In the broadest bend of the long, gravel driveway leading to my Louisiana home place sat a pond of modest size. Various wildlife called the little lagoon home, including a fox and a veritable Tabernacle Choir of evening frogs. For much of the year, the pond supported a layer of deep green algae, thick on the surface like a porridge. This covering made for still waters, so stagnant one could drive by and not even notice there was a body of water in the bend of the lane.
Except that there were rocks, lots of rocks. It was fortuitous for me that the nearby driveway was laid in generous gravel. Many a summer hour I spent as a lad tossing that gravel, piece by piece, into the middle of that pond. Some stones skipped, some sputtered, a few larger specimens landed with an impressive ker-plunk. Regardless of size, all my tosses produced ripples of some kind on the water—ever-widening circles of effect, moving from center to shore. Even those singing nightclub frogs, quiet in the hot afternoon, knew something was afoot as the rippled waves washed up on their domiciles. Ripples.
Late this summer in our Sunday preaching we will take up the New Testament book of Acts, or at least portions thereof. “Book” hardly does Acts justice; more like “wild ride.” If the gospels give us the canon’s master story—the news of Jesus’ living, dying, and rising—then the adventure that is Acts serves up “the rest of the story.” And what a postscript to Jesus it is: flames flickering, tongues appearing, wind blowing; ailments healed, speeches preached, prayers answered; outcasts welcomed, zealots enraged, servants condemned; Peter is convinced, Paul is converted, and Stephen is convicted.
We might say that Acts is one new wave of divine drama after another. Every chapter reveals one more resurrection ripple flowing out into the world from the epicenter of Jesus’ astonishing new Easter-life. “He is risen!” turns out to be massive ker-plumk in the world, sending out rings of redemption in every direction.
Good thing. We need those ripples washing up on our shore, season after season. Acts awakens us to the divine power available in Jesus’ name. Acts emboldens us for the sometimes-bumpy encounters between gospel and culture. Acts stokes our faith imagination, inviting us—demanding us!—to consider what new Holy-Spirit-wave God is asking us to ride out into God’s world.
Ker-plunk.
June 21, 2011
May 8, 2011
Follow, Follow, Follow
The familiar (annoying?) tune of the Munchkins might as well be our church theme song, except that the path we trod as Christians is not the famed Yellow Brick Road. We walk the Jesus Way. We are, nevertheless, followers. We follow, follow, follow. (Sing with me now! Ug.)
“Followers.” There is little about this word that rings positive in the times in which we live. Do you want your kid to be a follower? Do you want to be known as a “follower?” The prevailing culture prizes autonomy, self-sufficiency, and “doing your own thing.” Everyone wants to be a superstar, “original.” Many of our cultural heroes not only stand apart, they stand alone. Who wants to mimic another?
And yet, we believers follow. As Jesus people, Jesus’ people, we do not blaze our own trail through this world. We seek to unmask the idolatry of incessant originality and instead give thanks for a “path of righteousness,” a way that leads to good standing with God (Psalm 1). And we do not walk alone. We walk behind one who has gone on up ahead of us, securing the destination and marking the way (Hebrews 2:17-18). It is encouraging to know that someone has been this way before.
In younger days, back before parenthood and grown-up responsibilities, I was a frequent backpacker. Especially in Boy Scout days, the packs we donned were of such a size that it made seeing the trail up ahead difficult. Although the landscape to the sides could bring visual relief, one usually spent the better part of a day’s walk staring at the waddling pack just ahead. And the boots. You learned to watch the boots of the guy in front of you. Up and down hills, across streams, around the mud: By paying attention to the boots a few steps in front of you, you could avoid a great deal of pitfalls along the way. Muddy socks, slippery moss, twisted ankles. It paid to be an attentive follower.
We are talking in church lately a good deal about DISCIPLESHIP. A disciple is essentially a student: a pupil of a teacher. Disciples follow someone. As it were, they study the feet of one who walks ahead of them and seek to mimic the moves and follow the same path. Discipleship means giving up on the idea that one can bushwhack a corridor through life however and wherever one sees fit. The mark of baptism says, “I am a follower of Jesus now. I am walking in his way, following his steps. I relinquish the idea that I must always be my own woman, my own man.”
In the regressive, selfish times in which we walk, this new posture is as counter-cultural an act as one could imagine: to give up our “God-given” right to walk alone, in our own way, and instead to give over our lives to one who leads, guides, and directs our path. Following smacks of foolishness. And yet, it is the way of salvation. Step by step, turn by turn, we study the feet of Jesus and mimic his moves. Therein we find ourselves, and our neighbor, and God—all in following another.
In the words of songwriter Chris Rice:
Father Love prepares a place,
and Brother Jesus leads the way.
Follow to the place where you belong.
“Followers.” There is little about this word that rings positive in the times in which we live. Do you want your kid to be a follower? Do you want to be known as a “follower?” The prevailing culture prizes autonomy, self-sufficiency, and “doing your own thing.” Everyone wants to be a superstar, “original.” Many of our cultural heroes not only stand apart, they stand alone. Who wants to mimic another?
And yet, we believers follow. As Jesus people, Jesus’ people, we do not blaze our own trail through this world. We seek to unmask the idolatry of incessant originality and instead give thanks for a “path of righteousness,” a way that leads to good standing with God (Psalm 1). And we do not walk alone. We walk behind one who has gone on up ahead of us, securing the destination and marking the way (Hebrews 2:17-18). It is encouraging to know that someone has been this way before.
In younger days, back before parenthood and grown-up responsibilities, I was a frequent backpacker. Especially in Boy Scout days, the packs we donned were of such a size that it made seeing the trail up ahead difficult. Although the landscape to the sides could bring visual relief, one usually spent the better part of a day’s walk staring at the waddling pack just ahead. And the boots. You learned to watch the boots of the guy in front of you. Up and down hills, across streams, around the mud: By paying attention to the boots a few steps in front of you, you could avoid a great deal of pitfalls along the way. Muddy socks, slippery moss, twisted ankles. It paid to be an attentive follower.
We are talking in church lately a good deal about DISCIPLESHIP. A disciple is essentially a student: a pupil of a teacher. Disciples follow someone. As it were, they study the feet of one who walks ahead of them and seek to mimic the moves and follow the same path. Discipleship means giving up on the idea that one can bushwhack a corridor through life however and wherever one sees fit. The mark of baptism says, “I am a follower of Jesus now. I am walking in his way, following his steps. I relinquish the idea that I must always be my own woman, my own man.”
