Old friends, like bookends

The news came in late last year. An old friend was ailing and the prognosis wasn't good. Barring an economic miracle, the end could come any day. It came last Friday.

Duane Tappe was in Denver at the time, attending a Rotary function, and he was kind enough to bring me a copy of the last publication of my old friend, the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News. What a treasure trove that final edition is. Thanks, Duane.

My folks were Denver Post people, when they subscribed to the paper, so I grew up reading Blondie and Dick Tracey, but I quickly changed my allegiance when I discovered the Rocky, faithfully delivered early in the morning to Danny's mom's front porch. It didn't take me long to make new friends in the comics section and when Danny and I decided we were finally grown up enough to subscribe to a newspaper, it was the Rocky.

It arrived faithfully by 5:30 every morning, and we would divvy it up, exchanging sections and opinions before Danny had to leave for work. On the weekends, we would just bring it and our coffee cups back to bed, a more leisurely exchange taking place.

It was the Rocky that first published my voice, before I even knew I had a voice. They published my voice twice, long before I left school food service and moved to McCook, where my voice has grown wings of a sort, here in these pages and on the local radio station. One of my letters to the editor was a featured piece on the op/ed page. They even added art. Wish I'd kept a clipping. I can't remember what I wrote...

The Internet has changed how we communicate ideas in this day and age, what with blogs, twitter and instant messaging, but there is a sense of validation that comes when a newspaper editor gives credence to your words by publishing them on newsprint. I read a few blogs daily, just to see what has people talking, and some of these are well-written essays, deserving of a venue with more credibility than that afforded to blogs, while some don't even deserve the miniscule amount of cyber-space afforded.

I went digging through a box of photos this week, looking for a specific photograph from my past to share with a friend and in the box I discovered even more treasures. I stayed up well past my bedtime, time travel will do that to you, and was lucky to make it to work on time that morning, as I continued the search for the still elusive photo before leaving.

Cards and letters had been tossed into this old boot box along with the photographs, and of course, I had to reread all of those. I must have packed this box in a hurry, because there are pictures of Ben in his infancy and at his graduation from Marine basic training.

I'm getting too long in the tooth for this kind of time travel, but was so glad to see familiar faces that have since crossed the Jordan, frozen in time, the memories as fresh as yesterday. I have at least two other boxes to search if the needed photo continues to elude me. I wonder where they'll take me.

The Lenten season is upon us again, and once again, I have the remarkable privilege of covering the Community Lenten services for the paper.

This year, the community will hear two of the new area pastors, Doug Rohrer and Mary Hendricks, in the rotation. The services are a great venue for new pastors to bring a message to a wider portion of the community and I look forward to covering their homilies.

The lessons this year are based on six parables of Jesus, which, even after 2,000, years are still rich and applicable to any age. And, as is often the case with Scripture, it depends on who you are and where you are on the day of the lesson as to how it will strike you. The Word never changes, but thankfully, we do, and consequently, so does our perception.

Jeff Thurman, pastor at Memorial United Methodist Church, gave the first homily last week, revisiting the parable of the sower. My soul celebrates the fact that though the seed has been sown many times in my life, and though it never changed, over time, the soil in the garden of my heart did. Once as hard as flint, it has been broken up, softening with each blow.

The bindweed I call bitterness, the thistles of resentment and the dandelions of entitlement, have been gently but firmly uprooted, in their seasons, and the root of faith has gone deeper with every new application of the Sower's seed. Perhaps, someday, I will bring forth a harvest worthy of the gardener's persistent faith.

Photographs and memories, old friends like bookends, these tell the story of our lives with an eloquence undiminished by time. And in every telling and retelling evidence of the presence of the One who spoke it all into being, is found.

"Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night." Psalm 63:3-6 (NIV)