T. H. Harding

Do you ever really lose a mentor?  I learned today that my childhood pastor has taken his final step across to the other side in order to kneel before his Savior and King. T. H. Harding served as pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church in Port Arthur, Texas, from the time that I was in elementary school until some point in my college years. For me, he was larger than life--not in stature but in spiritual status. He 'owned' the pulpit and conveyed his own brand of godly swag in vested suits. As he leaned and paced and gestured and challenged and pleaded, he urged us toward the heart of God.  Lifelong lessons are ingrained due to this godly mentor. I learned how to preach by observing and, in turn, imitating him. I now know and teach this in leadership development theory as "imitation modeling", but back then it was more reflex than learned response. One imitates what one respects most, and I have always respected Bro. Harding. His passion for Christ and Christ's Church infected me with what I hope is an incurable and contagious disease. From him I caught the wind of missions and will forever move with a heart for the nations as a result. He branded my thinking that brokenness is prerequisite for revival; therefore, my own heart whispers a prayer for spiritual awakening in muted tones modeled after the cry of Welsh coal miner Evan Roberts, "Lord, bend me." This I learned from my mentor. What else did I learn from him as a young ministerial student? Instead of asking what I learned about pastoral ministry from T. H. Harding, one might better ask what didn't I learn from him?  I miss him already, but cannot bring myself to mourn his home going. This is because I believe he is right now enjoying what he taught so eloquently as future grace. Live on my pastor, my mentor, and look for me. I leave you with one final request-- pray that I, too, finish well.

Grace in the Present Tense

I want to write about grace in the present tense. Come to think of it, grace is always in the present tense. God has been granting mercy in my life for fifty four years and may continue to do so for many more to come, but whenever he does it is always now and it is always here.  "My frustration was, rather, in discovering that although many modern writers have succeeded in exploring the depths of human darkness and despair and alienation in a world where God seems largely absent, there are relatively few who have tried to tackle the reality of whatever salvation means.... Sin is easier to write about than grace, I suppose, because the territory is so familiar and because, too, it is of the nature of grace, when we receive it, to turn our eyes not inward, where most often writers' eyes turn, but outward... If and when the time ever came,  it would be the presence of God rather than his absence that I would write about, of death and dark and despair as not the last reality but only the next to last." (Buechner)

Satisfied

I am satisfied with my life. That may not strike as much of a confession, but it is the grandest expression of living I've ever known. While some may see in satisfaction a resignation, an acceptance that life will probably never get better-just glad it isn't as bad as it once was, I see it as the highest possible enjoyment. No longer my own worst enemy, life has ceased turning in on itself.  As the Apostle once remarked, "godliness with contentment is great gain." To be satisfied is to be free from regret and unbothered by uncertainty, far removed from fatalistic acceptance and more akin to the secure confidence a child finds in a parent's arms. I am not implying that nothing remains to be done or that I have no room for improvement, far from it. What I am stating is that this "place" in my life is a pleasant vantage point from which to view all possible vistas. 

Birthday Musing

Each birthday conjures up divergent emotions respective to the number of years I'm recognizing.  Early in life, birthdays are an opportunity for cake, ice cream, and gifts (not necessarily in that order).  By adolescence, a birthday morphs into more a rite of passage than a party and this is quite pronounced in certain cultures: A Jewish boy may become a son of the law at twelve, whereas a Maasai boy steps across the threshold of manhood as a morani at circumcision, which takes place generally around age fourteen or fifteen. In this country, we mark rites of passage by age-associated laws -- you may become a licensed driver at age 16, a legal purchaser of tobacco and registered voter at 18, and a legal consumer of alcohol at age 21 (It is unclear to many of us how and why these parameters were determined).

But what of successive birthdays beyond mid-life, whatever that is?  Speaking from firsthand experience, they seem to arrive with greater ferocity and unwelcome frequency the older I become. Now, rather than associating aging with certain legal permission, I am forced to connect birthdays with increased aches and decreased mobility. I feel as though I've turned a painful corner on my way back to the fetal position.  Added to the discomfort of aging is the aching awareness that our society places inordinate priority on youth. Opportunity for advancement in the work force becomes scant in direct proportion to one's age. And all of this occurs while the soon-to-be-decrepit's wisdom is widening and maturity deepening. 

