Point of View

I was going about it all wrong – not an unusual occurrence.

We recently completed phase two of a home window replacement. In phase one we replaced the windows in the former master bedroom that became Ashley’s room and then Lauren’s room. Two windows were replaced, one with a slightly larger one and the widow facing the backyard was replaced with a large sliding glass door. This room now serves as the sewing room equipped with a trundle bed for guests. Wonderfully creative things are already taking shape there and we have a fantastic memory for the room when it served as the Bridal Room for Ani and Daniel’s backyard wedding.

Phase two encompassed a bathroom, the guestroom (formerly Ashley’s and Lauren’s bedroom), and Daniel’s old room that will be “The Office” where I’ll do the bulk of my writing and that will house the family computer. It will also serve as a guestroom. There is now a six-foot, three-panel window in place of two side-by-side 30 inch windows that overlook the front deck and yard. The change is startling. There is a lot left to do in the room – fresh paint, floor treatments, and furnishings. I hope that the room will lend itself to enlightened creativity.

I had written those first two paragraphs in longhand while waiting somewhere or while on the road someplace and taking a little break. My intention had been to talk about all the work needed to change the point of view of the room and getting a fresh perspective as a way to unlock the stories loaded within me. While that may be true and the change in the surroundings in the office might be effective for projects, I woke up this morning and realized that this is all wrong for where I am right now.

Stephen King told me the office plan has holes it for a creative writing space. I am reading his “On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft” and coincidently enough I had just read his section on writing space. The quotes used here are from chapter 3 in the On Writing section. Stephen supports the idea of the office as my main personal writing space, “Until you get one, you’ll find your new resolution to write a lot harder to take seriously.” We plan to make it simple; a soothing place, pleasant for reading, writing, and contemplation. Sure, it’s an office and work will be done there but still, why not make it a nice and simple place to be? “The space can be humble (probably should be, as I think I have already suggested), and it really needs only one thing: a door which you are willing to shut.” And now here is where we are breaking with Mr. King’s suggestions although there will be some sort of window shade should I find the need to deploy it; we are talking about a multipurpose room after all. “If possible, there should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or video games for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out a blank wall.” As I write this post my desk is in the living room facing a wall but the same view as where the desk will look out on in the office is available to me by looking over my right shoulder. Overcoming our breaks from those suggestions will take discipline, something I’ve been struggling with since I discovered that I have a story to tell and thoughts to write about that I hope others will find entertaining, uplifting, or provocative.

All that being said about changing the room to change my perspective is still not my biggest mistake.  Those things I talked about above only address the physical and emotional/mental side of things. For me to have success I must be connected to Jesus and the Holy Spirit must have free reign to speak and lead me. My point of view must be the foot of the cross; it is the only place where I can be effective – Calvary’s Thread has to be a real place for me, one that I can connect with wherever I am.

The scripture that jumps out at me when thinking along these lines is John 5: 19 & 20, “¹⁹Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. ²⁰The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.”

The place where I have most easily connected to the cross is during Mission Arizona, specifically during quiet time while I’m sitting in the desert, under some mesquite bush praying and asking for coverage, asking Jesus to lead me, to meet me. I know where this place is in my heart and when I have trouble changing my point of view, I go there.

In His grip, jerry

With Interest

Philippians 2: 4 & 5, “⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

I cannot begin to enumerate the blessings that I receive from people in all the facets of my life, let alone give justice to them in recalling them in any sort of story form. The three that I talk about here stand out to me just now because of how timely they were regarding important junctures and events. I find it interesting to look at them and see that they are from three different aspects of my life; work friendship, home-church friendship, and a friendship that transcends our old-church beginnings to carry us throughout life. All of the men mentioned here exemplify verse four; they looked to the interests of me and my family and not to their own. While they are from different facets of life they are all tangential to the one point in verse five; they all have the same mind that is in Christ Jesus.

I recently retired from AT&T after a 35 year career, 29 years of which were spent in the Network Engineering Department. It was not my intention to retire at the time but when the company came out with a short-term, enhanced retirement plan I took a close look at it and determined that I needed to take the offer. A lot of prayer, soul searching, spreadsheet reviewing, and discussion went into the decision and so far, it seems right. A friend of mine in the department, Herb Parker (whose career orbit and mine brought us into frequent contact) and I talked about the offer. I have always valued Herb’s company wisdom and insights; I value even more our ability to freely discuss our faith. Herb asked what my plan was for retirement and when I told him it would be time for me to put up or shut up for a story I’m writing he told me of a few books that would be valuable for me as a writer. When I returned from lunch I found a Vromans’ Bookstore bag on my desk with “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser in it. Receiving the book and the book itself have been inspiring. I appreciate Herb’s genuine interest in what I have to say as a writer as well as his interest in my desire to improve my new craft.

