I Haven't Forgotten You

"I haven't forgotten you" are some of the kindest words a person might hear. "I haven't forgotten you" may be the primary reason for the success of Facebook among the many Friends who have re-connected after years of separation . . . and may prove, too, to be the reason for the lack of success of FB on the Stock Market as Friends prove less inclined to shop FB and more inclined to use it as a tool for networking.

"I haven't forgotten you" is the look on anthers face when they see you, more than their ability to recall your name. It is that sense of shared history, shared story, shared understanding, shared journey which connects soul to soul, heart to heart, and life to life. "I haven't forgotten you" is that intimacy which connects lives by the merest of handshakes, in the slightest of nods, in the tenderest of attentions. "I haven't forgotten you" is the language of shared life-womb experience and brings home the security of never, ever being alone wherever one may go.

"I haven't forgotten you" are some of the kindest words a person might hear . . . and as much as you and I like to hear them, when was the last time you spoke those words to God? With the merest of handshakes? In the slights of nods? In the tenderest of attentions? When was the last time you looked God in the eye and, in that moment, you knew as you are known?

Today would be a great day to begin a new for, truly, God hasn't forgotten you.

Have a blessed day, my friends!

"What's Love Got to Do With It?"

"What's love got to do with it?", sang Tina Turner as she reflected on her own life and journey and, for whatever the reason, that tune just keeps going through my mind this morning.

"What's love got to do with it?" as the American people reach a critical decision point regarding politicians who are worried more about their benefits than being a benefit to others; as the American people ponder the choice between the competing ideologies of political parties and Presidential candidates; as the American people in Illinois try not to get too mired in the finger pointing tactics of Springfield politics (otherwise known as Chicago politics to downstate constituents) and work to fund the essential human services and commitments for the people most in need; as the American people peer through the smoke and mirrors of political spin doctors, attempting to discern truth and act decisively for the sake of the nation; or, as the American people strive to create jobs in a toxic taxing environment, hoping all the while to provide sisters and brothers with essential opportunities to grow in self-respect and integrity.

"What's love got to do with it?" as the hierarchy of the Catholic church takes aim at controlling the women of the church, not just the nuns, but all women, in a time when the behaviors of old are just that, 'old'; as the Church universal struggles to find its voice of authentic Christian witness in the midst of a world torn by hatred, prejudice, fear and mistrust; as local congregations walk the walk of faith where they are, as they are gifted, only to be told that, because of dwindling numbers, their ministries are not financially prudent; as people in the pew turn their heart and soul to God for the Word of Relevancy and Challenge, instead of the tempting nectar of modernity so often offered as a placebo; or, as the identity of the Christian community is hijacked by so-called 'evangelicals' who presume to know exactly what God wants and where, shrouding their personal attack agendas with the language of 'who is in and who is out'.

"What's love got to do with it?" when one person sees a white man and thinks, 'racist', or another person sees a Latino and thinks, 'alien', or another person sees a black man and thinks, 'entitlement'; when one person sees a Middle Eastern woman and thinks, 'terrorist', or another person sees an English woman and thinks, 'snob', or another person sees an Asian woman and thinks, 'war'; or, when one person sees a farmer and thinks, 'ignorant', or another person sees a corporate executive and thinks, 'rich', or another person sees a blue collar worker and thinks, 'too bad'.

"What's love got to do with it?", Tina Turner sang, yet the tune and lyrics beg the answer yet today. Jesus gave one new commandment to the disciples, "Love one another." Love has everything to do with it: with our attitudes, our responses, our daily attention, even our moment by moment decisions, all in relationship with each other. When we fail to love as we are Loved, we have despised our humanity and subverted God's intention for our own will.

Love has everything to do with it. Thank you, Tina Turner, for reminding me of that today. I only pray that we, as members of the world community, find in ourselves the strength and will to reclaim the very purpose for which we are born in caring one for the other.

Love has everything to do with it.

A Valued Gift

I received the nicest gift today, totally unexpected and humbly offered, which made it all the more valued: Kevin Schwaegel stopped by the house to visit.

