Dear Grandson

Your closest family at your mom and dad's wedding

Sorry for the generic title to this letter to you but your mother and father have been steadfast in their determination not to share your name with us until you’ve made your appearance. Your Great-aunt Denise has called you Oscar and you’ve been referred to as ‘Grommet’. You are already collecting nicknames. It is exactly two weeks before your due date, though I expect you’ll be a little early on the scene. In your case, a little early is just fine because you’ve been eagerly awaited by many of us. I thought today would be a good day to tell you a few things about your family and what I believe for you.

First, let’s look at that word I put in the first sentence, ‘steadfast’. My friend Webster says steadfast is to be firm in belief, determination, or adherence. Webster is a friend I hope to someday sit with you and get to know a little better; I learn something every time he and I get together. Listening to what he say about steadfast, I have no doubt it applies to you – it’s genetic. Your whole family line on both sides has it as far back as I can see. Now, a scientist may tell you that DNA has no bearing on a trait such as ‘steadfastness’ but I am a simple man trying to be faithful to scripture and Paul tells us differently when he spoke to about Timothy’s faith which was first seen in Timothy’s grandmother and then his mother. See? Simple. You’ll find firm determination in your parents, firmness in belief in your grandparents because of God’s good grace, and firm adherence in all your great-grandparents that I’ve had the joy of knowing.

Next, let’s talk a little bit about the family you’ll be born into. I’ve known your mother since the first moment she was born and I felt many of the things she and your dad have felt as they’ve prepared to welcome you. They’ve been amazed and nervous, steady in their preparations for you and a little frightened they may have forgotten something important, and tender toward you and each other while being a bit like the momma and poppa bear in protecting you. They’ve done really well and you’ll be taken care of like a prince.

Your mom was a partner of mine in some great adventures in Arizona with the church kids while we worked, worshipped, and played together. I coached her basketball teams and saw every play she had role in for the Crescenta Valley High School drama department. She has never been a ‘drama queen’ nor is she fond of the kind of drama I’m eluding to here. She is steady, perceptive, and rational; fun loving, adventurous, and brave. I have a tender spot for all my kids and I am fiercely proud of all of them. She’ll be a fantastic mother for you.

I’ve known your dad since he was a rambunctious third grader, about seven years old. He was in the first Sunday school class I taught when your Grandmother Mumsy and I rejoined the La Crescenta Presbyterian Church. I had fun with him when he came into the Junior High program of the church and went with me to Arizona. He came back to Arizona after graduating high school and I taught him a little gorilla sign language, something he may want to teach you when you’re old enough. He played football, baseball, and basketball and is a very competitive man; he loves to do well and competes most strongly with himself. I have always loved him; first as a little boy, then as teenager, and then as a young man. I had a feeling he and your mom would get together and I’m glad I was right. He has a lot to teach you.

It was during high school your mom and dad met and became friends. That’s a huge advantage to them as a husband and wife and I believe their friendship will be a great help to them as your mom and dad. 

I’ve known your Grandma Chambers since she was a little girl and our families went on vacations together. She swam in our pool, played with our dogs, and now she directs the Center for Children that her mom, my mom, and some their good friends started way back when. 50 years ago actually. She’s smart, loving, and kind. Right now, she is a little tender with you coming into the picture and your Aunt Kelsey getting married in a just two weeks. I love our partnership with the school and I love watching how well she cares for her staff and the children of the center. She will be a load of fun for you.

I’ve known your Grandpa Chambers about the shortest of all those I’m talking about here. He’s a bit enigmatic but I watch him and have observed that steadfast quality I talked about earlier. He gives his heart to people and sticks by them; he’s a faithful and strong friend to have by anyone’s side. If he tells you he’s going to do something, you can believe that it will get done and done well. He will be one of your biggest fans in whatever you pursue.

Your Grandmother Mumsy is a gifted artist in several media. She has been a fantastic Labor and Delivery nurse and is a Psychologist, I’ll let her explain what that is, but believe me, she is an excellent listener and counselor. Both your grandmothers have been a big help and support to your mom. I love Mumsy dearly and wish I’d done it better but I’m working on that. She will do great and fun things with you and help you discover the artist inside of you. All of us have at least little creativity and only a few discover it as a passion like she has. I can’t wait to see her holding you for the first time. The look on her face and the love that will be coming from her is likely to break my heart in a very good way.

