Overflow

I’ve not written about my Wednesday morning group. Six or seven guys who meet at a local coffe house and share experiences loosely wrapped around the next Sunday’s scripture reading for Mass. I realized driving to work this morning, grateful to the brink of happy tears, how blessed I am to have a group of men to be honest with. These guys have been through some serious shit. Two have lost wives to illness, one has been to the brink of losing a child to cancer (and back), and that’s just for starters. They’re mostly older, so they’ve been through most of what I experiencing now. All have a healthy grasp on their own mortality. All have been through the middle life crisis without acquiring a red sports car or a trophy wife. All are, in their own fashion, a damn sight wiser than I.

When Jesus said “Blessed are they who mourn,” I think he was saying that those who have been to the abyss and back are a great blessing to everybody else. When you go through shit, you are naturally drawn to those who know personally what you’re going through. They are blessed gifts, the mourners, because they can truly empathize and you have to don’t feel so all alone because they are there. That’s how I feel about them. Blessed are the Wednesday Morning Guys.