I Feel The Sting Of Death

Looking across and about the sanctuary from where I stood yesterday, speaking words of honor, appreciation, love, and thanksgiving for my beloved friend and brother in Christ, I saw the span of at least three generations, gathered together, memorializing David's person and living. A myriad of expressions filling the place. 

I have awakened very early this morning to the unanswerable, yet rhetorical question: how many of those, old or young, have or will, ever give thought to when they might die? How odd a thought, you have, Bill? Now gives recollection of reading where two Scandinavian researchers who believe they have come up with a questionnaire that can measure a person’s chances of dying within the next four years. According to the one of the test’s designers, it is reported to be roughly 81 percent accurate among those who are 50 years or older. Their report, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, claims the assessment will be useful to doctors in offering prognostic information and to patients who want a more determined look at the future. Interesting, I don't think the question hardly arises in my own mind. On the other hand, I persistently asked David, "what did the doctor say, about your condition?"  It's the first thing I ask Bettyann after she's been to her physician. Is it a subliminal thing with me? But regardless of the questionnaire’s effectiveness, however, the headline still strikes me as ironic: “Test Helps You Predict Chances of Dying.” And immediately brings to mind a line, I just read while in preparation of my thoughts last week, of Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.”  Now, I don't need a test to tell me my chances of dying, do I?  

It was the avower atheist, Roy Hattersley, after attending a funeral, said it almost converted him to the belief that funeral services–of which he has disapproved for years–ought to be encouraged. His conclusion was forged as he sang the hymns and studied the proclamations of a crowd that seemed sincere: “ the church is so much better at staging last farewells than non-believers could ever be,” he added. He continued, reported in the article, “‘Death where is thy sting, grave where is thy victory?’ are stupid questions. But even those of us who do not expect salvation find a note of triumph in the burial service. There could be a godless thanksgiving for and celebration of the life of whomever. The music might be much the same. But it would not have the uplifting effect without the magnificent, meaningless, words.”

I have officiated at many funerals and memorial services, attended more visitations and wakes that I could not help but give intentional prayer for Carol, Leslie and Barbie and imagined the meticulous way in which they moved through the planning stages. I remember the note sent to me the week after David's death telling me of her desire that "David be honored and Jesus glorified." I'm convinced beyond measure, this morning, that was exactly what happened yesterday in that gathering.  

I'm realizing, also that something fresh happened to me yesterday not unlike happens to me each and every time I attend a funeral, memorialor service graveside. I get this notification of reality. Like the sting of death is a running commentary on the futility of my life and fleeting nature of my humanity. I'm slapped upon the side of the head with, “For who knows what is good for a man in life during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow?” asked Solomon. “Surely the people are grass,” wrote Isaiah. I've been possessed  for the last eighteen or so hours like no other by the awareness of my own transience.

But sitting here, I'm finding an incredible paradox in this looming experience of death’s repetitive sting. With it comes the unnaturalness of the process all over again—a body at the front of the altar or the picture on the easel, a hole dug deeply or the mausoleum wall, a coffin lowered or vessel placed . Yet as death rears it's ugly head in my own head and it's futile to stop it, the words spoken in memorial have not become futile. On the contrary, they are growing all the more resounding. The words spoken yesterday were not spoken to soften the blow, but rather, to affirm the offense, to acknowledge the sting of death in all of its aberrancy–and to name the One who came to reverse it, having gone through it Himself.

It's fact that we human beings are the only creatures who have ever ceremoniously buried their dead, who speak words over bodies, and carry and place them in the grave. Why is it that death never ceases to seem unnatural even despite any worldview anyone brought to the memorial yesterday? What is it about my spirit that does not stop, that refuses to be reconciled to the loss of my loved ones, giving death the last word?  What is it that makes me cry out to my Creator; Someone beyond myself?  St Paul admonishes me: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” 

I wonder if Hattersley really looked into the depths of his concluding observations with the comment: “Dull would he be of soul (or the humanist equivalent) who is not moved to tears by the exhortation, ‘He died to make us holy, let us live to make men free.'” Such are the final lines he utters as I read in his article of: A Decent Send-off. 

