Weary

August 7, 2019

I was tired when I got up this morning. It didn’t go away. If we were ordinary retirees, I might have taken a nap, but instead, I met with some pastor friends for prayer at 8:00, worked on Sunday’s sermon till 1:00, loaded a kitchen range onto my truck and drove from Dunkirk to Randolph to exchange it (and some cash) for one that works. In between, along with littlest granddaughter Gemma, we raked apples that had fallen and loaded debris from the felled trees  into the bucket and drove it to the burn pile. Then a quick supper before heading to Dunkirk for Wednesday’s ministry in the park and unloading the new stove.

Normally, a day like that would have sent me at least to the edge, if not over it. I am not a people person and need quiet alone time to keep my soul settled. There was no time for alone today, but it’s OK. Just as I was gearing up for sermon preparation this morning, I received a phone call from a dear friend who has recently been diagnosed with cancer. He and his wife had hoped the doctors and hospital would jump right on his case with the requisite tests and treatment plan, but they won’t see him till August 20, two weeks from now. He is a strong believer, but it’s hard to wait when you know this stuff is growing inside you and wants to kill you. I don’t think he’s scared, but he is apprehensive. And angry that the medical system is playing chicken with his health. 

I think I would be frantic and furious. I prayed with him, and wish there were more I could do, knowing I cannot. But his situation puts my own in perspective. He is the one who lit the fire for Cuba in my soul. We have labored side by side there, and having learned so much from him, it seems there is so little I can do to repay the debt I owe. One thing I can do...I can take even the busiest of days, the most frustrating of days, as well as the most fulfilling of days...and give thanks—for him, for Christ, for my wife and family and brothers and sisters in faith. I’m still tired, but I am also deeply grateful that my weariness does not define me. It is God’s gift to strengthen my resolve to live every moment to its fullest for Christ.

Almost Done

August 6, 2019

“Do you like doing that?” Linda was asking about the trees I finished cutting up today. When I replied in the affirmative, she inquired further. “Why?”

“That’s easy. Because I can tell when it’s done.” My entire adult life has been invested in people, and until they’re buried, the job is never done. Tonight, those two trees are blocked up, waiting to be split. If it doesn’t rain tomorrow afternoon, I’ll get most of it split and stacked, at which point, except for burning it, the job is done. It took a bit longer today, with a rain break and a work stoppage to watch a family of turkeys strut through the yard. Added to breakfast with my wife and lunch with friends, it’s been a good day. 

God has great patience. The day will come when he looks at me and sees I’m finally done, and I’ll be ready for his greater purposes. There’s been a few interruptions along the way, and it’s taken a lot longer than the couple days I spent on these logs. These particular logs are pretty straight-grained, with almost no knots, so they should split pretty easily. My soul isn’t quite as compliant, and sometimes when God is working to get me to the point where he can use me for his purposes, I resist like a knotty, gnarled block of wood. And fortunately for me, there are times when God graciously takes a break from his work on me so the turkeys can wander through or the rain give its gentle refreshing. Then, it’s back to work until I’m stacked and waiting his ultimate purposes. I’m grateful tonight to be able to see the progress in my woodpile, for the breaks along the way, and for the opportunity to reflect on the job in light o the Gospel. It’s been a good day.

A Worthwhile Appointment

August 5, 2019

The old maxim, “Fake it till you Make it,” is dangerous advice. Many years ago, I was ordination coordinator for our Annual Conference. This entailed among other things, meeting with the ordinands to put together the service, then getting everything down in hard copy to be sent to the printer for the programs. Since my memory has never been my most stellar quality, there were times I forgot last names of the candidates. If there was any place in the program where you didn’t want any mistakes, it was the names of those being ordained. This was their big day, and we wanted things to be right.

On this particular occasion, I was again clueless. I could not for the life of me remember the last name of this one particular person, so I decided to ask in such a way as to not betray my mental state. We were at the ordination retreat where all the planning occurred. Approaching him one afternoon, I discreetly inquired, “And how do you spell your last name?” 

“S-M-I-T-H,” he quietly replied. No, my friends, it doesn’t pay to pretend.

I wasn’t pretending today, but I did get caught. I left the office early; I can do that without guilt because everything other than preaching is volunteer. “I have an appointment,” I told my secretary.

An hour and a half later as my granddaughter and I ate lunch and talked, sitting at a bistro table in front of the Upper Crust in Fredonia, who should pull up and park right in front of us but my secretary and her husband. “Your appointment?” she said as they approached. 

“Yes, indeed!” I responded. Having grandchildren of their own, they understood. They were actually coming to visit one of them, who as soup cook at the restaurant, had invited them to try out a new recipe. 

The older I get, the more aware I am of the significance of our intimate relationships, particularly in the family. The recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton are another reminder of the importance of these relationships. One thing these mass shooters have in common isn’t just the weapons they choose. Most are disconnected from their families which were usually dysfunctional, and there is a disturbing pattern of having been prescribed psychotropic drugs for depression and other psychological ailments which often accompany the disconnect they feel. Having lunch with my granddaughter while basking in the afternoon sun was good medicine for our souls as well as good food for our bodies. I make no apology and am grateful to have had this time together before she heads back for her last year of college.

Unwinding

August 4, 2019

“There’s no play until the work is done.” I cannot tell how often I heard those words when I was growing up. It was a mantra my parents believed and lived. They expected us to live by it, too. My folks must have done a pretty good job of ingraining that value into me, because to this day, it’s hard for me to take time off if the job isn’t finished. Problem is, Christian ministry is never finished, which makes it easy to crash and burn if I’m not careful. Church history is littered with the wreckage of pastors who were so busy taking care of others that they never took the time to feed their own souls. 

