A Prayer for a Friend

 A prayer for a dear friend …

O LORD, our God,

The days of our lives belong to you.

From our first breath to the last.

In time and eternity.

Now and forever.

How this should be defies all reason.

A great and marvelous mystery.

Love flowing among the stars.

Creating, and recreating.

Making all things new.

Hold now in your kindly arms.

My dear friend.

His heart is broken, shattered, scattered.

His tears well up like a desert flood.

See him through the dreary days, I pray.

Help him recount the joys and pleasures.

Of love given, and love received.

To blunt the blows of death.

To soften the grief.

You know us through and through, Dear God.

You watched our form take shape.

In our mothers womb; you were there.

You are the God of our beginnings.

And, then, as well, our endings.

And to you, Dear God, we belong.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen and Amen!

Eternal Life 001

 I’ve always wanted to be remembered by my children. 

Maybe because I had so few memories of my father, who died suddenly when I was 23 and six-months married, at the beginning of my middler year in seminary.

Maybe because my memories of my mother were so darn crummy. A troubled woman she was, but that’s a story for another time.

To be remembered by my children - that’s always been important to me. Now that I’ve lived this long, it’s no longer a question - they’ll remember me, and I believe most of the memories they’ll have will be good memories … good times with travel and dinner-time silliness … and my career … I made sure that I most always had the time for their lives - soccer games, piano recitals, school events, and such. Couldn’t have happened without Donna - her steady presence, her devotion to the family, her career, too, in real estate and accounting. But those are stories, too, for another time.

What’s central here for the purposes of this little essay is my wanting to be remembered.

There are societies wherein memory of loved ones keeps them alive in some form or fashion. Is that what I want? 

I don’t know.

I would like to think my wish to be remembered is more that of asset for them to carry on with their lives, as I did with mine. Mostly good, and sometimes not. But carrying on, doing the best I could, even when the best wasn’t so hot.

That’s life.

Plenty of ups and downs, and we hope for more ups than downs.

To be remembered?

For their sake?

I think so … because my own sense of “eternal life” is pretty slim - a far cry from the gospel hymns that speak of the sweet by-and-by, streets of gold, everlasting joy, with mommy and daddy and dear old friends, or something to that effect.

As it now stands in my life, there’s no one I wish to see again.

And if my last breath in this mortal vale is indeed my last everything, that’s okay by me … as it stands right now.

Though I must confess that if one of my children or granddaughter died, or Donna goes before me, I suppose I might like to see them again.

Maybe even a dog or two on that fabled rainbow bridge.

Very early on, Donna and I had some conversation about such things, and we both decided, though it very much was Donna’s sense of it here, that if there were anything after this life, it would be all right, because it’s in God’s hands … and whatever God decides will be just fine, and if there’s nothing, well then, that’s okay, too.

Would I be content with nothing in the afterlife, if there is such thing, if my life had been one of destitution and misery? Suffering and loss? 

I don’t know what I would feel, because I can’t imagine a life of dead-end poverty and deprivation. 

My life has been good, and though it may end roughly, as many a life does these days, with drawn-out disease-management and the medical merry go-round, I would, I hope, still know that life was good, and I’d breath my last with gratitude.

Beyond that, I’m not sure.

I know that the Jews had no sense of eternal life until they spent some time in Egypt and Babylon. For the Jew, life was enough, threescore and ten, or maybe fourscore, and that was that.

But in the end, what with Egypt on the one end, and Babylon on the other, with the destruction of the Temple, there were some adjustments made, as to justice and fairness. Could the terrible reverses of life be counterbalanced by life after death, in some sort divine rebalancing of things?

And somewhere deep into the story, hell got thrown in there, as a place where God would put all my enemies, or something like that, or maybe even put me, if I didn’t toe the line. And if hell were a little too severe, well then, we’ll go for purgatory, a mini-hell of sorts where the bad stuff is at least roasted away, whereas hell is just a matter of constant roasting, gnashing of teeth, moans and groans. Dante seems to have put it rather well.