Affectionately known among his peers as 'Snags', Kevin and I share a couple of things in common: We both love farming; My son, Matt, was a High School classmate and remains a friend of Kevin; and Kevin has a great sense of humor, especially when it regards irony. So, when he drove by the house today and saw that I was working in the garden and chose to stop by to visit for a few minutes, he gave me a great gift, especially when you consider that, until a few minutes ago as I sat down to my computer, I didn't know it was also Kevin's birthday today. Kevin stopped by - on his birthday - just to visit.

For anyone who knows Kevin well, the typical response is probably, 'Yeah, so what? Kevin always loves to visit', and you would be absolutely correct. But, to stop on a day that is filled with so many other things a person could be doing, not to mention celebrating your birthday with other people who know it is your birthday, well, that to me is a moment to be prized. Especially poignant is the fact that Kevin just wanted to visit . . . . he didn't need the church opened, didn't want to discuss some deep personal issue, or work through the shocking trauma of recently getting married (just kidding, Ashley and Kevin!), no, Kevin was just checking in. Kevin was being a friend - and I am ever so grateful for the gift.

After he got back in his truck and drove away I started thinking about what a nice visit it was with Kevin . . . and how often it is that I give that same sort of unfettered attention to God. How often is it that I pray without asking for something? How often is it that I just share the news of the day and a few of the humorous happenings with the One who calls me 'friend'? How often is it that I just check in because, in my life, Jesus matters, the Spirit is in my heart, the love of God fills my thoughts? How often do I see God at work and, in the middle of my running around, stop and share the load without any sense of expectation, other than friendship?

The answer to all of those questions is, 'Not nearly often enough. Not nearly often enough.'

Thank you, Kevin, for the gift you gave me on your birthday. Because of what you shared, I have learned something more about myself which will allow me to treasure your gift all the more in the days ahead. God's blessings guide and keep you in this day and in all your birthdays - for in your giving you become the blessing God desires in each of us.

Roger

I had the privilege of celebrating the life of a friend yesterday as we said goodbye to him on this earth. The sanctuary was nearly full of friends and neighbors, many of whom this person had given nicknames to over the years, and there tears mixed with laughter as memories were shared, stories were told, sympathies were offered to the family and the good news of the Gospel was proclaimed. It was an incredible visage as this vast mix of humanity clung to resurrection hope in the midst of deepest despair much like the woman who reached to touch the hem of Jesus' robe as He walked by.

The power of an empty tomb has that effect on us: God gives us a reason to believe beyond the domain of earthly understandings. God grants us a peace which death cannot deny.

I will miss my friend's easy smile, hard-working ethic, wise-cracking ways and, especially, his continual living out of the story of the Good Samaritan. I know when Jesus told that story, He told it of my friend whose life the story embodied. Yet, I know, I believe, I trust, I have faith, that all my friend ever was, as much as I will miss him . . . he is now even more as he dwells in the perfection and wholeness of the One who birthed him from the beginning. Someday, somehow, in the time beyond this time, in the Kingdom beyond this earth, we will meet again and my heart will rejoice when I hear him say, 'How you doin', Preacher? Welcome home!' . . . and I will know, in the mercy of God, my friend, Roger, will have helped to pull one more life out of the ditch - and this time it was me.

Rest in the Peace of God, Roger Trentman, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of the Church eternal.

