I have intended to use my Sunday blogs to cover some of the material from the days church sermon and passages, however, I failed to make it to church today. Failure to attend the church structure does definitely not indicate a lack of faith and spirituality in my day however. But first a brief weekend recap, and introduction to my Sunday.
Saturday morning I had to go into work for a little while, which was actually welcomed. I had light workload and I got to work with one of my favorite (I have a long list of favorites) clients. I then tried to hustle off to Peter's 'Watermelon Bowl' scrimmage. He is volunteer coaching for the Burnsville Blaze Sophomore Football team for the second year now, and they had a few scrimmages Saturday morning. Three teams from the area come to play and they all scrimmage one another, and then eat watermelon! Unfortunately right as I got there they were starting to clean up, so I just stayed and chatted with Peter and we ventured back home. I took a 30 min cat nap before running to LTF for a meeting. When I got home we just vegged out for a bit and then decided to run to the Mall (of America) for some entertainment. We live right next door to the mall basically, so its always a fallback when needing something to do. I just like to walk the mall, people watching, occasional shopping, etc. Speaking of watermelon, we tried to find a new hat for Peter's huge watermelon melon. He has about a 7 7/8 hat size so he doesn't always have a wide selection. Time flew by so we both grabbed something to eat (I got a protein shake at Healthy Express), Pete a burrito from Qdoba.
Then we booked it to his Step-Mom's parents house, aka Grandma and Grandpa R's. The whole fam-damly was gathering there to celebrate the grandparents 80th birthdays. Little did the grandparents (Paul and Shirley) know, they were going to be having us all over until late in the evening. For the last 6 months or so their grown kids have been raiding their house for pictures spanning over their 80 years of life. So pictures from when Paul and Shirley were babies, when they started dating, started having kids, when their kids started having kids, etc. etc. They put all of these together in a video set to music - it compiled to be an almost full feature length movie, with a bonus DVD with interviews and commentary. Kate, one of the grandkids had also interviewed the grandparents under the disguise that she had a sociology project. So the bonus DVD included interviews about how Paul and Shirley met, dated, raised their kids, etc etc. AND. The Original Richardson family was/is quite musical, so the four siblings (Petes Step-mom and her siblings) went to a recording studio and recorded the Brother IZ version of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Life is Wonderful' track. It. Was. All. Phenomenal. Paul and Shirley were completely surprised and blown away. So we all stayed and watched the 3+ hours of film and nostalgia of the last 80 years of the Richardson legacy. I love that stuff. They are such an amazing group of people. So loving, friendly, open, entertaining, and simply phenomenal people. I'm incredibly lucky to be able to be included in their 'family', and am so appreciative that they
have accepted me with open arms.
So then TODAY. We went back for the real birthday party. They invited friends and family over for an open house and celebration of Paul and Shirley. We guestimate that there was around 90+ visitors to the party; which is an attribute to what awesome people they are. Today made me think about one of my favorite excerpts from a bible study book; about life-giving relationships.
Power of Connectedness, from John Ortbergs "The Me I Want To Be": {God uses people to form people. That is why what happens between you and another person is never merely human-to-human interaction - the Spirit longs to be powerfully at work in every encounter. Referring to this dynamic, some writers of Scripture speak of "the fellowship of the Spirit." Fellowship has become a churchy word that suggests basements and red punch and awkward conversation. But it is really a word for the flow of rivers of living water between one person and another, and we cannot live without it.
An academic journal called The Journal of Happiness Studies publishes studies using the tools of research to identify what makes human life flourish. When researchers look at what distinguishes quite happy people from less happy people, one factor consistently separates those two groups. It is not how much money you have; it is not your health, security, attractiveness, IQ, or career success. What distinguishes consistently happier people from less happy people is the presence of rich, deep, joy-producing, life-changing, meaningful relationships. Spending meaningful time with people who care about us is indispensable to human flourishing. Social researcher Robert Putnam writes, "The single most common finding from half-century's research on life satisfaction, not only from the U.S. but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one's social connections."}
Rich, deep, joy-producing, life-changing, meaningful relationships. I love that. I have found that when I'm happiest, it is when I have exactly that, rich and deep relationships; and not just having them, but maintaining them, and being active in them. I think the Richardson family is plump full of rich, joy producing, meaningful relationships. Everywhere you look, there it is. Those are the types of people you want to surround yourself with.
Happy 80th to Paul and Shirley, and here's to finding, fostering, harvesting, loving, and not settling for anything less than rich, deep, joy-producing, life-changing relationships.
No comments:
Post a Comment