vestiges

On Thursday I said good-bye to a vestige of my former life. We left our minivan at the dealership and drove home in something altogether new to us: a small SUV that gets great gas mileage and whose doors you have to open all on your own.

When you live in a city and are always looking for a parking place, having a zippy little vehicle with a small turning radius is a plus. It’s a lot of fun to drive a car designed for four passengers instead of eight. The good news is that I will never be expected to drive the carpool again.

We are experiencing some transitional difficulties. Such as forgetting to close our own doors overnight and leaving a key in the ignition, resulting in a battery failure, but hopefully that lesson has been learned by the child in question, since it made me five hours late for the rodeo after I called the dealership to report the issue.

It’s good to finally be out of carseats and family-trasnport-systems. It’s even better to be stepping out of the constant anxiety over what might go wrong next given the high mileage and constant repairs.

It’s great to have kids who can ride in the front seat and open their own doors. Who can get themselves a drink of water – and even some advil for their split-open toenail injury. It was wonderful to hear Henry recognize “Oh wait! Should I be doing this over the sink?” when performing a science experiment involving green food coloring.

I’m only a little nostalgic when I see toddlers walking around with sippy cups in soft soled moccasins, Mostly it’s fun to have children who dress themselves and ask interesting questions like “what’s your favorite attack-predator?” He picked oceanic white-tipped shark: (if you see one, you’re dead.) while I chose crocodile for that cool underwater-twisty-drowning thing they do with land-mammals.

Yesterday that same kid played catcher in his baseball game. He has no idea about the role of the catcher since he plays machine-pitch baseball, but I keep telling myself that he’s only seven and he’s just here to learn the game.

We’ve been in a steep learning curve the past few years. It’s taken a lot of our stored resources and then some, We’ve learned new cities and courthouses and games and schools and friends and coffee shops. I just keep telling myself that it’s all about the growth, and that makes the craziness seem a lot more palatable.

advent 2014

It is true that I have dropped off the radar screen for the last six weeks. I had planned to take a little time to regroup and prioritize and get my ducks in a row, but as the old saying goes: “Mom plans, God laughs, Then Mom cries because it’s all just too much.”

In the last month, I have made the decision to move my office downtown and focus on building a practice that accentuates the positive – in my case: criminal defense. Eliminating the negative refers to the commute that ensued when my office-mate moved fourteen miles west of my neighborhood, which is already west of the courthouse. Unfortunately for me, the courthouse is where I am supposed to be. It’s what makes me smile and puts a spring in my step. It is my metier and the place where I can represent clients to the fullest of my abilities. After forty-plus years of soul-searching, I finally know where my strengths lie, and it’s in the county courthouse. Or the federal courthouse should the need arise.

As I have adapted to this new-new reality (because I feel like I’m always moving somewhere lately), my children have taken it upon themselves to accelerate their growing-up process. Wade has gotten two jobs from the flier he made and posted at the coffee shop and the elementary school. He is raking leaves for an elderly lady and tutoring a kindergartener in reading and writing. Anna has made herself a whole passel of girlfriends and has a social life and a fashion sense that keep me always taking somebody somewhere and being invited to go shopping. She is as tall as I am and we share shoes. He is eating me out of house and home and costing over $100/month in lunch money at school.

I have visited half a dozen available office spaces and decided on one equidistant from the capital to the courthouse. I will move in next month. In December I am actively making the mistake of officing from home. This means that I am available to my children, my clients, and the dog at all times and have no sanctuary or refuge whatsoever. Also it is Christmas and there are presents to purchase and wrap. It’s all working out about like you would expect.

There are business cards, office supplies, printers and scanners to purchase. Parking spaces, overhead, utilities, accessibility to consider. Every now and then I stop to wonder “what makes me think I can do all this?” And then I realize that I have to be in court or meeting a client to sign a document or respond to an email or file a motion, so I suppose the answer is “because I already am doing it – just without the luxury of an office.”

