Being reminded of the obvious

This past weekend, I was given a reminder of something that I know already: I have been blessed with a pretty wonderful family. Case in point: on Saturday alone, Ed turned in arguably his best race of his running career, Emma scored in the ribbon category and Charlie won (to him) the coveted Trail Walking trophy in the Adaptive Riding competition at the County Fair. “Hardware” was being collected copiously that day in two different counties by Martin kids.

On Saturday morning, Ed ran in the Woman of Courage 5 &10K race in Ladysmith. Even though he has been focusing on 10Ks of late, I wanted him to run the 5K to get a read on how his summer training was coming along. What’s more, this gave him opportunity to run with and against his budding friend Andrew Hetke, who is Ladysmith’s No. 1. All during this past track season, Andrew was the rabbit Ed chased at almost every event. Also showing up that morning was Schmidt from Flambeau, the guy who beat Ed out for the last State qualifying spot in the infamous “snow” run in Bruce last October. I knew Ed would run well but it was a bit of a thrill when in the home stretch there was Andrew and he running 1 & 2 respectively. Andrew had 3 steps on Ed and was able to hold him off but even so, Ed crossed the line at 18:18 crushing his previous best by 7 seconds. And, oh yeah, Schmidt was nowhere in sight. But taking 2nd place overall is not what thrills me but seeing Ed being rewarded for his work ethic and doing it with so much class. Before the race he asked Andrew if he could pray for him and I managed to capture that moment on camera. It’s a picture that speaks. It means that as much as Ed is passionate about running, he is as much or more passionate about Jesus and his relationship with his friends. I am more proud of that moment than the picture I snapped of him crossing the line.

That afternoon, it was off to the Fair to be wowed by two more of my kids. Our daughter, Emma, is remarkably talented – artistically, musically, dramatically and dance-wise. What’s more she’s a good golfer and a darn smart kid. She entered a variety of projects at this year’s fair – a painting, a tin man lawn ornament, jewelry, a tie-dyed shirt, an exhaustive poster about the anatomy of rabbits, a flower pot and flowers and a scrap book. She collected various ribbons – several blues, a few reds and a white and, in the case of her scrap book, a purple which spells G-R-A-N-D C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N. Emma is a very focused individual and I sincerely believe that whatever she puts her mind to she can do and do well. I not impressed with her because she is so talented. I’m impressed with her because though she is so talented she works diligently to develop her craft whatever that happens to be at the moment be it developing her golf swing or painting a picture or working on a term paper. But just as earnestly as she takes school or dance, she takes her friendship with Jesus, what one guy refers to as “the most important love relationship in our life.”

But as good as the day already had been it was about to get better. Charlie has been in the Adaptive Riding program of 4-H for the past four years. During “horse season” (May-June), Linda faithfully drives Charlie up to the fairgrounds every Wednesday night where he and his “pardner”, Lannie, work on horsemanship and riding skills. Lannie and his wife, Shirley, loan their steady mare of 14 years, Dakota, and the three of them – Charlie, Lannie and Dakota – make quite a team. But Saturday afternoon, here came Charlie sitting tall in the saddle riding Dakota without a lead rope. Lannie was at this side but Charlie was riding and, as he has been coached, smiling. He looked like he had been doing this all his life. Charlie’s autism aside, to me, his birth was so traumatic that in many ways he is like a snarled ball of string that slowly but surely as the years pass and people pour into his life and prayers are prayed over him, he unfolds and reveals the mystery that he is. Here’s a kid who when he was five years old hardly spoke a word and now is more fluent than he ever has been. He continues to grow and develop and seeing him ride atop Dakota so confidently while wearing his brand new shades was a poignant moment to me and I was reminded that he’s going to be alright. Maybe more so than when it was announced that he had won the Trail Walking trophy, the one that mattered to him more than any of the other awards they were handing out that day.