In the regressive, selfish times in which we walk, this new posture is as counter-cultural an act as one could imagine: to give up our “God-given” right to walk alone, in our own way, and instead to give over our lives to one who leads, guides, and directs our path. Following smacks of foolishness. And yet, it is the way of salvation. Step by step, turn by turn, we study the feet of Jesus and mimic his moves. Therein we find ourselves, and our neighbor, and God—all in following another.
In the words of songwriter Chris Rice:
Father Love prepares a place,
and Brother Jesus leads the way.
Follow to the place where you belong.
February 6, 2011
Capacitation
What a great word. Fun to say, too. Capacitation.
Not quite Carly Simon’s famous word, but close.
A version of the term I did not anticipate popped out at me unexpectedly last fall, a springy snake from one of those trickster can o’ nuts. In October, thirty of us gathered in our Social Hall with our Dominican Republic pals Pastor C. and his wife. We met for a panel discussion on ministry, hoping to learn from them home-grown insights about moving out into God’s world. Helping God’s people grow in ministry seemed naturally to take us down the path of growing leaders.
“The pastor cannot do it all himself,” C. reminded us, through our interpreter. “You have to grow leaders. You have to capacitate them.”
Capaci-what?
As the moderator of the panel time, I looked quizzically at our interpreter.
“What was that word!?”
She hastily retraced the Spanish in her mind. “That’s what he said,” somewhat bemused herself. “He’s saying capacitate them.” Pop! (the aforementioned snake from the can)
What a great word for growing ministry.
Two years ago in our church offices we were experiencing perennial problems staying connected to the Internet. The boys from Adelphia swooped in, crawled all over our building as in catacombs, and soon issued the diagnosis. Old wiring.
“We’re going to pull all new cable through the building. That should keep you connected, and increase capacity.” Indeed it has. Presbyterian bits and bytes sail along these days.
The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. That’s Jesus, in John 14.
Turns out our Christ is in the capacitation business: growing God’s people—growing us!—to do greater works in the world for God. And growing congregations, too: to provide more capacity for others to share in God’s ministry. Jesus, the cable guy; rewiring the church.
I’ve spent the better part of 30 months in the catacombs of our shared spiritual house, working on what I now know to call capacitation. I wonder: How is God calling you to capacitate? In your family? your work? your world? In your self?
This month, four of us have the opportunity to capacitate the mission partnership we share with our Dominican sisters and brothers. During his visit in the fall, Pastor C. invited D.D., C.W., and me to come to the annual General Assembly meeting of his church—the Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic.
Pastor C. was recently elected General Secretary of the entire church, and in that post he will watch over all 80+ ECDR congregations and chapels on the island, their pastors, and their mission. He tells us that by our coming he hopes to expand the blessings of our long-standing partnership by inviting other Dominican churches to consider stepping out into similar cross-cultural relationships.
His sense of call to this has awakened our own: Here in Shenango Presbytery, D.D. has encouraged Clen-More and New Wilmington churches to reach out to new congregations for sharing in the DR partnership. Already West Middlesex has responded by sending some members on our March trip. It it conceivable, in a season still on its way, that there may be multiple, parallel partnerships reciprocating between God’s people in western Penn and God’s people on the northern shores of the Dominican. Exciting stuff, and we see this as God calling us to do some rewiring. Capacitation.
What a great word. And so much fun to see.
Not quite Carly Simon’s famous word, but close.
A version of the term I did not anticipate popped out at me unexpectedly last fall, a springy snake from one of those trickster can o’ nuts. In October, thirty of us gathered in our Social Hall with our Dominican Republic pals Pastor C. and his wife. We met for a panel discussion on ministry, hoping to learn from them home-grown insights about moving out into God’s world. Helping God’s people grow in ministry seemed naturally to take us down the path of growing leaders.
“The pastor cannot do it all himself,” C. reminded us, through our interpreter. “You have to grow leaders. You have to capacitate them.”
Capaci-what?
As the moderator of the panel time, I looked quizzically at our interpreter.
“What was that word!?”
She hastily retraced the Spanish in her mind. “That’s what he said,” somewhat bemused herself. “He’s saying capacitate them.” Pop! (the aforementioned snake from the can)
What a great word for growing ministry.
Two years ago in our church offices we were experiencing perennial problems staying connected to the Internet. The boys from Adelphia swooped in, crawled all over our building as in catacombs, and soon issued the diagnosis. Old wiring.
“We’re going to pull all new cable through the building. That should keep you connected, and increase capacity.” Indeed it has. Presbyterian bits and bytes sail along these days.
The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. That’s Jesus, in John 14.
Turns out our Christ is in the capacitation business: growing God’s people—growing us!—to do greater works in the world for God. And growing congregations, too: to provide more capacity for others to share in God’s ministry. Jesus, the cable guy; rewiring the church.
I’ve spent the better part of 30 months in the catacombs of our shared spiritual house, working on what I now know to call capacitation. I wonder: How is God calling you to capacitate? In your family? your work? your world? In your self?
This month, four of us have the opportunity to capacitate the mission partnership we share with our Dominican sisters and brothers. During his visit in the fall, Pastor C. invited D.D., C.W., and me to come to the annual General Assembly meeting of his church—the Evangelical Church of the Dominican Republic.
Pastor C. was recently elected General Secretary of the entire church, and in that post he will watch over all 80+ ECDR congregations and chapels on the island, their pastors, and their mission. He tells us that by our coming he hopes to expand the blessings of our long-standing partnership by inviting other Dominican churches to consider stepping out into similar cross-cultural relationships.
His sense of call to this has awakened our own: Here in Shenango Presbytery, D.D. has encouraged Clen-More and New Wilmington churches to reach out to new congregations for sharing in the DR partnership. Already West Middlesex has responded by sending some members on our March trip. It it conceivable, in a season still on its way, that there may be multiple, parallel partnerships reciprocating between God’s people in western Penn and God’s people on the northern shores of the Dominican. Exciting stuff, and we see this as God calling us to do some rewiring. Capacitation.
What a great word. And so much fun to see.
January 20, 2011
Splash down
Baptism of the Lord Sunday
Isaiah 42 / Matthew 3:13-17
As a callow follower of Jesus
I am so grateful for the gospel writers
and the early congregations of Christians
who first prompted then received their words
I am so grateful to have
with you
a front row seat
to the baptism of Jesus
I am so honored to be given a spot
on the banks of the diminutive Jordan River
standing with my feet
in the warm Palestinian mud
surrounded by the company of all the faithful
of every time and place
watching the river waters
waiting for the big moment
Down he goes
into the murky water
flat on his back into the unknown
(although he is in the good care of John)
John
whose very title
is confirmed in this moment
John the B
John the Baptist
not Southern, or American, or independent
John the Baptizer
John lowers our friend
down into the water
and we all watch
as the Jordan closes in above him
around him
over him
like the muddled waters before God creates
like the Red Sea closing in on obstinate Pharaoh
like sundown, on a Friday night at Golgotha
covered him completely, these waters
like a tomb
my tomb
Only, before long
(mercifully, his absence is only temporary)
here he comes again!
