My Parents, Miggy & Mother Teresa
Celebrating Greatness
What a weird combo, eh?! My parents - two normal people who were born in the 1940s and died in the 2010s. Miguel Cabrera - the heart and soul of my Detroit Tigers for the past 15 years. St. Teresa of Calcutta better known as Mother Teresa - a modern example of radical Christian obedience. The one word I want to posit for reflection on their commonality is greatness.
Modern Christianity, in my view, is too flat, as if flat was most spiritual. Flat being in the sense that no one is great or wonderful since we are all just sinners in need of grace. Sure, I’m a sinner, you're a sinner, and so are Jim, Elaine, Miggy, and Teresa, however, that does not mean there is no greatness in their lives worth acknowledging, celebrating, and as-possible (I wish I could’ve hit a curve ball…) emulating.
In the Miggy photo he is being honored by the Damn Yankees of all teams, and what a wonderful picture. Each major league team on Miggy’s last trip to their town during this, his final season, has honored him. Although his statistical excellence is expansive what is most striking to me is that there are only three players in baseball history who have over 500 home runs, over 3,000 hits, and at least a .300 career batting average: Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, and Miguel Cabrera. Greatness! The Mount Rushmore of baseball greatness. And greatness needs to be acknowledged, celebrated, and emulated.
The Mother Teresa photo is probably the most physically endearing one of her that I have come across. Too often when the word Saint is used in church what we mean is someone who is wholly different from a normal me and you. Mother Teresa hated this tendency, this flattening of the general call of all Christians to allow the power of God to be seen in how they live their lives. She is a witness to the power of a human being operating in her freedom to do the right thing because God told her to do it.
My parents’ picture is just a normal one of them being grandparents to Dennyse and my five children one Christmas week in Newalla, Oklahoma. My folks, like your folks, are normal. Not superhuman, but normal. My mom and dad, in their normalness, and empowered by the Spirit of God in them, displayed greatness in different ways, ways that are worthy of acknowledgment, celebration, and emulation. My folks were also buffoons sometimes. Some may “Amen!” as they fondly remember my Dad’s anti-social grumpiness.
My parent’s greatness, at least in my view, coalesces around their choosing to practically love real people in real places. My mom was overt in this. Her heart spilled out with compassion to the elderly, to young parents, to babies, to her kids, to her grandchildren. She, like Mother Teresa, was a diminutive dynamo (meaning she was short of stature…really short…), but full of the love of God and not afraid to share it. She also struggled to give herself that same love and compassion as she would often worry herself to death over life’s varied challenges.
Dad’s heart spilling was different, but for those who saw it spill, it was obvious and worthy of a greatness designation. My remembrance turns to his investment in soup kitchens, in going fishing with a neighbor kid, in working hard every day to make sure he could afford to take his baseball-fanatic eldest child to at least one Tiger game down at the Corner every summer, or in mowing the yards of elderly neighbors who needed their lawns mowed because their “loser kids” weren’t taking care of them. Dad also struggled with his own anxieties and at times chose to cope with one too many beers (he drank that nasty Busch Light elixir, mostly because he was cheap) or one too many bags of Cheetos.
Heroes. We need them. I need them. Among my spiritual growth heroes is Pope Benedict XVI or Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. One of my favorite quotes from him states:
Man was created for greatness—for God himself; he was created to be filled by God. But his heart is too small for the greatness to which it is destined. It must be stretched.
Too often our definition of a hero is so narrow, especially when it comes to important things in life (and not just hits and home runs), and miss out on the celebration and joyful stretching that is our birthright as we trust God in our own becoming who we were created to be as His children, made in His image. Today I (and you) are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses!” I hope Miggy whoops on the Yanks tonight!
Special thanks for so many subscribing. My hope is to post once or twice a week, maybe more here at the start. We’ll see.