Determination

My mother-in-law is doing so much better. Thank you for all your prayers. Please keep praying for her, and, especially, Cindy. Cindy gets up at 5 am, has her devotion and breakfast, heads to the Agape Transition Care facility on her way to work, and stops back by on her way home. She usually stays until after Mrs. Godwin eats dinner. I usually go every day, too, and often meet her there in the evening. It's been interesting getting mail changed to our house, figuring out her taxes, meds, and going to Walmart, etc. to get the essentials for her to survive therapy sessions. Thank God she is responding. A week ago we didn't know if she would live. Determination is so huge in our will to live.

My dad was 48 when he was given 6 weeks to 6 months to live because his prostate cancer had metasticized to his bones. He lived for 38 more years and even outlived his doctor! Why? God's grace and his determination were key. When he lost both legs to diabetes at age 80 he showed us all how determined he was when he walked and drove on his artificial legs. He was an amazing example of determination. When he finally died we sang "Lord of the Dance" per his request and we could all visualize him with his new legs dancing a jig. I cried for sheer joy.

I sometimes wonder if I have that kind of determination. The struggles are great and I often want to crawl into a hole and turn out the lights, but God's grace empowers me and you to get up and keep at it. May it ever be, please, Lord, please!

Easter Freedom

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been one of my heroes in the faith for years. His book Life Together was one of the most formative spiritual sources in my early Christian life. In it he describes Christian community with unbridled passion. He knew first-hand the value of support and fellowship. He was a member of the underground “Confessing” church in Germany during Hitler’s tyranny. He taught in an illegal seminary training pastors to withstand the onslaught of fascism. Sixty-four years ago this month on April 9, 1945 he was led away by Gestapo guards to be hung. His last words to a fellow prisoner were, “This is the end – for me the beginning of life.” What an Easter message. Bonhoeffer was only 39 years old when he was executed.

Pope John Paul II barely escaped a similar fate when he was a seminarian in Poland. The Nazis did finally arrest the future Pope and he endured a labor camp until he was liberated. Liberation theology espouses a Christus Victor image of Christ’s atonement and resurrection. This image calls us to see Jesus as Liberator, victorious over sin and death. Christians have embraced the notion of Christ as Victor throughout the centuries, especially those who have been oppressed.

No offense, that means all of us. Certainly there are millions of Christians who have had and are enduring struggles the likes of which are beyond my comprehension, but the truth that we all know is that all of us are in a great battle between the forces of good and evil. We may not bear on our bodies the marks and scars of persecution, but we all have concerns over which we need Jesus to triumph.

It would do us well to remember Bonhoeffer and John Paul II as people who threw off the yoke of oppression and died well and entered the freedom of heaven. Bonhoeffer said it for the Pope and for us when we face death’s barrage, “This is the end – for me the beginning of life.” Christ as Victor reminds me of the end of the Mel Gibson movie, Braveheart. William Wallace, the Scotsman liberator who finally yields his life as a martyr to English oppression, cries out, “FREEDOM!”

However, just as much as I look forward to a heavenly victory, I am reminded, even scolded, by God that God wants liberation to occur in the here and now as much as in the hereafter. The sweet-by-and-by sounds great but if we don’t do something about humanity’s problems that are staring us in the face then we mock the Lord and His prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Bonhoeffer was jailed by the Nazis because he took liberation theology seriously enough to take part in the July 20, 1944 Abwehr plot against Hitler. The one question that informed Bonhoeffer’s ethics was, “Who is Jesus Christ?” How one answers that question was decisive for Bonhoeffer and so it should be for us. When we face the world’s ills and injustices, we have to make a stand in the power of Christ.

We are the hands and feet of Jesus, the mouthpieces and the ears. When Bonhoeffer was addressing the question of Christ’s identity the church in Germany was confronted with Nazism’s deliberate systematic annihilation of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally disabled people and nearly everyone else who didn’t fit into Aryan culture. Most Christians in Germany went along with Hitler’s policies because they didn’t ask Bonhoeffer’s question. How can we answer freedom’s call today? Answer the question: “Who is Jesus Christ?” and we will live Easter Freedom.

Instincts Are the Enemy

My mother-in-law's tenacity is phenomenal. Her will to live has brought her back from the brink. She is still clinging to life in spite of a broken back, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, and a hemoglobin level half of what it should be. I don't know about you, but I hope that I would be ready to pack it in, fold up the tent, and go see Jesus. Now, I don't mean that Mrs. Godwin is not ready to go see Jesus. Frankly I think that with all the morphine and every other pain killer they have thrown at her, she is just simply living at her instinctual level rather than at her faith level. She even bit a nurse last night! That isn't Mrs. Godwin.

