15

"You who are young, be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless."

 (Eccl. 11:9-10 NIV) 

Kamila Valieva. 15. Can't drive yet. Can't sign a legal contract of any sort yet. And yet one of the biggest sport controversies of the last week outside of the face-masking call that didn't happen at the Superbowl that led to a touchdown. 

Kamila Valieva. 15. Doping female figure skater poised to win gold for the already penalized "Russian" or ROC neutral flag. 

Kamila Valieva. 15. Accused of taking heart enhancement drugs that improve oxygen levels and endurance in long programs. Guilty. 15. 

I watched her skate in the short team program and was wowed by her skill and her artistry. 15. I don't know about the drug stuff, but it can't get you to do triple sow cows and flying camels and other animal shapes. There is some talent going on here or I'd be in the Olympics. Curler or Snow Cone Design. 

But as my two favorite female commentators [Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir] said, "Cheating is cheating. Anything that gives you an edge chemically that enhances you physically is cheating. She shouldn't be allowed to compete." 

I don't understand the sport of ice skating or the immense pressure of competing at that level. I don't understand the pressure of representing your country on a world stage. I don't understand what it means to be a female in that world. But I do remember being 15 (vaguely). 

Saving for a car. Working on the farm or with dad in his painting business. Mowing grass. Working the garden. Babysitting my sisters. Figuring out the world of girls and my single action BB gun. Trying to remember my locker combination. Still depending on mom and dad for transportation, for life's provision, and most importantly, for guidance, for safety. 15. 

Makes you wonder. 

Breaks my heart. 

Kamila Valieva. 

15.

Puffer Fish

 "Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!'" (Lev. 13:45 NIV)

I had my annual physical in December. You know the appointment that you're supposed to have every year but ends up being every two or three or five. You know the one where the doctor says, "Anything wrong or concerning?" And you say, "No" even though you could do a full organ recital of complaints about the aches and pains you're experiencing. You know that one where she listens to your heart and says, "Yep. It's still beating" and then charges you almost $400. And you have a heart attack when you get the bill. Yes, that appointment. 

So, all the numbers were good. Everything was in the right place and the right size (and all God's men said, "Amen"). Then she springs it on me. "You know...you really should have those capillaries addressed on your face before they become problematic. I'm guessing... farm kid, 1960's and 70's. No sunscreen. Multiple sunburns." 

I'm glad she went to medical school, or I would have never guessed that was the reason for my very red (or as they say about handsome men in the Bible - ruddy), bloodvesseled (my spell check is fighting me but overriding), often swollen cheeks and nose. I was well-aware of my negligent youth and consequences. 

"Easy solution. Face transplant. They just did one in France and he's doing fine." I giggled uncomfortably not knowing if she was joking as she grabbed her Magic Marker. I was thinking more like that old show Quantum Leap where he comes back and goes into this chamber and gets zapped by infrared light which literally kills the entire outside layer of his skin which he just wipes off like a layer of dust. So cool! Nope. Laser. 

Now that sounds cool at first but then you begin to think about laser beams that cut through steel or kill alien invaders. She's probably going to tie me to a chair. I'll be brave. 

The day arrived. A Friday. Two days before a public appearance preaching before the masses and a family funeral in the afternoon. What could go wrong. At worse I'll be a little red. 

"Now you're going to feel a little prick like a little needle stick." I noted the word "little" twice. That means it's really going to hurt. The laser will actually explode each capillary and the blood flow will find another route deeper into the skin. It won't come back again, and you'll have nice clean skin. The problem:  I had about a thousand capillaries. 

"Doing okay?" she said after explosion 100. Only 900 more to go. She handed me a nice cold roller. Oh, man, did that feel good. "Look, Deb, look how nice that looks. Sometimes it's painful to look beautiful," Doctor Mangala said.  Not what I wanted to hear at that point. I was looking for "all done." But that wouldn't come for another half an hour of pure torture. 

"How's the pain level - 1-10?" I'm beyond numbers. Let's just get this over with so I don't have to confess that I cried in front of women. 

Over. Can't feel my face. 1:30. Hungry. Cracker Barrell. Sitting at the table. "Deb...I think my face is leaking." The water blisters started to emerge. Not a pretty sight. Couldn't wait to get home. Worse on the cheeks and nose where I scabbed up. But I'll be alright tomorrow. Nope. Looks like I skidded on my face in the driveway...multiple times. Swollen like one of those Puffer Fishes. Maybe no one will notice. 