The mushrooming ripples on the surface
announce his arrival
back on the scene
Up from the water
By simple straightforward appearance
from the river’s edge:
one more faithful first-century Jew
washing
cleansing
marking
But by theological export
by the choirs of a million churches
by divine appointment
It may as well be a blue whale
surfacing from the deep
Blue whale:
the largest mammal ever to exist
108 feet, 180 metric tons
Our Lord:
slightly shorter
a little lighter
but arguably (blessedly)
the largest life ever to have lived
He surfaces from the deep like a leviathan
Only, not a monster — a friend
Still, the splash he makes is impressive
ripples of mercy running every which way
He’ll steadily and firmly set things right.
I’ve bathed him with my Spirit, my life.
He’ll set everything right among the nations.
Opening blind eyes
releasing prisoners from dungeons
emptying the dark prisons
I’m announcing the new salvation work.
Before he bursts on the scene, I’m telling you all about it.
This is God’s big splash!
And here we are
God’s funny people — "the holy catholic church"
like tourists on one of those hit-or-miss
whale-watching cruises
off the coast of Maine
$49.99 to get dressed up in a paper-thin poncho
and to stay mildly seasick for an hour
and to get stuck next to Mildred
from Montgomery, Alabama
Mildred: who while you wait to see the “big fish”
tells you all about her fascinating seven grandchildren
and her Schnoodle
Trixie
But there we are
all on the same side of the boat
leaning out to catch the view
cell phone cameras ready
tweets and texts, all set
Gawking tourists in search of God
When suddenly
the tin-can intercom behind you crackles to life
“Ladies and gentleman
This is your captain, John B.
Take a look now,
just to the east,
something is about to surface.
Get those cameras ready!”
Up.
Out!
SPLASH!
And from the railing of the ark
(Did I say ark? I meant boat)
there arises one of those collective ahs
like at the end of a really sweet fireworks show
But more than the spectacle of the splash down
the waves are what really catch our attention
This giant from God
coming up from the deep -- our deep, our death
with ripples that rock our boats-of-safety:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
And then that ship’s intercom
crackles to life again:
"This is my Son,
the Beloved,
with whom I am well pleased."
Isaiah 42 / Matthew 3:13-17
As a callow follower of Jesus
I am so grateful for the gospel writers
and the early congregations of Christians
who first prompted then received their words
I am so grateful to have
with you
a front row seat
to the baptism of Jesus
I am so honored to be given a spot
on the banks of the diminutive Jordan River
standing with my feet
in the warm Palestinian mud
surrounded by the company of all the faithful
of every time and place
watching the river waters
waiting for the big moment
Down he goes
into the murky water
flat on his back into the unknown
(although he is in the good care of John)
John
whose very title
is confirmed in this moment
John the B
John the Baptist
not Southern, or American, or independent
John the Baptizer
John lowers our friend
down into the water
and we all watch
as the Jordan closes in above him
around him
over him
like the muddled waters before God creates
like the Red Sea closing in on obstinate Pharaoh
like sundown, on a Friday night at Golgotha
covered him completely, these waters
like a tomb
my tomb
Only, before long
(mercifully, his absence is only temporary)
here he comes again!
The mushrooming ripples on the surface
announce his arrival
back on the scene
Up from the water
By simple straightforward appearance
from the river’s edge:
one more faithful first-century Jew
washing
cleansing
marking
But by theological export
by the choirs of a million churches
by divine appointment
It may as well be a blue whale
surfacing from the deep
Blue whale:
the largest mammal ever to exist
108 feet, 180 metric tons
Our Lord:
slightly shorter
a little lighter
but arguably (blessedly)
the largest life ever to have lived
He surfaces from the deep like a leviathan
Only, not a monster — a friend
Still, the splash he makes is impressive
ripples of mercy running every which way
He’ll steadily and firmly set things right.
I’ve bathed him with my Spirit, my life.
He’ll set everything right among the nations.
Opening blind eyes
releasing prisoners from dungeons
emptying the dark prisons
I’m announcing the new salvation work.
Before he bursts on the scene, I’m telling you all about it.
This is God’s big splash!
And here we are
God’s funny people — "the holy catholic church"
like tourists on one of those hit-or-miss
whale-watching cruises
off the coast of Maine
$49.99 to get dressed up in a paper-thin poncho
and to stay mildly seasick for an hour
and to get stuck next to Mildred
from Montgomery, Alabama
Mildred: who while you wait to see the “big fish”
tells you all about her fascinating seven grandchildren
and her Schnoodle
Trixie
But there we are
all on the same side of the boat
leaning out to catch the view
cell phone cameras ready
tweets and texts, all set
Gawking tourists in search of God
When suddenly
the tin-can intercom behind you crackles to life
“Ladies and gentleman
This is your captain, John B.
Take a look now,
just to the east,
something is about to surface.
Get those cameras ready!”
Up.
Out!
SPLASH!
And from the railing of the ark
(Did I say ark? I meant boat)
there arises one of those collective ahs
like at the end of a really sweet fireworks show
But more than the spectacle of the splash down
the waves are what really catch our attention
This giant from God
coming up from the deep -- our deep, our death
with ripples that rock our boats-of-safety:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
And then that ship’s intercom
crackles to life again:
"This is my Son,
the Beloved,
with whom I am well pleased."
January 4, 2011
Touch
A funeral homily for a physician
Romans 8 / Mark 1:40-45
It would surely be the height of presumption, and theologically suspect, to conclude that any one particular profession is the most Christian of occupations.
On the face of it, the best candidate for a solidly Christian profession would be carpentry. By most historical reconstructions, Jesus was, among other things, a trained carpenter. And surely at the bottom of the list would be preachers, since our Lord was consistently hardest on and most critical of preachers and other professional religious types like me.
But a case can made, I think, that the practice of healing, the art of medicine, the curing of disease—these are terribly Christian sorts of things to be about. And this is particularly so when such practices are imbued with acts of personal sacrifice, with a living concern for another’s well-being, and with a thoroughgoing love of neighbor. Love of neighbor, let us remember, being Jesus’ second commandment for all like R. H. who would follow in his way—in Jesus’ practice of God’s medicine in the world.