So things can only get better from here.

church of second chances

Yesterday was a really great day.

I resolved a criminal case in a very short hearing and the result was such that my faith in the wisdom of judges and the system working the way it should was restored.

I got this client because she was a civil client of my law firm’s first and she ended up in jail but my firm needed her signature on some documents. “Who knows how to get into see someone in a rural jail?” they asked themselves…”Oh, that’s right – YOU know how to get into a jail.” Which is how good adventure stories always start.

I gave her my card as I met with her on these civil matters and a week later, she called and told me that she was unhappy with her court-appointed lawyer and could she hire me? And I said “yes, of course” like I always do.

And then I started to worry because I wasn’t sure that there was very much I could do for her given what I knew of her sad situation. All I knew how to do was show up and advocate for her. Then her mother called me, demanding to know my credentials. Then I heard that the court-appointed attorney had said that I didn’t know what I was doing. That I was new and couldn’t do any better than he could. Then I talked to the assistant DA who said that the offer wasn’t going to be reduced. That everyone in the whole county had bent over backward for this young woman and they were tired of her. She’d had too many chances. They were done.

I was defeated before I ever even started. Then Henry lost his backpack and had a complete meltdown on the way to school. His little shoulders slumped over as I watched him walk away from me – down the block and into assembly. Crying. Him and me. Him over the backpack how disappointed his teacher was going to be – and me over that and just everything else.

On the way out to the rural county, I was stopped by a wreck on the highway. I already didn’t know where the courthouse was and now I was going to be late. Unwelcome and tardy and bearing no hope or good news for my client.

When I got there, I met with the prosecutor in a room full of other prosecutors and we struck up a big group conversation. I was completely at home with the discussions because I lived this for so long. The boss of the office told me they had two vacancies and asked me to apply. I said that I couldn’t and then he went upstairs and brought me an application and said “Please. You can work from home except when you need to be in court.”

I was flattered. I even entertained the notion. Then I remembered how much I love my work now. And then I had to go talk to my client and tell her that our best chance was to set the case for a hearing and tell her story to the judge and literally throw ourselves on the mercy of the court. The hearing would be a few months later.

She cried. I nearly cried. She asked if we could just do it today and get this over with. I wasn’t ready for a contested hearing, but if she didn’t want me to call any witnesses for her, then there was nothing to gain by giving the state more time to build a stronger case against her while my case stayed exactly the same.

So we did it. We went into court, she pled true to every allegation against her. She cried. She admitted her failings. She said that her three children needed her in the home and not in the penitentiary. She cried. I was hard on her. I made her admit every failing and I asked her how she planned to address those weaknesses and failures in the future. She gave good and thoughtful answers.

I argued that society would not be served by sentencing this single mother with three young children to the penitentiary. That their daddies weren’t any good, that their grandmother with whom they lived was already overburdened with the care of her elderly mother. That the children deserved some stability and that there was no benefit to anyone – not to my client or to her mother or her children or to society – by sentencing her to the penitentiary for seven years or ten years or two years to teach her a lesson. That teaching someone a lesson is rarely a good reason to do anything.

And then I rested. And laid my client’s fate at the mercy of the Court. And the judge did this:

“You will stay in jail until noon on December 24. And when you get out on December 24, you will be off probation and have a chance at starting a new life. Good Luck to you.”

And she cried. I almost did. She was sentenced to seven weeks in the county jail when her exposure was ten years in the penitentiary.

She thanked me and she said “I think it’s because I owned my $#!+,” and I agreed with her. That’s exactly why. Because when you will own your own $#!+, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. They will offer grace and mercy in ways that they won’t do when you make excuses and blame other people.

It was a great day for justice. A great day for my client and a great day for me. We found Henry’s backpack and so it turned out to be a great day for him, too.

**Church of Second Chances is the name of a place of worship in one of my fave Anne Tyler books: Saint Maybe. I think I will read it this weekend because it is just so apt.