I guess the point or so - I mean, there are some pretty shitty people around who manage to accrue lots of power, and with that power, take delight in depriving others of life. Those who live in the lap of luxury with barns upon barns full of grain, grain stored to create scarcity and manipulate the markets, and build some stinking huge big homes.

But that’s another story, too.

Somewhere along the line, a notion of resurrection - a gift from God.

Because there’s nothing in us that survives death. 

No immortal soul, or anything like that.

When we’re dead, we’re in Sheol which isn’t much of a place, a land of shades, where the good, the bad, and the ugly all go.

But maybe God has something up God’s sleeve on this score … God remembers us … makes us always present (whatever that means!) … if my children remember me for the duration of their life, and if God remembers me for the duration of God’s life, which has no duration in the normal sense of the word, but is without beginning and without end … so, in some bizarre way, I’m always present in the mind of God, and so are you, dear reader, so are you.

At the end, when the time is right, graves are opened up, the sea gives up its dead, and the bones are refleshed, not with the perishable stuff given to corruption, but the imperishable stuff, like the body of Christ - light and luminous, but real enough for Thomas to dig his fingers into a  scar, and real enough to cook a beach-side breakfast for the weary disciples and help them get on their way with the high and holy calling of being disciples.

Refleshment is part of the deal, because we’re as much flesh as anything else, and without it, we’re not ourselves … but that’s a story for another time.

Between now and that great gettin’ up morning, bright with sight and sound, we all die … earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, pretty well sums it up.

From the book of Revelation, the idea, perhaps, of spiritual awareness in the presence of God, aware enough to enjoy the sights and sing some hymns … but it’s an awareness full of waiting … waiting for that final moment, when the trump is sounded, and all that’s been lost is found, all that is broken is made new.

The waiting of the saints, if you will, is categorically different than our waiting, fraught as it is with uncertainty, anxiety, a not-knowing that growls around inside our soul like a hungry beast, snapping and snarling when approached.

The saints wait with a full-blown confidence, assurance, blessed assurance, for sure … no uncertainty for the saints. 

Well, if that’s the case, to God be the glory.

As for me, who knows?

God knows.

And God is everlasting, eternal, world-without end, the Alpha and the Omega, which is a beginning, and an ending, not as a cessation of things, but a fulfillment, a completion, something made ready for the next round.

I think of the next round, but God-only-knows … God was doing godly things for billions of years before this earth came to be, and we got up from the mud to take a look at the sights.

And who knows what comes next in this expanding universe.

Is God done?

I don’t think God is ever done.

Endless creativity is God.

Anyway, to God I belong.

And so does my dear wife, and our family.

And everyone, all creatures great and small.

Some years ago, I read a fine article about life-after-death in The Christian Century - a theologian was asked by her young daughter, after her grampa’s death, “Will he be there in heaven?” As the mother said, I put aside my learning and said, as if it were a word from God, “Everyone you love, and everything you love, will be there.”

I think that’s just about it.

For love is the heart of the matter.

And everything, from old blankets and a pair of roller-skates, to  everyone who has ever lived, because everyone was loved by someone … and so it is, and so it shall be.

What is loved is there.

In the heart of God … 

And when the time is right, all shall be made new.

And that’s one heckuva deal.

Father's Day Prayer

Eternal God,
Father of all mercies,
Mother of all love.

Grant to all fathers this day your abiding mercies.
Flow through them, I pray, that they might love this world.
To love their biological children, for sure.
Their spiritual children, as well, and that's all the children of the world.

Because love cannot be selective.
Love cannot say: "My own, and not yours."
Love cannot turn a blind eye to the child at our border.
Love, if it's love, is expansive and welcoming and dangerous.
Dangerous for those who dare to love.
Dangerous for those who tell lies about our world.

The children at the border cry out.
Let no father, this day, go unmoved by their sadness and tears.
Let no father find joy isolated from reality.
Joy without the tempering of a child's cry for help.
Is no joy at all.
But only pretense and avoidance.
A game played by the privileged, a game no one can ever win.

Eternal God, the Father of our LORD Jesus Christ.
Eternal Mother of the Nations.
Father/Mother of all that is right and good and just.
Bless the fathers of the world.

