This is from the Rabbit Room.
Blast From the Past: Reflections on Lent
This was first posted in 2010. It has been edited to bring it more up to date.
Yesterday was the first day of Lent. Ash Wednesday is celebrated by Christians around the world with a service that includes the placing of ashes on the forehead of the worshippers. The ashes are to remind that we are made from dust, and to dust we will return. That is one part of the Lenten observance that I had not, until a few years ago, participated in. In the tradition in which I grew up, Lent (like most of the church calendar) was not even on our radar. We celebrated Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Easter. I had a vague notion that other days were observed in other traditions, but we were taught that those days were not important. So, I was a bit late to the keeping of the church calendar, and I am still learning.
As I go through the Lenten period, I am struck by the fact that our bodies are formed from the dust of the ground, and to that dust they will return. Because of the brokenness of Creation, we face the inevitable decay of our physical selves. Any middle-aged man who has tried to compete in sports at the same level he did when he was in his twenties can attest to that. At some point our bodies will wear out and no longer be useful to us. When they are then placed in the ground, they will return to the dust from which they came. As we look around us, we see decay in every part of our world. Ash Wednesday and Lent are good reminders that we are broken and in need of a savior. This past year has been a vivid picture that death is a part of our lives, and intrudes when it is least expected or welcome.
Thankfully, that is not the end of the story. During this time, we take a good hard look at our humanity and our brokenness, but we also look ahead to the time when our Savior will return and will restore Creation. We look forward to the resurrection and the Kingdom of God coming in all its fullness. When I think about Ash Wednesday, and the symbolism of the ashes on the forehead, I think of the song, “Beauty Will Rise.” In that song Steven Curtis Chapman sings,
“Out of these ashes… beauty will rise
and we will dance among the ruins
We will see Him with our own eyes
Out of these ashes…beauty will rise
For we know, joy is coming in the morning…
in the morning
…This is our hope.
This is the promise.
That it would take our breath away
to see the beauty that’s been made
out of the ashes…”
As we go through this season of Lent, contemplating our brokenness, the brokenness that we see around us, and our need of a redeemer, let us remember that we do have a Savior who has made us a new creation, and who will one day make all things new.
Maranatha!
A New Bend in the Road
A little over twenty seven years ago, we moved from Cincinnati to Rock Hill, South Carolina. At that time we said that we were never moving again. Famous last words! We have just moved into a new house. The house and yard had become more than we could handle and we decided we needed a smaller place. Added to that were some repair issues that had become expensive due to a plumbing mishap. Did I mention that I hate plumbing?
After a few months of sort of looking, but sort of not, we got serious and put our house on the market. Knowing that we were looking for a smaller place meant that we had to let a lot of things go. We began to look at all the stuff that had accumulated over the years. I had inherited the “maybe I can use this someday” gene from my father, so there was quite a bit. The challenge was to pare the things from a 1500 square foot, three bedroom. two bath home with a dining room, garage, back patio, shed and a half acre yard down to where they would fit into an 850 square foot, two bedroom, one bath house with less than a quarter acre lot.
I made numerous trips to charitable organizations and to our county’s waste/recycling center. Facebook Messenger became our friend. It was hard to let go of many of the things, especially furniture. Fortunately, we made some money from selling much of the furniture and a great deal of it went to people who would get good use of it. One couple bought a dresser and were going to donate it to a local women’s shelter, and we sold a rocker and footstool to a couple that was expecting their first child. That was a blessing to us. Our son and daughter-in-law, and daughter and son-in-law have been an amazing help with the purging and the planning.
We moved into the house the week after Thanksgiving. I have again made numerous trips to recycling and charitable places. As it turned out, we used a lot of cardboard boxes and also had to do more downsizing. It’s been a busy week and a half, and there is still furniture to put together and positioned, art to hang, and stuff to put away. I’m going to hold off on the yard until the spring.
It was hard to leave a place where we made so many good memories. Fortunately we can carry those memories with us and we will make new ones. We are closer to our church community, and to many other places and activities we have been a part of. The move has been stressful at times, and there were even a few times when I wondered if it was worth it. At those times, I could sense the Father saying, “I got this.” Jan and I are looking forward to getting to know our neighbors and learning to love them well, and to what lies ahead of us on this part of the journey.
