Taking the Time.

There is always a reason not to do what we know we ought to do.

Elva Balluff is a woman who was a dear friend of my Mom's. Our paths crossed in Nome, Alaska in the mid 60's. A tall Canadian who was married to an electronics expert for the FAA, Elva brought a measure of kindness, faith, and beauty to our small, tough town on the edge of the Bering Sea.

One of the enduring memories of my life is the Christmas Eve when Elva sang the carol "Lo, 'Er a Rose is Blooming" in our small church. It was so beautiful it caused me to sit perfectly still as I rested my chin on the edge of the church balcony.

Elva and her husband, Bunny, moved to the lower 48' shortly after we came to Indiana. Elva has lived in the Aurora, Illinois area for almost 40 years. A time or two over the last twenty-five years we've seen each other.

This past Christmas I received a card from Elva's daughter and her husband. Kim and Dan said Elva had fallen, broken her hip, and was in a rehab center in Aurora. I knew I needed to go.

Last week I got away to work on sermons, and I made my way down to Aurora. I took a wrong turn and made a slow, stop-and-go trip through Naperville. Finally, I got where I needed to be.

When I walked around the corner and entered her room, Elva looked up and gave me a big smile. "You have no idea what it means to me that you've come!" she said. Elva asked if we could go down to the lounge on the first floor to talk. So we went down there and spent about an hour. Talking about the families. Remembering old stories.

I pushed her wheelchair to the elevator and we went back to her room. We prayed together and she gave me a big hug.

I said, "I'll be back to visit."

She answered, "Don't say that unless you mean it. Because you shouldn't say something if you aren't going to do it."

We hugged again. I waved and disappeared around the corner. Before the Friday night rush hour traffic got to the truly serious stage, I was east of Chicago...Hammond.

There are people whose presence defines our lives. The time we have shared leaves a lasting impression on our heart...our soul.

I'm glad I went.

Finally.

When Whatever You Say is Wrong.

Have you ever been in a relationship or meeting or class where whatever you said was wrong?

I'm in one of those places with someone I have known a long time...and loved for a long time.

The person is hurting. Feeling cut-off. And whatever I say turns out to be wrong.

Words I mean to be gracious are experienced as judgemental.

Words I mean to be empathetic are interpreted as critical.

It's a helpless feeling for me. There is the intent of the heart, but the words are proving inadequate. Like telephone lines that have been knocked to the ground by strong winds and falling limbs, my words are sent out but the message of the heart gets lost.

And I know it is a helpless feeling for her. She is feeling desperate, cut off, isolated, and in need of support - and whatever I offer feels like another weight. Another indication that she doesn't have anyone she can turn to.

So what do you do? Paul, in Romans 1st Corinthians 14:1, says "follow the way of love."

Here is what I have been reduced to doing:

1. Saying that I love her. That's it. Anything more somehow goes off in the wrong direction. Like a driver whose car is on ice, and no matter which direction he turns the steering wheel, the car ends up clipping the pole and ending up in the ditch. So I just keep saying, "I love you."

2. Praying for her. I am giving her to God. Maybe God can sort things out. Maybe God can help her hear the love behind my words. Maybe God can help me learn to use words that "get through." In the 1st chapter of 2nd Corinthians, Paul says (:9) he not relying on himself but on God "who raises the dead." Sometimes God gets through when we can't. Sometimes God sends someone else who can get over the defensive walls another person has constructed so carefully. I am giving this person to God. (I do that with people in the church who only seem to be irritated by my best efforts to lead and to love.)

3. Keeping the door open. I'm not a big believer in burning bridges. Writing other people off once and forever. Jesus, in Luke 18, has a conversation with a rich man who refuses to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor. The man fails the invitation to be free and healthy in God, but Jesus doesn't write him off forever. Doesn't tell him never to come back. So I do my best to keep the door open...allow for the possibility that the relationship may recover. Grow. Head off in a more healthy direction. Some people say "I'll never send any more cards" or "I won't call that person until they call me first." Not me. I'll keep calling (now and then). I'll keep sending cards. I'll keep letting her know I love her. But I'll not force her to deal with me. The door is open.

Sometimes whatever you say is wrong.

And all I am left with are the words, "I love you."

Lessons Learned in the Wild.

I'm a subscriber to Netflix. It's an on-line service that delivers DVD's to your door.

For the last two weeks I've had Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" sitting beneath my tv, waiting to be seen. Sometimes I hesitate to watch "tough" movies, and this story about a troubled young college graduate who runs away from his difficult family, into the wilderness of Alaska, was supposed to be pretty "heavy."