NYC

I’m having some trouble with flashbacks. Anna and I just returned from a trip to New York City with my parents and even though it was her first trip to “the city”, I can’t stop remembering my own first visit. When I was just about the age she is right now.

Anna turns twelve in less than a month and my dad had a meeting and invited us to come along with him and my mom for an early birthday celebration for our tween. The boys were disappointed that they couldn’t come, but I promised them that none of us would go back to NYC before they got to travel there, and we brought them some m&m’s that say “I heart NY” and they seem none the worse for wear.

They spend two nights at home with our trusted babysitter and church nursery-worker, Grace, and then they spent two days with Wade’s bff and his family at their place in the country, where Wade apparently shot an axis deer. I wish I could have been there for the male coming-of-age ritual, but I was busy in New York with Anna introducing her to the joys of Madison Avenue and Broadway.

Anna and I left early on Wednesday morning and arrived in New Jersey of all places around noon, in the cold and rain. We took a taxi into the city in heavy traffic and met my parents at a wonderful bistro called Le Bon Soupe, whose specialty is le soupe. Anna declined le soupe and ordered an omelet. Which was très delicieuse. After lunch we strolled a few blocks north to our hotel, which was very grand and super-fancy. They change their floral arrangements out every single day, which I find equally impressive and frivolous. We stopped in at some giant NYC department stores and ogled the $43,000 jewelry and beautiful, expensive shoes, and then we hopped in a taxi for our 8:30 seating at Birdland.

We heard a great jazz duet of bass and piano and fielded questions from a New Yorker sitting next to us who was far more impressed with Anna and me living in Austin than she was with my parents living in Mississippi. “MISSISSIPPI?” she sneered at us. “MISSISSIPPI? Why MISSISSIPPI? What is it like to live in MISSISSIPPI?” We just wanted to listen to the band, but she was a New Yorker and all the conversation I heard from her table was about NPR and how the Republicans are all crooks so I imagine that we were a real novelty to her.

On Thursday we showed Anna the big shops on Madison and Fifth Avenues. She certainly enjoyed all the apologies from my mother and me when we were making her wait while we just tried on this one more thing. I bought a boring black dress that is completely perfect and appropriate for every possible occasion from depositions to funerals. I tried on some sparkly high-heeled shoes, but they were pronounced “outlandish” which I think is kind of strong language, but I did acknowledge that they had a somewhat more limited application and I passed them up. We spent the rainy afternoon at an Egyptian exhibit at the Met.

On Thursday night we dined at Gramercy Tavern pre-theatre and then raced to our theatre to see Matilda. We had wonderful seats and Anna loved it, and declared it the best part of the trip. After that, we walked back to the hotel and fell into our big, comfortable, luxury-sheeted beds and slept hard until morning.

On Friday we took a bus tour until we stopped off in Soho, where we hatched the great idea that Anna should attend NYU for college. We strolled through the boutiques and Chinatown and Little Italy and texted my dad the address of a restaurant we found and he met us for dinner. Once again, we collapsed into our beds.

On Saturday, Anna and her Grandaddy took a taxi to Sarabeth’s for breakfast and the Guggenheim for some upper east-side culture. They also strolled back to the hotel via Central Park and experienced some street-culture. Rosie and I manned the shops in midtown and walked until our feet hurt. Only to learn that the plan for the afternoon included a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge with every other tourist in New York. We were motivated to persevere through the hordes of foot-travelers by the promise of pizza on the other side and we were not disappointed. As a bonus, Anna was able to see the statue of liberty. We ended the day with a nightmarish trip to the m&m store at Times Square and then a viewing of the star-crossed football game between Ole Miss and LSU in our chambers. Because we were very tired.

On my first trip to New York, my mom and I rode the bus up from Tennessee and I remember some pretty scary truck stops along the Virginia border. That is some rough country along the edge of Appalachia that we drove through all day and all night. And I remember being in museums all day every day. Except when we were in the broadway plays. I remember more about that trip when I was Anna’s age than I do about any of my subsequent trips to the city, and I hope that she will remember this one as vividly as I think of that one.

