Happy Birthday, Papa Rooster

It's Friday morning and I'm pushed for time. I'm running out, leaving my oldest kids in charge, to do some power errands, and more importantly, write a birthday post for Papa Rooster. I'm ordering coffee at my favorite power writing spot--Panera Bread--when who should appear at my elbow but my dear husband, who's taking a day off for retreat purposes.

"Hello," he grins.

"Hi," I smile back, trying to hide my consternation. (When am I going to write that birthday post now? Maybe if it rains, and we can't meet our friends at the pool later....)

"This is the one place I thought I wouldn't run into you," I say, taking the direct approach.

"I'm stalking you," he jokes.

I follow him to his table...and it's my table. "Hey, this is my table," I say. "I always sit here!"

"You must leave behind an aura that I was drawn to," he smiles.

I tell him that I'm here to write his birthday post. "I keep forgetting," he says. "But I can't wait to be a prime number again. Don't you enjoy being a prime number?"

"Honey," I state, "Never, in my entire life, has it even crossed my mind whether my age was a prime number or not." I pause. "Have you really ever thought about it before this?"

"Oh, several times," he confesses. "I guess it's one of my oddities."

He's gone now. We had a pleasant few moments sipping coffee together and he was on the run--on his way home to go running, that is. I'm glad he still took this day off even though our camping trip had to be rescheduled and relocated. (We're still going overnight this weekend out to some friends' place in the country). There isn't any better birthday gift I could give him than a day off to relax, rejuvenate and retreat, especially when he needs to hear from God regarding some immediate decisions he's facing.

There is a side of my husband that would be oh-so-happy as a monk in a remote little monastary, but God in his wisdom also created him with a woman-sized hole in his heart, and it has been my privilege and blessing to fill that spot as best I can. With that woman has come six children and the need for an income to support that family, and so my monk-at-heart husband has an MBA and works as an executive in a healthcare-related industry, and except for the bald pate, there isn't a hint of the monk about him in that environment. None of them would suspect that on the weekends he serves as a priest at our church, and that's really where his heart is vocationally. (They had a hard enough time believing the six children before we came to visit Daddy in the office once.)

It seems that God has held him for years in this special tension of what Walter Hilton in the Middle Ages called the mixed life--"an active life mixed with contemplation" (vs. retreating entirely from the world). (It's another of his little oddities that he actually owns that book and has written a paper on it.) It seems that there are lessons he is learning from this experience which God may be preparing him to eventually share with others...but that chapter's not been written yet. (Though we're eager to read it.)

It has not been an easy road for him, requiring him almost to maintain multiple personalities: the corporate executive, the parish priest and mentor, the husband and father of six, the emerging country music fan.... No wonder he's having a midlife crisis!

So happy prime number birthday, dear. (Okay, okay, world--41.) I love your oddities, great and small. It's been an adventure being married to you--and the greatest of joys--and I will follow you anywhere as you follow God, as you have faithfully for the past 20 years. Though the mixed road has been a rocky one at times, may God use you to smooth and mark the path for others...and may He lead you when the road when is not so clearly marked.

(And just think, since 43 is coming up soon, you'll be spending 24 of the next 36 months as a prime number! Life surely can't get much better than that.)