Everything Matters

I had a conversation with a lady representing a life insurance company that services the kinds of life insurance policy that were issued by the old Ben Hur Life Association. Ben Hur was an old fraternal organization that (among other things) made available life insurance at rates and in denominations that poor and working class folks could afford back in the 1900s and 1910s and 1920s and 1930s.

This particular policy for my mother had a face value of $1000 ... do they even make life insurance policies in such low denominations today? And she acquired it at age 17 ... in 1938. I asked the person I was speaking with if they happened to have any information in their old records that indicated who had sold the policy, who was the purchaser (Mom's mother?) and where.

The person I was talking to was very courteous and really more than helpful. But it was also clear that she wondered why I was asking such questions. The unspoken comment was, "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

Well ... Yes. It does. It matters. To me it matters. And I hope and pray to God to whom even a sparrow falling from the sky matters.

I guess that's one of my challenges in responding to Mom's passing. To me *everything* about her matters. I really would like to know the details. About everything. That can be overwhelming to say the least. Yet I don't think it's wrong to recognize that everything really does matter about her.

Of course this can be said of everyone ... and everything. And perhaps that's one of Mom's ... and God's ... gifts that in this one person I am allowed to be aware of the Significance of Everything about Her, all of which derives from her Dignity as a Human Person.

And that can only be true if Everything Matters and is Significant about *every* human person.

Nothing doesn't matter.

Everything matters.

Yet I am mortal. I must select. I must choose what is to have my attention. Or have my limited attention snatched away from me.

O Lord help me to see as You would have me see. Not indeed beyond what I am able to see. But that that you would have me see. And thank you in Your Grace that you allow me to see something of the Truth about Mom: Everything About Her Mattered. And Matters.

As Everything about everyone Matters.

In Christ,

Charles Delacroix
F of St Paul of the Cross
F of St Isaac Joques & Cos.