We were so sad that Wade and Henry weren’t with us, because they would have had a great time. I know that they will get to have a trip sometime and that they will love it. It’s just hard to travel with too large a group to a place like New York City and it wasn’t everybody’s birthday. Just Anna and Rosie’s. I think we planned just the right amount of activity. Because right now we are home and I am tired, but not so tired that I can’t go to work tomorrow. That may be because we didn’t plan too much, but it may also be a result of the reduced demands of a 3:1 parent to child ratio, and not to the 1:3 that I usually manage.

We just had a wonderful time, and I told my friend who lives there that if she can just hold on for 12 more years, I will move up to Brooklyn and hang out with her just as soon as I get these children raised and independent.

apples

“Life will break you.  Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.  You have to love.  You have to feel.  It is the reason you are here on earth.  You are here to risk your heart.  You are here to be swallowed up.  And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.  Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

– Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

in re love

There was some talk between me and someone I know earlier this summer wherein I was expressly asked “not to tell a bunch of people”, so I am not able to elaborate. But it reminded me of something beautiful:

This letter from John Steinbeck to his son, Thom, away at boarding school, is one of my favorites, and I first saw it on one of my favorite website called “Letters of Note.”

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa
(Source: Steinbeck: A Life in Letters)

tgd again

I’ve heard it said that hell is other people, but according to a little book I just re-read for the twenty-millionth time, hell is not other people: hell is me.

My church friends and I just had a rousing discussion of The Great Divorce and instead of talking about what we can expect when we get to heaven (which is all speculation at this point, n’est-ce pas?) we zeroed in on what hell really is.  Hell is where we make our home – where we place ourselves – when we choose to reject God and his good desires for us.

The book is delightful.  It begins in a bus line with a bunch of people who can’t get along with each other.  They jostle and they jockey and position and self-promote.  Eventually the bus comes and anyone who wants to can board.  Or not.  It’s optional.  The bus travels from the point of embarkation and lets its riders off in a beautiful, vibrant land.  It isn’t heaven.  It’s the foothills perhaps.  Heaven is over the mountains.  The riders are met by their friends and family members who have predeceased them and are prepared to act as guides.  And then the bus-riders start deciding whether to get back on the bus to go back to the town that was hell or to stay in this beautiful but frightening place.

This book is about how people make the decision to become holy – or heaven-bound, and what it will cost them.  And whether it will be worth it.

Hell is making the decision to stay in the place we are comfortable.  It’s about choosing earthly delights – like romantic love, maternal possessiveness, holding onto old hurts and wrongs instead of letting go of those temporary – and temporal – temptations.  Many characters in the book and many people I know (and let me not exclude myself) lack the vision and the faith that God can and will take care of the empty place that remains when these space-fillers are expelled.  But the guide – the endearing George MacDonald – makes it clear that God’s plans and God’s remedy are so much more real, so much more beautiful, so much more enduring and ultimately satisfying than any cure or condition we can imagine for ourselves.

Lewis suggests that until we make the decision to start the journey into heaven – or God’s kingdom, let’s call it – we are stuck in a hell of our own design.  The lone saving grace of hell seems to be that its inhabitants are too self-absorbed to even know that’s where they live.  The town is rainy and gray and sprawling.  The people live far away from one another, because every time there is a quarrel or disagreement, one just moves away.  There is no unity, no common good, no reconciliation, no real love.  Just an endless number of people living for themselves and the idols they cherish.

The discussions, the deciding, comes when they realize that they can start the journey to a better way of living.   God’s gift of free will is ultimately the instrument we will use to make or break our destinies.  The issue is what we will choose to satisfy ourselves with.  Will we choose our comfort or a need to be needed or our soothing vices instead of trusting in God’s goodness?

