Amazing Logistics

January 13, 2015

Logistics baffle me. Yesterday I was at Hamot hospital in Erie, PA visiting someone having surgery. Walking down a hallway with  her husband, we passed various offices filled with clerks, nurses stations, custodial personnel, and cafeteria staff. Outside the waiting area, workmen were installing steel beams for an addition to the building. Hamot is a top-notch heart center in addition to orthopedics and general medical treatment. It's certainly not the largest hospital in the country, but it is big. Doctors, nurses, support personnel, record keeping, and keeping up with myriad regulations, ordering all the supplies necessary to smooth operation; it all depends on logistics, and I cannot imagine what it takes to keep it all running efficiently and effectively.

I am grateful for people with the vision and skills to make possible the kind of medical care we in the US take for granted, for those who dream big, those who teach and those who study the human body, those who build and maintain, those who run budgets, pharmacists and those who produce the pharmaceuticals, sutures, all the electronic devices, tubing...you get the picture. Making sure everyone has what is needed for all the various procedures and care being given is an enormous task.

It's easy to complain when we don't get the medical care we feel we need or deserve, and there's no doubt the medical community makes mistakes, just as we all do, but having seen the lack of medical care in other parts of the world, I know we are blessed. And I am impressed. And amazed. And thankful. And tonight, I am thankful that right now I don't need any of it.

Retooling for Retirement Ministry

January 12, 2015

Sitting on the other side of retirement and looking back over my pastoral career has its moments. James describes the faith-filled person as someone who doesn't second-guess themselves (Eugene Peterson's take on being "double-minded" in James 1:6-7). The line between honest evaluation and second-guessing is a hairbreadth's wide at times, so I'm not sure which is going on here, but here goes:

Yesterday, my friend Chuck asked if I would be willing to lead the men's Bible study tonight, since he's laid up with his recent knee surgery. I assured him I would be glad to do so, then got to wondering what to do. I settled on leading them through an inductive study method whereby they read, observe, ask questions of the text, and come to their own conclusions about what it does or doesn't mean. As I look back on a lifetime of pastoral ministry, it seems I spent far more time preparing sermons and telling people what the Bible says than showing them how to discover for themselves what it says and means (this is the second-guessing part). Tonight I plan on changing that.

St. Paul in Ephesians 4 reminds us that the job of pastors/teachers is to "equip the saints for the work of ministry, so we all will be thoroughly equipped for every good work." So tonight, we're going to dig into a text and let each man see for himself how the Holy Spirit is our teacher. Maybe in retirement I'll be able to do for the Body of Christ what I didn't always do as effectively as I should have while working. We'll see. And in the meantime, I'm grateful that the Holy Spirit doesn't fit into anyone's pocket; he speaks to all who take the time and make the effort to dig and listen.

News Flash! Men's Group tonight was great, and one of the men's insights answered a question concerning the text that has haunted me for years. How neat is that?

Learning by Example

January 11, 2015

"Train up a child in the way (s)he should go, and when (s)he is old, (s)he will not depart from it."  So says Proverbs 22:6. Some scholars tell us that this promise made thousands of year ago, doesn't mean what it appears to mean, but a review of various translations available yield similar results, all supporting the plain meaning of the verse. When I was young, I heard this quoted by my pastor, and knew many a teenager's parents who were clinging to its promise with ferocious and desperate tenacity. There are always the exceptions that prove the rule, and this verse is no exception. Children brought up in what appear to be stellar homes are not exempt from the temptations that lure people to destruction, and there are those who inevitably succumb.

And yet, the promise is there, and when parents take their faith and their parental responsibilities seriously, their children will generally follow that which is lived out before them. There are many things I hope I would do differently were I given the opportunity to backtrack in my own childraising experiences. I've watched my children take a much more disciplined and intentional approach in raising their children, especially in matters of their faith. I am very grateful that all three of our children are committed followers of Christ, as are their spouses. I am even more grateful as I see their children following in their footsteps. As they grow, their childish faith will necessarily be tested, and hopefully will grow into the mature fullness of adulthood. In the meantime, I am grateful that they are watching, and learning well. On my Facebook page, two photos accompany this text; the first is from last fall, when on their own initiative, grandsons Nathan and Ian brought their friend Cameron for prayer on the Sunday before his family moved to Texas. The second is of little Gemma this morning, raising her hands in praise she doesn't yet fully understand, but is learning as she watches her Meema. Of course, there is also her older brother, photobombing the moment.