At bottom, what makes the practice of medicine a Christian act is likely not competency, but compassion. (Although, one need not suggest these two are in conflict with one another.) But to be human with one’s patients is to care for them, as well as their bodies. It is to offer, not merely advice or prescription, but counsel, concern, care. This is—if I may say it this way—a very Jesus sort-of-thing to do.
On Friday, the family and I were talking about the good counsel Dr. H. was given early on in his practice by a mentor in the profession. Essentially it was this: When there are no medicines to prescribe for one’s patient, there is always the gift of human touch. This wisdom, so important to your father, put one of you in the family in mind of Spencer Free’s lovely verse:
’Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart
Than shelter and bread and wine.
For shelter is gone when the night is o’er,
And bread lasts only a day.
But the touch of the hand
And the sound of the voice
Sing on in the soul always.
Free’s gentle words and our conversation on Friday put me in mind of Mark, chapter 1. The afflicted leper: broken in body from a dreaded skin disease, cut off from his community because of contagion. He boldly prevails upon Jesus for healing. “If you choose, you can make me well.”
At this moment, we all take a deep breath to see how it is God’s servant-son Jesus will respond. Mercifully, the gospel writer is unambiguous: Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to the leper, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Note well the compassion.
Note well the deliberate choice.
Note well the touch.
All those late-night phone calls.
The untold miles across Lawrence County.
More exchanges of compassion, counsel, care than can be numbered.
And even when calamities could not be cured through a prescription pad, at least your father was human—Christian, in that sense.
I wonder: Could it be that the work of a compassionate doctor is a faithful echo of God’s redemptive work in the world? Could it be a pointer to this Jesus, who choses care and compassion and practices healing and such good touch?
Of course, even healers themselves need healing sometimes.
Dr. H's time as a physician, R’s time in life, has now come to an end. For now, in this world, that seems to be the nature of things. But remember that we gather within these walls, in this building, long dedicated to announcing the good news of God. We gather here not just to remember a life well lived, or a profession well inhabited, but to remember a God’s promises, well-transacted. Nothing — neither life nor death — will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The physician is now the patient.
And he is in the good care of a good God,
who is moved with compassion,
who reaches out to touch lives,
who says to those he loves,
“I do choose: Be made well.”
It is so for R.H.
May it be so for each of us as well.
Romans 8 / Mark 1:40-45
It would surely be the height of presumption, and theologically suspect, to conclude that any one particular profession is the most Christian of occupations.
On the face of it, the best candidate for a solidly Christian profession would be carpentry. By most historical reconstructions, Jesus was, among other things, a trained carpenter. And surely at the bottom of the list would be preachers, since our Lord was consistently hardest on and most critical of preachers and other professional religious types like me.
But a case can made, I think, that the practice of healing, the art of medicine, the curing of disease—these are terribly Christian sorts of things to be about. And this is particularly so when such practices are imbued with acts of personal sacrifice, with a living concern for another’s well-being, and with a thoroughgoing love of neighbor. Love of neighbor, let us remember, being Jesus’ second commandment for all like R. H. who would follow in his way—in Jesus’ practice of God’s medicine in the world.
At bottom, what makes the practice of medicine a Christian act is likely not competency, but compassion. (Although, one need not suggest these two are in conflict with one another.) But to be human with one’s patients is to care for them, as well as their bodies. It is to offer, not merely advice or prescription, but counsel, concern, care. This is—if I may say it this way—a very Jesus sort-of-thing to do.
On Friday, the family and I were talking about the good counsel Dr. H. was given early on in his practice by a mentor in the profession. Essentially it was this: When there are no medicines to prescribe for one’s patient, there is always the gift of human touch. This wisdom, so important to your father, put one of you in the family in mind of Spencer Free’s lovely verse:
’Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart
Than shelter and bread and wine.
For shelter is gone when the night is o’er,
And bread lasts only a day.
But the touch of the hand
And the sound of the voice
Sing on in the soul always.
Free’s gentle words and our conversation on Friday put me in mind of Mark, chapter 1. The afflicted leper: broken in body from a dreaded skin disease, cut off from his community because of contagion. He boldly prevails upon Jesus for healing. “If you choose, you can make me well.”
At this moment, we all take a deep breath to see how it is God’s servant-son Jesus will respond. Mercifully, the gospel writer is unambiguous: Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to the leper, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Note well the compassion.
Note well the deliberate choice.
Note well the touch.
All those late-night phone calls.
The untold miles across Lawrence County.
More exchanges of compassion, counsel, care than can be numbered.
And even when calamities could not be cured through a prescription pad, at least your father was human—Christian, in that sense.
I wonder: Could it be that the work of a compassionate doctor is a faithful echo of God’s redemptive work in the world? Could it be a pointer to this Jesus, who choses care and compassion and practices healing and such good touch?
Of course, even healers themselves need healing sometimes.
Dr. H's time as a physician, R’s time in life, has now come to an end. For now, in this world, that seems to be the nature of things. But remember that we gather within these walls, in this building, long dedicated to announcing the good news of God. We gather here not just to remember a life well lived, or a profession well inhabited, but to remember a God’s promises, well-transacted. Nothing — neither life nor death — will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The physician is now the patient.
And he is in the good care of a good God,
who is moved with compassion,
who reaches out to touch lives,
who says to those he loves,
“I do choose: Be made well.”
It is so for R.H.
May it be so for each of us as well.
December 12, 2010
God’s “Glory”
He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being. (Hebrews 1:3)
There were so many Roman Catholics in the South Louisiana of my upbringing that even as late as the 1980s, we never ate meat on Fridays at my public school. Half my friends were altar boys, who often were excused early from middle school classes to attend training with their priest. Given this context, on occasion as a boy I found myself in a Roman Catholic sanctuary. Somewhere along the line, even my mother—a cradle Presbyterian—fell into the habit of attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the Benedictine seminary that lay hidden in the woods north of our town.
More often than not, I went with her. To be honest, I’m not sure why. What was probably only 45 minutes of Roman liturgy felt to this kid like an eon of chatter, not to mention the funny smoke up and down the aisle and those kneelers that were hard on the knees. As Protestants, we could not share in the mass-meal, but my mom always said she loved the scripture readings and the traditional chanting-in-song that went with them. As for me, all I wanted to do was get back home—back to bed, so as to shorten the chronological distance between me and my latest Lego acquisition on Christmas morning. My mom would count the chants leading to the birth; I was counting the minutes leading to my exit.
Except for the ceiling.
