Monthly Archives: January 2012

death and life

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It was a gift, actually. Death is an expiration date for brutality. Once Adam and Eve knew they could defy God, it would do no good for them to live forever in bodies. Breaking the tab on the back that said “trained service technicians only” meant the created was trying to act as the creator.

And so, once they knew what wrong was, they also knew what death was. Wrong-doing by an individual could not be inflicted forever. The eventual demise of villains gives hope in an odd way.

But all of us have villainy in our hearts. All of us have a desire to run things in our minds. All of us have “death” on our calendars.

Life matters, don’t get me wrong. God would not have put on human life if life did not matter. And three years with the disciples and the twelve, eating, drinking, laughing provides a seal of approval on the idea of living in conversation with God. It was a glimpse of the garden. There was table-talk of such delight that it created an appetite for a great feast someday.

The death and resurrection of Jesus, the one who lived in complete communion with the Father, suggests that there may be a different kind of actual body, a remarkable kind of living after death. No wings, no harps. Instead broiled fish and conversation and freedom. Maybe, just maybe, villainy can finally die and life as intended can happen. Forever.

And so, when at the last breath of the creed we say we believe in, “Life everlasting”, we are affirming a hope that goes back as far as people can remember. For bodies that don’t break. And for living that matters and can happen without villainy. And for conversation with God face-to-face. Freely. Fully.

Finally.

the resurrection of the body

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Ted was 93. People who knew him for 40 years, 60 years, 20 years, talked about him. About his compassion, his encouragement, his hospitality. His leadership, his diligence, his career. His faith. We gathered for an hour and more. There were two hundred and fifty of us.

Much of my professional life was in that room, a room where I worked for seven years, worshiped for several more. A man I met forty years ago. People I taught with 25 years ago. People I went to church with, people I cried with, 10 years ago. People I work with now. People from every place I’ve worked for the past 25 years.

The funeral was a resurrection of memories. People I helped. People who helped me. People whose opinions I feared and curried and respected and ignored. That husband has died, who hired me and was mad at me and forgave me, and I him. That husband has died, who annoyed me but also grew in my respect. Those people left, those didn’t and the relationships have never been the same.

If the resurrection of the body we affirm in the creed is like this resurrection of memories, I’m not sure I’m interested. I lived them once, I’ve relived some of them too often. As Ricky Nelson wrote, “if memories were all I sang, I’d rather drive a truck.”

But a resurrection of the body, that’s different. A real touchable body. A body without the Alzheimer’s and pneumonia and allergies and age. A body that is somehow us, and yet not us now. A body that is not part of some collective consciousness, but is individual. A body that exists on an earth that exists even if this body was burned to ash and spread.

But all those molecules mingled would take a miracle to individually resurrect.

Precisely.

Saturday reflection: Row E, Seat 2

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January 22, Hope, Nancy and I went to hear Donald Miller for the first time. We know him well, as well as you can know someone from the books he’s written, and the posts and the tweets. But we hadn’t heard him. Nancy and I drove the two hours to Mishawaka, Indiana, picked up Hope and drove the two hours on to Wheaton. Afterward, we dropped Hope hack at school and came home. It was a long Sunday.

Nancy talked about the presentation itself quite well. Hope talked about it in the context of her day and life. So what did I learn? Most of it I won’t list. You’ll hear it over the next decades. But I wanted to tell you a few things I learned, mostly about speaking.

1. I confess. I’m a Don Miller fan. (But he helped me write my dad’s eulogy). Before the event, I went for an autograph. There was an informal line. And when the people in front of us moved down the aisle, Don walked up, put out his hand, and said, “Hi. My name is Don.”

Lesson: Don’t hide, preparing for a performance. Walk around, preparing for a conversation. 

2. Jerry Root hosted the evening. After Jerry introduced Don to us, he introduced the college audience to Don. “This is the community where I live. These are the people that I love.” I quit taking notes then, overwhelmed by the idea of being rooted in community, of building a bridge that way.

Lesson: An audience is a family. Or can be. If you love them.  When you are introducing, make the speaker pay attention to the people. 

