Agape and Personhood. David L. Goicoechea

love and protection that each one of us needs.

      We had a real cold night. It was 28 degrees this morning.

      Looks like we’re going to have an early and cold winter.

      I really enjoyed your visit and hope you can come more often.

      Bette Jo and Bob are moving to Hagerman in November.

      It will be nice to have them close.

      Tell Josje “Hello.” I’m glad he is taking some

      more courses in college.

      Love and Prayers

      your mother

      Mother identified with the sorrow of her mother whose mother

      died when she was but eight and with the sorrow of her father

      whose mother died when he was but five and she identified with

      their identification with each other for shamans often do lose

      a parent when they are children and thereby learn of the spirit world.

      From her mother, mother learned to pray the Our Father and

      from her father’s Mormon community mother learned that

      our Heavenly Father loves us and is with us especially in sorrow.

      Then from her husband who lost his father when he was but five

      mother learned how to pray the Hail Mary and the Angel of God.

      Mother grew as her prayer took her into the five dimensional universe.

      Mother lived most closely throughout her whole life with three

      prodigal sons for her father was a prodigal son, her husband

      was a prodigal son, and her own first son was a prodigal son.

      And yet unlike the elder brother she never for a moment needed

      to reconcile with them for each of them knew how she loved them

      and from her they even knew how God would always love them.

      For surely God’s love would have to be as affirmative as was hers.

      Her father dear became the town drunk and began squandering

      the family fortune so that her mother had to divorce him even

      though she proudly loved him and her father sobbed when he saw

      his wonderful daughter, Sissy, and even though he could not change

      and died in an insane asylum he always knew how loved he was.

      Her husband dear who was a proud and gifted gambler was shot

      in the ankle when hunting and became an alcoholic garbage man.

      But with her help he knew that he was cleaning up the town

      and unlike so many punk-kid adults he kept the faith,

      put all his children through college and with her constant love

      eventually quit smoking and drinking and was shamanic right

      to the end as he taught his children how to love their mother

      just as she taught them to love him forever more and more.

      Her first son became the worst sinner of all for he was both

      an habitual adulterer and an hypocrite who professed to be

      religious and yet hurt his wives and children more than did

      her father or her husband who never broke the commandments

      but drank, perhaps, to fill the void of their dead lost parents.

      But her son who had the best of educations and even prayed

      with the various women he loved forced his wives to leave him.

      And their children suffered so much to see their mothers so hurt

      and to be separated from their father for living ghosts can be

      harder to live with than dead ones who do not haunt you so.

      Her first son knew his mother’s love who saw all so clearly

      and it let him feel like King David after whom she named him.

      Mother’s four noble truths

      I Mother as a person in relation suffered the sorrows

      of those with whom she was most closely bonded

      II and her greatest sorrow of all was losing her loved ones

      for love wants to be present with those whom we love.

      III But mother’s Rosary and Mass taught her that Christmas

      can be every day especially on Good Friday because of Easter Sunday.

      IV And this became real for mother as she journeyed

      on the nine-fold path of her life with

      (1) her Anglican mother from whom she learned of

      joyful service not only for family but also for community

      (2) her Mormon father with whom she learned hard work and for whom

      she always prayed as he became her broken, sobbing dad

      (3) her Catholic husband who knew she was the perfect wife and mother

      and who was the alpha male for and with his alpha female

      (4) her son, David, who still prays with and for her every day and

      Father Dougherty who taught her of the sacred heart of Jesus

      (5) her daughter, Bette Jo, who still identifies with her in all

      of her mothering and Father Heeren, her spiritual director

      (6) her son, Robert Brian, who has her gentle heart and

      Father O’Connor, her Irish priest with his sense of humor

      (7) her son, Clifford Scott, who like her daughter is like her

      husband and Father Waldman, that true Idaho priest

      (8) her son, Tommy Joe, who like his two namesakes is

      wise and strong and Father DeNardis, that saintly priest

      (9) her grandchildren and great grandchildren for whom she

      still prays everyday and the new priests of Post Vatican Two.

      And so mother is there now with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

      and with the Blessed Mother of God and with all of the Angels

      and with all of the Saints and she is praying for and interceding

      for all of us here now just as she did when she was here.

      Since she lived in these five dimensions in her prayer

      for her last fifty years she must still be living as she lived.

      Kierkegaard

      The greatest good, after all, which can be done

      for a being . . . is to make it free.

      In order to do just that Omnipotence is required.

      This seems strange, since it is precisely Omnipotence

      that supposedly would make (a being) dependent.

      But if one will reflect on Omnipotence, he will see

       that it also must contain the unique qualification

      of being able to withdraw itself again

      in a manifestation of Omnipotence in such a way

      that