Father, God, I thank You for the inherent logic that has taken me to think and reiterate words and longings hints of a transcendent memory that David's life was never intended to be cut short nor will mine. That death will be overcome. That my last farewell to David is not the final word! Rather: I am the resurrection and the life. He who comes to me will live, even though he dies.

When I Comes To Lonliness

During this process of continued seeking, praying, deliberating, planning, and walking by faith in and through this fall season of life, I find myself more intentional.  Intentional at imagining the ‘what if’s.’ Ever so much more as I witness the decline of health in those that have surrounded me over the past seventy decades, leaving behind spouse, family and the closest of friends. And particularly, having just found and read Julianne Holt-Lunstad’s 2017 presentation on loneliness at a meeting of the Psychological Association. I think I've never been so aware of the hundreds of thousands that dye in loneliness, even during my years of ministering as hospice chaplain. 

I’ve been reminded of the fella, Vincenzo Riccardi, apparently, who, no other person on earth knew. The sensational discovery of his mummified body in Southampton, New York, proved it. He had been dead for 13 months, but his television was still on, and his body was propped up in a chair in front of it.  The television seems to have been his only companion, and though it had much to tell him, it did not care whether he lived or died.

This 2007 story has raised  many unsettling questions for me these last few weeks. How can a human being vanish for over a year and not be missed by anyone? Where was his family? What about his relatives? Why was the power still on in his house? Whatever the answers are to these and other questions, one thing is clear in my thinking: Riccardi must have been a lonely individual whose life, most likely, can be summed up in one word: ‘alienation.’  My believe is substantially increased by the fact that he was blind.  He never really watched television; leading me to believe he needed this virtual reality to feed his need for real companionship. Moreover, as reported in a piece entitled, He Died in Vast Isolation, his frequent “outbursts and paranoid behavior” may have played a role in driving people away from him.

I tell myself, ya, this is indeed a tragic and extreme tale, but it is making a powerful statement about how cold and lonely life is for millions across this country. Here I am, thinking I have all my ducks in a row but confess I, at times, have not been immune to the pangs of loneliness and alienation. Once again, I must go back to the Christian story attesting that alienation affects me and everyone else at three different levels. We are alienated from ourselves, from others, and most significantly, we are alienated from God. That is the reality in which every person exists. The restoration process involves all three dimensions, but it begins with my proper relationship with God. It’s just a fact that I cannot get along with myself or with anyone else until I am properly related to God.  I’m thrilled beyond anything to have applied the Gospel truth, which is; that there is abundant restoration.  It demonstrates itself by an ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ. 

I can’t imagine any better way to illustrate the process than that of an encounter Jesus had with another deeply wounded man who lived in a cemetery. I take liberty in imagining there were relatives, and perhaps friends, that had tried unsuccessfully to bind him with ropes or chains of some nature to keep him at home. But further imagine he preferred living among the tombs (alienated from others), cutting himself with stones, his identity concealed in his new name—”Legion” (alienated from self). It’s recorded in Mark's gospel that his mind and body were hopelessly enslaved by Satan’s agents, and his life was no longer his own (alienated from God). It took an encounter with Jesus for the man to be fully restored, “dressed and in his right mind”. Only then could he follow Jesus’s command to go back to his family and tell them what God had done for him.

The restoration process remains the same today, doesn't it? Until one is properly related to God, one’s true identity and potential will always elude him/her. No virtual reality or gadget can even begin to address the problem, for they only give back to us what we have put into them. They are like the message in a bottle which a castaway on a remote island excitedly received, only to realize that it was a cry for help that he himself had sent out months before. As Augustine prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” We are finite creatures, created for a relationship with an Infinite Being, and no finite substitute can ever meet my or anyone else’s deepest needs. Trying to meet any of my real real needs without Christ is like trying to satisfy my thirst with salty water: the more one drinks, the thirstier he becomes. This is a sure path to various sorts of addictions.