3. Don started with stories we already knew, Nancy and I, from A Million Miles. We were afraid that we’d come all this way for reruns. But the laughter said that many people hadn’t heard them Or loved to hear them again.

Lesson: Repeating stories is important. It orients the curious. It reaffirms the faithful. 

4. I probably never sat in Row E, Seat 2 before Sunday night. I did spend 30 minutes many weekday mornings for three years sitting in seats close to that seat. Unless I was late.

I’m a Wheaton grad (80). We had required chapel and we met in that room. On the drive home, it was easy to think, “Have I done anything of value in the last thirty years? Have I told the story that I could have told?” And then I laughed at the danger of the question.

In Row E, Seat 3 sat Nancy. We’ve been married for nearly 29 years. Three children, one buried. Job gains and loses, career changes, moves. Shared bed and board and many months of accumulated conversation. We have changed each other.

In Row E, Seat 1 sat Hope. I held her first almost 21 years ago, noticed her months before that. She has challenged us, blessed us, taught us how to be parents of a daughter.

And so, driving through the night to take my favorite two women home, I smiled, grateful for the story I’m in the middle of.

Lesson: when looking for new stories, don’t forget the one you are in the middle of. It may be the most important one you could find. 

–

My review of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

creative.

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Grab a generic black bird. Take a one-inch wide paint brush and a small bottle of white paint. Paint one white stripe across its back, about two inches from the end of the tail. Open a pint can of red paint, closer to crimson than maroon. Wrap some masking tape around the bird’s beak. Dip the bird head first in the red paint, to the line where it twists its neck. Quickly wipe its eyes. Set it up on a tree branch to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Look for one a little smaller, a little rounder than the first. Take a small bowl, the kind you use for custard. Pour some of the white paint into the bowl. Dip the bird, feet first, into the paint. Like dipping molasses cookie balls into the sugar. Set it on the ground to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Take another one-inch wide paint brush and the red paint. Dip the brush into the paint. Tickle the bird, under the wing. When the wing opens a bit, right where it attaches to the body, paint a small red patch. Put it on a cattail to dry.

Grab another generic black bird. Mix a little blue paint into the red paint. Add some black paint. Try for a midnight purple. Mask the beak of the bird. Dip the head of the bird into the paint, up to its shoulders. Put it anywhere to dry.

Grab another generic black bird, a little smaller than the last one. Using the rest of the midnight purple paint, pour it over the whole bird. Put it on a birdhouse next to a big open field with lots of mosquitos.

The woodpecker, junko, red-wing blackbird, grackle and martin will be grateful to their Creator for creative differences.

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

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As I sat down to write about the next part of the creed, I realized that I have talked about sin and forgiveness of sin a lot.

  • I wrote about Jesus and a sinner, a woman from a different culture and life than Jesus.
  • I wrote about the hard work of repenting, the process of turning around, of rebuilding relationship.
  • I wrote about Good Friday and the forgiveness in the middle of excruciating pain  I wrote about the same thing in Like God.
  • I wrote about Patrick’s forgiveness in going to Ireland, the land where he had been held captive (About the saint in Patrick).
  • I wrote about five ways that David journaled his prayer, including asking for forgiveness.
  • I wrote about the importance of personally acknowledging my sin (I did it).
  • I wrote about the Mary who poured perfume on the feet of Jesus (It’s okay to not know everything) in gratitude.
  • I wrote a whole series on the part of Matthew 18 where Jesus talks about how to handle sin in the context of church. (It’s here in one document: Matthew 18)

As I looked through these posts I see that apparently I believe in sin. That’s the first part of this clause. In order to believe in the forgiveness of sin, there has to be something to forgive, there has to be something more than a mistake, a slip up, an error. We’ve got to see that there is something that was wrong.

And then that there is someone that was wronged. someone who deserved right.

And then that the person wronged has the capacity to forgive.

And then that the person wronging asks for forgiveness.

It’s not complicated, this forgiveness of sin I believe it. But it’s often quite hard. Because it means I’m the one who wrongs.