Last night, though, I took a deep breath and put the DVD in and watched the film. It's a good film. Well-directed, well-written, and well-acted.

It's the story of a boy born into a family where the marriage of the parents is troubled. Christopher has everything, graduates from Emory, and then heads west. He gives what he has away, burns every piece of personal ID, and refuses to have any contact with his parents. The young man works with a harvesting crew in the midwest, goes down the Colorado River, ends up traveling up the West Coast with some middle-aged hippies, and ends up deep in the Alaskan wilderness. All by himself. Living in an abandoned bus.

All along the way, he runs away from people who offer him love. There is an older man, an Army veteran played by Hal Holbrooke, who offers to adopt Christopher. The young man keeps moving. Because his own family has had turmoil and conflict, the young man keeps moving.

Finally, as he dies alone in the wilderness, Christopher writes something like this on the page of a paperback: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

Running is a pretty common way of responding to disappointment, sadness and heartache. I see that all the time in people's lives, as a pastor. We don't usually end up living in an abandoned bus outside Fairbanks, but we run away. It's like if we can get far enough away from other human beings, we'll be well...free of the sadness.

But running rarely works as we had hoped it would.

The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, spends a lot of energy telling early followers of Jesus that we were created to be a part of a body. We were meant to share life with others. We were not meant to do life on our own.

That is the lesson he learns in the splendid isolation of the wilderness: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

If you're running, I think it would be a good idea to stop. I wouldn't pretend to know what your next step should be, if you stop running, but I think you should stop running.

The Importance of the "G" Word (Goodbye)..

There are different pieces to the art of living well. There are different pieces to the mystery of being a pastor.


One of those is the art of saying "goodbye." When I talk with pastors and lay people I say I am really good at leaving. Saying "goodbye." We're not even close to saying that in this current chapter of life. It'll be a long while, I hunch, before I pack my boxes and leave Trinity. Move on.


But I'm good at leaving. Good at saying "goodbye." I never slip out a side door. I do my best to look people straight in the eyes, tell them I am leaving, tell them what they have meant to me, and tell them why it is time to go. I do my very best to bless the ones who have been walking with me during the current chapter. And I leave. I don't hover. I don't keep ducking back to check up on everyone. To see how my successor is doing. Like the nervous parent of a pre-schooler who isn't sure their child is going to be okay after being left at nursery school. I face people, I linger, I bless people, I say "goodbye," and I head out the door.


We do a pretty good job of welcoming people into the community of the church. We have new member classes. We have a formal ceremony in worship as people take the vows of membership. We hand people a certificate. Shake their hands.


Leaving? That is a different story. Too often people just slip out a side door. I spoke with a friend the other day. Said we had missed them in worship. He kindly explained we hadn't seen them because they were worshipping elsewhere. Okay.


I think people duck out the side door because they feel guilty about leaving a church. Not always. But often. They worry about how people will react. They may have seen other people loaded down with a "guilt trip" when they decided it was time to move on. So they slip out the side door.


Saying "goodbye" is important. When we don't have the chance to say "goodbye" I feel like we have all been cheated. Because we've shared some pretty important moments together.


A friend who serves an area church says, "Just tell me goodbye as you leave. Don't just disappear. I prayed with you through that job search eight years ago. When your daughter was arrested I went to court with you. We went on a mission trip to New Orleans together, and stood side by side rebuilding houses. So don't slip out of my life...our lives...without saying goodbye. It's okay. I'll still love you. We can be friends. If you need to leave then go ahead and leave. But say goodbye."


The summer after his senior year at Elkhart Central, our youngest song would play his favorite CD's after getting home from Creation Windows. One of the songs I heard coming from his room was Andrea Bocelli's "Time to Say Goodbye." It wasn't rock and roll. Seemed like an odd choice.

Tonight, as I wait for Michael to drive down from Chicago O'Hare for Christmas, I am wondering if he played that song as a way of saying goodbye. Sometimes the heart stuff is too much. Words can't hold everything we're saying or feeling. So he played the song. Day after day. Through that summer. Preparing us all for a chapter that was ending, and helping us prepare for the chapter ahead.

The Gospel of John is unique, among the four gospels, for the number of chapters used to describe the last few days Jesus spent with his friends in Jerusalem prior to his arrest. We're told about the last supper, the washing of the disciples' feet, and John reports -in great detail- the "high priestly prayer" Jesus offers on behalf of his friends. God shows us all sorts of truth in the account of those last few days, but one lesson is how much energy Jesus invested in saying goodbye. He didn't slip out a side door. He told his friends what was happening. He told them why it was happening. And he blessed them.

Part of living well is learning the importance of the "G" word.

