Whipped Cream and Other Delights

Last year as I placed ashes on foreheads or hands on Ash Wednesday, reminding worshippers of our bodily life and our mortality, my own father was dying. He passed away last March. I couldn’t help but think about this on Wednesday night during worship.
My relationship with my dad was not the closest. He was not my confidant, nor my role model. The grief experienced during this past year has often been the grief for a relationship that never was. Yet my dad was funny, charming and a hospitable host. I appreciated those qualities. He enjoyed entertaining and parties, and he enjoyed music. Maybe that rubbed off a little, too.
At the house I grew up in, my parents purchased a console stereo and had speakers wired from the stereo upstairs into the basement rec room. It was there, with our walk-out basement, that my parents liked to entertain. The stereo allowed for ten records at a time to be put on the spindle, so one would drop after the previous record had finished playing. I later heard that this was not so good for records, but it worked well for these parties. Among the music my dad enjoyed was the Kingston Trio and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and I appreciate the music of both.
All of this came back to me the other day as I grabbed my Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass CD on my way to the treadmill. Why I picked that particular CD up, I can’t say, but as I listened I thought back to that house and those days, and a certain fondness warmed my heart.
O.K, I enjoy Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The music may not be the most sophisticated, as the song titles may indicate – “Whipped Cream,” “A Taste of Honey,” “Lollipops and Roses.” Still there is something here that lightens the heart, even if the mind may not be deeply challenged. That’s o.k. In the economy of grace, I think there is room for whipped cream and other delights.
More importantly, in the economy of grace, even difficult relationships bequeath gifts.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David