That fathers everywhere would say.
"All are mine."
"Every tear a child sheds I will dry."
"Every little one belongs to my dear family."

"I am the father of all the children."

My prayer, O God.
For this Father's Day.
Amen!

It Happened on a Sunday Afternoon

Thelma called, panic in her voice - something strange and quite beyond words: “George shot himself. He’s upstairs.”

A quiet man who gave no evidence of distress … no sign of anything at all … I think in his late 50s at the time … so who knows what pain danced around him.

I walked over to the house, just a block away … one of those large, three-story affairs, a central Pennsylvania railroad town … 

Thelma answered the door … I don’t recall if anyone else was there yet … the police, an ambulance - I have no idea.

I went upstairs … did I go alone?

But in my mind’s eye, there I stand by the bed … George on his back, head on a pillow … lots of blood … where’s the gun? I don’t know … I don’t recall seeing it … lost in the folds of the bed?

I suppose Thelma thought he’d gone up for a Sunday afternoon nap.

But with a gun in hand, George ended his life instead …

That day, for the first time in my life, I wondered about suicide.

Like most folks, I had easily thought that suicide was a sin. Period! I had never dealt with it, never known of anyone in the family or in our circle of friends who took their own life. 

I remember thinking that George, a gentle soul, was certainly no sinner in this case, and certainly not deserving of eternal hellfire, or whatever grim punishments the church conjures up to keep wandering souls in line.

Did George shake his fist in the face of God?

Did George heroically assert his independence and end his life in some kind of ironic rebellion against God?

Was he guilty of some supreme cowardice?

I’m 28 at the time, and hurriedly thinking it through because the funeral is three days away.

It was then and there that I became clear - whatever suicide may be, it’s no sin … neither pride nor arrogance. It’s a moment of desperation, as the mind cannot see any other way out, of whatever the dilemma is. 

And no condemnation for the broken-hearted. No condemnation for those lost in sorrow, entangled in whatever heartache has come their way, either of their doing, or simply the circumstances of life … who knows just how tangled the pathways are for anyone. And when the moment comes, it all must make sense to them, even as it leave us bewildered as we try to figure out what will never make any sense to the living.

So, there it was for me … my first suicide funeral … and I spoke about the kindness and mercy and love of God for George … I remember saying something about our own struggles, and whatever hope I might offer, it’s not an encouragement to end our lives. But it is to say: None of the living can fathom the darkness that drove George to take a gun, load it, hold it in hand, place it to his head …

Did he take a deep breath?

Was he crying?

Was he thinking of Thelma?

Did it take long to decide?

I’ll never forget that Sunday afternoon and the funeral that followed.

It was a moment to decide.

I made the right choice, at least for me.

In subsequent years, other suicides would follow … amazing how people take their lives … some gave no hint whatsoever; others were clearly on a troubled road heading downward. Some do it in the home; others by a tree with a rifle … or in the car on the roadside. Maybe a note is left; in most cases, no note at all.

I’ve always remembered that moment when I had to decide. 

On a Sunday afternoon!

Predestination: Some Thoughts

from an email sent to a friend inquiring on behalf of a friend:

Dear xxx,

All we can do is dance around the fire of God's love ... we cannot jump into it, or it'll burn us up.

Calvin jumped into it, and so did Augustine ... theologians jump in where angels fear to tread.

I think your friend has a good handle on it ... leaving plenty of room for all the dark stuff that happens, yet, years later, finding evidence of God's hand.

Calvin left us a legacy of "certainty" that doesn't stand up, either in Scripture or in experience ... but at the core of his work, we find an abiding faith in a very good God who is at work in ALL things for good.

I think pre-destination has to be taken in the largest sense possible - as Paul works with it and uses the terminology. But to examine it under the microscope of human suffering brings us to an impasse - which Calvin defended by saying, "Who of us can attack the character of God? Who of us knows anything?" But I think such a defense is unnecessary is we can see how much God suffers in the story, culminating in the cross. To live in this age, even for God, is to suffer.

The all-powerful "God of the Middle Ages," who looked and behaved more like an emperor than the God and Father of Jesus, the God of Genesis and the God of the Prophets, has left us a bad legacy, filtered through Calvinism. The God who is above everything, impassive and all-controlling, is NOT the God of the Bible.