We’re not moving again. I guess I shouldn’t be saying that should I?
Blast From the Past: Taken, Blessed, Broken, Given Part 3
This is part three of a four part series.
As we are able to claim our blessedness, we can then, “face our own and others’ brokenness with open eyes.” Henri Nouwen ends his chapter on blessedness with these words. The next chapter is on the third word that Nouwen found useful in identifying the movements of the Spirit in our lives. That word is broken.
“Broken” is a term that most of us in the church don’t like to hear or think about. We do love hearing about the “broken body of Christ,” because it speaks to us of what Jesus did for us on the cross. We love to hear about the power of sin being broken, even though we sometimes live as if we were still under its sway. What we don’t like to think about is the idea that we have been, are, and will be broken. But, it is true.
We live in a broken world. All anyone needs to do is look around them or watch the evening news. The creation is broken. It is being restored, but it is still broken. Take a look at the folks around us. They are broken people, and much of the heartache and misery in the world is caused by broken people breaking other people. No one escapes being broken. Nouwen puts it this way,
“Instinctively we know that the joy of life comes from the ways in which we live together and that the pain of life comes from the many ways we fail to do that well.”
I think Nouwen is correct when he states that, just as we claim our chosenness and blessedness, we must claim our brokenness. We must own up the fact that we have been hurt in the past, may be hurt in the present, and will be hurt in the future. That’s part of the job description. After owning up to our brokenness, we then can respond to it. We do that in two ways, by befriending it and by bringing it under the blessing.
Our first response to our brokenness is to befriend it. That seems counterintuitive to us. Our first, and sometimes only response is usually to run away, to avoid that which is causing us pain and convince ourselves that if we ignore it it will go away. The problem with that approach is that it doesn’t bring healing. I believe that our tendency to run from pain is a contributing factor to some of the mental health problems in society, and to many, if not most of our relationship problems. We are afraid of pain, of heartbreak, of suffering. If we do find the courage to embrace our pain we then find that we have started down the road of healing. Nouwen writes,
“The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it.”
Everything in our lives, good or bad, joyful or painful, can be part of the path we take to being fully human. This is a hard concept to grasp. We can easily see how the good in our lives brings us to glory, but it’s another thing entirely to see our suffering in the same light.
The second response to suffering is to put it under the blessing. Like the first century disciples who asked Jesus if the man’s blindness was a result of his sin or his parents’, we usually look at suffering as an indication that we’re bad people. There are many voices out there that tell us that if we just do things the right way, or if we are really God’s child, then we won’t have to suffer. I wonder what the apostle Paul, or the Christians being martyred for their faith today would say to that. Suffering does not necessarily mean that we are bad people. It does not mean that the negative voices in our lives are right. We must listen the voice that calls us beloved children, the voice of our Father. Our brokenness does not cause God to love us any less, it does not cause him to see us in a negative light.
As we live in our blessedness and take our brokenness there and put it in the proper perspective, we find that the burden becomes lighter and the way becomes clearer. We can then see the suffering as a means of purifying us. Ask a grape vine if pruning is something it enjoys. If the vine could feel and talk, it would tell you that pruning is painful. I mean, how would you like to have a limb hacked off? The vine would also tell you that the suffering of pruning is worth it because it produces the abundant harvest of grapes that allows us to share wine with our friends. Sometimes there are things in our lives that need to be pruned away. While it is a painful process, it is also an indication that our Abba loves us, and is forming us into the people he wants us to be.
As the bread in the Communion, we are taken in order to be blessed. We are blessed so that we can be broken. As the bread cannot be distributed unless it is broken, so with us. We are broken so that we might be given.
Summertime, and the Living is…
I wrote this as part of our church’s monthly newsletter, and thought I’d share it here.
Officially, summer is not here yet, but the temperatures are getting summery, and the tropics are already heating up for a busy storm season. It seems that the weather is not the only thing heating up. All we have to do is read or watch the news, and it becomes obvious that the culture around us is growing hotter as well. The violence in the country is rising at what seems to be a faster pace than ever before. I fear that it may not be long before that spirit of violence spills over into people and groups we would never think would be affected. The rhetoric coming from those who desire to be called our leaders is becoming incendiary, and even some who claim to belong to Christ are joining in.