It’s a book that becomes richer every time I read it.  Every time I am tempted to choose a small satisfaction – the barbed word, the superior tone, the self-righteousness, the trinket – I think of the realness of heaven as it stands next to the pettiness and smallness of hell.  Which is where the feeding of the earthly appetites for gossip, victory, drugs, alcohol, acquisition, and ambition will land us.

TGD never fails to set my mind percolating and processing.  And wondering where I fit in.  Where my choices are likely to take me.  Who I am becoming.  What example I am setting for aspiring believers who look to me to live in a way that is set-apart from the secular world.  What my children see.  What my friends know about my priorities.  Whether I am willing to let God take care of the manifold sins and wickedness I hold onto for my own comfort, even though they may be all-but-invisible to the world.

Read it.  It’s worth every word.

the age

“Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you.  What people don’t realize is how much religion costs.  They think faith is a big electric blanket when of course it is the cross.”

I came across this brilliant observation by Flannery O’Connor in a piece about how Dan Quayle was right about Murphy Brown’s decision to have a baby out of wedlock.  The opinion said that the media must not glamorize single parenthood.  That poverty is most easily avoided if people will do just three things: finish high school, work full-time, and wait until they are married before having children.

I have done all those things, and it works.  I do not live in poverty.  But neither am I rich.  In money anyway.  I am very rich in love.  And in experiences.  And opinions.  And memories and ideas.  I am also rich in material goods.  They may not have much value in the marketplace, but I have all I need and then some.

My children are rich in grandparents, travels, summer plans, imagination, parental attention, and education.  We are also rich in pets.  And legos.

Having affirmed all of the ways in which we are rich so that you won’t think me a whiner, I am here to tell you that having children who were born into a family with a mom and a dad and now live in a home with just a mom, visiting dad on weeknights and weekends, is really, really hard.  Not just on me, but on the children.  If I were pecuniarily impoverished, I would be sunk.  And if I sink, we all go down.

That is why I believe firmly that marriage is the correct and God-ordained place for the care of children.  Because I have seen one alternative, and it is not ideal.

There is no substitute structure that combines what is best for the child with what is best for society.  Yes, one parent is capable of doing the job of raising them, just like one pilot is physically capable of flying an airliner.  Yes, it can be done.  But it’s  a transatlantic flight, and if you get a little sleepy or lost or sick or need to leave your post to visit the restroom, what then?  Not to mention that it’s lonely looking into the blackness of the night knowing that you are the only person keeping watch and that if you give up or give in to your fatigue, it’s a steep drop into the ocean for all of you.

So if I were not somewhat mature and holding a job made secure by the certainty of criminality and didn’t have a  larger perspective than just what gets me through today, it would be easy to deviate from the task I am given to place their interests first.  Not their desires or their whims, but their best interests.  If I’m not too tired to determine them.

I wish marriages with children didn’t fail.  If I could fix the world, I would require of every potential bride and groom a course in real Christianity.  I don’t care what world religion they profess.  Or even which denomination.  A little Christian fundamentalism would benefit every marriage.  Which is to say, mandatory self-sacrifice for the good of another.  Not the whims or desires of another, but the good.

And in my school of real Fundamentalist Christian marriage, both parties would have to compete with each other to see who could out-give the other: “You take the bigger piece.  No –  You” and “Let me help you with that“.

Because that is what it is all about.  Marriage, like faith is not the cozy blanket — it’s the willingness and ability to sacrifice oneself that will preserve a marriage and provide a safe home for children.  If you have the right kind of mate, you get the warmth of the security blanket even as you offer it.  But even if your recipient is acting a little prickly today, you still have to offer it.  That’s how you will make an A in my class on Christian fundamentalism.  Extra credits if you wash the wounds of the lepers or the feet of your intended, as the case may be.

Jesus said that the two great commandments are to love God, and love your neighbor.  While inside your house, your first neighbor is that person you chose and who chose you, and to whom you said “All that I have I share with you and all that I am, I give to you.”

It isn’t optional to love.  It isn’t predicated on what you’re feeling or getting.  Now sometimes you can love more safely from a distance, but that’s not a Christian marriage.