You have aunts and uncles, great-grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, and cousins all eager to meet you for the first time. I’d tell you about each one, how I love them all, and what I think they’ll mean to you but then this letter would go on and on and I might not leave any stories for others to tell. I can’t let myself have all the fun. Although, I may have to write you a second letter and tell you about your cousins since they’re my grandchildren too. Regarding your cousins, you’ll learn sometime soon that your Uncle Daniel and Aunt Ani are having a baby and you will have a cousin only four months or so younger than you. Won’t that be excellent?

You will be a blessing to many; a loyal friend, teammate and partner. You’ll be a son to make your mom and dad proud and happy. You will make us smile and cry at the same time. You will do amazing things because you’ll be steadfast, strong, fun-loving, steady, and a bit wacky. Some of your best friends will be your cousins, older ones and younger both. You will be loving – and there is nothing better than that.

I can’t wait to hold you, rock you to sleep, and watch over you. Someday we’ll get to roll around on the floor together and wrestle. You’ll probably win; that’s usually how it works. I’ll tell you other things that might amaze you. I certainly hope to make you laugh.

Your Opa

I Could Not Bring Myself to Write It

A Storyblocks Image

Malachi 3: 16-18:  

“¹⁶Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.

^“17They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. ¹⁶And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” (NIV)

I sat down this morning to write judgement on certain people who lead us on a path of destruction. Matthew quotes Jesus about them in his Gospel in the 24^th chapter, verse 4 and again in verses 10-11. I cannot even quote it. I cannot write the judgement. I am weak and I fear. I’m well aware of the hypocrisy strewn about within my person and I know that to write it is to bring the judgement upon myself. Even to think it now and avert my fingers from the task brings a level of conviction I can scarcely stand.

See how the font follows my line of thought? I love to write posts in Comic Sans because it has style and there is some part of me that enjoys the whimsy of using a font with such a name. I cannot do it here. Someone must pay.

I confess to praying judgement. I have a young friend I made at VBS who should be entering her middle school years carefree; free to be creative and funny, smart and witty, cute and sassy. She carries the burden of abuse. I’m pissed off that I didn’t see it happening and have castigated myself that I allowed it. I’ve prayed for judgement on the perpetrators and know that it will not rest upon solely one person. I remember Jesus quote in Luke 17: 1-3.

I confess to praying judgement when I read my own daughter’s ‘Me Too’ Facebook post. I railed at whomever it could have been. It was by the thinnest of margins that I held back from trashing the office where I sit to write this. I wanted my own hands round their necks, my own fists to pummel the ba-jesus out of them. I feared that I could have contributed in any way.

I am powerless in this but for one thing. Rereading our Men’s Group scripture from this past Wednesday, I was looking for one thing but found something else. A bit of hope. Some direction. And so it sits atop my post as the only scripture I’ve quoted though I’ve referred to a couple of others.

The children have it right. They gather in protest as victims of this latest mass shooting and they have it right, correct in thinking they must speak out so we’ll listen. The children brought to our country in the arms of their parents who thought it was an adventure, a trip to a better life, only to live in fear have it right and must speak up so we will listen.

And those of us who fear the Lord must listen to the children and talk with each other. The Lord will listen too. If we fear the Lord and honor his name, he will listen as we talk and wisdom will be found and we will be his.

And those who ‘listen’ and offer one thing to the children in exchange for their own hateful desires? Well, look back at Luke 17.

In fear and trembling at my own weakness but forever in His grip, 

jerry

Decisions, Decisions; the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Apostles cast lots to determine the replacement for Judas...

Decisions, decisions; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let me fix something right up front that I couldn’t bring myself to do in the title. There’s the Right Stuff. It’s the decision we need to make every time if it’s there for us to make.

The ugly decision is the easiest one to describe. We make them all of the time and yet they should be the easiest ones to avoid. We know the pending action is a sin or is bad for us and we make it anyway. We drink ourselves to drunkenness or we take those office supplies. We drive under rage screaming at the doofus words we’d never utter anywhere near the front steps to the church. We smoke anyway, we flirt and carry it too far, or deny our faith. We tell our children, our spouses, our friends, pastors, and ourselves lies. And sometimes we boast about the ugly decisions we made while in certain company.