Thank You, Father, God that when I turned myself over to Jesus, sixty six years ago, at the age of nine, I was called to the table by name, and loneliness was countered with the hope of embrace. I became a member of Your extended family. Over these many years, I can see myself standing beside and saying with the same voice, Abraham's, I look “forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God.” Yet, it’s like dad use to say, “one day at a time son. One day at a time.” I’m still learning to trust You, Father, day by day; learning as I travel with others along this heavily trodden path that never disappoints. Yes, there are those moments that I sense a loneliness yet I know I have not been alienated. Yes, I admit I grieve and lament more often these day, but never like those who are without hope. It’s mysterious sometimes. I do have peace and joy within, and even in my hours of need, I’m discovering other family members, friends and acquaintances that are finding their own path to You, through my stumbling and bumbling, yet victorious life. Father I need Your Spirit more than ever before in my remaining days; especially when a crippling sense of isolation and alienation starts to creep in upon me. Arouse, shake and infuse me by this vibrant hope You, Your Son Jesus and Holy Spirit provide.  Amen

A Song: Any Place, Any Time

Never had known of the person named Catherine of Siena before a few weeks ago but after reading Mary O’Driscoll’s book, I  can say I do. Turning in often to the Catholic Religious channel, in keeping up with the catholic laity's view of these most recent discoveries of decades old clergy issues of abuse, I am thankful to have stubbled on to a keynote address given at the 9th World Meeting of Families, where the book was mentioned.

I have learned that at the age of seven, Catherine claimed to her parents that she had had an encounter with Jesus and some of His close disciples, proclaiming, unequivocally, that she would immediately give herself to complete religious life. I have some sense of her experience, in that; at age nine is when I had my first encounter with Christ. Her parents responded by making her a hermitage in the basement of their home. From that day forward in the mid thirteenth century until her death twenty six years later Catherine lived in a world of extreme fear, war economic distress, filth, terrorizing disease, and blatant corruption within the Catholic church. Her short thirty three years were an amazing journey, marked by passion for the truth, intense care for humanity, and a fervent life of prayer. Well documented accounts describe her emphatic declaration of the Word, whether it was administering care at the bedsides of plague victims or writing letters to feuding church leaders, or visiting the pope. She pointed her finger at the pope on her visit and insisted: “The way has been made. It is the doctrine of Christ crucified. Whoever walks along this way…reaches the most perfect light.” Catherine prayed with a similar intensity: “O eternal God, I have nothing to give except what you have given me, so take my heart and squeeze it out over the face of the Bride.” Through the extreme frailty of her own body, racked with great pain of illness and living in constant sorrow, her severe desire was that God would take her life as an offering, using her in whatever way to mend the brokenness she saw all around her.

When crossing her recorded prayers and letter which have been collected, I was struck by a phrase the editor used to describe her. In her prayers, the editor notes, “her theology becomes doxology.” Namely, what Catherine professed to be true about God became in her prayers—and arguably in her life—an expression of praise to God. Then this past week I have, again, been stricken with the same beautiful notion presented in my new copy of Keith and Kristyn Getty’s book: Sing!—what I know of God being something that moves me to sing to God.

I ask myself at this point: doesn’t all theology, by its nature lead me to doxology? Or does it?

I’ve read many a testimony of persons professing they are persons swallowed up by the Christian story. Not one can I find that their life has not been touched by God’s goodness, moved by God’s mercy, and transformed by God’s mighty presence. In these souls I find a profound correlation between profession and praise. This was certainly true of Catherine, beginning at age seven, not unlike the teenaged peasant girl who was used by God to bring into the world the child who would be named Jesus and called ‘God with us.’ In the Gospel of Luke, I witness the thoughts of Mary actually erupting into song. In the midst of the uncertainty that must have been running through her young, innocent mind, she nonetheless praises God for the things she knows to be true, for the promises that have touched her life, and the very character of the one to whom she sings:

My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Almighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
God’s mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm…
He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.    Luke 1:46-55

This is my proof that’s Mary’s theology is intertwined in her doxology: God is a God who has acted in the story of, not limited to Mary and Catharine of Siena but throughout history and is present today. God has  kept every promise and has indeed promised great things. Holy is the name of the One who sent every person on earth. 