There was (is) in the chapel there at St. Joseph’s Abbey the most marvelous ceiling. To my discredit, it was the only feature of the night that ever held my attention. Sweeping arches, running in what seemed like every direction, with every space filled with the most marvelous fresco paintings I have ever beheld. The ceiling was chock-a-block with characters. Biblical characters. Adam and Eve and Moses and Miriam. All the prophets, kings, apostles. Mother Mary (of course), but also father Joseph. They were all up there, vibrant like Kodachrome, with their quasi-human faces. And of course, front and center in fab fresco was Jesus. Massive and magisterial, taking up more real estate than most others combined, he loomed large before us—over us, really. I can remember studying his steely eyes and flowing robes for what seemed like hours.
Ironic: We were supposed to be paying attention to everything happening all around us, but I confess I spent most of the midnight hour looking up above us.
So it is sometimes with the birth of the Son of God.
The title itself is grandiose. The expectations, enormous. “The Son of God!” No wonder the fresco on his Facebook page was 10 times that of all the others. This guy is a big deal. God announces the sending of a Son, the Son (meaning: the way a King sends a Prince, as in Psalm 2), and instinctively we all look up—to see power, to see prestige, to see a picture of God’s presence which of course must be high and lofty.
This is perhaps the great comedy of Christmas: We are all looking up to heaven, for the big bang of his appearance, for the pomp and circumstance of those marvelous vaulted ceilings, for a boy whose resume’ matches the Messiah we sing. Instead, Son of God comes as a mere neighbor to sit down on the pew, just next to us. He comes as a 1st century Palestinian rabbi from the other side of the tracks, with little to his name and even less for a bed. Instead of bang, he slips in with a whisper. Hardly the stuff of larger-than-life frescos.
It is not that he doesn’t deserve the ceiling, or could not himself secure it. It is that he consistently chooses otherwise, as in Philippians 2. The Christ appears in this world, not in a grandiose display of power and might, but in the arms of a woman who never in her right mind imagined she herself would one day be enthroned on the ceilings of sanctuaries. Every year, the world looks up for a Hail Mary pass from God; Jesus turns out once again to be a lateral move down on our level.
This is God’s glory—a birthing center full of domestic animals? This is God’s awesome power—mercy for those who need it most? This is the potency of God’s wrath—a life laid down for those whose life needs lifting up? Christmas comedy: I’m looking up at the sky for a Cecil B. Demille production; meanwhile, the risen Jesus comes alongside me as a stranger asking, with a touch of irony, “Hey, what are you looking for up there? I’m down here: in the broken bread, in the call to service, in the face of your neighbor in the pew and the stranger on the curb, in the stables, in the trenches, on the crosses. I’m down here: the true reflection of God’s greatest glory.”
Thanks be to God for the drab ceiling and the long pews.
There were so many Roman Catholics in the South Louisiana of my upbringing that even as late as the 1980s, we never ate meat on Fridays at my public school. Half my friends were altar boys, who often were excused early from middle school classes to attend training with their priest. Given this context, on occasion as a boy I found myself in a Roman Catholic sanctuary. Somewhere along the line, even my mother—a cradle Presbyterian—fell into the habit of attending midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the Benedictine seminary that lay hidden in the woods north of our town.
More often than not, I went with her. To be honest, I’m not sure why. What was probably only 45 minutes of Roman liturgy felt to this kid like an eon of chatter, not to mention the funny smoke up and down the aisle and those kneelers that were hard on the knees. As Protestants, we could not share in the mass-meal, but my mom always said she loved the scripture readings and the traditional chanting-in-song that went with them. As for me, all I wanted to do was get back home—back to bed, so as to shorten the chronological distance between me and my latest Lego acquisition on Christmas morning. My mom would count the chants leading to the birth; I was counting the minutes leading to my exit.
Except for the ceiling.
There was (is) in the chapel there at St. Joseph’s Abbey the most marvelous ceiling. To my discredit, it was the only feature of the night that ever held my attention. Sweeping arches, running in what seemed like every direction, with every space filled with the most marvelous fresco paintings I have ever beheld. The ceiling was chock-a-block with characters. Biblical characters. Adam and Eve and Moses and Miriam. All the prophets, kings, apostles. Mother Mary (of course), but also father Joseph. They were all up there, vibrant like Kodachrome, with their quasi-human faces. And of course, front and center in fab fresco was Jesus. Massive and magisterial, taking up more real estate than most others combined, he loomed large before us—over us, really. I can remember studying his steely eyes and flowing robes for what seemed like hours.
Ironic: We were supposed to be paying attention to everything happening all around us, but I confess I spent most of the midnight hour looking up above us.
So it is sometimes with the birth of the Son of God.
The title itself is grandiose. The expectations, enormous. “The Son of God!” No wonder the fresco on his Facebook page was 10 times that of all the others. This guy is a big deal. God announces the sending of a Son, the Son (meaning: the way a King sends a Prince, as in Psalm 2), and instinctively we all look up—to see power, to see prestige, to see a picture of God’s presence which of course must be high and lofty.
This is perhaps the great comedy of Christmas: We are all looking up to heaven, for the big bang of his appearance, for the pomp and circumstance of those marvelous vaulted ceilings, for a boy whose resume’ matches the Messiah we sing. Instead, Son of God comes as a mere neighbor to sit down on the pew, just next to us. He comes as a 1st century Palestinian rabbi from the other side of the tracks, with little to his name and even less for a bed. Instead of bang, he slips in with a whisper. Hardly the stuff of larger-than-life frescos.
It is not that he doesn’t deserve the ceiling, or could not himself secure it. It is that he consistently chooses otherwise, as in Philippians 2. The Christ appears in this world, not in a grandiose display of power and might, but in the arms of a woman who never in her right mind imagined she herself would one day be enthroned on the ceilings of sanctuaries. Every year, the world looks up for a Hail Mary pass from God; Jesus turns out once again to be a lateral move down on our level.
This is God’s glory—a birthing center full of domestic animals? This is God’s awesome power—mercy for those who need it most? This is the potency of God’s wrath—a life laid down for those whose life needs lifting up? Christmas comedy: I’m looking up at the sky for a Cecil B. Demille production; meanwhile, the risen Jesus comes alongside me as a stranger asking, with a touch of irony, “Hey, what are you looking for up there? I’m down here: in the broken bread, in the call to service, in the face of your neighbor in the pew and the stranger on the curb, in the stables, in the trenches, on the crosses. I’m down here: the true reflection of God’s greatest glory.”
Thanks be to God for the drab ceiling and the long pews.