Sunday. Left eye swollen. Water pockets under both. Scabs. Water retention all over my face. I looked like a pumpkin. I will never make fun of women who complain about retaining water again. Deb was prepared to be the brunt of my explanations, but I spared her the humiliation of suspected spousal abuse and just went to the vanity/precancer answer. I spent the day "explaining." First at church and then to total strangers who thought I went through the windshield of something. Nope. Just laser surgery. And everyone over 60 said, "Yep. Had that done a few years ago myself. Had this cut off and this cut off and...I was not encouraged but thankful that mine was treatable, a preventable non-cancer issue. 

Today, I still look like I was in a street fight, but things are healing. I'm hoping there won't be a round two, but if needed it won't be as extensive and I'll know what to expect. 

In times like these I read the scriptures a bit differently. "Unclean! Unclean!" said the leper when encountering another person. The sense of rejection. The sense of shame. Embarrassment. The memory of not being this way. Wondering if it will ever end. No wonder they sought out Jesus. Hope. No wonder they were surprised when he touched them. He saw them. Beyond the skin issues. He saw them. Persons. Valued. Loved. Full of potential. Beautiful inside. 

I was reminded of that as people observed this beat up guy in a nice suit. I was still Pastor Dan. Danny. Loved. "We don't care what you look like - we're just glad you're here." "Pastor, we're not here to see you. Just show us Jesus through your words today." Humbled. Thankful. Revealing. 

A gracious reminder that sometimes it does take pain to be beautiful - inside.  

I close with a wise and truthful saying from a family member, "You can change ugly, but you can't change stupid."  For what it's worth...

Insanity

 "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26:11)

Someone asked me what my favorite holiday was. I quickly replied, "Groundhog Day." Blank stare. Not Christmas? Goodness, "no." Exhausting. Commercial. Pagan. Fourth of July? Absolutely not. Too many drunk people with explosives. Halloween? I won't admit it. Washington or Lincoln's birthday? Nope. No mail and the banks are closed. I could go on and on, but I won't bore you or open doors of personal criticism with my reasoning. 

In 1887 a newspaper editor in Punxsutawney, PA., latched on to the old Pennsylvania Dutch lore of "Badger Day." This is the day where the farmers would watch the badger come out from hibernation to see if he would come out and stay or go back into its den for an extended hibernation. Come and stay...6 more weeks of winter. Go back to bed...snow until June. He seized upon the old story and made it into a fun community event which now is celebrated around the world in its differing forms. 

Many of you remember the film, "Groundhog Day" with actor/comedian, Bill Murray. Bill plays a Pittsburg weatherman who is given the assignment to go and cover the Punxsutawney Phil prediction. He reluctantly goes with a very bad attitude and gets caught in a blizzard after the unveiling. He wakes up and finds that he is reliving February 2nd again...and again...and again. The original writers had him doing this for 10,000 years but it was reduced to 10. Ten years in the same day loop. Wow! 

Phil, (Bill) was only able to escape the loop by being mindful and making a difference in the moment - to appreciate the day - to make a difference in the day without any expectations that tomorrow will come. Great lesson. How can I make a difference today? 

It is a reminder for us to be in the moment. Pay attention to those you're speaking with, resisting thinking about what comes later in the day. Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow. Today has enough problems of its own." Not sure that was encouraging but truthful. 

You've heard it said- I'm sure, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." What a truth for us to consider on this Groundhog Day celebration. Don't get stuck in the day - look for something different, do something different. Shake it up a bit. Find God moving, the Spirit working. Don't return to the folly of yesterday or the week before or the year before. Don't get stuck in the,"it's Monday and this is what I do," "it's Tuesday and this is what I do." You may not be able to change your responsibilities and deadlines, but you can certainly look for something new in them. How can I make a difference for the Kingdom today? To be different as a citizen of the Kingdom today?

Statistically the weathermen and women are only 50% on an extended forecast over 10 days. The Groundhog is at 40%. I'm going with the Groundhog this year and taking the straight jacket off.  If you're feeling a bit insane today like I am, join me in the support of your local groundhog and give up on watching the news for the weather. Today has enough trouble of its own. 

Spared

 "The righteous perish and on one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." (Isaiah 57:1-2).

I've been to three funerals in that last five days. Deb's Uncle Bill (77), my brother-in-law, Larry (57), and a dear church member, Brother John G. (82). Two of them I officiated. 

I'm afraid to acknowledge this but I'm just tired. I'm not overwhelmed with grief. I'm not angry. I'm just tired. A bit envious. And expecting a lot more of those departures this year. Tis the season of aging parents, aunts and uncles, church family members, and the ravages of Covid related maladies.