But we have another amazing kid to be proud of as well. Christine graduated from high school in 2007 and that summer spent five weeks in South Korea tutoring kindergarten through college-age kids in conversational English. Now, it’s the place she wants to get back to most of all. She works these days at a day care in Rice Lake saving what money she makes while at the same time, paying her own way. She has a wonderful eye for photography but one of her greatest strengths is her heart. Christine loves and believes in people. She never forgets a birthday and frequently buys little gifts for her friends and the other special people in her life. She has a way with babies and is a blessing to those who know her. In so many ways she is very Joan-like (referring to my mother): inordinately considerate, always encouraging and via her camera (which is always in her big bag she lugs around) ready to celebrate the moments of her life be they large or small.

And I must not forget Linda, my wife and life-companion. During the twenty-four years we have been married most certainly I have been loved more than I have loved. She’s cheerfully and willingly followed me whether we ended up living in an apartment, a trailer, a rented house or in the home we have owned since a week before Ed was born. But on this Saturday afternoon, I was reminded again of what a wonderful mother she is to her our children. There she was in the stands cheering for Charlie while Emma nestled in her lap, and in between performances, either joking with Ed or talking with Christine about trivia at the day care in a way that only mothers can multi-task.

So, I’ve taken nearly 1,200 words to state what most of you already know or could have told me much fewer: I am very fortunate to be surrounded by such good company. But it’s good to be reminded of these things because the response can only be gratitude for the small circle of love that you find yourself a part of.

The Madness of John the Baptizer

“The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.” Matthew 14:9-11


So ends the life of a man who truly lived a life set apart. His birth was foretold by Gabriel the archangel and when still in utero, he recognized his Lord though he, too, was still within his mother’s womb when she had come to visit her kinswoman, Elizabeth. True to the angel’s words, when he came of age he embarked on the ministry foretold of him hundreds of years before by the prophet Isaiah. He tirelessly prepared people for the coming of the One who would “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). For a season, the whole country as it were turned out to see this strange “Robinson Crusoe”-like figure living in the desert places. When Jesus finally did begin to reveal himself, John pointed him out to those who ultimately would cease being his disciples and become those of Jesus. “A man can only receive what is given him from heaven,” he would reply to those who wondered why he wasn’t upset at those who chose to leave his ranks to join the following of Jesus. “He must increase and I must decrease” (see John 1).

But as astute as John was he, too, was confounded by the purpose of Jesus when he did not begin to do the things John expected him to do. While sitting in prison for (presumably) calling the king on the carpet for his illicit affair with his sister-in-law, John sends a delegation to ask Jesus (in so many words) “Was I wrong? Aren’t you the one who is sent to establish God’s kingdom?” (Matthew 11). Jesus makes his inquiry a teaching point. “John is a most godly man and the greatest and last of the great prophets and yet, those who “get it” – who understand what the kingdom is really all about – are greater than John the Baptizer. You are blessed if you are get this point.”

And so here sits Zachariah and Elizabeth’s son, sitting in cell for being unafraid to stand up to the king wondering if he has indeed fulfilled what his mission had been, if somehow he had let God down or missed that which he was born to do. And then one night, quite suddenly he is dragged from his cell and executed for reasons that are, in the scope of things, quite trivial. Herodias, in her best impression of “Lady Macbeth”, wanted to settle a score and when her daughter dances the Dance of the Seven Veils and Herod and his court are all agog at her, she finds a way to do it. So dies he whom Jesus referred to as “the greatest of all who have ever been born of a woman.”

This past winter I read (for the first time in its entirety) Foxe’s Book of Martyrs followed up by VOM’s Jesus Freaks. I’d like to hope that if it was ever called upon me to die for the faith that first, I would be found faithful and second, I would know that I was dying for “the Cause.” Like so many of the faithful witnesses that have gone before us, I would hope to say something on the level of those brave words uttered by Daniel’s friends before King Nebuchadnezzar: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (3:17-18). But what if you meet your demise simply because there was a glitch in the paperwork? I mean, it’s one thing to go to your death Sydney Carton-style knowing that it is a “…far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest than I go to, than I have ever known” but it’s quite another to be martyred because a king in a drunken moment is embarrassed to lose face with his guests and against his better judgment orders your execution.