This may be occasion for quoting from two of my favorite Whitman poems:

(To Old Age) I see in you the estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours in the great sea.

and...

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring ... The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these O me, O life? 

Answer. That you are here--that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Jesus Christ said that he came so that we may have life and live it to the full, so I believe I'm justified on this the 54th celebration of the day of my birth in altering both Whitman's question and his corresponding answer:

The question, O me, O Lord! no longer sad recurring--What is my purpose O me, O life, O Lord?

Answer. That You are here in me. That Your powerful play goes on, and I may contribute a verse.

What Don't I Love?

Fictional Episcopal rector Father Tim Kavanaugh and wife Cynthia play a kind of word game in the surprisingly addictive Mitford series of books by Jan Karon. Cynthia unwittingly initiates the game when she pronounces an object of her affection. Father Tim responds with a question, "Ah, Kav'na, what don't you love?"  Cynthia then provides a short recitation of what she detests. It might go something like this: "Needless rules and regulations, foxglove seeding itself in our rose beds, age spots", or "The spelling of Jane Austen's surname with an i, cold showers, fake orchids." 

Were someone to play the role of Father Tim right now and pose his question to me, I would answer without hesitation, "I do not love driver's license renewal."  More accurately, I hate it. The requirement to renew in person only comes once around every six years, but this may be the worst part of turning another year older this week. Standing in line to get a number so that I can sit in line with what looks more like a police lineup than upstanding citizens performing their civic duty, is closely akin in my mind to being stuck in an elevator. Suspended in a devil's limbo, I feel like I've done something wrong and am about to receive some unwelcome sentence like community service collecting trash along a public thoroughfare while wearing an orange jumpsuit. The chairs are scrunched too close to allow anyone to pass without becoming physically intimate with you, and the person perched next to me now feels like a long lost Siamese twin attached at the hip.  

When my number is finally called by an automated voice, I depart my shadow and push past the other inmates to face the warden behind counter number four. I can't tell if it's due to a bad hair day (not having any context to go on), but Minerva is obviously perturbed with her job and I happen to be the face of it for the moment. She forces me to become a contortionist by demanding I position my fingers and thumbs on her hand sensor at an uncomfortable height and odd angle.  Finally, fingerprints are scanned, photographic image captured, eye exam passed, and I'm ready to pay the renewal fee. I reach across the counter and hand Minerva my debit card only to hear her declare that the credit card machine is not working. "Do you have another form of payment?"  By an act of divine grace I did (in may car), and after a time and energy consuming trek to and from the distant parking area, finally received my temporary license - Happy birthday to me! "Ah, Fowlkes, what don't you love?" Don't get me started (again).

Prayer

I have my own way of thinking about prayer, that it is much more of an alignment than an activity. I pray best when my heart aligns with God himself and the moment his interests begin to dictate my own. In this way, prayer consists largely of listening, granting space and thought to what the Father wants. Along the way, my prayer life becomes my life, and every thought translates into divine dialogue. I love the way Buechner paints it:

"We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good or very bad. The "Ah-h-h-h!" that sometimes floats up out of us as out of a Fourth of July crowd when the skyrocket bursts over the water. The stammer of pain at somebody else's pain. The stammer of joy at somebody else's joy. Whatever words or sounds we use for sighing with over our own lives. These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just to ourselves, but to something even more familiar than ourselves and even more strange than the world."