As I come closer and closer in knowing You, Father of heaven, as my eyes are opened wider, I see Your reach, longing to gather every person unto Yourself. Every time I catch a glimpse of the goodness of the Son, His human hand in my life, His giving  the gift of the Spirit, I realize I’ve been given a song. It makes no difference as to my location, there bubbles up within me a need to praise You as a creature in my very createdness, to sing of all that I see and all that I know because of You the Creator who wants to be known. Is this all behind my passion for singing?

Father, I would like to think that it is the reason behind my earthly father's, unsolicited, in any place, at any time, calling out, “Praise Christ.”  Might my theology become a song worth singing. In my limited knowledge of You and in my knowing of Christ, might I find in word and deed, in prayer and song, my life a doxology to the goodness of a Creator who wants to be known.  Amen

He's In A Better Place

Why am I so alarmed at all these various reactions of people when  sharing my pain and sorrow, this past week, following the death of David?  Do I need to look any further than reading Blaise Pascal in Pensees, as he penned: "Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things."

The more and more I think about it; when facing the reality of suffering and the specter of death, most folks, I've experienced, are most likely to actively seek for a distraction. One of the most common distractive comments has been, "he's in a better place, now." Then we're off to: "do you think we're going to get anything out of this storm?" And I can remember it’s only been a few of generations ago that it didn’t seem to be that way.  I have to be careful here of hypocrisy and admit that, at times, I have found the fear of death as an underlying, albeit unconscious, motivation;  nevertheless recognize that my life is filled with distractions. Whether it is in the juggling of priorities, the relentless busyness of this age, or perpetual media noise, most people’s lives are so full that they rarely give themselves space or time to reflect. Isn’t this been more noticeable, particularly with my own family and friends, for some time now?  It’s alarming and I pull myself back from what I have come to name ‘mindless consumption’ that I’ve found numbs me to the eventuality of corrosion on my mortal condition and finitude. Not excluding my darkened heart, at all, but I know over these seventy five years I’ve had the propensity of being sucked into the consumptive destruction of the advertising world.

The figure is staggering of the what marketers spent in billions of dollars in total media advertising this last month. I now think of how the progressive church has been seduced and inextricably bound up into the same vein of lights, smoke, and football jerseys but I’m not going down that rabbit hole today. Just convicted. . . . . . . ‘what is that to you, Bill.’  

As I think further, it is easy to understand how one’s fear of death and suffering would compel him to live a life of distraction. Yet, I know how costly that distraction is in pervasive and deadening apathy—apathy not simply as the inability to care about anything deeply, but the diminishment for engagement that comes from caring about the wrong things.  I have been struck again when rereading Kathleen Norris lament in my copy of Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life : "It is indeed apathy's world when we have so many choices that we grow indifferent to them even as we hunger for still more novelty. We discard real relationships in favor of virtual ones and scarcely notice that being overly concerned with the how many threads are in cotton sheets and the exotic ingredients of gourmet meals can render us less able to care about those who scrounge for food and have no bed but the streets." I hope it continues to sadden me, to no end, to think that my inability to recognize my own mortality and to live my life in light of the fact that I will die leading to the diminishment of my ability to genuinely care for others—because my care, by its very nature, will demand my willingness to suffer, and to lose my life for someone else. The more I love, the more I open myself up to vulnerability and the possibility of pain. And yet, if I choose against loving engagements, I will be only left with a diminished and distracted last sentence of life.

I love what the ancient Hebrew poets, while meditating on the brevity of life, prayed in Psalms, "So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." It was the inevitability of death that motivated this prayer for wisdom for living. This was a wisdom that didn't try to hide from the realities of life—be they joys or sorrows—but rather sought to keep finitude ever before it. I find the poem ending with a cry for God to "confirm the work of my hands." I haven't given it a great deal of thought but I do recognize that for some time now, my day's seem to led to more meaningful engagement—and if there is truth in what the poets write is the mark of wisdom. 