I think of Jeremiah who though he was invited to live in relative comfort in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem chose to remain with people who never listened to him in the first place. According to tradition, he died in Egypt – the very place he was adamant that the remnant should not return to. I think of Paul alone languishing in the Maritima prison dictating his last letter out (2 Timothy) before meeting his demise. “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me” (2 Tim 4:9-11). I’m only speculating here, but I wonder if the rigors of his circumstances even caused the indefatigable Paul to second guess his plight in weaker moments. Did I do that which I was asked to do? Is God unhappy with me? Is this how it ends? Preach righteousness and the glory of the kingdom and then die for what amounts ultimately for silly reasons?

And maybe that is one of the things that can be gleaned from John’s story. Some of us will die in worthy causes – a soldier bravely manning his post so that members of his company may gain higher ground, a preacher refusing to fold in the face of public pressure to recant. But many of us do and may suffer or perish at the petty whims of the powers that be. But God knows our heart and in the end, we can only do what we can do with what we have been given to do and trust our lives to Him reminding ourselves that we walk by faith not by sight.

Brennan Manning puts it this way,

     In the final analysis, discipleship is a life of sublime madness.

    The truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ does not rise and fall on the issues of corrupt clergy,
    the exploitation of the poor, the stinginess of multinationals, or the irrational fanaticism      of  modern dictatorship. It deserves to be accepted or rejected for what it is: an answer to the most fundamental questions a person may ask: Is life absurd or does it have a purpose? Jesus replies that only do our lives have a purpose but God has directly intervened in human affairs to make abundantly clear what that purpose is. What is the nature of Ultimate Reality? Jesus responds that the Really Real is generous, forgiving, saving love. In the end, will life triumph over death? With unshaken confidence Jesus answers, The kingdom of My Father cannot be overcome, even by death. In the end everything will be all right. Nothing can harm you permanently; no loss is lasting, no defeat more than transitory, no disappointment is conclusive. Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the kingdom of God will conquer these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.
The Ragamuffin Gospel, Pp. 199-200

May God find we who trust in Him equally mad as the one Jesus referred to as he who was not surpassed by any in history regardless of what circumstances ultimately result in our own death.

Missing the Barn

ALL:

There's no business like show business

Like no business I know

MEN'S CHORUS:

Everything about it is appealing

WOMEN'S CHORUS:

Everything the traffic will allow

MEN'S CHORUS:

No where could you have that happy feeling

ALL:

When you aren't stealing that extra bow

There's no people like show people

They smile when they are low

MEN'S CHORUS:

Yesterday they told you you would not go far

WOMEN'S CHORUS:

That night you opened and there you are

MEN'S CHORUS:

Next day on your dressing room they've hung a star

ALL:

Let's go on with the show

“There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Annie Get Your Gun

Last night, Linda and I took in “Mame” at the Red Barn Theater east of Rice Lake. We were treated to an evening laced with some wonderful performances and a show that left you humming some of its songs on the drive home. I never tire of getting wowed by what some creative people can do with paint and plywood in creating sets that are believable and (from a community theater’s point-of-view, cost effective). Having been fortunate to perform in other venues around the county there is something unique about the atmosphere of the Barn, the sense of intimacy the audience feels with the performers and the performers with their audience. It is a very special place.

When we knew we would be going on sabbatical leave this summer we made a conscious decision not to audition for any of the shows this season. To commit to a show, you commit pretty much a month to five weeks of your evenings to it so if any of us would have said yes to a show that would have meant a third of our summer. It was the right choice to make for this summer. But sitting out in the audience last night I also was aware that I was missing being up there as well as missing our friends many of whom were dancing and singing upon the stage.