The age that is pushing on us says that children can grow up well with any adult who loves them.  That’s true.  They can.  But it’s not ideal, and it’s not what God ordained.  The age tells us that having two parents of the same sex is just as good for kids as having parents of opposite sexes.  That isn’t accurate.  Any adult willing to place the child’s needs first can be a good parent.  But what is best is for children to be raised in a home that features a parent of each sex  and the different kinds of love and play and discipline and wisdom that each brings into a family.

The age says that if a woman wants a baby, and she isn’t married, that she should have one without a husband if she wants to do so.  The age tells us a lot of things that are simply not true.  All of these arrangements have their merits.  One such benefit is not having to edit or change yourself for the benefit of someone else.

Sometimes moms or dads don’t have spouses because of death or divorce.  I’m one of those.  It can be done.  But it’s harder than I have words to describe.  And when it’s hard on me, it’s hard on my children.  That’s why widows and orphans are protected classes in the Bible.  They are needy by definition.

As a Christian, I can’t be afraid to push back on a world that tells me something is just as good when I know from my experience that it’s false.  I must stand firm in my faith that there is a right way to do things.  If God’s word weren’t enough, there’s my own daily struggle to convince me.

The Christian model of marriage is the only one worth aspiring to, in my opinion.  The first requirement is to be the kind of person who can give without needing reciprocation.  The second is to find another who is  inclined to give away what doesn’t benefit the union.

I know some people like that.  Some of them are married to each other.  Those homes are wonderful places to visit.  The very atmosphere is different.  You know upon walking in that there is unity and some certainty of who they are to each other and to their families.

It may not be the most modern of arrangements.  But I have seen little in modern marriage to convince me that it’s a model worth preserving.  It’s an instance where the old way works the best.

white

I yearn for the simple life that I do not have. 

I have recurring fantasies about white-painted rooms with white curtains and white bedding and maybe just one book.  A white ceiling fan blowing the curtains.  There is no telephone in my imaginary room.  There is an electric outlet for the lamp so I can read the book even after dark.  Maybe there are three books.  Or five.  A few, so that I have something to choose from.  But no computer, no television, no children and no big fluffy dogs.  Or little fluffy dogs either. 

It’s not that the living, chattering, running, jumping members of my family don’t exist in this fantasy life.  They do.  They are still very important to me.  But they are just somewhere else.  Being taken care of and they don’t miss me.  Maybe they’re all in Europe like they will be this summer.  Maybe I could actually re-enact this white scene.  I could move everything out of my house that isn’t white and clean and I could take the dogs to the kennel.  I would pretend that I was going on a trip, because what kind of person boards their dogs while they stay home – just to have a break from all the needs?

I think I would be happy for about 48 hours like that.  And then I would start reading cookbooks and planning dinner parties because I would be lonely and my house would be so clean and just calling out for guests.  And who really wants to live alone for the long term?  I think I would cease to appreciate it after a while.

When we were at Marfa over Christmas and I was going to bed no later than 9 p.m., my dad said “believe it or not, one day they will grow up and you will have a chance to do what you want to do.”  and I said “Right.  In 14 years.”  FOURTEEN.  I have fourteen years ahead of driving children around, administering medications, filling out health forms, trying to track them down in the neighborhood because he rode to a friend’s house on his bike, but now it turns out that he is at the coliseum at the fairgrounds.  FOURTEEN more years of nonstop activity.

Fourteen years of wild and busy and dirty and muddy and plays and awards ceremonies and Shakespeare festivals.  Exams and appointments and summer camp and sleepovers.  Of “what’s for supper” and “I don’t want to wear that.”  Of traveling that doesn’t involve the great cathedrals.  Maybe the national parks, although I don’t know how to camp except as a dependent.  We might have to stay in the lodge. 

Yes, I’m sure it is just going to fly by.

 

 

 

for those we love

Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to thy never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come; knowing that thou art doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.