Their pictures decorate my study -- my wife, my children, those closest to my heart, all smiling out of their frames at me, not just reminders of my many blessings, but the embodiment of them. But there are others as well -- there are Roderick and Jane Thorpe, the rector of a small village in northern England and his spouse, and the Rev. I Rajkumar, pastor of a village church in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. And there is a picture of a sari-clad woman who lives in the fishing village Raj serves, proudly sitting in her tiny, two-room, open-air hut, excited that this visitor from an unimaginable distance has asked to take her picture.
Surely each picture bears witness to the miracle of love graciously bestowed upon this one person, upon me.
And there is one more, a picture of a young man, silhouetted by dawn's early light, carrying a cross over a dune to an Easter Sunday sunrise service. Rusty, Aune's only son, all of 18 years old.
Who took his own life a short time thereafter.
It was all of fifteen years later that Aune told me the story behind the photograph, and in thanksgiving for the ability to finally forgive -- to forgive Rusty, to forgive herself, to forgive this cruel world, to forgive even God -- she gave it to me.
November 1 the church celebrates All Saints Day, a day dedicated to remembering not just the giants of the faith, the ones who get official names like St. Mark and St. Theresa, but also all the saints, in all their varied degrees of faith and struggles to make their way.
On Monday, I hope to remember many of them, and especially Aune, and Rusty.
Who will you remember?
I'll be remembering Rocky, Bea and David
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