We’ve been attending performances at the Barn since the mid-1990s when many of the kids in our youth group – one of whom was also in the audience last night – were cast in various shows: “Sound of Music”, “Camelot”, and “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” are three that come to mind. I always said to myself if I was ever offered an opportunity to perform I would give it a whirl but January auditions would come and go and I’d either forget about the date or chicken out. And then in the summer of 2003 Barn veteran Chris Fritz called me up and wondered if I would be interested in a part in the upcoming production of “Minnie’s Boys,” a Broadway musical I had never heard of about the Marx Brothers. The guy they had cast as Harpo had pulled out and they were in dire need of a replacement. I spoke with the director (Nancy Erickson Dutmer – who, by the way, was Mame last night) and with a little rearranging of my schedule said, “Sure.” The rest is (for us) history. I enjoyed myself capitally and, to my surprise, grabbed a “Barney” nomination for “Best Male New Comer”. Someone else won that year but I had been bitten by the bug and with the exception of 2004 and this year, members of our family have been performing upon the stage at the Barn every season since. Ed and Emma joined me in 2007 with “The King and I” and even Charlie got in on the act with “Alladin and the Wonderful Lamp” last year.

While watching the show last night, I found myself empathizing with all the performers having to wear winter coats or sweaters during their dance routines. I’ve been there before. I don’t know if I ever was so hot as those nights I played Fagin in “Oliver!” wearing heavy wool coat, full beard and long hair and capering about the stage in my best impression of Ron Moody. But what joy it was each night to throw all that garb on just for the moment I could step into the audience to sing “Reviewing the Situation.” In the opening scene of “Mame”, there was Ross wearing the Aladdin's turban from last year’s show and later, he reappeared as a different character with that same damn trench coat I wore as Harpo, Sydney Lipton in “God’s Favorite” and Oscar Lundquist in “Sweet Charity”. What memories were made in all those shows as I sweated my way through each song and dance routine. There to stage right was the proscenium “window” where by virtue of climbing up a ladder and then standing precariously upon a chair, I sang “Sweet Chairty” to Tzeitel Dutmer while literally the sweat poured off my head upon her face looking up lovingly at me. Now that’s acting!

All this aside, for me the real icing on the cake is to be able to hang out with some truly wonderful and talented people, many of whom have become very dear to us. As we exited the Barn last night and made our slow walk down the hill shaking (and in many cases) embracing friends who had wowed us with their performances I knew that as soon as the parking lot was empty they’d be walking back to their various dressing rooms which would be pretty rank with sweat and body odor, change out of their wet clothes and head over to Adventures to celebrate a standing o and cool off after a hot night’s work. I miss that, too, the fellowship of the Barn and the shared joy of making some people laugh and enjoy themselves for a few hours of their night. So, here’s to the Barn now in her 49th year. Hopefully there’ll be a part for me next season even if it means putting on that trench coat yet one more time.

For the love of Linda and of painting

After a month of hiking, canoeing, geocaching and essentially waking up most days and following my whimsy, I find myself longing for some routine of late. In fact, as much as people have been joking with me about it, I have come to remind myself that I am, in fact, not retired but on hiatus. So, this past week at about the half-way mark of our Sabbath’s rest, I am trying to establish some measure of routine to my day. After Linda leaves for work, I get up, grab a quick bite to eat, shower and clean up and then spend a good chunk of my morning, journaling, reading and meditating in the Word. The weather has been beautiful which has allowed me to find some space for quiet out in my yard. Following this, I change into my grubbies and take up what is one of the major projects of the summer – painting the trim of the house. It’s slow – painstakingly slow – work and requires a great deal of meticulousness but after four days I may have the north side of the house done today. And if the weather holds, who knows I may have the majority of the work done before we head out on our trip out to D.C. Besides, one thing I have in abundance of is time so I putz my way through my day.