Workday results

On April 13, 2014 we hosted the backyard wedding of my son and our wonderful new daughter-in-law and I officiated. We had a huge amount of work to do since we’d never really done anything with our yard and it was a wilderness. From the time of the decision up to just hours before the blessed event something was being done in the yard to make this happen. I received offers of help from two of my LCPC friends who I hike with when I can. The offer was for four or five of the guys to come over and do whatever we needed done instead of taking the Saturday hike. I accepted the offer and two weekends before the wedding Scott Gossett, Greg Wolflick, John Holmquist, Darrell Fernandez, and Steve Pedrini showed up and did in four or five hours what would have taken me over a week of full days to complete. They restacked a dry-stack wall, set native rock flagstones in a path and steps, set in a used brick deck, and put up lattice under our deck. Their interest in our family event gave us the boost we needed to have a signature event in our backyard and the prayers and love that were poured into the workday were evident throughout our celebration weekend. I love those guys!

As I have been in transition from the highly structured career where I knew where I’d be on any work day to a writer’s life where I have to provide my own structure some things have fallen aside, most notably for me, Calvary’s Thread. Jim McClelland, one of my longest and best of friends (I have three men from my youth that I use this term for: Doug, who we lost before he was twenty, Mike Schermerhorn, and Jim), gave me “Hero” a devotional style book by Derwin L. Gray. Reading just the Introduction and first chapter reignited my desire for daily spiritual reading. I imagine that reading Hero will inform my Calvary’s Thread writing for next several weeks as well as provide material for the story that is in progress.

What better friends than these could a person have, that would see to my own needs before they see to theirs? My challenge to us now is to sit back and take stock of the blessings from our friends. My prayer for us is that we end up sitting back in wonder at the love God pours out for us.

Luke 6: 38, “³⁸Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap.” (NLT)

In His grip, jerry

Tied in a Threefold Knot

A gift from Ani and Daniel

Ani and Daniel are married and I had the great honor of being their officiant. I took it on as more than a simple honor and looked at it as a task that I was called on by the Holy Spirit to complete. I consulted with my friend Webster and found his definition a bit much for my simple pedigree; “one (as a priest) that officiates at a religious rite”. However, with the Easter message fresh on our minds I think that the power of His resurrection and the grace that Jesus affords us, that for a few hours, the definition had some merit in this instance.

The numeral three plays a big role throughout the Bible; three crosses, three days from cross to resurrection, the Holy Trinity, and many more. I fooled around with several terms for the title of this post – trifecta, triple, triad, threefold… Daniel is the third of our three children to get married and increasing our family many times over with the new families all tied together. The blessings are heaped up well beyond threefold and I cannot really do justice to the abundance of joy our kids bring us.

I led off my thoughts on love and marriage for Ani and Daniel with Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 12; “⁹Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; ¹⁰if one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! ¹¹Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? ¹²Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” I followed the scripture with these words for them, “I believe that you have found this to be true for the two of you and that is what brings us to this place; to see you wound together with God’s blessing as husband and wife – a three stranded cord.”

The short message was seasoned with several scriptures; what better way to see a couple married than using a liberal dose of God’s word? After some personal observations and notes for each of them I focused on improving our love by practice and action and ending the thought with Philippians 1:9, “⁹And this is my prayer, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.”

I believe this to be true for the both of them toward each other; Ani to Daniel and Daniel to Ani – “⁴I have found the one that my soul loves.” Song of Songs 3:4.

We ended the message with a charge to the couple and the rest of the celebrants as well that I pulled from Colossians and I’ll end this post with the charge to all of us as well:

Colossians 3: 12 – 15a, “¹²Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. ^15aLet the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”

Amen 

Grudging Obedience – To What End?

Alas, the last paragraph had the hero being reproved by God. I had jumped to the end of the story in the hope of finding a happy ending, one that would portend good things for the end of the particular chapter in my own life that I am now wrestling with. That frequently happens when I look for an easy way out.

Have you ever had anything in your life where something that you knew was what you should be doing, that you knew in your heart was God’s desire for you to be doing and you had already decided to do it but you’d rather not because there were other things going on, good things, important things, also things that you believed that were in God’s will but they were all stacked up like dominoes, each with its set of steps that needed to be done in order for the task to be completed and you were at the point that you really wanted to focus on the other things and didn’t feel like working on the first thing? Did you get to the point that your obedience to the first thing was given grudgingly? The first thing seemed pretty right at the beginning but the closer it got the messier it became and the messier it became the more time it took and the more time it took the more you struggled with your willingness to do it. Of course by this time didn’t the joy you wanted in doing the other things, the next things diminish, become messier, and create conflicts of their own?