Pig in the Parlor

January 10, 2015

Pigs don't usually inhabit houses. Even three-year-old Gemma knows that. I know it's not all that uncommon, but in all my sixty five years of living, I've only known one family to actually have a pet pig that they kept in the house. It didn't work out too well, but that's not my story to tell, so I'll leave it to Nate or Deb to satisfy your morbid curiosity.

This morning, little Gemma and I sat together on the kitchen floor, her portable doll house opened up and standing between us, I on its outside, Gemma on its inside. She had been playing quietly when I walked in. Her mother had come to pick up her and her brother and sister from their twice-monthly overnight stay, and she and Linda were chatting at the kitchen table while Gemma moved figures and furniture around, matching movement to imagination. Upon entering the room, I immediately looked for the pig. Somehow in months past, a little plastic pig had gotten mixed up with the ordinary inhabitants of the doll house, and it became a game between us; she played with the figures on the inside of the house while I tried to sneak the pig in through a door or window. She would catch me, telling me loudly that "pigs don't belong in the house!" Lately, the game has morphed into a kind of hide and seek. She closes her eyes tightly while I hide the pig somewhere in the dollhouse. She looks diligently till she finds it, squeals in delight, then makes me close my eyes while she proceeds to hide it.

I love to watch her thought processes developing. What to me is an incredibly simple task (finding a pig in an almost two-dimensional dollhouse) is for her a daunting accomplishment. She hasn't yet learned to make all the connections, to reason things out the way I do as an adult. Each time we play the game, it is a new challenge to her, with fresh difficulties. I don't ridicule her eager efforts; rather, I applaud her every move, and lead her through each room of the dollhouse till the pig is found. I suspect God looks at us much the way I see Gemma searching for that pig. What seems incredibly challenging to us is patently obvious to him, not only because he is the one who so to speak, hid the pig in the first place, but because his wisdom and knowledge is that much greater than our small and faltering ability to make sense of the dollhouse of life which lies open before us.

Gemma and I have played the same game in real life, with her hiding somewhere in the house, usually in a closet or behind a piece of furniture. The game starts when I start calling out, "Are you in the bathroom (or living room, or dining room...)?" To which question I always hear a tiny voice saying, "No." It is a typical child's game, but it occurs to me that for toddlers, hide and seek is only fun if they know someone is looking for them, and that they will be found. I am so grateful that in the hide and seek of life, Someone was looking for me, and found me. To be hiding while no one is looking eventually leads to discouragement and even fear. God is seeking, and hears that childlike cry of our hearts that lead him to us as he calls out asking, "Are you over there? Are you here?" and finally wraps us in his arms, delightedly laughing, "I found you!"

Nearing Home

January 9, 2015

It's my favorite stretch of the Thruway, when we crest a rise just east of Irving and I see the highway falling away for nearly a mile in front of me, taillights blinking red ahead of me, headlights in the oncoming lane. Whenever I see that stretch of road, I know I'm almost home. The next exit lies thirteen miles away, and then just a short hop from Fredonia to my driveway. Yesterday it was home from a trip to Rochester to visit my mother. On other occasions, it's been the return from a more distant Syracuse or our annual trip to Canada, or the shorter trip to Buffalo for shopping or a visit to someone in the hospital, but that particular rise in the road always warms my heart.

It's that longing for home that intrigues me. I enjoy visiting new places. For our 25th anniversary, our kids rallied the church to send us to England for ten days. Seeing ancient cathedrals, Stonehenge, quaint cottages, the original London cast of "Les Mis," including Colm Wilkinson, was an experience I'll never forget. Mission trips that have taken me to Mongolia, Nepal, Belize, and Cuba have expanded my horizons and introduced me to wonderful people all around the world. But driving up the road that leads to home brings a thrill all its own. I don't need a map; I know all the landmarks.

