Uplifters

I'm having one of those down days. Maybe you know the one - kind of headachy and run down, nothing seriously major enough to warrant the weepy breakdown this morning all day long, but a lot of little things from a lot of different areas in life all circling like vultures.

I needed a good cry, I surely did. Ad Vingerhoets, a leading expert on crying (yes, there is such a thing), notes that "situations that induce crying are always related to loss or separation." Today happens to be the birthday of my longtime boss and mentor, Gary Rowe. Even after I moved several times and changed jobs several times he was my go-to guy, one of the few people I could call when work in the counseling world felt too heavy. By nature counseling is a private profession; we tend to hold others' hurts silent and close to our hearts, but he was my load sharer. He had a wit and wisdom that put my role in even the most difficult of situations into a hopeful perspective. Gary passed away six months before we got Paul (oh, he would have loved Paul!) after a six year battle with cancer.

I'm really pissed at cancer.

I suppose my crying jag is fitting because I cried a lot with Gary. In retrospect, that probably wasn't very professional of me. This was my first grownup job. He was my boss. But he was the kind of person who made it okay, who helped you through the cry and out the other side a better counselor and a better person.

One thing about Gary - he really enjoyed life. He savored it. I grew up with the impression that Christians ought turn up their noses at the pleasures of this world - in the world but not of it, that sort of thing - but Gary held the opposite stance. He figured that Jesus got accused of being a glutton and a drunk, and so he should walk VERY closely in His footsteps. He was that kind of fun.

He nurtured and maintained my addiction to very good, very expensive coffee. So today I drank one two three cups of Joybean Coffee in his honor. (Because really, where's the fun in moderation?) Sam brought me a bag of Joybean Coffee from her mission trip to Nicaragua, JUST after my Lenten coffee fast. (I have since purchased three more bags.) Everything about this coffee makes me smile - high-altitude Arabica coffee grown organically, bought at fair- and living-wage prices, roasted and sold to benefit the children at Metanoia Children's Home in Nicaragua. It's uplifting, just like Gary.