Yet Calvin's point remains important - history, with all its dark materials, is undergirded by the hand of God.

Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1976), British theologian, wrote a fine little book entitled, "The Will of God" (1944) - wherein he details three dimensions to God's will: intentional, circumstantial and ultimate. 

I think your friend has been dancing around the fire quite well.

Your comments seem equally appropriate and accurate.

We can only whisper the things of God that elude us; but of the things of God that we know for sure, we can shout to the highest mountains.

Blessings ...

Tom

God at Work in All Things ...

God is at work in ALL things for good.

All is a big word, isn't it?

Big enough to cover all of it.

It wouldn't do us much good if we said, "some" - God is at work in "some" things.

We'd be forever trying to figure "some" out, and never sure if "this moment" was one of those things in which God was at work.

All is a big word, because God is big, and so is God's love!

So, whatever life throws at us, whatever comes along, God is there ... we don't always know how, but we know for sure, that God is at work, in ALL things, for good!

So be of good cheer, and trust the outcome! God's hand is in it, and God's hand is good.

Final Advent Thoughts

As we bring the Season of Advent to a close with the lighting of the Christ Candle tonight, we end a chapter in the story of our Faith, and open anew, the ageless story of God with us, in every respect. Small towns and big cities, rich and poor, foreigner and citizen - for God so loved the world.

May the brightness of the star illumine our darkness ...

May the tenacity of the wise men, who dared to follow a star, encourage us in our journey ...

May the joy of the shepherds impel us to make our own trek to Bethlehem to see what the angels have told us ...

May Herod's anger be a sobering reminder that powerful interests have their own agenda ...

May the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt give us hope in tough times ... and ...

May the promise of Scripture - that all of these many and varied pieces were part of a Master Plan, the fulfilling of Scripture - give us peace and determination to keep up the good work of loving and serving Christ - because God's hand is yet upon the flow of history, to keep God's purpose and God's love alive, and to maintain our life together on this planet, a planet that God so dearly loves

Doing Good Today

Are you doing good today?

Questions like this intimidate us. We tend to think of everything we’re not doing. Or maybe we’re practicing some form of humility – “Oh no, I would never speak too highly of myself.”

But I like to think small on this question.

Think about it.

You let someone cut in front of you, and you didn’t explode.
You were patient in the checkout line.
You said your prayers today.
You were kind to a stranger.
You wrote out a check to a charity.
You read your Bible.
You read the newspaper and prayed for the poor and the sad.
You searched your heart and found God there.
You said a gentle word to an irritating co-worker.
You asked yourself some good questions.
You forgave someone.

To miss the good is to miss God!
Pay attention to the Spirit at work in your life.
Shaping you.
Forming you.
Expressing God’s love through you.

At the end of the day, make a mental list of the good you did.
And sleep well.

Love in Action

Good Morning Genesis.

The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147:2)

Look at the verbs.

Today, some of you will build up your community.

Some of you will gather today … you will reach out to include the one whom others are likely to ignore.

Some of you will heal a brokenhearted co-worker or family member.

Some of you will be involved in “emergency room” care – you will bind up a wound, stop the bleeding or set the bone.

Read this passage again, but this time, say “I” – add the place where you live, where you work:

I build up Westchester, the YMCA or the local school.
I gather the outcasts at the office, or the nephew everyone hopes doesn’t show up at the family reunion.
I heal the brokenhearted,
And bind up their wounds … I pay attention, and I’m available.

Close to God's Heart

"You are close to my heart."

God says so to you and me (Psalm 148:14).

Jesus reminds us that His Father's eye is on the sparrow and even the hairs of our head are numbered.

Today, the fiery arrows of the Evil One will assail your heart and mind with feelings and thoughts designed to drive you into a lonely corner. You may well say and do things of which you're none too pleased, and the Evil One will throw it back in your face, "See, that's the way you really are. You're not so hot. You're not what you think you are. Give it up. You're hopeless."

Not so!

