Yesterday afternoon we stood on Cinnamon Beach here on St John, US Virgin Islands, as our son Nathan married Westra Bea Miller. This really wasn't a "destination wedding" since Westra grew up here.
The weather was just perfect. Slightly overcast with a breeze...which is just what you want at this time of year down here.
Westra was stunning...she is an extraordinary young woman. Bright as a whip and beautiful with a good heart. She was walked down the beach by her brother. Nathan was waiting for her in a pair of khaki slacks and a white, open-necked, dress shirt.
I was asked to say a "few words." Although couples rarely ever remember a thing a preacher says at their wedding I gave it my best shot! I read from 1st Corinthians 13. The translation of the Bible in the hotel room was King James so the language was a bit foreign to the thirty or so folks gathered on the beach. People heard, though, what the apostle Paul had to say about love being patient and kind, not keeping a record of the wrong but rejoicing in the right.
Several days before the wedding I had sent Westra and Nathan an email asking them to tell me, in a few sentences, what it was about the other that they most treasured. Their responses were both beautiful and honest...celebrating a very special kind of love and grace they have found together. So I read their words...and we all got quiet. Leaned in. Listened in. And realized we were in the presence of a very special kind of love.
I had all sorts of thoughts and feelings as I stood there on the beach, for the ceremony, and as I joined the party at the Ocean Grill in Mongoose Junction.
First, there was this deep gladness at watching our three sons be together. Bryan took the pictures. Michael helped the party happen. It was good watching them "hang" together. It was a joy watching the delight in the eyes of Michael and Bryan as they watched their brother get married.
Second, it is amazing how love links families people. People who were strangers to me before this weekend have now become a part of our lives...our family. I stood on a beach at a barbecue for friends of Westra and Nathan this weekend and looked around me with amazement...my family has grown in unexpected and delightful ways. Love brings us together...we end up making the journey together and it is all rather amazing.
Third, I realize how precious and powerful the love between young lovers is. It really is an extraordinary, breathless, miracle. The journey we call marriage is about finding some way -prayer, conversations in the evening before turning out the light, taking time to play- to keep that passionate, yearning, aching, delighted kind of love alive. Love changes over time. That is just the way it is. But too often we allow the exuberant love of youth to get lost along the way. So the marriage miracle is about holding onto the delight he had when we first found one another.
Fourth, for marriage to flourish we also not only need to hold onto the joy of our first love but also be open to new lessons along the way. To be open to the possibility that love may become a bit more quiet along the way but it also may deepen and mature in extraordinary ways.
Genesis tells us God created the first person and that person had it all. They did not, however, have a partner. God saw that wasn't good. So God made the second person. We may not all be married but we all need someone in our life who can be a partner...a dear friend...a brother or sister in the journey.
I am blessed...my face has been made bright by the sun and my heart is full.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Short Pilgrimmage on Mother's Day Weekend.
Friday afternoon we headed north to Walkerton. Walkerton is located in the southwestern corner of St. Joseph County in northern Indiana. It's where Sharon and I both graduated from high school.
We went that way to join about 80 others in a surprise birthday party for Sharon's younger sister, Linda. The air got chilly as people partied out in a large garage on a farm between Plymouth and Walkerton. Kids played games. A fire was burning in a fire pit out near the fields. A slice of the moon appeared despite occasional clouds. It was good.
This morning I spent some time chatting with my in-laws, and then I made a solo trip to South Bend to visit my Mom's grave. Her body is buried across from the University Park Mall on the north side of South Bend. Knowing how much our Mom enjoyed "retail therapy" we all thought the setting was just right.
I stopped at a nearby store and bought one,red rose to place on her grave.
In the past I have had to search to find her grave but this time I walked right to it. I placed the red rose across the grave marker that lies flat against the grass. A marker that says "United Methodist Missionary" was half-covered so I spent some time cleaning it all off.
What do you do when you stand at the grave of someone you love? You try to pull up some memories, some mental pictures, but you discover that is too much. You can't do a life justice in a few minutes like that. I looked up at nearby trees full of spring life, and I realized how death cannot quiet the music released by a life well lived. My Mom had her share of the craziness that marks every human life, but when God gave her to the world it was a good day...a special gift. She brought joy and music and faith and passion to us. She could be distracted. Overly involved in the church. She drank diet pop and loved Twinkies. She was a gift. Death cannot silence the blessings she gave away.
I stood there looking up at the traffic passing by. I studied a nearby tree. Then, I turned away. With a heart more full of gratitude than loss.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
We went that way to join about 80 others in a surprise birthday party for Sharon's younger sister, Linda. The air got chilly as people partied out in a large garage on a farm between Plymouth and Walkerton. Kids played games. A fire was burning in a fire pit out near the fields. A slice of the moon appeared despite occasional clouds. It was good.