December 11, 2010
TRIBUTUM
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Beloved Alma,
The invitation to speak a word in tribute about another’s life is an unqualified honor. To speak of your life thus far is certainly that. But given our friendship, this summons to speak of you is a sheer delight as well.
What’s a preacher to do in such a moment as this? How is one rightly to proceed? A tribute in the third person seems an option. “She was, she is, she will be …” Yet, in this mode, the words pass too easily over your ears, serving more as gift to those who gather with you on this day. This seems to me to miss the point of this hour, for this is your time to receive, as a living gift, some measure of how it is your words and your way have blessed the lives of those who love you – so many of whom are gathered here with you in this place.
“Tribute.” From the Latin, of course! TRIBUTUM: to grant, to allot, to bestow.
And so I am delighted to bestow these words to you, about you, all the while knowing that your hearing them will likely be a difficult pill for your otherwise self-effacing spirit to swallow. Indeed, your humility – that mild bit of embarrassment you evidence when in your presence someone draws attention to your many virtues – is one of graces we love about you, even if it tempts you now not to believe what you hear.
So listen you must, and listen well.
We are multivalent creatures, we who are created in God’s image. That is to say, our lives, if we are blessed, are thick with many layers. A tribute of any merit must furrow up these rich layers of a life. And with you, dear friend, this cultivation is an easy effort.
An initial glance at the vita of your life, Alma, and one finds in your personal and public résumé the touchstones of those deeper layers that define the woman you have become. This uppermost stratum is diverse and textured, and thoroughly noble. One notes your storied Virginia upbringing, an early heritage of Christian faith, stimulating collegiate study, training in the classics, public service to public education, a beloved marital bond, devoted motherhood (now on a grand scale), civic engagement with this fair town, volunteered time to those in need, and, of course, active membership and ordained office in this Presbyterian kirk. (You will note where my list culminates!)
There are other roles to note, other seasons that define, I am certain. But of these, I know. And for these, we all give thanks to God, because in some measure, every one in this room has connections to your story. In greater measure, everyone in this room has been made better having known you.
But even still, vitae are one-dimensional lists. We can all list the seasons of our lives; it does not mean that we have lived them well. But with you, Alma, deeper layers reveal deeper ways, for no one could ever accuse you of superficiality. Indeed, the underlying layer of any life is the one on which stand CORAM DEO, in the presence of God. And we Presbyterians are prone to believe that anything good that arises from our lives, any virtue evident to the world, is both a gift from God and a response to what God has done. “We love, because God first loved us.” If we sing, it is because God has song his song. If we pray, it is because God has spoken to us. If we compose, it is because God has written the poem of his works into our hearts. God acts; we respond.
And so, a pastor and friend cannot help but to note and name the myriad ways in which you, as a child of God in Christ, have responded to the graceful claim on your life.
For instance, I have always noted your devotion to your children: that durable, lasting bond that only a mother develops with her beloved offspring. So deeply have you rejoiced with them, wept with them, implanted faith in them, prayed for them. More than once have you offered them to the Lord: that most difficult of prayers, offered at the intersection of your desire to shelter them under your wings forever and your knowledge that you cannot save them, that you cannot be both Lord and mother. It is a mother’s prayer offered in a world “upside down.”
I also sense in you Alma, a deep love of place. When you speak of your life, one notes in your stories the rich details about the places in which you have responded to God. The hallowed halls of a collegiate library, where the beauty and the splendor of the Almighty and the creation began to come alive in your mind’s eye. The many classrooms of your profession, whose air was filled with chalky dust and words from languages long laid down, even while your mind and heart were filled with the names and lives and the welfare of your students. This little town, with its numerous meandering streets, each one mirroring a specific relationship you have woven with so many friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors. And certainly your lovely home, filled with the stuff of Alma: books and papers and letters … and piles … and memories: the raising of your children, the buttressing of your marriage, the welcoming of friends. And all the while, the working out of your salvation in word and in prayer. To transfer description: “A little house sitting and waiting, as if with a silent yearning.”
It seems to me that too many of us with faith in Christ have bought a Gnostic lie, believing ourselves sometimes too good for this world that God has gifted. We float on the surface of their lives, never really discovering that grace comes alive down deep in the thickness of life – in the odd, peculiar, specific places where we conduct our lives. “Let it be on earth, as it is in heaven,” we pray.
What I love about you Alma, is that you have taken God’s word into every nook and cranny of your earthy (rooted) life. Yours is not a subdivided spirit, nor are you more spiritual than God. And yet precisely because you are rooted in God’s creation, that God-shaped heart of yours – hardly ninety – awaits in eager expectation for the world yet to come. Living well, yet looking ahead. This is a witness to me.
Another layer in you that I love are all the unlikely juxtapositions, the contrasts of your person. Consider your innocent absentmindedness, set against your wise, luminous mind; your playful, even impish of sense of humor, set against a streak of sober righteousness that charts through your life like a burst of radiant sun, parting the fog and lighting our way behind you. And I love the fact that even after nine decades of life, you still wonder about things, you still chuckle when you hear a funny phrase, you still pray with childlike expectation – prayers carried on wise, old words. And you still dabble in innocent irreverence, while always making your nest in true doxology.
I also love that your Christianity cannot easily be pinned down, to one particular tradition or its perfunctory ways. Talk about juxtapositions: you are too passionate about the gospel of Jesus to be contained by stuffy, proper Presbyterians, yet you are too thoughtful, too full of faith, to roost with simplistic fundamentalists. You are too prayerful, too Spirit-filled for these tired old mainline traditions of ours, yet you are too grounded in the Word and its wisdom to be swept away by charismata alone. Alma, you are a consummate Christian, a virtuous daughter of faith, and you have been a model of devotion to this church, its members, and its several pastors, lo these many years.
And I have theory about you: that the frequently forgotten purse, the keys locked in the car, the water for tea too often left boiling on the stove … These are signs, not of decline, but that your thoughts regularly take up the great and glorious subjects, that your heart is absorbed with the grandeur of God, and that your life now has a nearly constant an upward gaze. So I say: Let the tea and the keys and purse be gone. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Which brings me to my last love about you, the final and best layer in which I have seen your regular response to God and his gracious Son. So many titles could name your life, so many roles: daughter, wife, mother; student, teacher, neighbor; disciple, elder, sister in Christ. But the one that has settled in me, that title that best describes you when I ponder your life, is poet. “Poet.”
POETA. Maker of verses. A creative artist with words. Says Webster, “a writer having great imaginative, expressive gifts, possessing a special sensitivity to language.” This is how I best imagine your life.
