Living in the light with Granddad

On Sunday mornings I go to church with my grandfather. At 92, he moves rather slowly, but his quick wit is still functioning at full capacity. I enjoy his company tremendously. Brain function notwithstanding, his advancing years allow him to sit in the front pew at mass, which carries a nice little bonus for me: it’s hard NOT to pay attention when the priest is standing right in front of us.

Father began his sermon by remarking on what a beautiful, sunny day it was. He arose that morning, threw open the curtains and rejoiced in the sunshine that’s been absent for days now. He talked about choosing to live in the light rather than the darkness. For example, we can sleep in and skip church (darkness) or we can embrace the day and our faith and attend church, thereby choosing to live in the light.

It was a pretty good sermon. And he’s right, of course. I’ve chosen the darkness for quite some time in many ways, so there was lots of food for thought in his words and I was deep in those thoughts as we made our way to the church door to leave.

Granddad and I stepped outside and were amazed to see the bright morning sun was gone, replaced by heavy cloud cover. It was almost comical how we turned to each other with the same surprised look on our face.

He spoke first. “Well look at that; where’d the sun go?”

I told him we must be so full of light after that sermon there wasn’t any left for the sky, to which he replied, in typical Granddad fashion, “Oh, you’re full of something alright.”

Obviously, he’s sharper than I thought.