Stephanie

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” II Corinthians 12.9a NRSV

Stephanie is one of those folks in your life that you can count on one hand: a friend. I use the word “is” because, like friendship itself, she will always be with me in my heart and because, like faith itself, she is a gift of God extending throughout eternity. Last week Stephanie passed from this life into life eternal following thirty years of life with Multiple Sclerosis, M.S. Multiple Sclerosis did not define Stephanie any more than did Stephanie define Multiple Sclerosis. Rather, however such things occur, Stephanie and M.S. found themselves to be traveling companions in life’s ongoing journey, a relationship through which Stephanie opened the door for God to embody grace and strength in midst of a world consumed with defining her life, and others like her, as either ‘a cure’ or ‘a casualty’. In Stephanie, God’s power to transform weakness into perfection had little to do with ridding her body of M.S., yet had everything to do with the sufficiency of God’s grace to shine through Stephanie’s life every day of her journey, a delineation which empowered Stephanie to be such a good friend to nearly everyone who knew her. To spend time with Stephanie was to know God is at work redeeming a sinful and difficult world – and to know that God is thus engaged in the life of humanity is to experience the fullness of God’s grace - which is sufficient to see you through any challenge, even the challenge of M.S.
I first met Stephanie twenty-six years ago when she served as one of my Supervising Teachers at Marissa High School where I did my Student Teaching while in college. Stephanie, then recently diagnosed with M.S., taught Special Education and saw her own diagnosis, not as an impediment, but as an opportunity to more intimately touch the lives with whom she worked. Understanding the importance of students to see themselves as responsible for their choices and making choices which are responsible, Stephanie modeled such choices in the manner through which she walked the walk with M.S.: Stephanie’s life would not be defined by a diagnosis, but by the God with Whom she met every challenge.
This is not to say that Stephanie was ‘perfect’, but as the Scripture proclaims, “ . . . power is made perfect in weakness.” Stephanie exercised the fullness of her humanity as she met God face-to-face and questioned God about M.S., both about her having it and in its very existence. Stephanie wrestled with her faith, not in God, but in her own capacity to see her journey through. And Stephanie pondered how such a disease could claim the capacity to shatter family ties in spite of her personal determination to keep everyone together. “Nothing is easy, but I know that God is with me always,” she would say – and I would bow my head in humble wonder as she, again, taught me what it means to be a faithful friend. Truth among friends is absolute and absolute friends are always in Truth, God’s Truth.
Stephanie’s death in this life wasn’t unexpected, but what has been a delightful lesson in faith has been in how death is overcome by life: tears are dried by laughter; grief is eased with the embrace of friends; absence is addressed by community; questions find their answers in God’s unending Presence; and Easter is announced over and over again in the perfection of a stone rolled away from the door of the tomb. True friendship lives eternally, even as Christ lives for you and me.
With the Church living towards the celebration of Pentecost at the end of May, Stephanie reminds me that God’s Holy Spirit births and nurtures grace sufficient to meet every challenge, whether it be the challenge of crowds of people who question and dispute the Good News of Jesus Christ there in the city of Jerusalem on that first Pentecost or the challenge of a diagnosis that the medical community pronounces with the solemnity of a death sentence. God’s Holy Spirit is sufficient for the words needed to speak Truth before power. God’s Holy Spirit is sufficient for the strength necessary to meet the adversaries and adversities. God’s Holy Spirit is sufficient to give grace in relationship, forming and reforming communities of intimate, trusting friendships which will endure throughout the ages. Of such Spirit is the Church birthed in power and of such Spirit has Stephanie lived her life into life eternal. May God’s power be made perfect in each of us as our imperfections live into, and depend fully upon, the grace of God for sufficiency in each moment of Pentecostal witness. Like the disciples before us in every age, the question is not whether we will have the opportunity to be a friend in Christ through Love, but rather, how we embrace in the Spirit our times of challenge to be the witness, the apostle, God intends us to be in the breath of the Spirit.
May we find it within our souls to live with the faith of Christ and the graciousness of the Stephanie’s among us, whatever our lot may be, that the Holy Spirit of God breathe life and vitality into all our days and the Church be made alive again and again in the perfection of True Friendship that comes only through Christ our Lord.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don

I Sat For a While With An Old Friend

I sat for a while today with an old friend as she waited with a patient spirit for death to come. It has been a slow and agonizing journey, often fraught with vast periods of loneliness and longing. Friends who swore they would always be there, were for a while. Friends that promised to write and keep her up to date, faltered after a few weeks. Acquaintances who whispered sweet words of 'thoughts and prayers', quieted their thoughts and offered few words months ago . . . and my old friend has only the occasional visit of a child who rarely has time, the gentle tendings of hospice personnel and the vigil of a pastor who has been embraced as a friend.

If you were to begin counting your 'breaths' from the time you are born to the time you die, how many would you breathe? As I sat with my friend and watched her shallow breathing, I thought of the birth of each of our children and grandchildren. Each birth somehow amazingly accompanied by that first big breath of air . . . then the cry, the wail, the siren signal to the world to 'Watch out! I'm ready to take my place now!' From the time a baby first breathes to the time an aging woman breathes no more, how much air is a part of the body's journey? How many times do we breathe? Watching my friend welcome her final breaths of life, a grudging acknowledgment of being tired and ready for the next step of God's plan in her life, I wondered how we will ever know when the next breath will be our last breath. Does it even matter?