These are the classic sins, the deadly sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. Why do we sometimes brag about them? Why do we make the decision to sin like this at all? I’m hoping by the end of this post I’ll shed some light on it. That’s what I’m trying to do here, figure it out by writing it out and end up with a little better grasp of the issue to get myself to the right stuff more often.

The bad decision does not necessarily lead to the commission of a sin. Sometimes it is just a stupid mistake we’ve made like telling ourselves we have plenty of time to step off the curb and jog-walk across the street as the signal turns yellow - surely the car speeding along the boulevard will stop for the yellow even as he accelerates. When we wake up and see the worry etched on the EMT’s face is when we accept that we’ve made a bad decision and we were just plain stooopid.

Wait a minute though. What led us to that decision? If we did a little root cause analysis we’d probably see a little seasoning of deadly sins mixed in our recipe for the bad decision. At least pride and sloth. If we make enough bad decisions they become habit. It we don’t learn from close calls, near calamities, and I-told-you-so moments, they could become deadly. And that would be wrong.

The good decision. Ah, some relief here. We’re Christians and we make plenty of good decisions like when we decide to record our favorite team and go church anyway even though we aren’t up front that morning and all the while we pray nobody says anything about the Saints’ game as if nobody has their handheld device out to watch scores for their fantasy football team. That gets us every time, doesn’t it? Still, it was the good option; who can control what’s said at the ‘party’ between services in the breezeway?

Good can be a subjective determination and in the process of decision making it’s usually made in our own mind and hopefully confirmed by others later. The big question I’m wrestling with is what makes a good decision the right decision?

Some of you may be tired of hearing about Mission Arizona when I talk about stuff. Sorry about that but for more than a quarter of a century I’ve made decisions around that yearly event and it’s something most of my friends who’ll read this are familiar with. I’ve been asked many times if I’ll be going on the upcoming MAZ. My response has been the same and now it will be true about the CASA trip replacing it. I tell them, and try to convince myself, that I’m a year to year contract with God on my involvement, just like Walter Alston was with the Dodgers. I give it careful thought and prayer and I’m trying to make the right decision which by my definition will include the right motivations. You should see what trips me up in that last sentence. It’s not ‘my definition’ that does it; it’s ‘right motivations’.

Over the years I’ve decided to go or not to go that, to me, have clearly been the Holy Spirit telling me to go while at other times it’s been habit and felt right, or it was the right thing but I was unhappy with it, or it was more me than the Holy Spirit saying to stay home but I’d convinced myself it was the spirit. There were a couple of times where I truly felt it would have been fine with God either way to go or not to go.

What’s a boy to do here? What’s the key? Waiting on the Lord. Learning His voice over your own and waiting on Him to decide. It seems that this would be simple for the event or occurrence that’s a year out, or even next week. It is not; it’s hard work separating our own desires to get down the kernel of truth that makes a right decision. It seems that it would be terribly difficult to wait on God to determine if you should cross a street or for that matter, if you should raise your hand and volunteer to serve for the request being made right then, right in front of you. It doesn’t have to be. Set yourself to walk the right path for the day, reinforce it by prayer when you awake, strengthen it with communication with Jesus through the day and when the time comes he will make it known to us.

Jesus lived this way, only doing what the Father told him, showed him. When Jesus leaned over and picked the kernel of wheat, shucked it and had a snack, the Father had shown him it was right even though the Pharisees were there to condemn the act. We can live like this. We are told we can do all that Jesus did and more. It’s a tall order, getting ourselves out of the way, and letting the Spirit lead. But it’s doable.

  

In His grip,

jerry

Be a Lighthouse

“¹⁴Ye are the light of the world. A city set upon a mountain cannot be hid. ¹⁵Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the lampstand, and it gives light unto all that are in the house. ¹⁶Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in the heavens.” Matthew 5:1416 (Jubilee Bible 2000)

I hear about churches in decline and what might work or even what seems to be working to maintain church numbers or perhaps to foster growth. I hear churches and the organizations that bind them talk about being poised and ready for growth. We ask ourselves ‘how do we bring them in?’ and then the burden is laid on the congregations to bring friends to church while the people whose only friends are the church wonder what they can do.

In case you’re wondering here; I don’t have a magic elixir to offer; no program to tout and no new mix of music and liturgy sure to bring them in.