This reminds me that I often live at my instinctual level rather than relying on faith, and I don't have a broken back for an excuse. I preached from Mark's lectionary text last Sunday, Mark 8:31ff, and used a Staples "Easy" button. Staples may say "That was easy" to our problems, but Jesus, however, says deny yourself and take up a cross. Unfortunately our basest selves are self-centered and cling to life to the end. If Mrs. Godwin were her unencumbered self, she would have already checked out of here. To be sure, however, I hope she bounces back to who she was both physically and spiritually. We don't want her to die, but we don't want her to live like a person she hasn't been. This whole drama makes me stand amazed at a Jesus who had, in his dying moment, the spiritual strength to "commend his spirit" to God and just give up his ghost and die. I might have been kicking and screaming for life. Who wouldn't? Maybe that's my qiestion to answer for Lent. Which is more important: my instinctual desires or my spiritual ones?

Being in Sandwich Generation is Tough

Cindy's mother, Dixie Godwin, has been in three different hospitals in as many days. She has osteoporosis and has broken her back again. The first time was 5 years ago when she was making up her bed. She was in a brace and rehab for months. This time it just happened, no warning, no reason. First she was in Williamsburg County Hospital; then tranferred to Roper Hospital in Charleston; then to East Cooper Hospital in Mt. Pleasant where her orthopedic doctors have privileges.

They still haven't been able to do an MRI to ascertain the best course of action. The problem is multifaceted. Her heart is acting up. Her kidneys are functioning at about 15%. Her hemoglobin is extremely low, and her pain is terrible. Hopefully today or tomorrow they can do the MRI and do what needs to be done. They have told us to be ready for rehab decisions which means moving her away from her doctors to be with us or near us in Columbia.

It's a tough situation. Ever since Mr. Godwin died suddenly with a heart attack it seems that her warranty on her body ran out. He was her Knight in Shining Armour. He had his first 5 bypasses done when he was 52, then 4 more at age 56. He made it to age 64, which for his family was a feat. His Dad died of a heart attack at age 43; mother of heart attack at age 52; brother of heart attack at age 39. Their heart history is terrible.

Mrs. Godwin or "Ganny" as the children have called her is a strong willed independent woman so this has literally altered her life. Please pray for her and us, especially Cindy, as we make decisions in her best interest. Life is a challenge and never easy, but thank God for mercies beyond our comprehension. Being a part of the "Sandwich Generation" isn't easy when you are concerned about your children, even grandchildren, plus your parents. My Mother died in 1993 when I was 37. Daddy died in 2000, 2 months before Cindy's Dad. Life is tough, but God is tougher.

"The Bug or the Windshield"

I think it is a Mary Chapin Carpenter song that says, "Some days you feel like the bug, and some days you feel like the windshield." Today I'm kind of between the two - I feel out of sorts. Plenty of good stuff is going on. There was no snow to keep me from the office this morning, and I'll spend the afternoon with two pastors at the State Museum. Maybe tonight I'll even get to see two of my favorite TV shows, Antiques Roadshow and House. This morning I had to meet with a lawyer about a clergy matter that is generating a lot of prayer. Cindy's Mom had to go into the hopsital with a fractured back yesterday. She has osteoporosis and has been through this before, but she is more frail this time and the pain is awful again. She's in a hospital where her bone doctors aren't allowed to practice and needs to be transferred to where they can care for her, plus the doctor at this hospital who supposedly will work on her isn't even on site. He's snowed in, in Denver - which may be a good thing so we can get her transferred to the right hospital, but the process is convoluted enough to make you dizzy or absolutely trust in God.

All the crap is beyond our power or comprehension. Of course, others go and are going through worse stuff. I went last week to check on a preacher's spouse in the hospital. She died yesterday. I went to the funeral of another clergyperson's widow last week, too. Our son, Caleb, whom I love so much is doing his best to stay above water in his courses at USC, but made his first "F" on a paper in his life. He is struggling for faith and life everyday. He has a mid-term in the same course today. So here I am pondering the W.I.G.I.A.T. bumper sticker again - "Where IS God In All This? I know God doens't cause pain, but does what God does best - help us get through it. That's my weary prayer this morning - "Help Caleb, Dear Jesus; Help Ganny, Dear Jesus; Help Red Williams, Dear Jesus; Help Russell's wife's parents, Dear Jesus; Help our clergy, Dear Jesus; Help our churches, Dear Jesus; Help our country, the world, the poor, the President and everyone who needs help today, Dear Jesus. Amen

Coming Clean

The great novelist Flannery O’Connor, known for surprise endings and plot twists that can turn a reader upside down, wrote these matter-of-fact words, “You shall know and do the truth . . . and the truth will make you odd.” We may feel odd in today’s world when we live truthfully. Ethics as defined by the dictionary is “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” I’m glad the definition started with the word, “discipline.” Doing the right thing, believing the truth and living truthfully, takes extraordinary discipline.

