Grandparents

My sister and I were taught to refer to our grandparents as Grandma and Grandpa. I'm a little surprised we weren't instructed to use the elongated Grandmother and Grandfather. Perhaps we could have used their first names without being any more formal; "Elaine, could you play Candy Land with me today?" "Dorothy, what time will we watch The Price is Right, today?". Occasionally we would get sloppy and drop the -d- Gran-ma and Gran-pa Airgood and Gran-ma and Gran-pa in Florida. My mother's Italian maiden name was a bit difficult, so locality would suffice.

Grandma and Grandpa Airgood practiced a folk-Christianity that relied heavily on religious tchotchkies and salvation based point systems. Sins such as wearing shorts or earrings inside the house of God lost you points and buying oversized portraits of Jesus gained you points. Grandpa took part in a failed exorcism at one point, but we're not allowed to talk about that. Dorothy's sister, Great Aunt Mabel, was devoutly religious and altogether eccentric - we adored her as children for her saintly wisdom, pull-no-punches debate skillz, and hard-core scrabble re-matches - we feared her for her bad teeth and the way her house smelled like rotting eggs.

Grandma and Grandpa in Florida were very religious. Especially Grandma. We always sang Christian songs, prayed longer prayers, and read our Bibles more studiously when Grandma from Florida came for a visit. I once read the entire book of Esther while Elaine watched over me - pretending all the time that this was normal Friday afternoon happenings. Grandma slapped me once when I tried to kiss her because she thought I was going to spit on her. I must have spoken into her "bad ear" (which never happened to be the same ear as the time before) when I said "I love you, Grandma." When her children were young she would throw her son's playing cards away each week when she cleaned his room - Uncle Randy never caught on to clean his own room and save the cost of a deck of cards.

Grandpa Airgood really loved me. He died after a long fight with several illnesses shortly before I started Kindergarten. He pulled my mother aside and asked that no matter what happened that I always be an Airgood. In pictures taken during those days of sleeping on hospital-safe fire-proof plastic couches, my sister and I always have our hands folded in prayer. They're cute pictures, but "Tchotchky Jesus" didn't pull through for us and Grandpa Airgood died. Not that Grandma Airgood had been particularly blissful before his passing; but she was quite bitter after his death. While photographs of Blaine show funny hats, goofy slippers, and big smiles; pictures of Dorothy show a short old woman sticking her tongue out at the camera. Seriously, in almost every picture we have of Grandma Airgood she's sticking her tongue out. Really. She only shed one tear when they told her she had cancer and a few weeks to live. I was holding her hand when they told her; and I watcher her make her peace with Jesus in that one tear. She didn't stick her tongue out anymore after that.

Grandma and Grandpa in Florida lost their location based moniker when they became the only grandparents left. Grandma and Grandpa are as stubborn as the line of dirt that refuses to be swept into the dustpan. One time Grandpa decided to drive from Florida to Pennsylvania for a football game. My Grandma decided she didn't want to go. So, two days before Elaine's 79th birthday (almost exactly one year after she almost died of an aneurysm and almost one year before it became okay to leave Grandma alone for more than a few hours)Virgil left her to drive to Pennsylvania for a football game. They do most things together, though. They mall walk three miles every morning. This is a real thing, and they couldn't be more proud of it - they would have a bumper sticker if it wouldn't ruin the paint job on their car. They don't want to wake the neighbors when they leave for the mall at 6AM - so they synchronise their door shutting. It's adorable. Granma got tired of having her grandchildren so far away, so she got a teddy bear to replace us. She loves Teddy on an emotional level she has never expressed for me. They come from a different era, and have a hard time expressing affection. Every time I hang up the phone with Grandpa I say, "Love you" to which he replies,"Alrighty then." I only allow my friends to back out of a reciprocal "love you" when they're watching football with the fellas - but I let Virgil slide because he's from a different era. They wrote that they were proud of me once in a letter, and I guess the fact that they still send letters to East Jesus Nowhere or wherever I am at the moment proves that they are at the very least somewhat fond of me.

Ultimately, I believe these people are/were the salt of the earth. I love them dearly - and fully appreciate the fact that they made me (directly and indirectly) the person I am today. They shaped the faith of my parents who shaped my faith. They faced obstacles I could never dream of facing, made good and bad decision from which I could learn, and taught me a lot about what it means to be me.

Today, you will be with me in Paradise.

"Some tell us that following Jesus is a simple matter of inviting him into our hearts. But when we do that, Jesus always asks, 'May I bring my friends?' And when we look at them, we see that they are not the kind of company we like to keep. The friends of Jesus are the outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, the homeless, the rejected - the lepers of life. We hesitate and ask, 'Jesus, must we really have them too?' Jesus replies, 'Love me, love my friends!'" - Peter Storey, former leader of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, in "Listening at Golgotha"

Another song about love.

Love is the most dangerous thing we do every day. Not driving, or operating heavy machinery - but loving others.

Our culture is love obsessed and generally disillusioned. Fourteen year old pop-idols wax eloquent about love - and Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" will tell of their fourth divorce in a few decades. Love is our cultural heroine; we will do anything, pay any price, and take on any consequence to get our next fix.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that we've simply missed the boat. Language defines culture - and I think the fact that our language uses only one word for all different types of love is problematic at best. We use the same word to describe the feeling that causes a new father to catch his baby daughter's vomit and for the feeling that makes 15 year olds feel that nothing could be more important than getting naked and trying to not make a baby. We also use the same word for the verb of God coming to the earth to die for the sins of the world. This word is incomprehensibly incomplete - and we should face this fact head on.

I'm completely convinced that love is not something that happens - it is a verb and a choice.

Every day we must choose to love others. We must look beyond those who are easy to love - we must look into the eyes of the unloveable and choose to love them.

Racism has no place in the Kingdom of God. Love is a choice.

Against whom do we wage war? Our enemies. Whom were we commanded to love. Our enemies. There is no room for war against our enemies in the Kingdom of God. Love is a choice.

Extreme poverty has no place in the Kingdom of God. How can we love our neighbor and allow her children to die of preventable disease and malnutrition. Love is a choice.

Ageism, Homophobia, Sexism, and other forms of discrimination have no seat at the table in the Kingdom of God. Love is a choice.

Love. There is ONLY room for love in the Kingdom of God. Love destroys terrorism, tears down walls and political boundaries, and moves people to acceptance of Jesus Christ. Love is the most dangerous thing we do every day.