A beautiful star has set.  Diana's mother, Olivia Schlesier, a shining light to so many, ceased her struggle with cancer last night and went home.  Diana was with her every day, nearly around the clock, at Haven Hospice Center.  Olivia was not in pain, although maybe a little perturbed that she was hovering between this home and her final home.  

I want to tell you about my heroes.  First, I need to explain that I don't use that title lightly.  For me to call someone my hero, it means they have lived a life that I aspire to make my own - in most ways.  It also means, in my eyes, because of their love or their sacrifice, the world is a better, brighter more beautiful place to live.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a hero.  He risked his job, his family, his freedom, even his life trying to wake up the German people to the evils of the Nazi regime. He lost everything yet, even in prison, he continued to preach boldly about the power of God's unconquerable love against fear and hatred.  Mother Theresa is another one.  For the first part of her life, she was a dedicated school teacher.  She spent the second half of her life living and working in Calcutta, India, caring for the sick and dying. Every day, she would sit with them, listen to them, hold their hands (even though many of them were "untouchables") and speak softly to them of God, comforting them so they would not be alone when they died.  Another hero of mine was Henri Nouwen. He lived among the mentally disabled and ministered to their broken and lonely hearts. During the last two decades of his life, he wrote about his ministry to the "walking wounded."  Through his books, millions of people have found healing and grace, and meaningful ways to care for their souls.

These three were all ordinary people who, because of circumstances or in spite of them, devoted their lives to extraordinary acts of love and sacrifice and faith and grace.  They offered compassion to people who had been left out, forgotten, overlooked or intentionally persecuted by the rest of the world.  This description also applies to my fourth hero, though she has always been too humble to recognize it.

Olivia May Anderson Schlesier is truly an amazing lady, marked by kindness and compassion for forgotten souls.  I call her the Saint of Oceanway.  The neighborhoods of Oceanway, where Olivia lived, were home to poor, rural families. They were also filled with crime and unemployment and drugs.  To most of the rest of Jacksonville, Oceanway was the land of the "untouchables" and the "throw away people."  But as we all know, Grandma Olivia never throws anything away!  While that may be true for things, it is doubly true for people.  After she lost Don, even though she was facing poverty herself and had three children she was trying to raise by herself, she devoted her life to collecting kids that had been forgotten or thrown away.  She made sure they were safe and warm and dry and fed; then she would load them all into a converted bread truck and bring them to church.  Boy did they make the respectable people at church uncomfortable! But several of those kids found Jesus because of Olivia's love for them.  All of them found a home.

We all loved listening to Grandma Olivia tell stories.  It's because she knew what made a story great - ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  Little did she know, she would be the hero of one of those stories.  The ordinary mom and school teacher and church lady who had extraordinary love and faith, sacrificing her own good for others.

Toward the end, Olivia wasn't able to get around very well.  She would turn the TV up, way too loud, listen to the news and write in her notebooks. She would get so upset when anyone was neglected or taken advantage of! As long as she had breath in her lungs and ink in her pens, she was making sure the little people, the throw away people, were not lost or forgotten.  Believe me, there are lots of notebooks, with lots of words in them.  But I bet when we read them, all those words are going to say just this: "Love them. Feed them. Clothe them. Visit them. Keep them safe. Don't lose any of them. Don't forget them. Love them."

I doubt any books will be written about Olivia Schlesier, the Saint of Oceanway. She didn't do anything big. But she did small things with great love. And because of her life, the world is a better, brighter, more beautiful place to live. I can't wait to see her again.  When the time comes, I'll just look for her at a table with Bonhoeffer, Nouwen and Mother Theresa.

Olivia graduates from High School in about 10 days.  I know she's been waiting for this day her entire, young life.  I love that she is so free and so alive.  I love that she has walked her own way since before she COULD walk. Two days ago, I sat in my cube, brokenhearted that I could not be there or do something for her big day.  She knows how much I wish I could be there, but still ...

Anyway, I penned a poem that I thought captured her beautiful, independent spirit.  I asked her - she said I could share it with a few of my close ones.  It's my first real effort at poetry with both rhythm and rhyme.

My Beautiful Kite

Can you see my beautiful kite
Soaring spirited up so high?
I love to watch my beautiful kite
Sailing and dancing across the sky.

Winds lift her, fill her, take her away.
She spreads her wings then turns back to say,
"Can't catch me. I'm free! The birds are my friends!"
I reel out more string, but hold tight to my end.

Her dips and turns are musical.
She swoops and frolics and sings.
Her ballet and waltz theatrical,
But she pulls against her string.

Everyone says, "What a beautiful kite,
Surfing the wind with the greatest of ease!
Better check your string, though, and hold on tight!
She's yearning to rise and dance on the breeze."

Everyone loves my beautiful kite,
Dramatic and sassy, so full of life,
Romping and gamboling up so high,
Gracefully dancing across the sky.

But can you see her wresting from me?
Reminds me of when she was new.
Escaping my grasp, footloose and free,
She'd dance away into the blue.

I'd panic and fret and run all around
To save my beautiful kite from harm,
Until she got tired and drifted down
Resting reluctantly into my arms.

And soon she would shout, "Here I go again!
I'm alive! I can fly! Catch me if you can!"
Her string 'round my wrist, my hand on my eyes,
To strain out the glare and watch my kite fly,

I'd tether myself with all of my might
To keep her safe and sound.
I'd do anything to prevent my kite
From crashing to the ground.

At times the winds are angry and rough.
I hold on tight and hope it's enough.
She pitches and rolls; she plummets and springs
As she yanks and rails against her string.

