Monday, September 7, 2020
Barry Heckler
Seek
Good morning:
I am Barry Heckler. Rob has invited me to write the Daily Reflection and has said that this week’s word is SEEK.
As soon as I saw this my mind immediately went back to my college years and my exciting (sometimes too exciting) time with my fraternity brothers. The one thing I will always remember about our Ritual—the passing of a Pledge to a Brother—is “seek, and you will find; ask, and it will be given to you; knock, and it will be opened to you”.
With the help of Google, I traced this to Matthew 7:7—“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
After I retired in September 2013 from 35yrs of practicing law in my home town of Wilmington, DE, we returned to Portsmouth, the home of my wife, the love of my life and very best friend. Dede’s a Kittery girl. We were married 51yrs ago in St. John’s by Fr. Hodgins. I knew no one up here and struggled, I mean really struggled, for months, to find—seeking—something constructive to do with the inordinate amount of time retirement provides. And then Rob, who could not have been any better in helping Dede and her 2 sisters when their mother passed, and St. John’s found me.
We started going to Church again because of Rob’s kindness to “the sisters” (as they are lovingly referred to by the nephews and nieces) when Mom died. Dede became a volunteer in the SJC office. I became a Common Table Volunteer (Thursday turned into my favorite day of the week), a member of the Vestry, the Historic Grant Committee, the Cemetery Restoration Committee, and the SJC Rehab/Restoration Committee. These associations and projects, without question, have provided the most personally rewarding and gratifying experiences I have ever had, and at a time in my life when I did not think anything like this was even possible. And the best part is that along the way I have gotten to know a remarkable, welcoming, loving bunch of folks called “the St. John’s family” for which I will be eternally grateful to now be a part of.
So there you have it—I am just another humble example of “seek, and you will find; ask, and it will be given to you; knock, and it will be opened to you”.
Thank you, St. John’s, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.