Father, God, I thank You for Jesus, Himself, facing His own death with intention and purpose, walking the way of the cross, not only up the hill to Golgotha, but also offering His life in loving service to those around him. May I always remember Hi words: "I am the Good Shepherd...and I lay down my life for the sheep....No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative." Thank You for my friend David and through these last few days, allowing me to realize the way of wisdom demonstrated by the life of Jesus calling me to engage my mortality as a catalyst for purposeful living. Thank You for demonstrating through reading, prayer, meditation and listening to others closely that while following Jesus insists on my laying down my life in Your service, it can be done in the hope that abundant life is truly possible even in these dark day of David's passing. For the One who laid His life down is the One who was raised. He is the one who declared, "I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me will live even though he dies."  Amen

My Scar Tissue

I recall the chain of events this way:  a month and a half ago I received an email from a dear younger friend that requested input on resources dealing with  the subject of emotional suffering.  I scoured my kindle and hardcover library; finding eleven resources, they were passed on. Since a good deal of time has passed since approaching the subject, myself, I began surfing, only to run headlong into a music artist I haven’t heard of in twenty five years or longer.  Michael Card. His song, Lift Up The Suffering Symbol, which I had never heard, popped up.  I like it. I see he has also become an author. One title drew my interest: Fragile Stone. Of Card’s explanation for writing this book, he says: "The ultimate reason for getting to know Peter," is so together we might better know Jesus. For the story of Peter is the story of Jesus. Perhaps, if you and I do our best, the same will be said of us someday."  For me, that someday is today.  

I’ve found the book well written, very worthwhile, especially since I’ve  found it immeasurably comforting that Jesus gave Simon the name “Cephas,” or Peter, before Cephas had done much of anything. Before Peter had even determined to follow Jesus, let alone serve or love him as the Christ. Before Peter had muttered his denials of knowing Jesus or had one of his moments of blurted insight. At the beginning of John, Jesus calls Peter the “Rock,” before He had reason to call him “Satan.” 

I ask: What does this say? First, it says a great deal about who Jesus is. He is willing to vouch for me. Before and during the times I am  standing around with my hands in pocket, thinking about what I stand for, He is willing to stand up for me. And second, it’s reminding me that I am more than the sum of my blunders and failings, as well as my victories and my bright spots. Bettyann and I just talked about this very thing the other evening at the dinner table. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Before we had a chance to prove ourselves to each other –let alone Him, before we had a chance to fall on our faces in our marriage and life in general or say something fairly smart, Christ knew that He would die to show us the reach of His love. And He has.

Then there is the disciple Peter that makes me feel okay about myself. He is a loud statement to my hopelessness, to my skepticism, to my guilt-ridden mind that God can take my doubts, my regrets, the hopelessness of my past or my present position, and create something solid by giving me the Son. O yes, it’s in Peter I find that pains of regret and faithlessness have left a permanent mark, but that even scars are reminders of the living hope I profess. Or as Peter calls it, in the first book he wrote, chapter 1,verses 24-25 “the Word that will not wither.”

Even so, there have come those moments, when I take a look back at my multitude of moments of faithlessness or foolishness, those marks of humiliation, the bitter sting of missed and lost opportunities, it is hard to see much beyond regret and remorse, even if I have been told, and conceded that Jesus has forgiven me. I have given question; is there more to be seen in the weight of my past, the glimpses of guilty motives, disappointments, and poor behavior? The testimony of Peter himself is that yes, very definitely, there is.

Peter’s passion for Christ was no doubt shaped by the pain and humiliation of denying Him. Just as Paul wrote to Timothy: “If we are faithless, God remains faithful, for God cannot deny Himself” Scars indeed have a way of reminding me that I’m alive, participating in this fragile thing called life. Some of these scars have reminded me lately me that I am not an island, that I need people, that I desperately need a savior, that I need You, Father, in all that I face. When I look at the scars on top of scars, I’m reminded that I am healed or being healed. But I realize that even Peter’s most indelible marks were nothing beside the mark of the risen Christ upon his life. And so with mine!

