Mowing with our plastic mowers

Though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”

– Acts 17:27-28

Lucas, two years old, is out mowing the yard, following behind his father with a plastic mower. Now you might think that Lucas is pretending to mow the lawn, that he is simply playing a game. But I think not. If I were to ask him what he is doing, he would most certainly answer, “I am mowing the lawn.” When dad and Lucas are done, the lawn will look quite beautiful, and Lucas will be proud of the job he has done.

We follow after Jesus with our plastic mowers. The grass gets cut. We are proud of our mowing.

Gary

PRAISE GOD FOR BROKEN COOKIES

Vivian baked some wonderful cookies a few days ago. I am not sure that “wonderful” is a way to describe something you eat, but they are wonderful, full of good stuff like raisins and oatmeal, thin and tasty. It happened that a few stuck to the baking sheet, and therefore broke while being moved from sheet to rack.

I asked if I could eat a couple. She said yes, but eat the broken ones. Then added, you can have as many of those as you want.

I thought, praise God for broken cookies.

The truth is they may not win any prize at the fair, but those broken cookies taste just as good as the “perfect” ones.

There are these words in the Old Testament that Christians believe describe Jesus: “. . . he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)

But on the inside . . . as Psalm 34 sings, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Ps. 34:8)

What is so appealing to me about Jesus is not the miracles and the healings. What attracts me to him is his humanity, his compassion, his kindness, his desire to lift others up and to show them forgiveness.

The miracles and the healing are like that “perfect” cookie that is brought to the state fair and gets the purple ribbon. But the compassion and the kindness is like the broken cookie. For such can be found in any of us. We who know we are broken, who fail often and who get so afraid at times, we too can truly be like Christ in this world, in our compassion and our kindness, in our desire to lift others up and in our courage to forgive.

When someone would come to me and ask for help because he or she had a problem with alcohol, I would ask if I could contact a friend who belonged to AA, someone who understood what it is like to “have a problem with alcohol.” One broken child of God helping another broken child of God. Or as D. T. Niles said: “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found a loaf of bread.”

Blessed Christmas, dear reader, blessed Christmas. As you celebrate the birth of Jesus, as you gather with family and friends, as you exchange gifts and sing the old carols, please remember that for some this is a season of tears. A loved one is not present this Christmas. There is not enough money to buy presents this Christmas. He or she will sit at table alone this Christmas.

You and I will not fix it. But we can help. We can figure it out and we can do something . . . a hug, a word, an unexpected gift, some money, your presence.

Praise God for broken cookies. Praise God for one broken child of God helping another broken child of God.

Gary

A Question

If scripture
and faith 
and Church
do not
touch us
where we live,
then
why bother?


Gary

Anxious for Christmas

It was November 15. I was driving in town, slowed down to make a right turn and saw a pickup truck parked in a driveway. In the bed of the truck there was a Christmas tree. My first thought was, here is a family anxious for Christmas.

I know some people grumble about stores selling ornaments and cards too early, lights on houses and trees decorated in November. To some it seems wrong. They say, we used to wait until after Thanksgiving, but no more. We can’t wait.

The children can’t wait because they know there will be presents. I remember how anxious I was. Even though there would not be many gifts, I knew there would be something special for me under the tree. I still have the cap gun with the white belt and holster and the bow with the quiver for the arrows. I remember the extended family gatherings in our small home for the traditional Norwegian meal of lutefisk and boiled potatoes with lots of melted butter. I certainly remember the women saying, “We will not open any presents until we eat our dinner and the dishes are all put away.” For sure we children were anxious, saying, “Hurry up! Hurry up!”

But it is more than receiving gifts. We are anxious for Christmas because we like what it does to us. We give to others, write letters, gather with family and friends. We put money in a kettle to help people we don’t know. We greet each other and we make sure that those who are struggling to make ends meet have food on the table and toys for the kids. We even go to church in the middle of the week. We visit people in nursing homes. We who can’t sing, sing anyway. All because it is Christmas.

No, it’s never too early for Christmas.

Once again we reach out our arms to hold this baby near our hearts. We smile and relax just a bit, filled with the wonder of this life, so pure, so gentle. This child cannot help but change us for the better.

On that first Christmas night, the angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid” (Luke 2:10). What is there to fear from a baby? A baby is powerless, with no guile, no anger, and no judgment, only needing from us without fearing we will not provide: simply trusting and content to be resting in our arms. This is how God came. This is Christmas. This one child. And for a time, perhaps too brief, our fears are taken over by our love for this child and he is able to change our hearts.

“This will be a sign for you,” the angel said to the shepherds, “you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” (v. 12). At each Christmas we too find our way to this baby and are glad. The apostle Paul wrote to the congregation in the town of Colossae, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God . . . For in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15, 19).

We will light the lights, decorate the tree, buy the gifts, send the cards, gather with family, and greet one another. All good, but we know deep within ourselves that all of it is only the wrapping. We know that the gift is the baby, this one particular child named Jesus. “You are to name him Jesus,” said the angel to Joseph, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

In Jesus, we are free to live life as fully and as joyfully as we will allow ourselves. For it is only we who hold ourselves back. God does not. For God has forgiven us in this baby and will not restrain us from living with sheer abandon, trusting in this gentle and gracious God, who keeps telling us, “Do not be afraid.”