At times the fickle winds grow slack;
Her sail and spirit dip so low.
I'd run to the end of the world and back
Until the winds begin to blow.

But she tugs and strains against her string
While the windows of her soul,
Sometimes blue, sometimes green,
Are pleading, "Please let go."

Soaring is great, but trust me, I've found
That what goes up usually comes down.
I know how it works, gravity and all ....
"I'm still gonna fly, dad, even if I fall."

There are days when I find myself wishing for then
And praying it's all been a wonderful dream;
I'll open my eyes and she'll be little again
Dancing and playing at the end of my string.

But wishes are for stars, and dreams for night.
The day has finally arrived.
The future is dawning, tomorrow is bright.
I can see it in her eyes.

I stand without breathing, so proud of my kite,
And hold her a moment before she takes flight.
The glass full of hours has run out of sand.
I loosen the string. She slips from my hand.

O beautiful kite, dancing somewhere above,
Soaring spirited up so high.
The only tether I hold now is love
But how I wish I could watch you fly.

I wanted to write you several times this past week but, in a fit of grace, my week has been wonderfully full.  Olivia had an emergency request for help with her final homework assignment.  (She is soooo like me!)  It had to do with the cold war era which meant she needed help from someone ancient. I fit the requirements perfectly!  But, as this was her LAST homework assignment of her High School journey, I began to feel a splendid agony surrounding her graduation as it prowls nearby, ready to pounce.  She sent me note that brought tears to my eyes.  Not what she intended, but she may have forgotten what a sissy I am.  It said only this: "Today's my last day of High School!  My first step into a grown up world.  The day I've been waiting for all my life!"  It is so true - she's been anticipating this day since she was a toddler.  As soon as she started walking, she started walking away.  I have found ways to walk beside her, for little parcels, but I will miss being there to see her dance and act and sing and argue and everything else she excels in.  I found myself reflecting on a day we spent flying kites in the big back yard of the 511 house in Ashland.  I got lost there for a while, fell into flow.  It planted a poem-seed in my heart for her.  I'll share it with you later, if she allows me to.

And my Ashby's 15th birthday.  My cellie Cowboy calls it her "Quinceanero".  A sweet but sad day.  The first birthday I've missed. But she was so excited about everything, and pulled me in at all the meaningful places. And I was able to give her a small gift of love and words.  What a special young lady she is.

And the gang is planning to come see me on Monday. I cannot wait! The time in-between visits is always splendid agony. Like a feast being prepared in front of a hungry man, one that he is invited to!  I am the most fortunate prisoner alive!  Who is more fortunate than me?

:-)

All of the computers in our unit are down.  I have one minute on this computer so I will say only this (partially stolen from East of Eden):

Truth is always more beautiful, even if it is, sometimes, dreadful truth.  The truth is, I miss you all like crazy ...

love.

It is another amazing morning.  There are things about Coleman that I do not like, but when I look up ...

The sky here is amazing.  Almost every day!  So, I guess, I'll have to keep looking up.

love.

Mom and all four kids came to see me today.  A small taste of first home, a glimpse of final home and a generous helping of the one I'm so desperately homesick for. Joy and heartache, agony and ecstasy, Heaven and Hell, paradise behind glass. Every second worth it, every borrowed moment a lifetime. Is this lesson over yet?

Sweet, nostalgic grace that keeps me.  Lifeblood of love.

Recently, a good friend came to see me.  She is instrumental in the operation of our family website and the blog.  I won't tell you her name but it rhymes with "felisa filler" and she used to go by the nickname "pickles."  She told me two things that surprised me and humbled me: 1) She told me how many friends follow the updates closely, and 2) She told me how many gifts have already come in to make sure my family is well cared for.  My heart was warmed and broken at the same time.  It was what I have prayed for, but more than I dared hope for.  I will carry a debt of gratitude, that could never be fully expressed, as long as I live.  But before I joyfully tattoo each of your faces and names to my heart, there's something else I need to do.

I don't know if you've been following the cable news coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing.  I don't blame you if you're not, but I am.  They've been interviewing the young and beautiful wife of the bombing suspect that was killed first.  What a tragedy.  She has said many times that she had no idea what he was doing or planning to do.  For what it's worth, I believe her.  One of the other guys in the TV room said, "How could he do that?  I'm not talking about the bomb.  How could he cause so much pain and suffering for his family?  For everyone who loved and trusted him?"  I just sat there quietly, because I am that guy.

Nobody had any idea what was happening in my world.  Friends I have known my whole life, told everything to, had no idea what was going on.  I am heart-sick at the violence I have done to everyone who ever loved or trusted me.  I have let everyone I care about down.  I have let God down.  Most of all, I set off a bomb that nearly destroyed my beautiful and irreplaceable family.  If not for this community of compassionate souls, they would all be casualties.

It's been a while since anyone has called me Pastor, but for those of you whose faith was injured because of me, I am so desperately sorry.  For those of you who have joined me in missions work or projects of community compassion, for tarnishing your memory of those experiences, I am deeply sorry.  For those of you who put your trust in me, I am cut to the heart over the selfish disregard I have given you in return.  I do not ask that you trust me ever again.  I ask only that you accept my broken and heartfelt apology and deep regret.  I would give almost anything to heal the injury I have caused you and my family.

Because of you, my family is safe and warm and dry.  Thank you.  You are the hands and the feet of God to them. And those of you who have offered me forgiveness and continued kindness, it is a testimony to your persistent character of grace and the depth of your love, because I deserve neither.

With humility and deep gratitude, I thank God for each of you.

Eric