A Great Life

Since I have turned 40, a few years ago, I have been in the habit of checking the obituaries in the paper. Not sure what that’s all about. Maybe I want to make sure I am not in there! Actually, I find myself checking for who died, because I know quite a few people in Elkhart and many are elderly. I find also myself checking for who the pastor is performing the service. I often say a breath prayer for them.

It is interesting to read how old people were when they died. I pause when I see that someone died who is younger than me or my age. Reminds me of my own mortality.

I read about what people did in their life, I look to see if they have kids and grandkids.
I find myself somewhat disconcerted when I read that some people, for whatever reason, forgo a funeral service. To read that someone will have no service or memorial and that often cremation will take or as taken place is rather sad. Doesn’t seem quite right to end a life this way.

I find myself wondering about life. How unsettling that a life is summarized in a short column. I start wondering what people will say about me when I die. Maybe I should write something myself to make sure my obituary will read how I want it to read. What would I say? How will I be remembered? Will I be remembered? I wonder since we have no children.

There are some people that somehow you think can never die.
In my head I know that everyone will die one day but there are some people I have known all of your life and somehow I cannot quite imagine them not being there. I think of my parents, who are both now in their late 70’s. Even though we are not close geographically, I cannot imagine my life without them in it. Not hearing their voice on the phone…
John and Helen DeWees were such people. Mom had John as a teacher in HS. John was a red coat at the hospital till he was 95. They both sang at church. John and Helen were the sweetest people you could ever find. They are both gone now.

Another such person was June Deal.I read June’s obituary this week. She was 92. I have heard about June pretty much all of my life. She had a 48 year teaching career mostly at Elkhart High School, which is no more since 1972. She taught when my Mom was a student there in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. I have pictures of June in my Mom’s 1951 senior year book. Incredibly they never changed much. Same hair style. Just got a little smaller and thinner.

June was a member of Trinity UMC since 1936. This is where I met her. She never married, had no biological kids. My Mom, when I called her in France to let her know about June, said that back then women could not marry if they wanted to be teachers. Wow. Almost like going into the priesthood. But June had many adoped kids and grandkids and great-grandkids through her students and their kids and grandkids. She came to my Mom’s 50th and 55th high school reunion a few years back and everybody loved on her.

I had gotten more acquainted with her personally when I joined Trinity years ago before going to seminary and moving on to serve other churches. Got to know her also through CARES (Community Actively Relating to Elkhart Schools), a local mentoring program, which I am a part of. I loved June. She was my kind of woman. Strong, intelligent, funny, well-read, with a passion for learning and education, a passion for helping people.

June was a grand lady. I give thanks for her life and legacy. I hear that Trinity UMC has established a scholarship fund in her name to be used for educational needs. That’s cool.

As we are starting Holy Week, I also give thanks for the gift of salvation which comes to us through Jesus. Because Jesus gave his life, we can have life here now and for eternity and if anyone is welcome in Heaven with Jesus, I would say that June has a spot. I thank God for June.

I have this place

I have this place. It’s a cute coffee shop that used to be a flower shop on E. Jackson not far from the Y. It’s a cozy place. Looks like it was a home at one time. I have my favorite table in that place, in a corner, towards the back.

I have this place where the people who work there know my name and they know that I like a cranberry oatmeal cookie with my coffee. And they know that I like strawberry-banana smoothies and I like my berry oatmeal bake warmed up and without milk; like a piece of coffee cake.
I have a place. I go there, not so much for the food (especially now that I am trying to be on a lower carb diet) but I go there because of the peace and grace I often find.

Earlier this year, I had a health thing which got me on edge for about a week while I waited for the biopsy result. I went to this place right after the tissue sample was taken and I received a much needed dose of grace – in the form of a free cookie and a warm smile. I never told the owner that she was an angel in disguise that day. Maybe I should tell her. The results of the biopsy came out as benign.

I go to this place alone to read, to think through things, to think about an upcoming sermon... I go there fairly regularly just to be for a while. To talk with God.
I go there to meet with a friend and talk about life. I go there with someone from the church to discuss ministry possibilities.

I was there this morning, with a pastor friend. I received grace from that person who has been more than patient with this green, searching, pastor on many occasions. He listened to me. Shared some thoughts for a little while. It was good.