I needed help with my task – I’m a bit tired so I looked for a lesson from the past. The example that jumped up at me was Jonah and I grabbed my dusty bible (should read “trusty” but that’s another issue to wrestle with) and read Jonah’s book. It is surprisingly short and to the point and unfortunately for today the ending was a disappointment to me. The story itself is very familiar, one that we’ve heard since earliest Sunday School. God calls Jonah to go and prophesy to the people of Nineveh to warn them of impending doom. Jonah instead runs from the presence of the Lord and jumps on a boat to take him away. Don’t you find it interesting that a prophet of God thinks that you can run from God’s presence? God brings up a storm and the sailors panic while Jonah, like Jesus would later do, falls asleep with the ship about to be overcome. When confronted by the crew Jonah, rather than be like Jesus and command the storm to cease, tells the crew to throw him overboard which they eventually do. Jonah really did not want to prophesy to Nineveh.

After spending his three days in the fish Jonah worships and God has the fish toss him upon the dry land and then commands him to go to Nineveh and when he does, the people, led by the king, repent and God spares them. Exactly what God wanted, exactly like Jonah expected, and a happy ending except that Jonah got angry and wished his life over. The last paragraph, Jonah 4: 9-11 is God reproving Jonah and the story ends.

How disappointing was that to me? I had hoped to read that Jonah grudgingly obeyed God and fulfilled his duties and in the end was blessed for it. Not so. 

To be sure, I don’t plan on getting angry when God blesses the first thing in spite of my curmudgeonliness but I had better get my act in gear if I want to participate in the blessings and come away from it closer to God. I’m not angry, I am scared that I’ve accepted too much and that the people being served by the things I have in front of me won’t get it and be blessed and I’m kind of in mourning that I haven’t overcome more of my reluctance and have completely deferred a new passion (not counting this post). I don’t want to mess up but I know that He hasn’t required of me anything that He can’t see me through. Amen.

Many Mini-Miracles

Many Mini-Miracles

Jerry, called as a reclamation project to be a servant to children and now to encourage and challenge, to build up and inform, to ask and listen to friends and family, known and unknown. To the faithful Calvary's Thread readers.

Sounds pretty pretentious to me but I wanted to try it anyway with all those wonderful letters from Paul setting the standard for salutation. Somehow when he did it with his long and impressive pedigree it didn’t sound bad at all. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

I have a confession to make, actually I have too many to put in a post and still keep to my goal of one type-written page per post. I am gluttonous. I see blessings and little miracles almost all of the time; in fact, whenever I rouse myself to look I can see them. I want more; I want it all, including the big stuff. I want to see my mother-in-law walking down the hall because she wants to do something down the hall. I want to hear her laugh at a joke she made and I want to see her confer hugs and embrace her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I started writing this post weeks ago and every time that I thought I’d sit down to finish it I put it off hoping that the next visit to see her would be the one where I could write about the big stuff – seeing and hearing the real Jan and watching her be animated and involved, initiating lines of conversation with us.  We’ve seen her improve from comatose to various levels of alertness, combing her hair, brushing her teeth, and laughing at funny stories that are being told. She walks down the hall under the supervision of the physical therapists at their urging. Yesterday we visited and she vocalized more than at any other time, clear hellos and then I’m quite sure that she said something about the marriage contract when I joked about the small print in our agreement getting me out to a quilting show with Cindy. It was a good day for her. Her grand-nephew came later in the day and reported a similar experience.

I rejoice for a few minutes and then my gluttony takes over. All these mini-miracles are adding up and maybe even add up today to a good sized miracle; after all, we still have her with us and more so each visit. Still, I need more and why shouldn’t I have it? The test of faith is almost too much to bear. We ask and intercede for Jan and sign off on the prayers in Jesus name. Is the answer no or is it “show me your faith”? What?

I would like to understand how Mary did it. Look at John 2: 1-12 and read about Jesus turning water into wine. Mary tells Jesus about the wine running out and he tells her no, that it’s not his time. Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them and he responds to that with his first miracle and turns the water into the best wine of the feast. What was the key there? Some little thing that only Jesus’ mom would know that forced him to act? Faith for sure as she acted on what she saw as a need that could be filled by Jesus and to kick-start his career. But what was the real trigger and how can I implement it? It feels like a dangerous thing for me to question my own faith and to put the onus on myself. It scares me a little to consider these things.

I’ll take the mini-miracles and expect one or more each time I visit or hear a report from others. I’ll hope for them to pile up and when taken as a whole to have them add up to the big stuff. Who am I to question how God does things? He looks at the long range, further down field than I can. Perhaps He already sees her in one piece again and I only need to have a veil or two removed to see it as well. God help me.

Apply Within: Sending My Resume to Heaven

The title for this came to me early this morning and for once I did what a writer should do and wrote it down. I let the idea of putting a resume together for entrance into heaven run through my mind awhile wondering how I could make an application for entrance into the Kingdom of God. It was like a stream slowly meandering its way through a meadow. By all rights I should have been allowed to drift back to sleep on a lazy Saturday morning.