Now I know that you are not fond of this title, at least in reference to yourself. You think it too lofty, too immense, unfitting of one who “scribbled and imposed” her poetic verse. But you must learn to embrace it, Alma, before it is too late, for it is one of the manifold gifts that God has given you, specifically you, in order that you might bless the world for him. Poet. And let us be clear that a poet is not merely a rhymer of words. There is difference, after all, between Dr. Seuss and Gerard Manly Hopkins, and in that spectrum you take your providential place. Maybe in rhyme, but maybe not, a poet is one whose heart and mind are so awed to heaven that they cannot help but speak about its glories in the language of earth. Poets do not see their lives or the world in regimented sections or dangerous taxonomies. They do not settle for manufactured truth or easy, customary answers. They resist the opiate of busyness and constant pleasure, choosing instead to see with a vision through which few perceive: a view that God and his Word is indeed all in all – all over the world as Almighty, all over your life, Alma, as Lord.
As providence would have it, I recently stumbled upon a little verse of Walt Whitman, buried in a book written mostly for preachers. Whitman’s vision of the world is certainly different than mine and yours, yet his words came alive as I pondered this tribute for you. Says Walt:
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists,
the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
I note that, whatever his intentions, his “son of God” could easily be our dear Christ, our Lord. But I also note that his “singer,” his “poet,” could also be you, and me, and anyone who seeks to put the stuff off heaven into the words of earth.
For after all is said is done, after the facts and figures are all exhausted, after the cheap grace and prayer-less thought have run out … finally the poet comes, to speak about God and his grace, about faith, hope, and love.
And finally you come to us, as well, with your words and your ways:
You speak of your life, ruminating on the unstoppable providence of God, and “the tiny nudgings that come from time to time from beyond the stars.”
You speak of a grace, and of finding it in the most unlikely of places, like in “ice and water,” and in the kindness of one who delivers.
You speak to your children – words to them yet unborn, “tiny babes, in a world grown old.” You speak to their coming up and their playful years, and you speak to them in their going away.
You poke fun at us, too easily consumed with ourselves. You notice our all too funny ways. And in not thinking so highly of yourself, you have learned to take note of the frolicking, playful side of God’s gifted life: leaves crunching under foot, dogs burying their biscuits, chiggers in the blackberry patch. These too, make up the splendid creation.
And in your poetic way, you speak to God – particularly and often, I notice, about the world yet to come. Your writing make this clear: So ready are you, dear friend, for the great resurrection and the new day. How you long for that day in your words and in your heart. Perhaps your childlike hope is now disciplined and tuned by the loss of those you have so deeply embraced.
Only poets learn to speak out loud about that tensive space between the now and the not yet. But to turn your phrase, “Do not worry; far off places no longer matter. You are traveling now toward God.”
My dear friend,
with these words you come to us,
worthy of the poet name,
a true daughter of God,
singing his songs,
and speaking his words.
Beloved Alma, on behalf of all the Presbyterians of this flock, then and now, we give thanks to God for the wonder, joy, and beauty of your life lived so well before him. And we offer our fervent prayers (though not quite as well offered as by you) that there are still ample more days for you to listen to your storied life and to offer your words back to God. “Finally shall come the poet worthy that name.”
To God be all the glory; to you, all our love.
Godspeed and happy 90th birthday.
Beloved Alma,
The invitation to speak a word in tribute about another’s life is an unqualified honor. To speak of your life thus far is certainly that. But given our friendship, this summons to speak of you is a sheer delight as well.
What’s a preacher to do in such a moment as this? How is one rightly to proceed? A tribute in the third person seems an option. “She was, she is, she will be …” Yet, in this mode, the words pass too easily over your ears, serving more as gift to those who gather with you on this day. This seems to me to miss the point of this hour, for this is your time to receive, as a living gift, some measure of how it is your words and your way have blessed the lives of those who love you – so many of whom are gathered here with you in this place.
“Tribute.” From the Latin, of course! TRIBUTUM: to grant, to allot, to bestow.
And so I am delighted to bestow these words to you, about you, all the while knowing that your hearing them will likely be a difficult pill for your otherwise self-effacing spirit to swallow. Indeed, your humility – that mild bit of embarrassment you evidence when in your presence someone draws attention to your many virtues – is one of graces we love about you, even if it tempts you now not to believe what you hear.
So listen you must, and listen well.
We are multivalent creatures, we who are created in God’s image. That is to say, our lives, if we are blessed, are thick with many layers. A tribute of any merit must furrow up these rich layers of a life. And with you, dear friend, this cultivation is an easy effort.
An initial glance at the vita of your life, Alma, and one finds in your personal and public résumé the touchstones of those deeper layers that define the woman you have become. This uppermost stratum is diverse and textured, and thoroughly noble. One notes your storied Virginia upbringing, an early heritage of Christian faith, stimulating collegiate study, training in the classics, public service to public education, a beloved marital bond, devoted motherhood (now on a grand scale), civic engagement with this fair town, volunteered time to those in need, and, of course, active membership and ordained office in this Presbyterian kirk. (You will note where my list culminates!)
There are other roles to note, other seasons that define, I am certain. But of these, I know. And for these, we all give thanks to God, because in some measure, every one in this room has connections to your story. In greater measure, everyone in this room has been made better having known you.
But even still, vitae are one-dimensional lists. We can all list the seasons of our lives; it does not mean that we have lived them well. But with you, Alma, deeper layers reveal deeper ways, for no one could ever accuse you of superficiality. Indeed, the underlying layer of any life is the one on which stand CORAM DEO, in the presence of God. And we Presbyterians are prone to believe that anything good that arises from our lives, any virtue evident to the world, is both a gift from God and a response to what God has done. “We love, because God first loved us.” If we sing, it is because God has song his song. If we pray, it is because God has spoken to us. If we compose, it is because God has written the poem of his works into our hearts. God acts; we respond.
And so, a pastor and friend cannot help but to note and name the myriad ways in which you, as a child of God in Christ, have responded to the graceful claim on your life.
For instance, I have always noted your devotion to your children: that durable, lasting bond that only a mother develops with her beloved offspring. So deeply have you rejoiced with them, wept with them, implanted faith in them, prayed for them. More than once have you offered them to the Lord: that most difficult of prayers, offered at the intersection of your desire to shelter them under your wings forever and your knowledge that you cannot save them, that you cannot be both Lord and mother. It is a mother’s prayer offered in a world “upside down.”