We ARE good and loving, we ARE kind and compassionate, we ARE thoughtful and generous. We ARE followers of Jesus and servants of the Most High God! THIS is who we are!

There will be exceptions, of course, and they are all covered in the love of Jesus, and His grace makes up the difference.

You are close to the heart of God! That's where you live, and that's who you really are! Jesus my Lord!

You're a Roaring Success

When was the last time you failed?

Tough question.

What are the criteria? And who’s to say?

Remember, the original temptation was to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a tree that belonged exclusively to God!

Why? Because we’re not old enough, smart enough, or tall enough to know and see all the possibilities, all the pathways, all the intricate ways in which ideas and patterns are interwoven.

God’s love and kindness prevail, moving all of us along the pathway of Life. “I have come,” said Jesus, “that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”

Here’s the point: “Failure” is word that’s impossible to define and never accurate. So, why even use it?

The Snake in the Grass told Eve: “You’re a failure! Something is missing, so pluck the fruit.”

The next time you hear those whispered words, duck and run, and remind yourself that you’re just fine … you’re a work in progress, and your Heavenly Father is at work in all things for good!

When it comes to life, every day we’re here, every day we laugh and love, every day we make it, every day we smile at someone and wish them well, every day we can muster a compassionate thought and utter a small prayer, we’re a roaring success!

“Thought for the Day” – Pastor Tom, January 22, 2008

New Year's Resolutions

Donna asked me last night, “Ever make resolutions?”
“Sometimes,” I said.

“How about you?”
“Not really, but maybe I should.”

This morning, the first day of a New Year, I’m wondering about resolutions … I haven’t made any, nor will I.

But, then, maybe I should.

Yet I think, we live in a culture that promotes dissatisfaction with just about everything.

Dissatisfaction empowers consumerism!

Buy the book, sign-up for the workshop, join the gym, and so forth. And next year, when little of nothing of this has worked, there’ll be more books, workshops and gyms. The pot of gold exists, doesn’t it, just over the horizon?

I’m all for reading, expanding our horizons, and even going to the gym, but I’m also for contentedness … an essential appreciation for life and its realities – for counting our blessings and taking the time to name them carefully and lovingly, and for making the best of things, because the best of things is inherent in the essence of life because God created the heavens and the earth and said, “Oh my, they’re good!”

Yes, reach higher and push harder, but put a leash on the manic pressures that turn these positive strivings into obsessive discontent and dissatisfaction, driving us to pluck the fruit from the tree and committing the “original sin” – “something is genuinely wrong with me, God blew it, and I’d better get it for myself, because no one else will help me.”

Appreciation, contentment – powerful, powerful, states of mind and heart.

You’re terrific, you’re wonderful, you’re good and kind. You’re all of this and more. You’re capable and bright; you’re wise and compassionate. You handle whatever comes your way, and you’ve got great friends and family standing around you.

And most of all, you belong to God!

A long time ago, God made a resolution: “I will never ever let them go.”

Now that’s a resolution we can live with!

Happy New Year!

Knowledge of God's Kindness

How does one acquire knowledge?

Attend a workshop, read a book, go to school, talk to someone who’s an accredited source.

It’s good to know certain things … like … stop when the light is red … too much salt spoils the soup … wash your hands before eating and look both ways before crossing the street. Knowing such things, life is easier and safer.

Faith is knowledge, too … a “sure and certain” knowledge writes our theological granddaddy, John Calvin.

A God-centered, Christ-focused knowledge … acquired much like any form of knowledge: time well spent with a primal source (e.g. the Bible), study in the company of others, conferences, workshops & worship, and lots of conversations with reliable folks.

Through our steady deployment of these resources, faith, like a seed, grows in the deep crevices of the soul, and lo and behold, one day, the little root produces a plant, the plant fruit, and the fruit is good: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Here’s what Calvin wrote: “Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Look at the anchor words: God’s benevolence, freely given promise, revealed and sealed.

Many years ago, a teacher said to me: “Salvation is too important to be left in our hands. God assumes the burden, the task and the outcome. In Christ, we are utterly saved, once and for all, now and forever more.”

Wow and Amen!

“Thought for the Day” – Nov. 5, ’07 – Pastor Tom