Let Your Old Age

Painting: Ernst Karl Georg Zimmermann

The Final Battle

As For My House

And When the Moment Comes

To Change the World

Painting: Mary Cassatt, in US public domain due to age

And My House

Painting: E. A. Chadwick; Suckley, Worcestershire

As a Father

In Today's Unholy World

And They Shall Become One

The Loveliest Masterpiece

William Adolphe Bouguereau painting, 1869

The Decisive Issue

(I have found the above quote in several reliable places, including here... click this line to view)

If We Must Love

How to Celebrate Valentine's Day

Joy!

With thanks to God for a beautiful new grandson!

Especially Your Family

Painting on graphic: Winslow Homer, Pumpkin Patch, 1878

I Grew Up Wealthy. Did You Know?

I'll bet you didn't know I grew up rich.  It's not something I brag about, and anyway - it's not as if my wealth had anything to do with my father's salary. 

Here's the truth of it:  I am a bona fide baby boomer. One who spent my childhood fashioning cardboard dollhouses, taking my protesting puppy for rides in a doll carriage, and spending hours crafting my own paper dolls.  I knew the wealth of not having technology to think and play and create for me - and how thankful I am for the luxury of those times. They helped, in ways known to God alone, to form me into someone with a spark of creativity in my bones.  When I did sit in front of the black and white TV, I found nothing to pollute my young mind. Loretta Young twirled onscreen to present this week's half hour drama (always with a lesson). Bishop Sheen taught things I didn't "get," but I liked it when an unseen angel seemed to clean his blackboard.  Bud learned again that Father Knows Best. 
 
I don't have to point out the fact that things have changed.  Even those much younger than I know this. Some even realize that society as a whole has traded oh, so many riches for poverty. We probably all know just what I mean.

Still, we uncover wealth where we can. God is with us, and by His amazing grace we can find Him.  We who know Him have a wondrous inheritance to pass along to our families.

With that in mind, I look around and realize that I'm wealthier now than when I was a child. For one (main) thing, I know God better.  For another, earthly treasures are piled so high that people can barely walk around in my house.

You should see it!  The floors around here are littered with grandchildren's dolls and trucks and board games and papers.  And yes, money as well.  "Dollar bills" that we've colored and cut (more or less in rectangles) from printer-paper.  And such an abundance of food!  Roundish paper cookies my granddaughter Bunny made for her collection of dolls.

Oh, and you should see the art on our walls; there is a virtual gallery covering doors and windows ... and well, of course, the 'fridge. 

I do not want to see my grandchildren deprived of the treasures that have been my entitlement.  Not when they have a grandma wealthy enough to provide paper and crayons when they want tea-party cookies, a cardboard box when they'd like a playhouse, a round coaster to serve as the steering wheel for their (sofa) car.

I share less "simple" things with the grandchildren as well, of course, as do their parents and other relatives and friends. But I would be remiss if I hoarded my stash of boomer-treasures and refused to hand them on.

Most importantly (it goes without saying), I'm privileged to help pass along the incomparable treasure of shared prayer and casual discussions of Christ's love.

In a world that seems to be sliding ever further from the wealth of creativity, simplicity.... and most of all, truth and morality and integrity... I don't intend to be stingy.

I intend to pay the Truth forward.  I intend to pass it on.

Painting: Gerda Tirén-Brudföljet 


© 2013 and 2015 Nancy Shuman.  thebreadboxletters.blogspot.com
 
 

This gently re-edited post was originally published in 2013. I am linking it up with Theology Is A Verb, where a group of Catholic bloggers re-post favorite articles on “It’s Worth Revisiting” Wednesdays.
 









 

A Home in Accord

'The home must be in accord with the Church, that all harmful influences be withheld from the souls of children. Where there is true piety in the home, purity of morals reigns supreme.'

St. John Vianney







Painting: Franz von Defregger, Grace Before Meal

Those With Whom We Live

'Among all those who come under the heading of neighbor, there is no one who deserves this name more than those with whom we live. These are the closest to us, living under the same roof and eating the same bread. Hence they must be among the main recipients of our love. Toward them we must show true charity, which is not to be based on flesh and blood, nor on their personal qualities, but solely on God.'

St. Francis de Sales





Painting: Carl Thomsen, A Sunday Afternoon

When the Moment Comes

'The world today is tearing up the photographs of a good society, a good family, a happy, individual personal life. But the Church is keeping the negatives. And when the moment comes when the world wants a reprint, we will have them.' 

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Painting: Lovis Corinth 

Treasure in the Old Bookshop, Revisited

The shop was long and narrow, dimly lit by naked bulbs dangling from the ceiling. It was a shadowed, solemn, wondrous place, tucked away in a dusty corner of the city where shops didn't sparkle like the department stores over on Main. Mysterious and musty it was, filled with rows and racks and piles of volumes. Used hardbacks, yellowing paperbacks, comics... all stacked haphazardly and ready for a rummager's quest.

I'd step out of the light of day and onto the squeaky wood floor in search of buried treasure. It was my own personal library, but the best part was: I could read the books and then I could keep them!  No stamps inside warning that this was a "14 day book," no falling in love with a whole fictional family only to have to dump them on a library counter at the end of the month.

I was allowed to buy all of the books I could carry, pretty much.. and this because of the kind man who took me to the bookstore. My father, who (okay, I'll admit it) spoiled me.  Rather than leaving me home on a Saturday so he could go rummage for his own treasures at "our bookshop," he patiently took his bubbly little buddy and shelled out who-knows-how-much for mystery stories I would stay up much too late reading.  I think back now and imagine the one sided "conversations" he had to endure on the drives home, as I cradled newfound treasures in my arms (no putting them in a bag for me, no sir) and rattled on about this being the EXACT Nancy Drew I've been wanting and oh LOOK at the green cover on this book it's JUST like leather and omigosh I once got this one from the library and then couldn't find it ever again and oh Daddy isn't this just the best BEST day?

Today I live surrounded with shadows of our bookshop.  Shadows of a good kind, as I savor the comfort of books lining walls of my home.  Shadows of a better kind, as I thank God for a father who was generous with his attention and his time.  These shadows of the better kind are ones I hope I've passed along to my own children, and now to my grandchildren as we share games and books and make-believe. I pray to be generous with my attention and my time, helping them make memory-shadows of their own.

And I live with shadows of the best kind, because the generosity and attention of my earthly father was, itself, a dim shadow of the attention of my Heavenly Father.  

I can only imagine how HE looks upon me when I accept with joy His outpouring of gifts.  Think of how it must please Him when we bubble over with thanks and praise.

There are treasures all around, if I just look for them.  It is again time for some counting, and some thanking. And who knows?  I might even bubble just a bit.... 

(this is a slightly edited version of a post from our archives) 

Photo on this post © 2015 N Shuman