When Christmas comes each year, we catch a glimpse of who we are meant to be in our giving, in our joy, and in our care for those with little power in this world.

We are better people at Christmas.

Of course we are anxious for Christmas.

Gary

Thanksgiving

It is the least selfish of days.

The most basic.

We gather to eat,

and to be with

those we love

and those who love us.

We celebrate life.

We say thanks for family

and all good things.

There is no expectation of

gift or card or decoration.

It is not Jewish or

Christian or Muslim or

atheist or agnostic,

or it is all of the above.

It is as plain as plain can be.

A table, chairs all around,

the smell of hot food and

the laughter of family

and friends.

Of course we are

thankful,

and do we not wish

that all of our days

could be as ordinary

as this.

Gary

It is of faith, but I am glad to have such faith, glad to have such hope

Brittany was terminally ill with brain cancer. The cancer brought terrible pain, and sometimes prevented her from speaking or recognizing her own family. There was no hope of a cure. Doctors had removed as much of the tumor as they could, but two months later it grew back. There was only the promise that it would get worse and she would eventually die. She and her husband moved to Portland, Oregon. On November 1, she took a drug that enabled her, in her words, to die on her own terms. Brittany was 29.

She said, “My glioblastoma is going to kill me and that's out of my control. I've discussed with many experts how I would die from it and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying."

Then this, "For people to argue against this choice for sick people really seems evil to me. They try to mix it up with suicide and that's really unfair, because there's not a single part of me that wants to die. But I am dying."

I have sat at the bedside of lovely people who embraced life, but who had come to a place where death looked to be a friend. My father came to that place. In my last conversation with him, he said, all I want to do is go to sleep and not wake up. I believe Brittany came to that place.

The article relating Brittany's story includes comments from a Wyoming woman who serves on a legislative committee that handles health issues in her state. “My sense is Wyoming would reject it (doctor-assisted suicide), . . . it would just be a flat 'no,' . . . That's my personal values as well: we don't get to pick. The big guy upstairs chooses when we go and when we stay.”

I am not a big fan of addressing God as the “big guy upstairs,” but more than that, I would argue that if one has never been in that place where living offers no hope, no joy, no pleasure, but only pain and loss and eventual death, then one should speak slowly or perhaps not at all.

This too. Does God go about choosing “when we go and when we stay,” as the woman from Wyoming states? Does God choose death for us?

When someone dies, especially someone young, we hear words like, “God must have needed another little angel.” Or, “God chooses only the very best.” Or, “God decided it was her time.”

I suggest to you, dear reader, another way of faith.

The Apostle Paul, in a letter to the congregation at Corinth, writes “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” I Corinthians 15:26

Is it possible there is a battle going on? A battle between God and the enemy?

When his good friend, Lazarus, died, Jesus did not comment, “Well, it was his time to go. God's will. Because we all know, the big guy upstairs chooses when we go and when we stay.”

No. When his good friend died, Jesus wept. God cried. And we do too.

But more. God and God's people do battle against the forces of death: poverty, racism, prejudice, injustice, hunger, cancer, heart disease, diabetes . . . . all that strive to take life away.

Death is the enemy.

A decisive battle took place a long time ago, on a day we now call Good Friday. A young Jewish Rabbi, named Jesus, was put to death. His body was taken down from a cross and laid in a tomb. It seemed once again that the enemy had won.

But when some women come to the tomb early Sunday morning, he is not to be found.

Some, who had been his students, his followers, later said they saw him, talked with him, ate with him, were both surprised and glad at his appearing. They told others. The news has traveled down through the centuries, so we too have heard the tale and are free to tell it.

That long ago Sunday morning changed everything. That Sunday morning is a promise that the enemy will not have the final word. That Sunday morning is a glimpse into our future.

The raising up of Lazarus was a prelude to that Sunday morning. In the resurrection of Jesus from death to life, we are promised that we too will be raised up. We will be set back on our feet again in another part of God's kingdom, no less beautiful than this place called earth.

God's promise. Our hope.

Brittany wanted to live, but what she woke up to each morning was not life. The enemy had already won. She just surrendered early. I will not judge her. Neither should anyone else.

And what about God? God weeps.

One day I will die. As will you. I don't much care for the idea. But it will not be God who takes my life. Death is the enemy.

In the end, God will have the final word. Life. The last enemy will be defeated.

It is of faith for sure.

But I am glad to have such faith, glad to have such hope.

Gary

The light is better

A man is seen late at night, walking in slow circles below a street light, looking down. Another gentleman comes by and asks if he needs help. The first man answers that he is looking for his billfold. The second man asks, “Did you lose it close to this lamp post?” The first man responds, “No, I lost my billfold over there.” He points down the block into the darkness. “Then why are you looking over here?” “Well,” says the first man, “the light is better over here.”

I am angry at a friend, but I do not wish to hurt his feelings, so I say nothing. Then one day I say something to my wife in a joking way, but it is also a criticism and there is anger under the humor. The moment I say the words I know I wanted to say those words to the friend, but it is easier to say them to my wife. The light is better.

We do this. We yell at our children when we want to yell at our boss. We take it out on a co-worker when we are having trouble at home. We express frustration with a friend when we are really frustrated with ourselves. Because the light is better. It is easier. But the truth is never found.

Gary