Don't slip out the side door. Of church. Or of any other significant relationships in your life. Take the time to say goodbye. Heart work can be tough but we'll all survive. The people who love you just want a chance to bless you.

When it's "Time to Say Goodbye" do just that.

Just Being.

Thanksgiving was always a pretty big deal in our family. My dad, a physician, would make a big deal out of stuffing the turkey and sewing it up with some old surgical instruments. (I know - it sounds nuts.) My folks would work together to prepare the food.

Grandparents would usually be around. Siblings were all there around the table. At the end of the meal we would play a "fill in the blank" story game called "Benny and Becky's Just Right Thanksgiving." It first appeared in some national periodical back in the 30's, I think.

I've discovered that this week is my favorite holiday of the year. Oh, there's no question that Christmas and Easter are more important to us all in so many ways. They remind us of God's presence and saving power. They bring us face-to-face with a God whose power and love are breath-taking. Cosmos changing. And July 4th has its special charms. Time at the lake, maybe a round or two of skiing, fireworks over the water in the evening. But Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

Not because of the food. (Although Sharon is an amazing cook and always takes better care of us than we deserve.) Not because of the Macy's Parade. Not because we all get a chance to watch the Detroit Lions lose another game.

No, it is because our family gets the chance to just be together. Pastors, at both Easter and Christmas, are pretty focused on preaching and leading worship at those times of the year. We always seem to be coming and going. But the week of Thanksgiving, after preaching a brief word in the beautiful, simple, short Thanksgiving Eve service we have at Trinity, I just sort of stop. I hang out with our family. This week two of our grown sons returned home with their families. Our 16-month old granddaughter was around.

We hang out...eat...watch some football...maybe slip up to Chicago for a day...do dishes...maybe catch at movie on DVD here at home...read news headlines to one another as we sit at the kitchen table and look at The Elkhart Truth, South Bend Tribune, and New York Times. It's good. We just waste time together...share space...breathe the same air.

I love it. As good as it is I ache as the house begins to empty. My siblings head off late on Thanksgiving day. A few days later our kids go off. As Ella is carried to her car by her Mom she looks back at the house...at us. Is it my imagination or is she thinking, "Dang! Is the party over?"

There is a fire in the fireplace. I've just finished the NY Times. Caught some of Indiana's game with Cornell and watched some of the Jets' game with the Broncos. The house is quiet.

And I am so thankful. Which is right where I started this week: thankful.

Grace as Credit.

One of the short detours in my life took place during college. My Grandpa Owen had connections in the banking business, and somehow he got me hired -for the summer- by a South Bend bank. They figured that if I was Bill Owen's grandson I must have something on the ball when it came to numbers and finance, and they foolishly put me in their "officer trainee program." The bank survived two summers' of my well meaning but inept performance, and then they decided never to have me back.

So numbers...finance...banking...is not my thing.

The current financial crisis in the United States, right now, seems to be profound. I wouldn't pretend to understand what has caused it and what the details of the government "bail out" should be. As near as I can figure the real critical moment was the drying up of the credit markets.

One financial expert said that credit is to the economy what oil is to an internal combustion engine: it keeps everything moving. So the credit market tightened to the point where no one was going to be able to do anything...build buildings, hire new workers, buy land.

I've been thinking about the role that credit (appropriate, responsible credit - not out of control "anything goes" kind of credit) plays in the economy, and wondering if there might be some parallels with the Christian notion of grace. Forgiveness...unmerited love, that's what grace is about. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, talks about a kind of love that doesn't keep track of wrongs but rejoices in the right. That doesn't rejoice in the wrong but rejoices in the right.

Grace is the oil that keeps relationships going...that helps us hang in there with one another over the long haul. We are well into my 13th year as senior pastor at Trinity Church, and I find myself remarking -now and then- "We've been together long enough that I have given you all sorts of reasons to write me off." Give someone like me long enough, and I am going to stumble...make bad calls...until my humanness becomes almost more than anyone can bear.

We won't make it together if we don't extend the relational credit -grace- to one another. Grace "primes the pump" for a new chapter. Except that with grace there is no compounding interest we have to pay back.

One of the opportunities I have, as a Christian pastor, is to meet with engaged couples. They often tell me that they want to be passionately in love with one another after 50 years. They tell me that they want to be holding hands when they are 80. They tell me that they want their kisses to be tender and passionate decades after the day of their wedding.

A key to that is living by grace. Forgetting the junk of yesterday, giving the other person another chance, and moving on. Because when the credit market we know as "grace" dries up then everything stops. The relationship, like earth dried by the merciless sun, cracks wide open and blows away.