Admittedly, this is a major item on Linda’s “honey-do” list but truthfully, I enjoy the work and am reminded again that by spending five or six hours each day in this manner is in reality a way of loving my wife. When we were young, foreplay was…well…what usually comes to mind when you think of that word. But at mid-life, foreplay is laying in bed with her at night watching the evening news or spending a good part of day with a paintbrush in hand walking up and down a ladder. In ways that I will never understand painting and yard work is an aphrodisiac to a woman whose primary love language is gifts of service. So, I paint away knowing it’s one way I may honor and love her.

At this point of our summer, I feel I have received no new revelation about the Lord or about myself or about my ministry. There have been no “a-ha” moments, no resolutions made or plans laid upon my return. I have enjoyed myself capitally and feel incredibly blessed and fortunate. Due to Linda’s job – a job that originally was only going to last a week – we have plenty of space from each other during the day so that we are not weary of each other’s company. I see her each evening – which is way more than I am wont to see her. Christine is off to work early, Charlie has a certain path that he follows each day and Ed and Emma, spend a good part of their day reading. Last night when I knocked off around 8, we went for a long family walk together ending up down at the beach. The kids jumped on the swings and Linda and I sat on a bench watching the boaters and pontooners and the beautiful sunset God graced us with. Doing stuff like this is on the big, white board in the living room, too.

So, these days I paint and I am content. Yesterday, while working out in the yard, I met a neighbor I had never met before. Joe is a Chicago-native who lives with his lady-friend down the way. He was out for his morning constitution and saw me power-washing the house and stopped by to ask me what solution I was using. Forty-five minutes later, I learned something about Joe’s vocation, his kids, what brought him to Chetek and he learned some things about my garden which he was curious to see. When Linda comes home these days she usually asks me, “How was your day?” and I reply – usually from atop a ladder – “Well, this is it.” It’s not whining. It’s just what it is and what it will be for another few weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer day and, in my case, few better.

Rediscovering Huck

“Now, we’ll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer’s Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath and write his name in blood.” From “Our Gang’s Dark Oath”, Chapter 2 in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Recently, I picked off my book shelf The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and, after a 30-some-year hiatus, began to read it again. I had to read it my junior year of high school and our teacher, Mrs. Rafoth, seemed to have skipped or disregarded the author’s warning that appears immediately prior to Page 1 warning that “persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” Mrs. Rafoth must have figured that was Twain’s way of being witty. Honestly, she ruined that book for me for many years by forcing my classmates and me to look for plots and subplots and motives and morals within the narrative, the very thing Clemmons seemed death on. I have a memory of lamenting aloud in her class one afternoon after she summoned us to look for yet another theme in the book, “Do you really think Mark Twain was thinking of all this stuff when he wrote the thing?” I might have been a 16-year-old, but as it turns out I wasn’t too far off the mark. As far as Twain was concerned, he was more Finn’s amanuensis than author or so he believed.

In any case, 32 years later I’m reading Huckleberry again but this time simply for the fun of it. I have no term paper to turn in, I care not if I find a theme or a motive or a plot. The book is more episodic than I remember it and given my penchant for read-alouds at Roselawn Elementary, I’ve found some new material for next year. You could read just a chapter from it and appreciate the taste even if you never got farther than Cairo (Illinois.) In fact, this past weekend while we were camping in the Green Bay area, I found myself chuckling aloud while reading about the forming of Tom Sawyer’s gang. Linda and Ed were sitting by the fire so I got out of the camper and went and sat by them and asked if I could read a portion of Chapter 2 to them. For the next 15 minutes or so, we sat around the fire enjoying the company of a good book and laughing aloud at the antics of a bunch of country boys who might have lived in pre-Civil War Missouri.

In the middle of the night, Tom Sawyer, forever the ring leader, summons his companions to a secret cave to form a gang of cutthroats. There is a dire oath that each must swear on pain of death as well as the death of their nearest kin should they leave the gang. And here’s where they reach their first impasse because unlike his fellow conspirators, Huck has no family to take revenge on.