From the cross, Jesus cried out, "Into your hands I commend my spirit", and he slumped into the arms of God, breathless at the end of the journey, and died. I am not aware that Jesus ever counted his breaths, but I know that he counted the breath of God's creation as holy and sacred. That we might know life, he became our life. He became our breath. He become our breathing when the world would have counted us for dead. Then, in love for each of us and not counting his breaths as precious to him, he gave us his breath for us . . . that we might breathe forevermore.

Maybe it is as simple as this: A life spent counting breaths is a life whose breath breathes no meaning, yet a life spent breathing meaning into all around is a life whose breath lasts forever.

Her breathing was shallow as she slept away the time. I prayed and quietly left the room. Her time for final breaths is near, but not quite here. God's breath in her is moving her to new life, yet only in God's time. I may not be able to count the breaths, but God counts the life which gives breath to others - and though her breaths may diminish in this life, Christ's breath in her will take her to Life whose very breath is the breath of God. Thanks be to God.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don

They Are Only 'Dogs' When They Are Not With You

This morning, as we tamped into place the last bit of soil for the grave of our son's yellow lab, Bogey, it occurred to me that, 'A dog is only a dog when they are not with you.' Any other mutt running around the neighborhood is a 'dog', but when they are with you they are uniquely personable, nameable, even lovable. Maybe that is what makes them 'Best Friends' with so many people, when they are with you they are absolutely, devotedly with you.

Bogey came into Matt's life as a gift from his wife, Bethany. Maybe the gift was more for their daughter, Cailin, than it was for Matt, but Bogey quickly became Matt's companion. Named for a golf score which indicates 'a stroke over par', Bogey has always been a stroke over par in personality. Highly excitable, overly energetic, wildly lovable, always curious about the world, willing to chase into oblivion anything she saw including rabbits and butterflies, with something of a Greyhound's willingness to run in her blood, and a penchant to go through any fence or boundary to get where she wanted to go, Bogey captured the 'little boy's imagination' of our grown son and romped with him through many an adventure.

Not unlike our own black Labrador, Licorice, next to whose grave Bogey now lays, Bogey did not want anything to do with gun fire or thunder, all the while lighting off fireworks of her own with her antics to run with the wind and gnaw on anything she could find. Fiercely loyal and affectionate, Bogey would slobber you with kisses one second and have you pumping your fist at her as she bounded out of her kennel and down the street the next. Yet, that is all part and parcel of having a best friend: You love them unconditionally in spite of their shortcomings, sometimes because of them. That is what Bogey did for Matt . . . and that is what Matt did for Bogey. Such friendships are two way blessings.

Over the years of being a farmer, I have learned there are words you just do not want to hear come from a veterinarian's mouth, like cancer, mass, tumors, spleen, anemic, treatable but fatal, and, the dreaded phrase, 'It's your choice', and Matt heard all of those words concerning Bogey. Most often, when those words become part of a conversation about an animal, there is little choice. Tears become the only response which can be given and time will not quickly ease the dread which becomes caught somewhere between the heart and the throat. They spent her last hours together as a family, best friends caring for one another as Bogey's running in this world slowed, then stopped.

It is a father's humble honor to stand graveside with his son as the memories find their meaning in a time and place when words cannot be spoken. As much as I wish I could take this pain from him, I know it is the natural part of sharing the journey with another, the risk of opening your heart completely to a friend. The alternative is not nearly as desirable. So, I stood with him this morning and Nancy and I will continue to stand with them all in the days to come.

In our hearts, we know that Bogey is running joyfully healthy in a beautiful meadow chasing rabbits with Licorice and, in our hearts, this gives some comfort. But, truth be told this night, there is something about the mind's eye picture of a little boy sitting with his best friend on the steps of their home that will just take some time to heal in the soul of this young man, our son, for . . . they are only dogs when they are not with you . . . and Bogey will be with him for a long, long time.

Kind of makes me appreciate, all the more, God's love for us all.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don