FULL-SPECTRUM COLOR

For many Christians around the globe, today is celebrated as Good Friday, a holy day of prayer and reflection, a day of remembering the crucifixion and death of Jesus. This particular Good Friday, April 14, 2017, America dropped a bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason. Bombs in exchange for gassing. Bombs to send a message. I cannot help but see a sad and somber parallel here. It is my hope, in this our age’s most uncertain hour, that we find a way to be a bridge for each other over the troubled waters of our time.

On Tuesday, August 16, 2016, my father, Theodore “Ted” Wazenski made his transition from this life to the next. He was 83 years old. Son of Polish immigrants, he grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania and later made his home in north Baltimore, where he and my mother (also Polish) raised three children — a elder daughter, a son, and me the youngest daughter. He died in Annapolis, Maryland, where he and my mother had settled in the later years of their lives to be closer to their son and his family and to receive care and support from their local senior care residence.

There’s a Norman Rockwell illustration that’s stuck in my head lately. The image comes from the April 1, 1961 cover of The Saturday Evening Post. It shows a cluster of men, women and children, all of various religions, races and ethnicities standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Each figure’s gaze is earnestly fixed upon the words of the Golden Rule emblazoned in golden serif font across the bottom of the illustration: DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU

I am in the midst of a second childhood summer. After having left my corporate job to pursue this here communications consulting business, I am remembering what it means to slow down again, to take in the bird calls and the morning sunshine streaming through my windows, to drink my coffee with extra special attention to the balance of flavor.