This morning I spent some time chatting with my in-laws, and then I made a solo trip to South Bend to visit my Mom's grave. Her body is buried across from the University Park Mall on the north side of South Bend. Knowing how much our Mom enjoyed "retail therapy" we all thought the setting was just right.
I stopped at a nearby store and bought one,red rose to place on her grave.
In the past I have had to search to find her grave but this time I walked right to it. I placed the red rose across the grave marker that lies flat against the grass. A marker that says "United Methodist Missionary" was half-covered so I spent some time cleaning it all off.
What do you do when you stand at the grave of someone you love? You try to pull up some memories, some mental pictures, but you discover that is too much. You can't do a life justice in a few minutes like that. I looked up at nearby trees full of spring life, and I realized how death cannot quiet the music released by a life well lived. My Mom had her share of the craziness that marks every human life, but when God gave her to the world it was a good day...a special gift. She brought joy and music and faith and passion to us. She could be distracted. Overly involved in the church. She drank diet pop and loved Twinkies. She was a gift. Death cannot silence the blessings she gave away.
I stood there looking up at the traffic passing by. I studied a nearby tree. Then, I turned away. With a heart more full of gratitude than loss.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
Healing Power of the Road.
I've had friends going through deep water. Each of them seemed to be headed down the road to visit a family member who was ill or they were packing for a new chapter. I sent several notes and said "May the road give you healing mercy."
I know Jesus is the source of all healing. I know blacktop and gravel can't lay hands on us and put together the pieces that are broken. However, there is something about the road that can offer healing mercy. The road can be a place where we discover the reality of loneliness: that's true. It can also be a place of healing.
There have been frantic, exhausted times in my life and I have set off down the highway with a Diet Coke, a stack of CD's, and a gym bag packed with clothes for a day or two. Something has happened to my heart and soul as I've driven along. I've followed the road as it rhymes it's way up and down the gentle hills of southern Indiana, I've listened to the hum of the tires on the blacktop, and something about being on the road calms me...heals me.
Music is often a companion. I'll sample different channels on XM. Early rock and roll, anthems by Queen, jazz, Springsteen all work together to do something good about the broken, tired places in me. Then, though, I turn the CD player off. I unplug the iPod. I shut down the radio. And the only music I hear is the music of the wind rushing past the half-opened window or the hiss of the tires on wet pavement. There is, I have discovered, a special melody that only the sounds of the road can provide.
There is that Irish blessing that says "may the road rise up to meet you." I don't know how exactly a road can "rise up" to meet us but maybe it involves some kind of healing power.
I know Jesus is the source of all healing. I know blacktop and gravel can't lay hands on us and put together the pieces that are broken. However, there is something about the road that can offer healing mercy. The road can be a place where we discover the reality of loneliness: that's true. It can also be a place of healing.
There have been frantic, exhausted times in my life and I have set off down the highway with a Diet Coke, a stack of CD's, and a gym bag packed with clothes for a day or two. Something has happened to my heart and soul as I've driven along. I've followed the road as it rhymes it's way up and down the gentle hills of southern Indiana, I've listened to the hum of the tires on the blacktop, and something about being on the road calms me...heals me.
Music is often a companion. I'll sample different channels on XM. Early rock and roll, anthems by Queen, jazz, Springsteen all work together to do something good about the broken, tired places in me. Then, though, I turn the CD player off. I unplug the iPod. I shut down the radio. And the only music I hear is the music of the wind rushing past the half-opened window or the hiss of the tires on wet pavement. There is, I have discovered, a special melody that only the sounds of the road can provide.
There is that Irish blessing that says "may the road rise up to meet you." I don't know how exactly a road can "rise up" to meet us but maybe it involves some kind of healing power.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bin Laden: Sometimes Love is Tough.
The news from Pakistan about the killing of Osama bin Laden has elicited cheers from around our country. That's understandable. Bin Laden and others like him have been driven by a blind conviction that the world would be better off with one particular kind of fundamentalist Islam in control of all things big and small. Their willingness to take the lives of innocent people in the pursuit of their political and religious goals was unrestrained.
A friend sent me the following quote from Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain
As a follower of Jesus I have struggled for a long time with the question about the appropriateness of war/violence as a means of solving problems. Jesus, after all, says (Matthew 5), "Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously."
Early Christians caused a scandal when they refused to serve in the army of the Roman Empire. Many Jesus followers were, from the beginning, pacifists. A great many Christians -including the sizable Amish and Mennonite populations in northern Indiana- continue to renounce violence in all situations.
I am not a pacifist. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Period. There is no "but" coming. I believe the world would be a much better place if we "bombed" nations like Iraq with things like food, blankets, and medical supplies. I believe living generously, practicing compassion with those who distrust us and wish us ill, will get us further down the road to a better world than resorting to violence. I am deeply concerned by our continuing high level of spending on weaponary. If we are not careful we are going to end up as a hollow empire with unlivable cities, failing schools, inadequate healthcare, and a state-of-the-art military machine. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America against the temptation to build our national agenda around the "military industrial complex."