            They talked it over and they was going to rule me out, because they said every

            boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it wouldn’t be fair and square

            for the others. Well, nobody could think of anything to do – everybody was

            stumped, and set still. I was most ready to cry, but all at once I thought of a way

            and so I offered them Miss Watson – they could kill her. Everybody said:

           “Oh, she’ll do. That’s all right. Huck can come in.” Then they all stuck a pin in their

            fingers to get blood to sign with, and I made my mark on the paper.

I’ve read that passage now three times in the last few days and it still makes me laugh. But the rest of the chapter is just delightfully good reading as Tom, Huck and the Gang work out just what kind of gang they’re going to be. According to Tom, their line of business was going to be “nothing only robbery and murder.” But unlike stealing cattle and robbing houses (“We ain’t burglars. That ain’t no sort of style,” says Tom), they will be highwaymen. “We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks on, and kill the people and take their watches and money.” But while Tom is of the opinion that killing those you hold up is best, allowances can be made for those you keep until they are ransomed. The only problem is nobody quite seems to know what that involves. All that matters to Tom is that whatever they do should be done “by the books.”

Sitting by the fire, reading to my wife and son, I discovered, perhaps for the first time, the joy of Huckleberry Finn. Sure, there are plots and witticisms and themes that run through the story but if you stop too long to look for them, it’s like Huck’s raft getting caught up on a snag. The current is pushing you down river and your raft is straining to get loose.

At the close of the chapter, they reach yet another obstacle in the forming of their gang: just when were they going to start their murdering and thieving ways?

            …[Tom] said we would all go home and meet next week and rob somebody and

            kill some people. Ben Rogers said he couldn’t get out much, only Sundays,

            and so he wanted to begin next Sunday, but all the boys said it would be

            wicked to do it on Sunday and that settled the thing. They agreed to get

            together and fix a day as soon as they could…

I don’t know if Twain is commenting on the foolishness of those who talk about doing great deeds but never do anything or just letting us eavesdrop on boys at make believe. Perhaps it is both. But I don’t have to turn in anything to Mrs. Rafoth any time soon so if they’re there, well and good. I laughed out loud in Chapter 3 (“We Ambuscade the A-rabs”) when the gang lay in wait for what Tom has told them will be a large troupe of “Spanish merchants and rich A-rabs” coming to Cave Hollow with “two hundred elephants and six hundred camels” all loaded down with “di’monds.”

              …when we got the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there

              warn’t no Spaniards and A-rabs and there warn’t no camels nor no elephants.

              it warn’t anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer class at that.

             We busted it up and chased the children up the hollow, but we never got anything

              but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll and Joe Harper

             got a hymn book and a tract, and then the teacher charged in and made us drop

             everything and cut. I didn’t see no di’monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so.

Somehow, I’d forgotten these episodes from Huck’s story. It’s good to read them again. Better to read them aloud in the company of people you love and who love you. And I can’t wait until this fall when I’ll be reading again at Roselawn to share a chapter or two from this book with kids who really need to hear this stuff before an English teacher comes along and sours the milk way before they’ve even developed a taste for it.

...Thy Kingdom Come...

Yesterday, I drove down to Menomonie to attend the visitation of a girl I used to know. Jill and I were classmates, went to the same church and youth group and graduated together in the Spring of 1980 from Madison LaFollette High School. We weren’t what you would call close friends. We ran in different circles. But the summer between our sophomore and junior year of high school she and I and about 20 others from our youth group went by train on what to me remains the ultimate retreat of all time: a week’s stay at Holden Village high up in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. (She's the one in the middle somewhere atop a mountain side with friends Bonnie & Laura). Those of us who went formed a unique bond and for the remaining years of high school though Jill and I hung out with different people, whenever we saw each other in the hall or at church we would hug each other like old friends being reunited again after a long interval.