I hear talk of numbers and see pie charts, bar charts, and line charts showing the trends toward zero. We pundits of recent church history provide color commentary on what’s wrong and what could be right while pointing to growth churches and what progressive programs they’ve got going to bring in the sheaves. Christian Analytics: How much do we gain if we do this? Do we get a good return on our investment if we do that? Sports are being driven to analytics to get more for less money, win enough to keep people buying tickets and maybe get deep into the playoffs or luck into a championship. Then sell off the high-priced emerging talent that got them there and start again. As long as fans buy tickets. Don’t fall for it in the church, our Chairman of the Board doesn’t care for that approach. And don’t forget that statistics are wielded by people, each with his or her own point of view.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony of providing commentary in my writing about folks providing color commentary.

I turned a little corner this morning and found myself doing what an elder in the church should be doing – prying for the church to focus on Christ – him resurrected for us as the former, present, and forever King of all Kings. I need to be praying for that and doing it from the heart while going to battle against distractions to His Lordship and against encumbrances to our glorifying Him in our worship and our fellowship, and in our service, programs, and vision for the church.

Doing battle does not mean my standing up with a big sign out front of the church as I rail against the shortcomings of each person as they enter the grounds. I’ll not be riding in on a white horse raising my Bible as a flaming sword. However, I will be immersing myself in God’s Word and finding my way to Calvary to take time to pray, and pray earnestly, that Christ be lifted up first in the heats of believers and thus on display as a beacon to those who seek.

We must not light our lamp only to hide it under a bushel. We light it, put it on a lampstand, and provide light for all in the house (the church). And the church, having her wicks trimmed and lit, provides a light to all around, as a lighthouse. The light will declare, “Here is landfall, a place of safe harbor, beware the rocks and waves as you enter.” Those that are now cast adrift and in trouble on the stormy ocean will be drawn to find rest, a place where their wicks will be dried out, trimmed, and relit.

In His grip,

jerry

Be One Whom He Seeks

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” John 4: 23 (NIV)

There are times I mourn some for lost spaces, little nooks and crannies where I’ve found a moment or two of solitude for quiet reflection, even talks with others that began in hushed tones and, as often as not, broke out in laughter. There was the small memorial chapel complete with waterfall/fountain that even worked for a season or two that became a storage facility and then was removed.

There was the space with comfy couches arranged around a fireplace that really worked – or works still for all I know but it's become a multipurpose room now. With a fire going we’d gather around and talk about a Bible verse or story or some sort of personal train of thought and our discussions would range from here to there with tangents and such until a game of some kind would break out. Eventually the group would quiet down as the fire calmed to embers. On a New Year’s Eve some of us would nap there until the word went out that it was time to go and freeze our butts on Colorado Avenue for the Rose Parade.

There used to be a library with real books filling the shelves with Bibles, concordances, journals, expanded studies of all the books of the Bible. It's a craft center now. You could go in there and pull down a book on nearly any Christian topic of the day and study. There was always a current (and several earlier renditions as well) Book of Order. Groups could gather there for in-depth discussion and discovery.

Now reading the verse above I have to chastise myself. Solitude can be found anywhere you set your heart to look. Worship can take place along any pathway, in the midst of a shopping mall, on the beach, on the bike (pedal or otherwise), and in the trenches of everyday life. It’s up to me to find my spot, to make it the Lord’s for His purpose.

And there are still spots that can be found on the campus I refer to here if you find the right time and know where to look. The seekers can find them and there is always time for worship. We must leave space in our lives for quiet contemplation and worship, to make/take the time and find the location holy for His purpose. If we do this, worship while our bodies, even our souls, are busy doing other things, then we become the ones whom the Father seeks.

In His grip,

jerry

I Am Saddened

(photo courtesy of 'Storyblocks')

I was saddened when I heard the news, the news that fifty-eight people had been killed and over 500 others gunned down in a senseless act by one man. This feeling is akin to that devastating shock I felt as I watched the plane crash into the second tower in New York just as my TV had warmed up for my morning bit of news while I was getting ready for work. Mornings turned into mourning.

Senseless acts, both of them. And countless more between and before and sadly, countless more to come after. We live in a broken world and nothing will fix it except for the unrelenting application of God’s grace obtained for us by the resurrection of Christ. And that will only work in partial doses until God’s Kingdom is established in full, on the earth. I am afraid they will remain senseless to us, that we will never truly understand the ‘why’ behind the actions of people who visit atrocities on innocents.

I won’t try to explain it here, I can’t.

What are we to do?