Our heavenly home has its own set of landmarks that let us know when we're on the right road. Unlike the Irving exit on the Thruway that tells me I'm getting close, there is no way of telling how close we are to exiting this road of life for our heavenly home. Jesus is the only one who's made that journey and come back to tell us what it's like. Some people are given the privilege of seeing that exit ahead of time, but the privilege is not always appreciated, because it is usually the result of a drawn out terminal illness or a tragic accident. We are all getting closer to that exit; the question is, are we ready for it and looking forward to it?

Throughout history, God's saints have spoken of what the letter to the Hebrews calls "a city not made with hands, whose architect and builder is God." I don't believe the reference is solely to some future place of perfection, but is that to which God is calling us to anticipate and work towards here and now. The problem with thinking of heaven solely as that which we shall attain after we die is that it becomes too easy to just sit back and wait for it instead of cooperating with God in establishing his rule and kingdom here and now. Heaven is not just a future reality; it is an alternative reality for this life, too. Every so often, I catch a glimpse of it, just like that stretch of road as I approach Irving. The trip occasionally has its moments, when the road is slippery, the visibility poor, or if I need to stop for fuel, or if I get a flat tire. Life is full of those interruptions and challenges, but I keep driving, knowing that I'm on the right road, and if I don't give up, it will surely lead me home.

Snoring into Contentment

January 8, 2014

Emma is snoring in the corner. There's no real explanation for it that I can see. She sleeps on her pillow in the kitchen, on the carpet before the fireplace in the living room, or stretched out in front of the wood stove in the Millstone Room. The only place she snores in her sleep is when shes in her bed in the corner of our bedroom. It's really no bother; in fact, it's almost like the ticking of the clocks in the living and dining rooms. She is obviously content, and I am, too.

Sometimes it's hard for me to come up with things to write about. It's not that there is any shortage of things for which to be thankful, but most of them don't seem to warrant a great deal of time and attention. Life is full of big events that loom large not only in individual lives, but in entire communities and nations. The puny things that grab my attention are just that: puny. My life rarely consists of major events, but that's ok. I am content. I have nothing to prove, even if I have much more I'd like to accomplish. Like St. Paul, I continue to press on to the high calling of God in Christ, but I have also with Paul learned to be content wherever I am. So Emma snores on, reminding me that contentment is found not in continually achieving or acquiring, but in Christ. He alone fills the void in the human heart, and turns disquiet into contentment. It's a good place to be, and i am grateful to be there tonight.

The Giving End

January 7, 2014

Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and he sure knew what he was talking about! I've been on the receiving end, and at times like birthdays and Christmas, it's not a bad thing, but there are those other times...

Linda and I drove to Churchville today to see my mother. I hadn't seen her since before Christmas, and even though I'm retired, certain ministry-related matters kept me from seeing her  between Christmas and New Years. We almost didn't make it today. The weather report was pretty dismal, but we decided to give it a try, and turn back if necessary. It wasn't. Roads were dry, the sun was shining through Buffalo (a small miracle in and of itself!), and we made it there in good time. Mom is 92, so these visits are increasingly important to me.
On the way, we stopped to see a friend who is a patient at Roswell. She had asked me to come help her make her funeral arrangements, which I did on Monday. She wasn't looking at all well, which was not unexpected due to her poor prognosis. But today, had she not been in the hospital, I would have been hard pressed to know she was sick. I don't know if it was my prayers for her healing on Monday, or if this is the calm before the storm, but either way, it was good to see her feeling better.

When we got home, we received calls from our son and from a dear friend from church concerning a couple situations that have seemingly come unglued. One dealing with family issues of addiction and death, another slipped on ice last week, tore his knee up pretty badly, and is scheduled for surgery tomorrow. His mother had surgery for a cerebral aneurism today and had complications. His mother in law is dealing with what appears to be terminal cancer. And here I am, not having to face any of these kinds of stressful matters, except as a friend who is there for support.

How do we explain such lop-sided life circumstances? I am sixty-five, with almost no aches or pains, taking no medications, with no family crises even on the horizon, as far as I know, while my friends are feeling overwhelmed by double and triple whammy life challenges. They are on the receiving end of sorrow, pain, and "overwhelmedness." I am in a position to give; comfort, practical assistance, prayers. Being on the giving end means I am blessed to overflowing. I know my turn on the receiving end will come, as it has before. But for now, I am on the giving end, and am grateful to be able to do so.