Living in the Mind

Much of life is lived in the mind. Yes, there is the doing of things, daily routine carried forth often with barely an awareness of the individual acts that collectively form the day. Much like when asked "How was your day?"  We aren't really wanting a recitation of moments and feelings, simply a label, more often than not a benign "good."  But living is largely the considering, weighing, planning, deciding, reflecting, grieving, rejoicing, that is imperceptible to even the closest to us. This quiet living occurs in our hidden place, the spot no one sees but only learns of second-hand. For that reason, this sacred space deserves and demands our highest cultivation. I have no problem with those who warn against "garbage in, garbage out."  But my greater concern is that we return to feeding our minds with strong nourishment and sanctified inspiration. Memorization is one such food of substance all but ignored by the vast majority. Quiet contemplation, sacred listening, expansive reading-- these too foster a better living in the mind. Lest someone label these sentiments as New Age hooey-gooey, hear well and heed the sage advice of the Apostle: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."(Philippians 4:8 KJV)

Traveling Down the Road of Losing Sight

The Apostle Paul wrote as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, but that did not hobble him from expressing ideas at times that confound the smartest among us and dismantle the most self-assured. One such statement may be found in Philippians 2:4, "Look not only to your own interests... Consider others better than yourselves."  I can barely pull myself from survival mode long enough to acknowledge someone else, much less prefer their interests to my own. And when I attempt to do so, my words ring tinny and hollow, and even a bat could see that I'm saying things disconnected from my heart. Is Paul encouraging us to paint the clown 's face and pantomime love?  Are we to fake it with the hope that we'll eventually deceive ourselves into accepting our pasty makeup as our real face? I'm convinced the aged apostle has something much more authentic in mind. Paul does not encourage low self-esteem but no-self-esteem.  When I begin to recognize and genuinely believe that what others need and want is as important as my own needs and wants, they supernaturally become more important than my own and I have traveled a long way down the road of actually losing sight of myself. 

Granting Grace

How should I respond when what appears best for someone else does not feel reciprocal?  How does one conjur up congratulations when one would much rather retire to the mourning chair and offer anything but encouraging accolades?  To be blatant about it, I'm asking how one postures her or himself when instead of joyfully patting the other on her or his back you are more keenly aware of what feels like a knife shank protruding out of your own? Betrayal is the word that threatens to sour on the brain while others speak of God's leadership or, on a higher spiritual plane, God's " call."  These are, perhaps, the moments that most pungently drag agape into light. Is God's love emotionally based or entirely a matter of volition? I certainly hope and believe that God's love toward me is a matter of objective grace rather than a subjective momentary knee-jerk.  If that is so, and I gladly stake my eternal destiny to that hope, do not others deserve the same from me? I find far too much in common with the unjust steward who, while forgiven an impossible debt, invokes collection on a minuscule amount. It's not the world that's too much with me, but myself that bullies me around. What harm can be done in forgiving? What downside is there to choosing liberty over slavery? I will work on allowing others space to be different from me, and freedom to act and choose what I might select for myself under role reversal. Grace doesn't always feel good to grant, but it is always the higher choice. 

Excerpts from Popi's Memorial Service

The following is an excerpt from my father-in-law's memorial service. I was speaking:

I've been in this situation many times before--speaking at a memorial service for a friend, or a church member, or a cherished professor, or my grandmother, or my father, or my mother, and now my father-in-law's service-- and the challenge is always the same:

 

How do you sum up a person's life in an hour? (actually more like 30 minutes) Answer--it's impossible. The best you can do is consider aloud certain characteristics that represent the soul of the individual, and then allow each listener to take one or more with them as they return home, or to their work, or wherever they go when they leave here, to contemplate them, and, sometimes, to emulate them.  For the few sacred minutes we have this afternoon set aside for this purpose, I will attempt to paint with amateur brush strokes a portrait of UryJoseph Armand, Jr. (a.k.a. 'Popi'), but I readily and unashamedly admit that this portraiture will be impressionistic rather than photographic. Photographic realism comes from knowing facts--what's contained in the obituary, biographical information. Impressionism comes from knowing life-- attitudes, animation, words, relationships,emotions. There is a place for photographs (like the slide show before the service), but even then their power is in the memories they trigger and feelings they generate inside of us. What I'm trying not to trip over my tongue to say is how tragic it would be for us to walk away from here this afternoon only having learned a few facts about Ury that we didn't know before-- that he attended Catholic elementary school, entered DeLa Salle Normal School in Lafayette, Louisiana as a junior novitiate, worked as a collections agent, sold work shoes in retirement, passed away on Wednesday, February 5, 2014.

