priests, bishops attend such a service annually, many of those services traditionally occurring on the Tuesday in Holy Week. This year, that falls on March 31.

    This is serious business, yet not grim. It is a joyous opportunity to remember not only our day of ordination, when promises were made, but also the intervening years of serving God’s people, both when it has been uplifting and also when it has borne the weight of tears. 

    This service we are called to provide is a twenty-four-seven calling. Over time and as the new wears off, we may find our spirit threatened.

    But then we receive the Holy Week call to renew the vows made at our ordaining and we happily respond as we did then: I will.

  • Public Square

    Along the Iditarod Trail

    Tales of a preeminent sled dog race can either celebrate or denigrate this long-standing Alaska event.

    As a longtime dog lover, I can see this annual event two ways. A celebration of the dog-human relationship, or a misuse of the trust dogs so easily invest in us.

    Either way, I can’t turn away from a couple of amazing accounts nestled in history books.

    First, some news from the 2026 race that ended on March 17, when Jessie Holmes won his second consecutive Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska. The former reality TV star completed the roughly 1,000-mile course in nine days, seven hours, and 32 minutes. As this year’s winner, Holmes received an $80,000 prize.

    Now for a couple of did-you-knows:

    Saving lives with sleds

    In the 1920s, before vaccines, there were 100,000–200,000 diphtheria cases and 13,000–15,000 deaths in the US each year.

    The risk made its way all the way to Alaska. While a successful serum was available, getting it to Alaska was not always possible.

    The 1925 Great Race of Mercy saw 20 mushers and give or take 150 dogs relay diphtheria antitoxin 674 miles in 5.5 days to save Nome, Alaska, from an outbreak. 

    Facing -50°F temperatures and blizzards, teams led by Togo and Balto delivered the serum, inspiring the annual 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race. 

    After a vaccination program was introduced in the late 1940s, cases dropped dramatically.  Today, childhood vaccination rates remain high.

    Yes, poodles on the Iditarod 

    A musher named John Suter had a dream to run the Iditarod with Standard Poodles, and he actually made it happen.  He got his first poodle in 1975 and by 1976 was running local races near Chugiak, Alaska. 

    Suter entered the 1988 Iditarod with standard European poodles on his dogsled team.  He placed 38th out of 52 starters in that 1,100-mile race. 

    And yes — in 1988, Suter appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about his poodle racers. That link is available in YouTube.

    Enjoy the clip here.