When Jesus appeared to the gathered, frightened disciples after the horror of the cross, his invitation was: “See my hands and my feet, that it is me. Touch me and see.” The disciples had gathered together to discuss the rumors some had heard that Christ was alive and out of the grave, risen from the cruel death they had witnessed just days earlier. They were disoriented and afraid, and Jesus told them to look at his hands and feet, which had been pierced. And a lump now rises in my throat as His invitation to Thomas is, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.” It was to His closest friends, Jesus said, “Look at my scars, see that it is me. Recognize me by my scars; they will point you to God.” And so it is for me, at this moment! 

Thank You, Father God, for making Yourself available through Your Son, Jesus. I say amen to the fact that far beyond any scar I might bear, the wounded hands of Christ are still available and open, touching my disfigured world with His own humanity. At moments of frailty and questioning, may Your Holy Spirit remind me that He has been crushed for my iniquities. By His stripes I am healed. I have little doubt that it is this same piercing reality of Jesus bearing the scars of my failure, carrying my pain, and taking my shame, that Peter had in mind when he dynamically instructed me to throw all my anxieties upon Jesus because he cares about me! Amen

My Haphazardness

I’m remembering a time, in the third grade at Mountain View school. It was when Dad and Mom came home from a parent/teacher conference and announced I had better start putting more effort into my studies and stop woolgathering.  My teacher had shared that I could be looking straight at her and seemed to be listening or with book open and seemingly reading but seldom able to respond accurately as to what she was teaching or what I had just read.  She called it ‘daydreaming.’ It is still an issue, I admit. Like the other day when telling Bettyann I hadn’t heard  her, after being asked to pick up the mail, while in town. I didn't but probably did. And after all my years of loving to read, I am still notorious for reading sentences—sometimes entire pages—before realizing that that my mind is simply elsewhere. With my eyes moving down the paragraphs, taking in the ordered sentences, it is as if my mind pronounces each word into a room with no vacancy. I am reading in a way that can’t even be called half-hearted. I have come to the conclusion that the practical spirit of multitasking isn’t always practical for me. Illustrated by the fact that how I’m going to proceed with the transplanting of a Dalia, and dove-tailing a drawer corner  while reading Tolstoy isn’t reading Tolstoy. Hearing the words, I have heard nothing. I walk away from the paragraphs as if never seeing the sentences at all.

Ah, so it is distinctly possible, as Jesus states here: to see without seeing, and to hear without hearing. I do it often, and not only with Tolstoy.

I suppose it’s like, with most communication, there are varied degrees to which I hear the stories of Scripture, the words or stories of Jesus. In other words, I have different levels of interest, concentration, and understanding. In my searching I learn that it’s like all metaphors having levels in seeing, layers to uncover, depths that call for attentiveness. I just read that Jesus’s parables and descriptions of reality ring in ears on many wavelengths. It is true that I have looked at them as moral fables, abstract stories, truthful similes (new word)  and images, great and awful mysteries at which I need to pay well attention. Beautiful words, wonderful word, wonderful words of life. Words I must try my hardest not to ignore. I need to be on guard lest I become likened to a Pharisee; not recognizing myself in the storyline. Further and more importantly, that I react appropriately to any significantly mirrored images. 

I’m thinking here; how often do I look into the mirror when shaving and walk away with confidence that every stubble is whacked? .  I suspect, as with my less than haphazard reading, not much, until Bettyann asks me if I’ve forgotten to shave.  When the Pharisees saw themselves in the words of Jesus’s parable of the talents, they were furious. Wholeheartedly, they began scheming a strategy to silence Him. Ironically, they were plotting to do exactly what the parable said they would do.