I also sense in you Alma, a deep love of place. When you speak of your life, one notes in your stories the rich details about the places in which you have responded to God. The hallowed halls of a collegiate library, where the beauty and the splendor of the Almighty and the creation began to come alive in your mind’s eye. The many classrooms of your profession, whose air was filled with chalky dust and words from languages long laid down, even while your mind and heart were filled with the names and lives and the welfare of your students. This little town, with its numerous meandering streets, each one mirroring a specific relationship you have woven with so many friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors. And certainly your lovely home, filled with the stuff of Alma: books and papers and letters … and piles … and memories: the raising of your children, the buttressing of your marriage, the welcoming of friends. And all the while, the working out of your salvation in word and in prayer. To transfer description: “A little house sitting and waiting, as if with a silent yearning.”
It seems to me that too many of us with faith in Christ have bought a Gnostic lie, believing ourselves sometimes too good for this world that God has gifted. We float on the surface of their lives, never really discovering that grace comes alive down deep in the thickness of life – in the odd, peculiar, specific places where we conduct our lives. “Let it be on earth, as it is in heaven,” we pray.
What I love about you Alma, is that you have taken God’s word into every nook and cranny of your earthy (rooted) life. Yours is not a subdivided spirit, nor are you more spiritual than God. And yet precisely because you are rooted in God’s creation, that God-shaped heart of yours – hardly ninety – awaits in eager expectation for the world yet to come. Living well, yet looking ahead. This is a witness to me.
Another layer in you that I love are all the unlikely juxtapositions, the contrasts of your person. Consider your innocent absentmindedness, set against your wise, luminous mind; your playful, even impish of sense of humor, set against a streak of sober righteousness that charts through your life like a burst of radiant sun, parting the fog and lighting our way behind you. And I love the fact that even after nine decades of life, you still wonder about things, you still chuckle when you hear a funny phrase, you still pray with childlike expectation – prayers carried on wise, old words. And you still dabble in innocent irreverence, while always making your nest in true doxology.
I also love that your Christianity cannot easily be pinned down, to one particular tradition or its perfunctory ways. Talk about juxtapositions: you are too passionate about the gospel of Jesus to be contained by stuffy, proper Presbyterians, yet you are too thoughtful, too full of faith, to roost with simplistic fundamentalists. You are too prayerful, too Spirit-filled for these tired old mainline traditions of ours, yet you are too grounded in the Word and its wisdom to be swept away by charismata alone. Alma, you are a consummate Christian, a virtuous daughter of faith, and you have been a model of devotion to this church, its members, and its several pastors, lo these many years.
And I have theory about you: that the frequently forgotten purse, the keys locked in the car, the water for tea too often left boiling on the stove … These are signs, not of decline, but that your thoughts regularly take up the great and glorious subjects, that your heart is absorbed with the grandeur of God, and that your life now has a nearly constant an upward gaze. So I say: Let the tea and the keys and purse be gone. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
Which brings me to my last love about you, the final and best layer in which I have seen your regular response to God and his gracious Son. So many titles could name your life, so many roles: daughter, wife, mother; student, teacher, neighbor; disciple, elder, sister in Christ. But the one that has settled in me, that title that best describes you when I ponder your life, is poet. “Poet.”
POETA. Maker of verses. A creative artist with words. Says Webster, “a writer having great imaginative, expressive gifts, possessing a special sensitivity to language.” This is how I best imagine your life.
Now I know that you are not fond of this title, at least in reference to yourself. You think it too lofty, too immense, unfitting of one who “scribbled and imposed” her poetic verse. But you must learn to embrace it, Alma, before it is too late, for it is one of the manifold gifts that God has given you, specifically you, in order that you might bless the world for him. Poet. And let us be clear that a poet is not merely a rhymer of words. There is difference, after all, between Dr. Seuss and Gerard Manly Hopkins, and in that spectrum you take your providential place. Maybe in rhyme, but maybe not, a poet is one whose heart and mind are so awed to heaven that they cannot help but speak about its glories in the language of earth. Poets do not see their lives or the world in regimented sections or dangerous taxonomies. They do not settle for manufactured truth or easy, customary answers. They resist the opiate of busyness and constant pleasure, choosing instead to see with a vision through which few perceive: a view that God and his Word is indeed all in all – all over the world as Almighty, all over your life, Alma, as Lord.
As providence would have it, I recently stumbled upon a little verse of Walt Whitman, buried in a book written mostly for preachers. Whitman’s vision of the world is certainly different than mine and yours, yet his words came alive as I pondered this tribute for you. Says Walt:
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists,
the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
I note that, whatever his intentions, his “son of God” could easily be our dear Christ, our Lord. But I also note that his “singer,” his “poet,” could also be you, and me, and anyone who seeks to put the stuff off heaven into the words of earth.
For after all is said is done, after the facts and figures are all exhausted, after the cheap grace and prayer-less thought have run out … finally the poet comes, to speak about God and his grace, about faith, hope, and love.
And finally you come to us, as well, with your words and your ways:
You speak of your life, ruminating on the unstoppable providence of God, and “the tiny nudgings that come from time to time from beyond the stars.”
You speak of a grace, and of finding it in the most unlikely of places, like in “ice and water,” and in the kindness of one who delivers.
You speak to your children – words to them yet unborn, “tiny babes, in a world grown old.” You speak to their coming up and their playful years, and you speak to them in their going away.
You poke fun at us, too easily consumed with ourselves. You notice our all too funny ways. And in not thinking so highly of yourself, you have learned to take note of the frolicking, playful side of God’s gifted life: leaves crunching under foot, dogs burying their biscuits, chiggers in the blackberry patch. These too, make up the splendid creation.
And in your poetic way, you speak to God – particularly and often, I notice, about the world yet to come. Your writing make this clear: So ready are you, dear friend, for the great resurrection and the new day. How you long for that day in your words and in your heart. Perhaps your childlike hope is now disciplined and tuned by the loss of those you have so deeply embraced.
Only poets learn to speak out loud about that tensive space between the now and the not yet. But to turn your phrase, “Do not worry; far off places no longer matter. You are traveling now toward God.”
My dear friend,
with these words you come to us,
worthy of the poet name,
a true daughter of God,
singing his songs,
and speaking his words.
Beloved Alma, on behalf of all the Presbyterians of this flock, then and now, we give thanks to God for the wonder, joy, and beauty of your life lived so well before him. And we offer our fervent prayers (though not quite as well offered as by you) that there are still ample more days for you to listen to your storied life and to offer your words back to God. “Finally shall come the poet worthy that name.”
To God be all the glory; to you, all our love.
Godspeed and happy 90th birthday.
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