 

No, what we really want is a strong impression of the man and how it might help us to be a little more like ourselves, the selves God intends us to be.

 

By the way, that's the reason we turn so hungrily to the Psalms. If you read them purely to learn some facts about King David or Asaph or theSons of Korah, you will put the book down and walk away disappointed. But if you want to learn a heart, if you dare to expose yourself to raw emotion, honest doubt, even unfiltered anger, read the hymns of the Old Testament like starving vagrant groping for bread or like a desert stranded man gulps water from a canteen. Listen again to the heartfelt impressions in Psalm 30...

Can you see him?  Do you have an impression of the charming man that he was?  I have pondered long what it was about Popi that was so charming, so endearing.  He was not perfect; he had his faults as we all do.  The best way I know to explain his charisma is something Frederick Buechner wrote: "They had caught something of Christ. Something of who he was and it flickered out through who they were." There's my answer -- Ury had caught something of Christ, and it flickered through.

Fantasy or Autobiography

If our days were predictable and easily managed, we'd be authoring fantasy rather than autobiography. 

Soul Music

If I owned sufficient talent to stand before an expectant crowd just once and 'deliver the goods,' I know what I would sing. No deliberation required.  Of all the options available of harmony and verse from countless ages, I could not help but choose what preaches the sweetest message to me. This is soul music in the deepest key. If ever we could seize its truth, we would move beyond theologizing about grace to hungrily devouring grace as God intended us to know it-- in hopelessness and crisis, in despair and disillusionment, in the sacred simplicity of our humanity.  Read or sing these words alone or aloud and see if they do not touch some hidden hope within. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

God loves a lullaby

In a mother's tears in the dead of night,

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

God loves the drunkard's cry

The soldier's plea not to let him die,

Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

The woman holding on for life

The dying man giving up the fight,

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

The tears of shame for what's been done

The silence when the words won't come,

Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

Better than a church bell ringing

Better than a choir singing, singing out.

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody.

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah.

(Lyrics by Amy Grant)

Watermarks of Joy

There is a mourning superimposed on watermarks of joy. Such is the normal human response to a loved one's release from Alzheimer's diseased effects.  I do not hesitate to admit that I already miss Poppi and anticipate the pang of family gatherings without him. My bocce compadre/adversary has been taken from me, but I cannot succumb to the hurt of absence without remembering the last time we played and how I had to remind him every turn of the rules of the game he knew so well. Looking down this week upon his shrinking frame I did not want him to go, yet silently prayed he would.  And now he has, and I appeal to Heaven that the peace that is his will soften the ragged corners of our grief.

Released from Clay

Transition came silently and, as of 4:30 pm this afternoon, Poppi is released from the confused confines of the clay he lived in. I'm not intelligent enough to explain in metaphysical detail what took place when breath and heartbeat ceased, but I am wise enough to admit that I do not know how to explain it. Some say death is the start of a grand journey toward the ultimate reunion. My thoughts run counter to such linear speculation for I see heaven as a matter of dimension, not distance. Heaven is not a far off place--some biblical Land of Oz--and the Father is not, as Bette Midler sang, in the distance. Scripture throbs with passionate cadence that God is near, making heaven not a trip, but a mere step.  It is what Marcus Borg calls, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time."  For all I'm worth I believe that Poppi has now met Jesus again for the first time, and the only waiting for him is for the opportunity to introduce us.

Nearness of Love

The world becomes so small in a dying person's room.  All concerns shrink to the immediate context.  The waiting turns to remembering out loud in mostly whispered tones, as if sitting in a childhood library.  I must confess that I have become secretly selfish in the interlude. As I witness the tangible compassion of family and the nearness of love in this room, I gain inexplicable comfort in anticipating the same at my own curtain call. There may be nothing nearer to the heart of God than this, to love and be loved in return.

