I’m watching Ben TV.

He’s napping upstairs, under a quilt made by a woman who was kicked of her bedroom seventy years ago by my mother.

More accurately, my mother moved from Wisconsin to Minneapolis to finish her teaching degree. She didn’t have a job. She didn’t have a place to live. And her first day in town, she ended up with a job at the drugstore and a room at the Hellicksons. The room had been Joyce’s.

She forgave my mother.

Joyce and Walt reconnected with my parents and then connected with me through this blog a long time ago. And when Ben was born, they sent a quilt. I think of it as Ben’s connection with his great-grandmother.

There are other connections. His great-grandmother prayed for him long before he was born, long before her capacity to form thoughts and prayers faded away. Not by name, of course, but because she talked with God about all of us and each of us and our families.

And that’s what it was. Talking with God about her family. It was her work. More than teaching kids in school for years, more than teaching women’s Bible studies for years, more than taking care of my dad before and after strokes. She talked with God.

Yesterday, I wrote about dog walking and Ben’s serious commitment to being present with those who are present with him. His people are even more seriously committed to being present with him. As God is with us.

In our concerns about getting work right and getting prayer right and making God happy, it’s possible that God’s not worried about work and prayer being right, and God’s own pursuit of happiness.

Maybe God’s not worried.

Maybe God’s delighted as mom watches Ben TV too, aware of the bed she took and the quilt that resulted and a remarkable loving God.