And yet. And yet...we live in a world that is imperfect. We live in a world where there are very dangerous people who want to hurt the innocent. Every now and then there is a kind of evil loose in the world that must be confronted. Not to oppose this kind of implacable evil is to become a partner to the destruction caused by that evil.
I suppose the issue that "tipped" me in support of the "just war" side that of the Christian community (which claims there are times when military force may be our last, best option) was the Holocaust. As a teenager I came face to face with the reality of the deliberate efforts of National Socialism in the Germany of the 1930-40's to exterminate the Jews. Historians say that more than six million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others were killed by the Nazis and their helpers in such nations as France, Russia and Poland. I did my best to imagine how a non-violent response, on the part of Christians in Europe and around the world, might have stopped Hitler and his plan. I finally came to the conclusion that this evil would have been prevented if France, Poland, Belgium, and other nations had militarily confronted Nazi Germany as it began its expansion.
Sometimes what you get when you seek to satisfy the demands of a little bully is a bigger bully. I learned that on the playground.
Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor during the middle years of the last century, broke with other Christian leaders who were insisting that we stay out of the conflict against the Axis Powers. Niebuhr said that love sometimes means you do all you can to maximize justice in the world.
One Christian writer says there are two sides to love: one is soft (grace, acceptance) and the other is hard (accountability, discipline).
We live in a broken, imperfect world where there is too much injustice and where there are some very, very dangerous people who intend to harm the innocent. I am thankful that Osama bin Laden will not be able to create any more destruction in the world. His removal was, I believe, necessary. I do not feel joy at his death but a weary kind of relief.
Before I end these thoughts I need to say how deeply grateful I am for men and women who do heroic things to confront evil. The team that went deep into Pakistan and took a great risk and was extraordinarily brave, bright, and gifted. What they did was amazing.
I still yearn for the day when, as the song says, we aren't going to study war "no more." I yearn for the day when, as the prophet says, we will beat our swords into plowshares.
A friend sent me the following quote from Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain
As a follower of Jesus I have struggled for a long time with the question about the appropriateness of war/violence as a means of solving problems. Jesus, after all, says (Matthew 5), "Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously."
Early Christians caused a scandal when they refused to serve in the army of the Roman Empire. Many Jesus followers were, from the beginning, pacifists. A great many Christians -including the sizable Amish and Mennonite populations in northern Indiana- continue to renounce violence in all situations.
I am not a pacifist. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Period. There is no "but" coming. I believe the world would be a much better place if we "bombed" nations like Iraq with things like food, blankets, and medical supplies. I believe living generously, practicing compassion with those who distrust us and wish us ill, will get us further down the road to a better world than resorting to violence. I am deeply concerned by our continuing high level of spending on weaponary. If we are not careful we are going to end up as a hollow empire with unlivable cities, failing schools, inadequate healthcare, and a state-of-the-art military machine. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned America against the temptation to build our national agenda around the "military industrial complex."
And yet. And yet...we live in a world that is imperfect. We live in a world where there are very dangerous people who want to hurt the innocent. Every now and then there is a kind of evil loose in the world that must be confronted. Not to oppose this kind of implacable evil is to become a partner to the destruction caused by that evil.
I suppose the issue that "tipped" me in support of the "just war" side that of the Christian community (which claims there are times when military force may be our last, best option) was the Holocaust. As a teenager I came face to face with the reality of the deliberate efforts of National Socialism in the Germany of the 1930-40's to exterminate the Jews. Historians say that more than six million Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others were killed by the Nazis and their helpers in such nations as France, Russia and Poland. I did my best to imagine how a non-violent response, on the part of Christians in Europe and around the world, might have stopped Hitler and his plan. I finally came to the conclusion that this evil would have been prevented if France, Poland, Belgium, and other nations had militarily confronted Nazi Germany as it began its expansion.
Sometimes what you get when you seek to satisfy the demands of a little bully is a bigger bully. I learned that on the playground.
Reinhold Niebuhr, a pastor during the middle years of the last century, broke with other Christian leaders who were insisting that we stay out of the conflict against the Axis Powers. Niebuhr said that love sometimes means you do all you can to maximize justice in the world.
One Christian writer says there are two sides to love: one is soft (grace, acceptance) and the other is hard (accountability, discipline).
We live in a broken, imperfect world where there is too much injustice and where there are some very, very dangerous people who intend to harm the innocent. I am thankful that Osama bin Laden will not be able to create any more destruction in the world. His removal was, I believe, necessary. I do not feel joy at his death but a weary kind of relief.
Before I end these thoughts I need to say how deeply grateful I am for men and women who do heroic things to confront evil. The team that went deep into Pakistan and took a great risk and was extraordinarily brave, bright, and gifted. What they did was amazing.
I still yearn for the day when, as the song says, we aren't going to study war "no more." I yearn for the day when, as the prophet says, we will beat our swords into plowshares.
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