A Room Called Peace

Buechner wrote about A Room Called Remember, but I'm sitting this morning in a room called peace.  There is a giftedness about watching life draw to a gradual close without strain or struggle, silently, peacefully. Poppi's breathing has slowed and will soon stop altogether, and according to every indication it could go momentarily unnoticed when it happens. In a whitewashed room such as this, life scales back to the essentials--a breath, a heartbeat, a swallowing. And suddenly, what matters most in all the world is this sacred sharing of each slowing breath.  Perhaps in the stillness I hear a voice say to me, "Cherish better each moment with the ones you love. Savor more sweetly your own daily gifts."  Bonhoeffer wrote of this in Life Together: 

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts... Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things."

Connected Loss

I'm not sure it's possible to endure loss without connecting it to previous, seemingly unrelated losses. When my mother died I instantly began to grieve my father's passing fifteen years earlier. As we face my father-in-law's pending departure, I grieve the loss of my mother three years ago.  There's nothing logical about such a practice of association, but it happens nonetheless.  Perhaps this eases back the corner slightly on the mystery of life--we were created for relationship and cannot understand life in isolation. Each is a part of another, even without an associated genealogy.  I think I'm only beginning to gain an elementary understanding of the inherent value of humanity to humanity.

Reason with Grief

You can't reason with grief. Every evidence indicates my father- in- law will soon lose his struggle with Alzheimer's.  He's been declining for more than two years, so logic declares that this is for the better. Reason chimes in that Poppi really left us some time ago.  And theology whispers he'll soon be in a better place.  I cannot and would not argue against logic, reason, or theology. The fact of the matter is, I agree. Alzheimer's is an insidious mystery and release from its ghastly grip can be nothing but positive.  Having admitted all associated truth, the intense sense of loss weighs heavy.  It hurts to lose a family member we love. It wounds to know we'll never see him again in this life.  Try as I might, I can't reason with grief.

Daydreaming Heaven

I enjoy waking early, but rarely do much more with the stillness than accompany morning coffee with prayerful meditation.  These are not moments for doing so much as being. Reflection fuels the later doing. This winter morning I shove aside the sermon that insists on intruding and allow myself to settle on daydreaming about heaven. It feels somehow natural to think about death while peering through glazed windows at weighted skies and naked trees.  A grey and barren horizon makes it suddenly a strain to remember warmth and light and green and hope, as recent as yesterday. What complicates such mornings for me is that considering the endlessness of days causes honest turmoil initiated by a barbed question-- will life end with death? Although in my early days as a youthful pastor I meticulously recorded funerals officiated in a massive blank-lined volume printed for such a purpose (perhaps thinking that by writing names in a book I might grant them immortality ), I've long since lost count of how many times I've stood behind podiums and near coffins pronouncing hope that we are presiding not over an ending but endless beginning.  Reciting dog-eared scriptures for the comfort of those lagging behind in the run to see Jesus, I deliver discourses on the eternal sincerely but always with a twinge of wonder. Can such platinum hope prove true? Will I one day blink my eyes in darkest death only to find myself transfigured? Is it possible that my own grey horizon might yield to light grander than anything I've read about or imagined? Don't consider me a skeptic.  Instead, number me in the company of those who cannot honestly declare we have no questions but journey with confidence that we are embraced by the Answer.

Derring-Do and Dreams

Something about dreams both define us and deny us. They define in that they uncover ourselves at the most honest level--what we want most, the raw and uncut version. But they deny us in that a dream never acted upon calls into question a large measure of that which I think makes me "me." Left long enough in the Land of Oz with no mooring to Kansas, I regress to a wispy shadow of intention. Great courage is always required to move from here to there. The greater distance betwixt the two, the higher is the demand for an intrepid spirit. God grant each of us the lion's courage, the tin man's heart, the scarecrow's brain, but most of all, the derring-do of Jesus of Nazareth that catapults beyond the plains of dreams and onto the summit of fearless abandon.