I look at pictures....

There are all these loose pictures in my desk. Sometimes I look at them. They are from decades....

My father and his Aunt Annie--both long dead. My father and Aunt Ursa., Both long dead. My father and some man I don't recognize. All it says on the back is "cookout 1978"--37 years ago. Josh wasn't born and neither was Mimi. And who is that guy with my Dad?

Then a picture of me from the 1980's--with a gray clerical shirt and a collar--my beard and hair dark brown...who was that guy?

A picture of Emma, my granddaughter, within an hour of her birth--staring at an alien world with more than a little concern on her face., A picture of my daughter, Mimi, holding baby Morgan the day of her birth--eight years and more ago in New York City. Then Josh and Cathy with one of the twins....

Then a picture of Jorge Gutierrez and Scott Allen and me--three friends from West Virginia and beyond, all of us Episcopal priests, at some time when my beard is pure white and my hair is pushing pure white and Jorge is growing gray and Scott, much younger than us, looks like a kid. I have on my multi-colored scarf, so this is from the 90's or later--maybe some General Convention when we were all deputies. I just don't know.

Like broken into moments on paper, photos, and no context for much of it, though I know the time, the date.

(Now I remember the photo of Jorge and Scott and I--at Deven Hubner's ordination, where I was the preacher and Scott was the ex-husband and Jorge lived in that Diocese in upstate New York.)

Seeing one's life laid out on photos is often odd, not a bit unsettling, but finally full of wonder and joy.

My Dad and those long dead. My grandchildren and and children profoundly involved. How amazing is it just to be alive?

Answer me that.....