Jesus had places too. In one place he would withdraw regularly and pray. He had another place which belonged to two sisters, where he could get away from the craziness of life and the business of ministry in order to be renewed and readied again for service. People – sometimes his own disciples - often tried to go after him and tried to make him feel guilty about not being with the people all the time as they eagerly waited for him to heal their broken lives and their broken bodies. But Jesus knew when to say “enough”.

We seem to have a thing against slowing down in this culture. Some seem to take pride in the fact that they are always busy. Seems like their worth is tied to how busy they are.
It almost seems like we will be judged as lazy if we stop on a regular basis to just be.

I struggle with business but I know, and realize anew as we are getting ready to enter the season of Lent, that busy does not necessarily mean effective. I also know that I won’t be able to serve in the long haul if I don’t stop on a regular basis to just be.

As Christians, I think we all need to become counter-cultural in how we use our time and how we define our worth.
Do you have a place? Do you stop on a regular basis to just be?

Punching Holes in the Darkness

Can you wear out a CD by playing it over and over again? There are a couples of songs from the group Casting Crowns' Christmas album that I have played over and over in my car as I am driving here and there. "I heard the bells on Christmas day" is one of them. Check out the video. It is not a new song. Henry W. Longfellow wrote the words after a series of absolutely heart-crushing losses.
Casting Crowns version has touched me at a level that I can't quite put into words. The kind of words, the kind of music which make me feel like singing along at the top of my lungs and drop down on my knees at the same time. The part that says "God is not dead, nor does He sleeps" sends good chills down my spine. A breath of fresh air in my lungs. Do you understand that?
Well, I sang my heart out in the car and I had a ball. Did not care a bit what people might think as I am driving by. I am worshipping and I worship best when I sing.

To me these songs capture what we are celebrating this season of Christmas, but not only this season, I hope, but all year long: The answer to the deepest longing of the human heart; A piercing light in the darkness of this crazy world; A light which lights the most broken corners of our souls... A light that reminds us that we are not alone. Jesus!

This has been an incredible month of Advent/Christmas. I had the priviledge of sitting with people as they died; to sit with the families as they mourned; to officiate at a celebration of life for a former parishioner... There is something incrediby precious and humbling about being allowed in at these times.




God is with us. God is for us. God is in us. Emmanuel! That's the other song I have worshipped with these past few weeks.
I sat and worshipped at a longest night/blue Christmas service offered by a local church just a few days ago. I talked with a couple of people I had never met before the service and they opened up some about what brought them there. We were all linked by losses but in the midst of our pain we wanted to trust/we trusted deep down that there is hope. THERE IS HOPE! God is with us. God is for us. God is in us. Emmanuel!

Our service at the church that I serve was wonderful last night. We are small. We don't have the bells and whistles of other bigger congregations but it did not matter. The service was beautiful in its simplicity. The words of the greatest story ever told resonated in our hearts. The tunes of familiar carols echoed in the sanctuary. We were on holy ground. Our faces glowed by candlelight.

I attended another service at the church my grandmother Dorothy attended when she was alive; the church where I heard Jesus calling me and where I responded in fear and trepidation not knowing what was in store (God knew to give me just enough at a time or I would have ran the other way more than likely); the church where a beloved mentor and friend is serviing. It is a much bigger church and their last evening service was wonderful too. We shared bread and juice. The act of coming forth and holding my hand out to receive the elements as I watch the servers' faces always touches me in a deep place. The taste and texture of the bread and the sweetness of the juice combine on my tongue and remind me that Jesus gave his life for me and he keeps giving me Life. God is with us. God is for us. God is in us. Emmanuel!
As we lit our small candles for candlelight, my pastor friend reminded us that we are not only doing this because it is pretty - And it is beautiful whether 80 people are present or 500 - but we do this as a symbol of the light of Jesus coming to punch holes in the darkness.
I thought, YES! But we are the bearers of Jesus' light. Let's not stop at candles in a sanctury, OK? Let US BE the light of the world. Let the light God has placed in us burst forth out of us in the way we live; the way we love; the way we serve; the way we die!