We however, are called to be different. We are called, as followers of the Prince of Peace, to be peacemakers. We are commanded to be humble, seeking only to glorify our King. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, even if those neighbors are our enemies. We are even commanded to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Talk about counter cultural!
I believe that Christ is beginning to winnow his Church. The time may come quickly when those of us who claim Jesus as our King will have to put up or shut up. The dividing line will become sharper and clearer. If and when that time comes, we will need each other. We will have to show that love for others that we say we have, and trust our Father to take care of us.
Let’s not wait until we are forced to depend on one another. Let’s begin now.
It’s Friday, And Yet, There is Hope
About fifteen months ago, I wrote this post. In the time since then, my friend was diagnosed with cancer and went to her rest with the Father last month, the mother of the other friend has recovered from the stroke, the stresses of the faith community continue, and Jan’s HD continues to progress. On top of that, in the fall, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and have been receiving radiation for the past six weeks, finishing yesterday.
On what we call Good Friday, the followers of Jesus in first century Palestine didn’t feel hopeful. The man they thought was going to bring deliverance from the Roman oppressors and set up his kingdom was being forced to carry his cross outside of the city of Jerusalem to the hill on which he would be crucified. The crowd that had chanted Hosanna earlier in the week, had largely forgotten him. Some had even turned on him and called for his death at the hands of the Romans, stating that Caesar was their king rather than the man from Nazareth.
Most of his disciples were in hiding, and the ones that followed him to the cross were the women who had been with him. Whether hiding or openly at the cross, the disciples must have felt hopeless. All of their dreams of the past three years seem to have been shattered by the whips that flogged their teacher and the nails that were pounded into his hands and feet. He was going to die, and it seemed as if the promised kingdom was a myth. All that was left for them was to go back to their old lives, pick up as many of the pieces as they could, and try to carry on.
Roughly two thousand years later, we know the rest of the story. Jesus came out of that tomb, and commisioned his followers to spread his teachings and his kingdom throughout the world. Their hope was not only renewed, but it was expanded to a hope beyond this earthly existence. The King promised that he would return and set everything right. That hope is what has carried the followers of King Jesus through the centuries, and what carries us today.
We have hope. Hope that creation will be restored and will have a glory even greater than in the beginning. Hope that we will one day be reunited with loved ones who have gone before. Hope that our frail bodies will be resurrected and made completely whole, without all the problems we deal with now, including having to eat gluten free (inside joke). Hope that we will no longer have to deal with the struggles with temptation and sin. We have hope that everything sad will come untrue.
Christ is risen! This is where you say, “He is risen indeed!” This Eastertide, rejoice that, because Christ is risen we too shall be raised. We will be like him because we will see him as he is.
Hallelujah!
God’s Hesed
This week we took a break from our series on Proverbs and talked about the Hesed of God.
Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend
Yesterday evening, our dear friend who has been battling stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in her liver for the past 14 months stepped from this life into the life to come. She is now resting in the presence of the Father. Jan and I were able to say our goodbyes to her Saturday evening.
Audrey was one of the strongest women I have had the privilege to know. She had already beaten breast cancer once when we met her ten years ago. A lot of other people could tell you more of her story, how she served as a federal prosecutor in Florida, joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ and ministered in Eastern Europe and Canada for a few years. When we met Audrey, she was disabled due to what the cancer treatments had done to her, yet her strength was evident.
One of my first memories of Audrey was a time not soon after we became a part of the church we are in currently. After a Sunday service in the evening, a few of the women were going over to Audrey’s house to watch a movie. Jan was a bit unsure about going. Audrey made sure that Jan knew that that she wanted her to be there and promised her a ride home. That was the first of many times I saw Audrey’s compassion and kindness.
A few years later, she decided to study for the South Carolina Bar and seek employment as an attorney in Rock Hill. I remember sitting outside at church gatherings, helping her review. At one point, I mentioned that I had always had been interested in the law and had even taken some courses in constitutional law. She told me that if she was able to get a job with a law firm, she wanted to hire me as her assistant. She got that job, and a couple years later, I became her assistant. I consider it a privilege to have worked with someone who had a reputation as a fighter for what is right. She was a tireless advocate for families and children. It was an honor to help her work on adoption and custody cases, and on helping people with their estate issues. There was never a day that I woke up and didn’t want to go to work. That job ended, but Audrey continued to encourage me as I looked for work and as I began the work I have now.