After leaving church on a certain Sunday morning, I thought of my Dad’s advise: “anything worth doing, deserves doing well and all the way,” and how Christianity describes the world with a wealth of detail. But it is more than a system whereby we believe certain information and thus call ourselves Christians or otherwise. I believe what Jesus has presented is a transforming way; it is intended to be life itself. If I merely hear God’s words, or half-see reflections of truth, I actually miss everything. Such a response cannot even be called haphazard. Like the pages I have read mindlessly—lifelessly—in seeing, in reality I have seen nothing, hearing I have heard nothing.  I’m convicted by St. James’ description of this common self-deception, “If any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, walking away, immediately forget what they were like.” 

Father, God, I come humble in petition of forgiveness, this morning. Forgiveness for walking away from Your Word without really noticing myself. Forgiveness for all the occasions I’ve taken in Jesus’s words haphazardly or halfheartedly. O that Your Holy Spirit will help me in clearing my mind of all the peripheral and draw me to an inescapable response of appropriate, full sensing of which Jesus beckons. In seeing that I will see. In hearing I will hear.  Amen

An Interactive Moment With A Five Year Old

Our visit in our nieces' home a few weeks ago was a beautiful experience.  The last time I visited, Jackie hadn’t been born but now five; undeniably one of the most precocious children I’ve ever met. Her thought structure is absolutely amazing to me.  I also noticed, almost immediately, she is unusual in the fact she asked, almost no questions. I understood more as to the reason when one of her parents told of her sharing, casually, earlier during the day, that she didn’t need to be promoted after kindergarten. Her reasoning was; she would have gained all the knowledge she would ever need in kindergarten. Jackie is unique and refreshing. It’s been my experience that most kids seem to use questions instinctively to find out about the world.  Jackie is the midst of creating the world.  

I think I've always been the average kid, starting with a question seems like a good idea.  I think it helps to bring a sharper focus, it’s conversational, it reveals gaps in knowledge for me. Of course, I have honed questioning to the lazy types, but I’d like to think, more often the thoughtful types. I’m finding the difference is a bit difficult, as I’m thinking about it, but over the years, hearing or asking a great, a  wonderful or amazing question, asked at the right time, hints to the reason  why good, careful, thoughtful questions are always worth asking.

When it comes to questions about faith, I’ve experienced a lot of Christians pointing to the example of God asking Adam and Eve, ‘Where are you?,’ when He Knew where they were and the way in which Jesus interacts with people in the New Testament. Here are just a few of the questions, I’m finding Jesus asks: What are you looking for? What do you want Me to do for you? Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know Me? If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Do you want to be well? Do you see this woman? What good is it to gain the whole world but forfeit your soul? Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Who is greater, the one seated at the table, or the one who serves? Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? Which of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God? Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I command? Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For which of these good works are you trying to stone Me? Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and He will not provide Me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? Would you like some breakfast? Have you come to believe because you have seen Me? I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in Me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this? Do you love Me?

Well, from those questions can I assume that leading off with a thoughtful question isn’t so bad an idea?  Even so, when I asked my grandniece, Jackie a leading question; her furrowed  brow and beaded eyes indicated that my question was rhetorical, leading or loaded. Like: “is this great uncle trying my smarts or something”? As a Chaplain, it wasn’t uncommon for adults to be concerned about being unfaithful to God if they use and engage properly with questions. But, since I was a follower of Christ and followed His model it became one of the strongest if not the strongest reason for using them. And when Jesus asked a question it suddenly brought everything into focus, not just for the one He was asking, but for everyone listening as well. I’ve learned over time that Jesus’s often subversive questions summarizes and lifts up the prevailing authority structures, symbols, and assumptions. His questions lift them high up into the air for inspection, so that everyone can see more clearly the motives, traditions, assumptions, and all the wildness that often rages under the surface.

This recent, adventurous encounter with my darling great niece has churned my thinking that questions, more than likely, will help me concentrate, pay attention, and think along with the One providing all her answers to life. How could I ever forget those times when a good question transformed a meandering discussion into a life-changing moment for me or the other person, when reality broke through illusion. 

Father, God, I thank you for Jackie and our first time meeting and in those moments, inducing my thinking about gently asking the right questions at the right time of myself or others. Help me, in these aged years to call out, as did so of T.S. Eliot: “Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.” Amen