For example, 20,000 middle-and high-schoolers were surveyed by the Josephson Institute of Ethics--a non-profit organization in Marina del Rey, California, devoted to character education. Ninety-two percent of the teenagers admitted having lied to their parents in the previous year, and 73 percent characterized themselves as “serial liars,” meaning they told lies weekly. Despite these admissions, 91 percent of all respondents said they were “satisfied with my own ethics and character.” That’s a scary thing--when we knowingly misrepresent the truth and we are “satisfied with my own ethics and character.” Living truthfully may make you odd in today’s world.

Lenten season dares us to “fess up” to our shortcomings and that takes truth telling. Most of us would rather talk about what’s wrong with everybody else but ourselves. We have the Cleopatra Syndrome, so called because she was the Queen of DENIAL. Jesus came to expose the denying lies of those who felt smug in their self-righteousness and to bring relief to those who felt imprisoned by their unrighteousness. He told it like it was about both groups. He wanted both groups to come clean, tell the truth and experience the freedom that can only come from having no secrets from God.

With the woman at the well Jesus dodged her non-answers and went straight to the jugular about her many marriages and live-in lover. It was her honesty that finally opened her eyes to both Jesus and her own salvation. But she had to tell the truth to get there! Honesty is the best policy, especially honesty with God! He already knows what we’re thinking anyway, so why don’t we turn those ugly worrisome thoughts into prayers?

Only God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. Only God has the power to do all things, be all places, and know all things. Let’s give God his due. If God already knows everything about us, plus loves us, then aren’t we neglecting the best opportunity for real help when the going gets rough? Next time you find yourself in a predicament and are already planning your exit strategy with not-so-truthful ease, turn to God instead. Jesus is more than ready and able to help you. All He asks is for us to be honest. Sounds like a good Lenten discipline to me.

Ash Wednesday

As I ponder today as Ash Wednesday, I’m wondering how I will observe this Lenten Season. It may be easier this year than most to give up things for Lent. In these economic times it is an easy choice to give up tangible things, but what about the intangible attitudes and wrong thinking? As a District Superintendent it is easy to get out of the cyclic nature of the church year and yield to the Conference Year: Charge Conferences, Conference Meetings, Appointment-making, etc. I need today as a reminder to stay in touch with the Church Year and that God’s grace and spiritual nourishment are the only food for my soul. All the Conference stuff is secondary to my being in God’s will as an individual child of God. I need Lent!

Lenten season is a time set aside forty days before Easter, not counting Sundays, when we take an introspective look at our lives. The forty days are reminiscent of Jesus’ forty days of temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. The word “Lent” comes from an older root word, “lencten.” Our word “lengthen” has this as its source. Just as the days are lengthening with the approaching spring, we should also lengthen the time spent on spiritual disciplines like worship, Sunday School, prayer, Bible Study, and service to others. We should do everything possible to keep our minds out of trouble and on God.

Someone asked quite pointedly, “Why is it that opportunity knocks only once, yet temptation bangs on the door constantly?” Have you ever noticed that the whisper of temptation can be heard farther than the loudest call to morality? Have you ever noticed that when we decide to do something wrong the means are so readily available? It is also a lot easier to point out the sins of others than our own.

An older priest and a novitiate were walking through the meadow when they came to a swollen creek. Beside the creek was a beautiful young maiden. The older priest offered to carry her on his back across the creek. The younger novice looked on with jealousy and desire. Miles later, long after they had left the maiden behind, the younger priest could not contain himself any longer. He asked the older priest why he had helped the young maiden. Didn’t he understand that what he had done looked improper at the very least? Hadn’t the older priest warned the younger man not to put himself in such situations? The older priest replied, “I left the maiden behind at the river bank, why are you carrying her now?”

What am I carrying that I don’t need to. Lent reminds me that Jesus is my All in All. Amen.