May 7, 2010
The Second Half
Picking winners
BY DEACON JIM AND ANN CAVERA
We know almost nothing about horse racing, but we always find time to watch the Kentucky Derby. Last weekend Glen Fullerton, a software consultant from Houston, won a contest that allowed him to make a $100,000 Kentucky Derby bet on a single horse to win. For us, the most exciting thing about this year’s race turned out to be cheering for Fullerton’s choice to win. As unlikely as it seemed, Super Saver finished first, making Glen Fullerton a wealthy man, and giving the rest of us hope that, against all odds, dreams can still come true.
Last Sunday we also saw another story about an all-or-nothing gamble. Wes Moore is a young man who has accomplished much. His latest achievement is a book called “The Other Wes Moore.” In 2000 as Moore was preparing to spend a year in England as a Rhodes Scholar, he heard of another Wes Moore, a young man from his own troubled neighborhood who had been sentenced to life in prison. The two began corresponding and became friends. What turned one young man into a Rhodes Scholar while another with the same name went to prison? As a pre-teen, the scholar had also been on a downhill path, until his grandparents mortgaged their home and paid his way to an academy away from their neighborhood. Grandma and grandpa had bet everything they had that if their grandson had the education and discipline he needed, he would succeed. Their blind faith was rewarded with the development of an extraordinary young man.
It takes an uncommon gift of love to bet everything on someone. That is the kind of love spoken about in last week’s gospel: “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The gospel for this Sunday continues the theme of love: Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” God loves us so much he bet everything he had on us. When we “get it” all we want to do is share this life-changing love with others. The reward of wagering everything we have on the love of God is no less than a share in the life of the Father and his Son.
Many of us have been lucky enough to have had mothers who loved us with this kind of love. They believed in us so much they made sacrifices to give us opportunities in life. For many of us in the second half of life, our mothers have long since finished their work and passed away. Still, their belief in us continues to inspire us to continue to become the people they knew we could be. Often, it was our mothers who knew us at our best and worst and believed, sometimes against all odds, that the good in us would prevail. Who could disappoint that kind of bet-it-all on us to win kind of love? Whatever other responsibilities our moms had to carry, we knew we were the “Super Savers” of their hopes and dreams. How can we give anything less than that kind of love back to them or to God?
Deacon Jim and Ann Cavera are former residents of Evansville; their award-winning column is a regular feature of the Message. Contact them at www.catholicseniorspirit.com.