 

I think my mind is a bit fertile for this because I have found myself introducing Jan to Jesus while praying for my mother-in-law saying things like “Jesus, bring healing to our sister Jan, your servant, a Deaconess in the church, a woman of faith who serves the poor in spirit, the poor in the world, and serves the church. Remember her and bring restoration.” I have been building her resume to Jesus who knows all of that and more about her. I suppose I should just simplify things and stop the bargaining; “Jesus bring healing and restoration by your power and grace, let the act of your perfect sacrifice have its full effect.”

 

When I’m at work I often turn to those who have experience with the particular issue that I am wrestling with so why not with this issue? I sought out the wisdom and words of a couple of old-timers, Paul and James

Paul put together a very nice resume in Philippians 3, versus 4b-6; he has an impressive pedigree. Yet in versus 7&8 he sets that notion aside, “⁷Yet whatever gain I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him,”

So my anemic resume; son of pillars of LCPC, longtime youth worker, struggling Christian writer…really mean nothing when it is measured against the perfect sacrifice and doesn’t, in itself, get me any nearer to Jesus.

James sets the stage for his discourse on faith and works in chapter 1 verse 22 of the book of James, “²²But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” In chapter 2: verses 14-26 James juggles faith and works with the keynote in verse 17 “¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” And he follows this with “^18band by my works I will show you my faith.”

 

I have found myself checking off items on my Heavenly To-Do List thinking that this is the pathway to heaven. It is just no so; it is not as simple as that at all. While thinking over Paul’s and James’ words I picture an old-fashioned balance scale and for me to pile good works on one side so that works outweighs faith and sits firmly on the table is no good; I’ve simply made myself look good to others. And conversely, if I pile faith up on the other pan and it comes to rest on the table, I have deceived myself. This begs the question of how does one pile up faith without works; what does that look like? Do I sit around reading scripture and then walk around reciting the “I believe ins” of the Apostle’s Creed and count that as faith. No, I must achieve the great balance, first by believing and building up my faith and then by doing the things God sets in front of me because of my faith.

 

When all is said and done and I find myself at the Gates of Heaven standing in front of Saint Peter perhaps I will just make it simple and read him this while he checks for my name in the Book of Life, “Dear Peter, I am a sinner, a man with a weak heart and checkered past. I am here to throw myself on the boundless grace of Jesus and claim the power of His resurrection. Only Jesus’ forgiveness can get me in; nothing that I’ve done or not done, good or bad, can get me in.”

Stop. It's Time to Pray

Romans 8: 26 “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” NASB

A couple of Sundays ago Ashley, our Director of Children’s Ministries, spoke to the children that had gathered on the chancel stairs. I had a pretty good view from stage left of the chancel as I prepared to follow the children’s time with the prayer of confession. It is Operation Christmas Child time so the church family is busily gathering supplies and gifts to pack what we hope will be well over three hundred boxes for needy children throughout the world. Ashley shared how at the Samaritan’s Purse packing stations while the workers are preparing all of the collected boxes to be shipped to over a hundred countries a voice comes over the loud speaker system saying “Stop. It’s time to pray.” Everyone stops whatever they are doing and prays over the boxes, blessing them with the Spirit, and praying for the recipient to know Christ through the gift and the givers.

That phrase has stuck with me and is my nugget from the service. It has become a touchstone over the last couple of weeks. With my mother-in-law suffering a debilitating stroke and a few days later my sister-in-law was in a freak accident in which suffered a broken pelvis I have much to be in prayer and intercession for with these two who are so near to my heart in such deep need. At work, during my walks, working at home, and even while vegetating in front of the TV the phrase resonates in my mind and I have to quiet myself in some way and pray. Even while gathered with the family in the hospital room with my mother-in-law, one not fully aware while we carry on conversations of every kind, the reverb comes to me, “Stop. It’s time to pray”. And so I do stop and touch each one with a feather of prayer to aid in our vigil; we pray and hope, wait and see.

I found it interesting that in a place with people gathered in an activity inherently good and with a Christly objective that we are also in need of reminders to stop and pray. I think it is another instance of Martha versus Mary, Mary stopped, prayed, and paid attention to the best thing while Martha needed to be reminded to stop her good work and heed to the groaning of the Spirit. We need to be reminded from time to time to give voice to the groanings within us; pause a bit in our labors, in our joys, and in our sorrows, to acknowledge the Spirit within us that intercedes on our behalf.

Of all of the things I have to be thankful for, a list that I cannot do justice to or am deserving of, I am at this moment extremely thankful for the nugget that I picked up, the echo of hope that invades my conscious thought to give me an opportunity to thank God for that list and pray for those that the Spirit has placed on my heart.

Yes, one would be you.

In His grip, jerry