I am saddened also by what I’ve seen as I scroll along my Facebook news-feed. Saddened by those who see fit to politicize such a tragedy before the scope of it is fully known. You know the ones I’m talking about. They are on every side of the issues being bullied about from their social media pulpits. ‘We need more gun laws!’ elicits the response ‘It is our right to bear arms!’ We may well need more laws or to actually enforce those we have and it may well be our right to own and carry weapons. However, our duties lie elsewhere.

I was saddened by those who chose to take aim at protesters while praising the heroes of the day. The message to the protesters was weakened by doing this just as the message of praise for the hero was diluted.

Just as I’ve been saddened by the politicos in response to this latest mass shooting I was saddened by our response to the 9/11 attacks. ‘United we stand!’ they said. ‘We will never forget’ we said and so we pooled our resources and we ‘got them’ all the while destroying more innocent lives by many times than what were taken from us on 9/11. We missed an opportunity for a Godly response.

What are we to do?

I suggest we let the dust settle. Take a knee, take both knees, to the turf and let the dust settle. Let it settle all around us, on our shoulders, upon our heads, and on our backs while we are bowed over in prayer. Prayer for the souls of the dead, for the healing and recovery of the wounded, and for peace for all those folks who were there and experienced a terror words can only go so far in describing. We should humble ourselves first and let the impact settle in around us. Pray for God’s Kingdom to come and come quickly. We need to pray for the heroes of the day, those who shielded others, those men and women who ran into harm’s way to stop the madness – pray for their emotional scars to be wiped out so that heroes can walk upright and be ready again. So the lambs and doves can sleep without trembling. Pray so the angles need not shed more tears.

Friends, let us stand down from our stumps and get off our soapboxes and instead kneel by our beds at night, by our desks during the day, and humble ourselves while the dust settles.

In His grip,

jerry

Any Questions?

Every once in a while I wonder what questions I would ask Jesus when I find myself in His presence, as if I would have the capacity. I rather imagine that I’ll be prostrated at His feet curious as to why I’m there and to what purpose I’d been called – is this my final call and what list of charges will I be hearing at my sentencing? You know, hearing all those things I’d done that I can’t imagine Christ forgiving me for?

Still, I think about what I would ask Jesus given the chance to speak in His presence. Years ago I lost one of my best of friends to some drunk driver. The circumstances of his death baffled me. He was the only passenger of five in his car that died and the only one in it not to have a broken bone in his body. I told myself that the first thing I would ask God is why Doug had to die so young and so needlessly. Doug is the first person I led to Christ and it just didn’t seem right for him to be gone so soon after. I held on to that question in anger and anguish so tightly that it became a bitterness that divided me from my Savior. It took the prayers and laying on of hands of a bunch of junior high kids and their adult leaders to heal me of that bitterness more than 20 years after Doug was killed.

What questions do you have? I imagine they are similar to my old question – Why was this or that person taken from me? – Why was I mistreated at the hands of someone I loved and trusted? – Why do good people suffer at the hands of the evil? – Why did my friend lose all hope? - Why was my prayer unanswered and that person not healed? – and so on. I’ve had the question I talked about, all these, and more. I’m not sure I’m strong enough or wise enough to hear the answers.

Questions of faith and doctrine might rest on our hearts but I think those will fade at the sight of His glory and their importance to us vanish.

I believe it is okay to harbor questions for Jesus. Just don’t do it in anger, anger begets bitterness, bitterness separation. (The same can be said of anger toward people) Our separation from God is the very reason Jesus went to the cross and suffered on our behalf. His suffering closes the gap we’ve built, His resurrection is power enough to make mute all of the questions. Don’t hold on to your anger at unanswered questions so tightly you can’t grip the Lord’s hand when it is offered. Even when you do hold too tight, some friend, an acquaintance, a random stranger, or a group of wacky teenagers will come along and do you a kindness that loosens your grip on bitterness and allows you to breathe again. I pray that it to be so for you.

If you need to hold on to a question do so in anguish. Jesus understands anguish better and more thoroughly than anyone can imagine. It was He who said on the cross, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” Even though Christ knew the answer He asked it in His darkest hour. In the Lord’s deep understanding of your anguish you will be comforted.

What questions do you have for God? Ponder them for a bit, let the ones go that are too troublesome to your walk with Him, and hold lightly those you have in anguish. Peace.

In His grip,

jerry