I want to share the day by day as much as I can, while also sharing my own experiences. So some posts may be “and then we…” and some will be different. Maybe I’ll be throwing in a little Joe flair for kicks. Continue reading “Lourdes pilgrimage, days 1*”
Author: Joe
I have ALS and big ideas, oftentimes beyond my grasp. 37-year-old father of four, I love God and try to keep my eyes on the goal!
Pilgrims return home
Hello, Reader Land! We are back! Back from a fantastic, whirlwind, life-changing, gut-checking, priority discerning, revealing (I was about to say “revelating”), humbling, emotional, beautiful pilgrimage to Lourdes. Not a trip- a pilgrimage. There is a difference, and I hope to share that with you.
I hope to break down day by day the entire pilgrimage, so expect a string of posts about each day, possibly interspersed with other thoughts that come to me (discourse and dialogue part 2?) But, for this first post I wish to open a door.
Sometimes…
An experience is too much to get into words. I’m experiencing what right now. I would love to share more with you about this pilgrimage, but I won’t be able to do it daily. Too much to process.
I’ll whet your appetite for day 1 with:
Now I must to bed, for we go to the Grotto tomorrow.
We’re going to Lourdes
It has occurred to me that the story of Our Lady of Lourdes is not necessarily known by all. So, today on our trip there, I thought I’d share the story with you all and why it is so important. Continue reading “We’re going to Lourdes”
Death (not taxes)
I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring Continue reading “Death (not taxes)”
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