After high school, she attended UW-Whitewater while I attended UW-Madison. I have a vague memory of seeing her at Christmastime in the narthex of Lake Edge Lutheran and like always she embraced me like a long lost family member. That might have been the last time I saw her – December 1980 or ’81. She never made it to any of our high school reunions and in the intervening years I largely kept track of her through our mothers who were good friends and part of the same Circle. Pep – her mom – was something of a spiritual mother to me. After I had received Jesus and been filled with the Holy Spirit, I began to drift away from Lake Edge and worship at another fellowship in Madison. While my folks and others who knew me were troubled by this radical change, Pep cheered me on for she, too, was filled with the Spirit and understood the hunger for worship and the Word. In later years, when I would attend Lake Edge with my family for special occasions, she would draw me aside and look me in the eye to discern how her young disciple was doing.

Sometime in the last ten years, Jill contracted cancer in her sinuses but through the auspices of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, she beat it back and made a full recovery. In fact, PBS’ Frontline featured her story in a piece they did on treating cancer. Two years ago, the cancer returned and this time held on to her (apparently) with a vengeance. She died last week but not before writing her own obituary. She leaves a husband and two adult children, her mom and oodles of friends to mourn her. Jill and her family moved to Menomonie a few years ago. I had every intention of connecting with her – even called their home once and left a message on their answering machine. But she didn’t call me back and somehow I never got around for a second attempt. When my mom called the other day to inform me that her condition was dire, I thought I should drive down and pray with her. But apparently, I would have been too late as unbeknownst to her, she had already passed away. In fact, as my mom was calling me to pray, Pep was rallying people to pray that the Lord would take her daughter such was the suffering she was experiencing.

As I sat in the sanctuary with Pep, my arms around her as we watched the slide show the funeral home people had put together on the big screen, she spoke of her daughter’s journey (“she lost her faith when the cancer came back but right before the end found it again”), her marriage to her husband, Jim (“they had the most excellent marriage ever”) and her daughter’s legacy (“she loved life”). She then turned her head to me and said, “I’ve lost two of them now and it’s not fair.” This referring to her son, Teddy, who died as a young boy. He and “Jilly” (as Pep oft referred to her) were out in a field near their home in Madison collecting purple flowers (“they were weeds, really”) for their mom. He had been chasing their little puppy around and had gotten tired. He handed the pup to Jill and told her he was going to take the flowers home to their mom and as he was crossing the street a car struck and killed him instantly. Teddy was seven years old when he died. Jill was 47. One was taken in a moment. One was slowly strangled by cancer. But both are most certainly gone before their time.

As I watched the slideshow I was struck by Jill’s smile. In almost every picture she exhibited her trademark big toothy smile well known to so many of us back in high school days. This was a woman who had loved life indeed. Too soon was she taken from the ones she loved and who loved her. Too soon that smile won’t shine again this side of heaven.

Driving home in the rain, my hatred of cancer was rekindled. As the years pass and I attend or preside at the funerals of the growing number of friends and family members snuffed out by this ogre – Bob (my roommate from college), Grandpa and Grandma Martin, Aunts Dorothy, Ella and Nancy, Denise (a 21-year-old young woman from Refuge) – it doesn’t make me wish for breakthroughs in cancer research or provoke me to do fundraising for the same. No, a longing steadily grows within me for the coming of the Kingdom in its fullness. In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the prophecy that sustains all faithful subjects of the King while enduring the troubles of a land that is “always winter and never Christmas” is

                    Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,

                    At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

                    When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

                    And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

Driving home last night, I found myself longing for Aslan’s return for on that day He will put an end to wars and rumors of wars and bear his teeth at murder and mayhem, sickness and suffering, calamity and cancer. “Then the end will come,” wrote Paul, “when Christ will hand over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:25-26, NIV).” I can’t wait until he stomps for good on all those things that plague us as we wait for the Thaw foretold. On that day, there will be a great hue and cry that will arise more louder than those bothersome vuvuzela horns that have been plaguing the World Cup series of late. For then the saying will come true, “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54, NIV). Even so, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

“So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever” Paul, Apostle and Martyr for Jesus Christ, 1st Century (2 Cor 4:16-18, Msg).

