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The Stew in Stewardship

For me the last ten or so days have been challenging in a myriad of regards. There have been illnesses, heated discussions, and worry. But, in honesty, the most weighty of the difficulties has been a fresh wave of sorrow about my mother. I have been missing her more acutely these last several days, and I have felt isolated and alone in my grief. I have tried to talk with my wife about my emotional grief, but because of other very pressing issues, we have had scant quiet time... time that I need to be able to explain my grief and have her know more fully what I have been feeling. Tonight, finally, we were able to cull a small kernel or two of time together in which I could describe some of my deep pitted sorrow. It was helpful, and I hope to be able to have more such time in the next several days so that I may work to change this new wave of grief into tangible, palatable action and drive that will pay respect and show my love for her, my beautiful mother. Today is the 200th day since her passing. It hurts to think of it having been so long since I saw her alive.

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Stewardship is a way of life based upon service towards others. In particular, stewardship is a manner of guidance over another's affairs of one sort or another. In many ways, I am now the primary steward of my mother's life. I am her financial steward, but more importantly, I am actually the primary steward of my mother's history, the memory we have of her.

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In academic writings devoted to philosophical constructs in my Roman Catholic faith, I find in one article for today a discussion of stewardship where an idea is put for that we should proclaim and admit to ourselves and to others of:

"I am not God."

This idea relates to the first words recorded as spoken by John the Baptist in the Gospel of the new testament of the bible. Philosophically, by my proclaiming this same idea... a weight will be lifted from my shoulders. And in those moments where I can feel the simplicity of that statement, I do indeed feel relief... relief that there is no way I can expect to be anything other than the horrid, wretched, person I am... for I *am* only human, and I am faulty, and I am slovenly, and I am insignificant. It is only through my *actions* that I have any real meaning in this universe. By serving others, by being of service.... by being a steward... it is through these methods of toil and effort that I *may* actually grow somehow beyond being nothing and perhaps instead become something of worth, something of value, someone who has provided to the "greater good". It is really all I can have in life to hold onto, in order to make meaning.

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Born in France in October of 1767, Father Gabriel Richard was priest of the Sulpician Order. His primary efforts in stewardship were academic... he was a teacher/scholar of mathematics. Yet, by having stewardship as his focus, he also let himself be guided to where and how he was to give of himself in work. Because of the strife and warfare of the French Revolution, his order sent him and many others to the United States, where he became a missionary and brought the unruly lands of Michigan and Wisconsin their first tastes of scholarship... via a library and a newspaper.

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I believe that if I am to find any meaning in the grief I feel for my wonderful mother, I may be able to only find it if I start to more fervently devote my life to even MORE service, MORE stewardship and MORE hard labor and effort to help expand the "greater good". It is perhaps the only thing I can do.

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