spurious//notorious

Well, Reader, much has happened since my last post. We laid my grandfather to rest on Friday, January 23rd - just 4 days before his 78th birthday. Contrary to the sentiments in one of my earlier posts, I was not handling the situation very well, to say the least. It hit me all at once, when the (incredibly rude - don’t ever use Witzke’s Funeral Home in Catonsville - but that’s a different story) funeral personnel came to close his casket. Until that moment I hadn’t accepted the finality of the situation. Neither had I been dealing with the situation in prayer. I was so certain that I could handle my emotions logically, but as always I was wrong. In the grand Stafford Tradition, I didn’t allow myself to grieve thoroughly. Instead, my sorrow came out as misplaced anger and irritation towards anyone and everything.

What’s ironic/tragic about it all is that Harold would never have conducted himself in such a grumpy way as I did on the day of his funeral, and the surrounding weeks. This realization has prompted me to begin a personal “What Would Harold Do?” campaign (complete with trendy bracelets). My grandfather is the greatest role-model I’ve ever had. I’ve never met another human-being who so emulated Christ and carried himself with such character and kindness as Harold did.

As a first step towards Haroldness (and subsequently, Christlikeness - not to put the two on the same level by any means; remember, we’re talking about role-modeling here, not idolatry), I’ve given myself a challenge that I probably should have been adhering to for a long time now. Too bad it took a situation like this to prompt me further. At any rate the challenge is simple: to spend just 10 minutes a day in prayer and meditation. Sounds simplistic and trite, for sure, but it’s something I don’t do. Surely I pray and spend time in the Word now and then, but I haven’t yet mastered the discipline of daily devotion. My aim is to create a habit of it, in hopes of cultivating the soil in my heart for positive things to grow, and weeding out all of the bad attitudes and grumpiness that have taken root over so many years.

So now that I’ve stated my intentions publicly (to you, my non-existent audience), let me go make good on my promises.