P.S. Here's the link to Jill's obituary which she wrote herself: http://rhielfuneralhome.com/obituaries.php?id=340

Lots and lots of time

“Our adversary the devil majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us involved in muchness and manyness he will rest satisfied.”

                                       Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline

Everyone has pet peeves. People who chew their food with their mouth open, teen agers somehow symbiotically connected to their I-Phone and not, as you would expect a minister to despise, cell phones going off in church but people who actually feel the need to answer their phone while at church – during worship, during a wedding (and worst!) during a funeral. But right up there with these is the standard reply that Christians and non-Christians alike give to the query, “How ya been?” More often than not I bet you’ve heard – or found yourself saying - “Oh, I’ve been busy.” Of all my personal peeves, this is the peeviest.

These days I wake up most mornings with absolutely nothing to do. I have no meetings to attend, no people to meet with, no messages to produce. I follow my whimsy. I lay in my bed and think, “What should I do today?” and then I think of something and say to myself, “That’s what I’m gonna do.” So on Monday, I worked in my garden and began to power wash the house because that’s what I wanted to do. On Tuesday, however, I read or scanned pictures into my hard drive and uploaded pictures to my Facebook account because that’s what I wanted to do. On Wednesday, I went hiking on the Ice Age Trail because that’s what I wanted to do. On Thursday…well, you get the idea. What with Linda and Christine working and Ed and Emma serving at Vacation Bible School, I’ve had my days pretty much to myself. And, frankly, it feels great and weird all at the same time. But one thing I am decidedly NOT these days is “busy” and I am content.

Last night at Wal-Mart I ran into a pastor-friend of mine and when I shared this with him, he laughed and said, “This might give you a taste of what retirement is all about.” But I wonder. Most retired people I know are busier – or seem to be busier – than most working people I associate with. Yes, they golf or fish or spend time with their grandkids, but so many of them are out of breath and not just because they are septua or octogenarians. Maybe it’s all a ruse to keep people like me usually on the look-out for volunteers at bay!

I recognize that this season I am in is unique and come September 1 (if not before) the pace of my life will pick-up if for no other reason that the new school year will commence. But if we all find “being busy” such the plague, how do we rid ourselves of the compulsion to “muchness and manyness”? Is it too much to state the obvious that we need to unplug more? Less TV, less internet, less I-Phone in exchange for what? In the Story of the Soils, Jesus spoke of a certain heart condition that due to the “worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get” and is thereby strangled by the stress of it all so that nothing comes of it (Mark 4:19, Msg). I can’t help but think this is where a lot of us are at. Oh, the “kingdom plant” in our heart is hanging on but not growing, not thriving and certainly not producing fruit a hundred fold.

This is not new news. Others have stated this in many places before (think Charles Hummel’s booklet, The Tyranny of the Urgent). But if Jack Deere is right when he states that the essence of Christian maturity is “sharing his affections and discerning his voice,” than it should be priority to me to get in a place where I can hear him speak. I know this and have known it from way before this Sabbath rest began so maybe it’s not a matter of knowledge but of affection. I may miss my folks enough to call home every few weeks or so. But do I miss them enough to get in my car and drive down to Madison and spend the day with them especially now that time is definitely not a factor? I know how I’m supposed to answer that question but the truth is I have to think about that a bit. And maybe, in a similar way, this is the secret of why so many of us know we should spend more time with the Lord and do not has more to do with our lack of affection for him than our lack of devotion or discipline. Maybe the “muchness and manyness” of life has sapped us of the affections we should have toward God, our family and each other? Maybe, just maybe, this is what Jesus referred to as “the love of many growing cold” in the last days (Matt 24). It will grow this way because of “wickedness” (v. 12) which may mean that more wicked than the proliferation of immoral behavior, corporate greed, and political corruption in our society is the drivenness – the busyness – that many of us feel and act out of. It is straining the love of God out of us more than we know.