There are really not enough words to express how much Audrey has meant to Jan and me, and how much we will miss her. She was a true sister in Christ and a great encouragement and help to us, and we are forever grateful for the blessing it was to know her these past ten years. That’s really not enough time, but we take comfort in knowing that we will see her again in the New Creation.
Goodbye for now Audrey. Take your well deserved rest with the Father. We will see you again. We love you.
A Little Update
This morning I had my tenth radiation treatment for my prostate cancer. I have nineteen more to go. As I was sitting in the waiting room, a young woman came in and sat down. She looked like she was in her late teens, early twenties. I thought, “She’s far too young to have to undergo radiation for cancer.” At the same time I thought of a dear friend who is in her last hours on this earth due to cancer, and how she is also too young.
These thoughts, combined with the fact that I was sitting in a waiting room waiting to receive radiation for cancer, made me quite aware again of the fact that none of us gets out of here alive, barring the return of Jesus to set all things right. The past year or so, I have been doing a bit of downsizing, housecleaning, whatever you want to call it with my personal posessions. I have also been doing the same in the ways I approach life and those around me.
The buzz word (or dirty word, depending on your point of view) among Christians, is “deconstructing.” It means different things for different people. I am doing some deconstructing, or maybe decluttering might be a better word. I am realizing that many of the things we allow ourselves to get all worked up about aren’t realy worth the mental or emotional energy. I care and less about national and world politics, although I will still speak about things that I think are important to my faith. I am learning to care less and less about what people think, although there is still a large part of me that wants to be liked.
My theology, like Karl Barth’s, is becoming more and more summed up in the words of the children’s song; “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” and my rule for living has become “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself.” I firmly believe that if those of us who claim to follow Jesus would practice those two commands, the church and the world would be better for it.
Life is short. Macbeth said that it is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I heartily disagree. Life is a precious gift from our Creator, and we are to live in a way that gives back to him a bit of the love he has shown us, and that extends that love to those in our lives. Love the people around you, while there is still time.
Hurry Up and Wait
I am beginning to suspect that the word for 2022 may be “patience.” As the year began, I was awaiting an appointment with a radiation specialist to talk about and schedule the radiation therapy for my prostate cancer. The appointment was scheduled for the Monday after we were to return from a trip out West to celebrate our youngest grandson’s first birthday.
Our flight was scheduled to leave on a Friday morning. Early that day, I received a notification that the first leg of the trip was cancelled. The airline had no flights for us to take Saturday, but they graciously scheduled us to go out Saturday on another airline. So, we’ll be able to get home just one day later. No problem. Right? Wrong! The second airline cancelled the second leg of the trip with them due to the winter storm that was to hit the east coast that weekend. They rescheduled us on yet another flight that left Sunday morning, had four legs, and put us back to our home airport Monday morning. Needless to say, that wasn’t going to work.
Saturday morning I went to the airport to see if the second airline would transfer me back to the original airline for a flight that went Sunday and put us back home Sunday night. After being informed that they could not do that, I cancelled the flight with them, walked down to the original airline’s counter and purchased a one way flight for Sunday. Even though I spent more money, ate least we were going to be home, and I was still going to be able to get to my appointment, which had been changed to virtual, due to the expected weather issues.
After a bit of a delay, we left Fresno Sunday morning and flew into Phoenix for a short layover, before landing in Charlotte Sunday night. Oh, did I mention that we planned to take an Uber home? That becomes important. When we left the plane and walked into the airport, we were greeted with an eerie silence. The airport was almost completely empty. Every flight out had been cancelled because of the storm. After we picked up our luggage, we went outside to procure our Uber ride.
Well, that didn’t go as expected. In fact, it didn’t go at all. Evidently no drivers wanted to drive the thirty or so miles on icy, hazardous roads. Who knew? No taxi drivers were willing either. I can’t really say that I blame them. After a while I got us a room at a hotel near the airport. We took a taxi there and had a night’s rest. In the morning, we dressed, packed, checked out, and walked into the hotel’s business center, where I had my virtual appointment with the doctor. We caught an Uber and finally arrived home a little after noon.
That’s not the end of the story concerning learning patience, but I’ll give you a rest and continue later.