Maybe this is as simple sometimes as visiting folks. I was tired before our worship service yesterday. I told myself I was going to rest all afternoon after being in the church office in the morning making sure things were ready for the evening and the following Sunday. Instead I found myself trying to get one more thing in. Frankly my heart was not really in it at the beginning.
I visited an elderly couple who are members of our church and shut-ins. Had a fruit basket put together by our missions women for them. They don't have much. Tiny house. Simple folks. We shared communion. My sense of tiredness started to lift from witnessing their sense of contentment despite a lot of health issues and meager resources; their gratitude at being alive despite their struggles overwhelmed me.

My last visit of the day was with an 84 year old man, a friend of my Dad's for the last almost 60 years. A former American GI who landed on the beaches of Normandy. He retired out west but is now back in town to be closer to family. Has a hard time adapting to his new surrounding at a local nursing home. I've known of him since I was 8. He never married. Has no kids. Used to teach German and French at a local military academy before retiring. As I talked with him, his mood lifted. We shared a chocolate from the package I had brought. Good chocolate not the cheap stuff. Savored it. Made it last on our tongue as we reminisced of better times for him. As I was ready to leave after a long talk, he started choking up and his eyes welled up. He held my hand as if he were not going to let it go. Said that his day was finishing better than it had started because of the visit.
A little light in the darkness. God is with us. God is for us. God is in us. Emmanuel!

SOMETHING BETTER IS COMING!

There is a lot of talk about worry all around us, worry about the economy, about the upcoming election, about this war we don’t seem to know how to get out of and/or end.
We worry about the effect of the economy on our personal finances, with the price of everything going up, we feel the squeeze. For some of us, it is more than a squeeze. It is a genuine crisis. All the pastors I talk with report about more people showing up at their church for help. People come to talk with us about the fact that they are struggling to pay bills. Agencies like Church Community Services, here in Elkhart, Salvation Army, trustees, etc… are getting hit hard. .

As I was driving back from South Bend from a church stewardship meeting tonight, I was listening to Focus on the Family and Dr. James Dobson. He was replaying a 16 year old interview he had had with the late Larry Burkett, who was an authority on business and personal finances with over 50 books to his name. They were discussing a book he had written then titled “The Coming Economic Earthquake” which scenario sounded pretty much like what we see unfolding now.

It would be really easy to fall into despair.

As I was driving back home listening to this program, I remembered some things a pastor friend had shared recently in a sermon based on Rev. 2:8-11 and 2 Cor. 4:7-10, 16-18. Look at Matthew 6:25-34 also. That is one passage I turn to on a regular basis.
As Christians we are not immune to feelings of fears, despair or sadness but my friend reminded me again that with Jesus we have hope. I took notes, you see, because what he said was important even though I had heard what he said before, even preached on it in some form or another, but I needed to hear it again. These are the main points he made (you think you have a long-winded preacher. Got it from him :))

1. Jesus is the First and the Last Word. The Bible says He is the Alpha and the Omega
2. We have a God who is a God of resurrection and New Birth. The tomb was empty, remember? He can bring life into things that seem dead; into relationships which look too broken to be saved...
3. Jesus loves us and died for us. You know the song that sometimes we tend to discount as a simplistic kid song: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Guess what? It’s true!
4. Fix your eyes on what is unseen, not just on what is seen. There is a greater reality than what we can see.
5. Keep the conversation going. This means with God, with people who care about us. The tendency most of us have at one time or another when life gets hard and when we hurt, is to disengage and withdraw. We stop coming to church because somehow we have this erroneous notion that church is for people who have their lives together. Are you kidding? If this were true, the church would be empty and frankly, this preacher would not be there either!
6. Turmoil is temporary. Talk with folks who have lived through the depression era or WWII and they tell you, this too shall pass. This does not mean that we don’t care and that things aren’t hard but we need to learn to put things in proper perspective.
7. Now the really good news: SOMETHING BETTER IS COMING! This brings us back to my friend's first point. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End!