A wise man once said, “People don’t break the Ten Commandments; they break themselves upon them.” The Fourth Commandment is just as important as the First or the Seventh, but American Christians have by and large, shelved the idea that we need dedicated time to stop all activity and listen for the still, small whisper of the Holy Spirit. I suspect it’s one reason our faith at times can be so anemic. We keep the strings wound so tightly that they eventually snap. Moral and ethical collapse doesn’t happen overnight. A little indiscretion here, a tiny compromise there build up silently, behind the scenes, till like a dam that’s finally breached by rising waters, the failure is catastrophic.

Like so many Sundays, I preached this morning. This evening, I’ll read through the book of Zechariah to get the overview of this prophet’s message. Tomorrow I’ll dig in and begin working on the sermon for next Sunday. In between, we had dinner with the family, a bit of rest this afternoon, and a picnic and cornhole tournament with Park church’s worship teams and their families. I didn’t count, but I’m guessing there were thirty or forty people having a good time together. I need afternoons like this. For many years, two sermons on Sunday morning were followed by a Sunday evening service. It was hard gearing up for that evening time, but we did it because “there’s no play till the work’s done.” Mine was done by noon today, after which I put it out of mind. Tomorrow I pick it up again, but right now I give thanks for time to unwind. It’s been a good day.

Twice Warmed

August 3, 2019

Already the days are shortening, having lost more than two hours since the summer solstice. The sun shone brightly, raising beads of sweat on my brow as I worked, preparing for those long nights when the wind whips the snow in miniature tornadoes and rattles the windows. 

It was a good day. Eleven-year old Nathan and thirteen-year old Eliza rode up the hill with me to Paul’s house where we again thrice loaded my truck with seasoned firewood he can no longer use, having installed a new propane furnace. Each time we started unloading and stacking in my woodshed, Linda brought little Gemma to help with the small chunks and bark. It was hot, sweaty work, but the woodshed is nearly full. 

This afternoon, David, a young man from church, and pastor Joe came by and felled two ash trees that fell victim to the ash borer. Last year they were lush and strong; today when they fell, the upper limbs shattered, so devastating is the plague of those beetles. By suppertime, I had the upper branches sawed into chunks; before the week is out, the rest of it will be chunked, split, and stacked. There is so much, it won’t all fit in my woodshed, so tomorrow on the way home from church, I’ll have to pick up a few posts to drive into the ground so I can stack the rest of it out back. 

It’s been a good day. I am grateful for the strength to cut and stack firewood, for grandchildren eager to help, for friends like David with the knowhow to drop those trees right where he wanted them, and for the equipment to finish the job. I am blessed beyond measure, and will recount these blessings in December when I am once more warmed by this wood.

Pricey

August 2, 2019

It was a bit pricey; after all, it is John Deere factory equipment. But I think it’s worth it. Last year when I removed the mower deck from our tractor, I used a chain hoist to tip it up on edge so I could lean it against the back wall of the garage for storage. It’s a 60” deck, and so heavy it cracked the rafter that held the chain hoist. If I hadn’t propped it up with an 8’ two by four, I would likely have collapsed the back part of the garage roof, which understandably, I had no inclination to do. The deck is not only heavy, it’s awkward. Getting the chainfall hooked to it took some imaginative doing, and I still had to walk the deck back against the wall, delicately balancing it until I was able to prop it against the studs. It was not a fun job.

So when I saw a YouTube video about an attachment for the mower deck that allowed me to use the loader unit to pick it up, set it on edge, and move it around at will, I was intrigued. Like I said, it was John Deere pricey, but I bit, and today I installed the unit. Let me tell you, they were worth every penny! I drove up to the deck, hooked the loader arms into the attachment, picked the deck up, and locked the pins into place, and excepting the pins, all without leaving the seat of the tractor. No struggling with the chains, no grunting and groaning, no having the deck slip and crash to the floor. I picked up the deck, raised it vertically, set it on edge, then calmly scraped the old grass from its underside. When I was done, I moved back into the garage, lowered the deck to the floor, unhooked the pins, and backed away before driving over the ramps to install the deck for mowing. It took all of three minutes.

I was raised to be frugal, so I had to think about spending the money on those mounts. There was a time when think or not, I wouldn’t have been able to afford them. I am grateful tonight for something as simple as a quick mount system for my mower deck. The right tools make for an easier job, and at this stage in my life, easier adds up to better. It also makes me think of life. So often, we try to cobble together our own salvation. We know what needs to happen, so we gather the life tools we have, and do the best we can. Sometimes it works...sort of. But God has provided a better way. The forgiveness and cleansing available through the Cross eliminates the need to patch together a salvation and life of our own making. When we use the tools God gives, everything goes so much better. It’s costly, but unlike my deck attachment, the price has already been paid. It’s only necessary that we quit trying to do life on our own terms, and receive the work that’s been done for us in Christ. Oh yes, it’s worth it!

Kneeling

August 1, 2019

She was kneeling before the old woman, tenderly massaging her legs with moisturizing creme. A few moments before she had put drops in the woman’s eyes after noticing they seemed dry and tired. The others sitting in the room were oblivious to that which was obvious to her. I was one of those in the room, and watching my wife kneel before my mother, I silently offered a prayer: “God, I love that woman!” In my seventy years on this planet, I’ve never known another person who is as attentive to the needs of others and who gives as much of herself for others as does Linda. Today it was my mother who was so clearly the recipient of Linda’s heart, but I’ve been by far the biggest beneficiary. I have much for which to be thankful in this life, but of the blessings of this world, Linda sits enthroned at the top of the list.