Another thing to focus on when you feel overwhelmed and scared. Another helpful thing from my friend. I have used this when life gets a little too much, when at times I toss and turn in bed because I have a tug o’ war with God about something that is rightly His to handle but that I am trying to hold on to; when I am trying to solve the world’s problems (or it feels this way);

Now close your eyes (after you have read this of course so you know what to do)
Take several deep breaths. Now imagine walking in a forest. You come to a clearing in the woods. It is fall. But there is still a warm/cool crispness in the air. Like the kind of Indian Summer we have now. Most of the leaves are on the ground, they are beautiful red and golden, shimmering. You look around and you can see forever it seems. You hear foot steps behind you, crunching the leaves. You turn around and see someone walking towards you. You look and realize that this is Jesus walking towards you. He is smiling and carrying a duffle bag on his shoulder. He comes closer and closer and stops right in front of you, looks you straight in the eye, still smiling. He puts his bag down and opens the top. “What do you have for me?” he asks. You give him your stuff. He puts it in the bag. “Is that all?” he asks again.
Sometimes I answer yes, at other times I realize there are other things bothering me, so I continue till there is no more. Jesus closes the bag, puts the bag on his shoulder, looks at me and smiles at me one more time, turns and walks away. And you know what? My breathing slows down, my mind and heart are lighter and I fall asleep.

SOMETHING BETTER IS COMING!

It's a Wonderful Life

I sometimes talk with people who are distraught enough to think that their life does not count for much of anything and that it would have been better if they had never been born. I had such a conversation very recently. When I hear this type of talk, I think of one of my favorite movies: 1946 Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" with James Stewart. If you have never seen this movie, Oh, you need to. It will warm your heart and renew your faith in human kind.

In this movie, James Stewart plays a big-hearted man who stepped into his father's shoes against his will and continues on the family banking and loan business. Hard economic times hit. Money is misplaced and Stewart is accused of embezzelment. The police is after him and in the middle of a snow storm, he finds himself on a bridge and decides to end it all; decides that his family and everybody else will be better off without him. He jumps but is rescued by a homeless-looking man named Clarence (a second-rate angel in training trying to get his wings) and Clarence grants Stewart's wish of never having been born. Everything in the town changes. There is more misery, more darkness... Clarence shows Stewart his life from childhood till now. Having experienced a world without him, Stewart does realize how many people he has touched for the better because he has been born; how many lives have been positively transformed. Because he was born his younger brother did not die because Stewart rescued him after he had fallen through the ice while playing. Because he was born, the pharmacist he worked for as a boy did not make a terrible mistake in mixing medications and did not end up in jail for murder; because he was born and helped a friend in financial distress, she did not end up a prostitute...

I wonder sometimes what life would be like without me in it. It's hard to imagine. Like it is just as hard to imagine death and my not being on this earth any longer (at least in the current form, I think) and I told my distraught friend about these things.

I told my friend that I believe that we are all seed planters. We don't always see the results of what we plant. I told this person that she is precious, that she is loved by Jesus and by our faith family. Her presence makes a definite positive impact on us. I, for one, am blessed that she is part of our church. I reminded her that God has a purpose for her, for each and everyone of us.

We all get discouraged at one time or another. I do get discouraged and when I do, I look at my life, at my faith journey and realize that I have friends who uphold me when my faith sometimes wavers, who care enough to tell me the truth; a partner who loves me, imperfectly certainly, but loves me, even when I am not all that lovable. I see anew that God loves me and cares for me. He has given me the awesome, hard, scary, fun, task of helping people find Jesus just as others have and continue to help me and walk with me.

If you are discouraged and don't think you matter, reach out to God, find a faith family if you don't already have one; get to know Jesus and the Word God has given us. Give yourself away in service. You will make a difference. You are meant to make a difference!

Everything Changes but there is One constant

Everything always changes it seems. The seasons, the economy, our jobs, our lives, relationships; us... The weather is turning crisper - great sleeping-with-your-window-open weather; the leaves are turning various shades of golden and red. The markets are on a roller coaster ride. Things that we might have taken for granted as true and secure aren't. Just when I think I have things and people figured out, I realize again that there are many things I don't understand. The older I get the more this last thing seems to be confirmed and I am not that old!
At a gathering of about 2000 pastors, lay delegates and guests on the Indy fairgrounds Saturday, we passed the final vote to become one Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church where there had been a North and South Indiana Conference. I think it is a good thing. Our Bishop told us that we were meeting in the building which usually holds the sheep exhibit - How appropriate. I am glad they had cleaned out the manure before we got there!
During the gatherine, we were reminded of where we came from and admonished to look ahead.
I remembered my own journey that has enabled me to stand among this crowd, my family of faith, and I gave thanks again for them and for the One who is constant. When life goes nuts, when things move way too fast. Jesus is the rock, the anchor... Always.