I think of the dear pastor in Ireland years gone by that buried ten people a day for months because of Typhus. Doing his duty. Tired. Thinking of those who have been spared of life. Broken and yet calloused. Succumbing. Spared himself. My spirit is being prepared. Strengthened. 

Death is a theological conundrum. It wasn't the original plan of God. We were meant to live forever in perfect fellowship in a perfect environment. We screwed that up and death entered. All for a fig or an olive (depending on the source).  Healthy snacking is the source of all evil. Death is bad. Death is a curse. Or is it? 

When I was young, I didn't want to die. But then again, I didn't think about it. I could have easily fallen out of the apple tree in the backyard or drowned in the ditch, bitten by a water moccasin, suffocated in the silage silo or been crushed by a hundred bales of hay. But who thinks about death when adrenalin makes you feel so alive? I was young. The little girl a few miles away died of leukemia. But I didn't know her so...off of the roof we go. Nothing broken but the wind knocked out of me. 

I'll be sixty this year. I am no longer climbing apple trees, playing in the ditch, enjoying the sweet smell of silage in the silo on the farm or making forts with sixty-five-pound hay bales. I am no longer jumping off roofs or anything over a foot tall. Lacing up my shoes is now considered a risk hazard. I up my insurance temporarily when I know I'm going to have to shovel snow or when the kids want to go roller skating. I'm seriously thinking about gutter guards because the thought of hanging on to a leaf blower looking over at a twenty-foot drop to the lawn below is causing me anxiety. 

At some point my mortality caught up with me. But what I have learned is that life is a continuum of readiness. When your young you're supposed to be ready to die but you really don't expect to. When your middle-aged your supposed to be ready to die but you can't afford to. When you start to hit that last turn on the track (whatever age that might be) you're supposed to be ready to die and...I'm not sure how to end this one. Perhaps a wiser person than me has the answer. But I think it has to do with your readiness and your expectation to. 

Isaiah the prophet said that death...is a friend. Death is a gift. Death spares you from the evil one. I had a number of people who died just prior to the Pandemic. The most common sentiment by their surviving spouse: "I'm glad they weren't here to see this" or "I'm glad they weren't here to suffer through this." Death. Gift. Friend. "Where is Thy victory? Where is Thy sting?" 

I've lived a good life. Regrets? Always. Blessed? More than I deserve. Work to do? Yep. Plenty of it. Eyes on the prize. Too many people to reach for Jesus. Too many believers to be shored up in the Word. Holding me? Preventing me? Not one bit. Ready. For the Uptaker not the Undertaker. But my thoughts are on things above not on things below. I'm ready to go. 

Psalm 73 is one of my favorites. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 

Ready but with my hands to the plow. It's just the patties from the back end of the oxen that I'm looking to be done with. 

Go climb a tree and for goodness sake, eat something unhealthy. 

Reflections

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

I was 6 in 1968. Born in 1962 plus 6 years...yes, I was 6. I just calculated that per the new math equity scale and that's going to come in around between 4.3 and 7.6 but I'm not sure that matters anymore as long as I feel good about the answer. Okay, technically I was 5 years and 8 months per the Gregorian Calendar. I can already hear my beloved say, "You and your eldest daughter...you're always rounding up. You were 5!" 

It does make me feel a bit better because on April 4th, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated outside of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. I was 5. If I were 6, I would probably have remembered. But I don't. 

I've been trying really hard to remember anything about that day or the day Bobby Kennedy was killed later on that year. Perhaps I was too busy with ticks on my dog or worms or gum in my...or leeches down in the ditch. Real threats to a 5-year-old white farm boy who only saw black people on television. 

Honestly, I can't remember the first time I met a black person. (I just raised my shoulders up and down). Statement of fact. No politics. No opinion. Like I can't remember the first time I saw a bear or a snow cone or naked girl. I'm sure I did. But I was 5. And I had a 2-year-old sister. I saw her bear neked and cold. Like worms or gum or leeches (good ones). But I was 5 and had an outside dog who was prone to ticks. I'm hoping you see the interest level.  

I'm not sure how we would describe parenting back then, but I don't remember my parents sitting me down explaining to me what happened. I think back then parents loved by shielding. They suggested I go play with my farm set or gave me an extra hour out in the dirt with a stick before I had to come in for my bath. Complex days. I was 5. 

I was trying to think about the first family member that I saw dead. My Grandpa Cains died when I was "around" 10. He had a stroke long before that and honestly, that's all I remember about him. Bedridden. And then not. And then a family Cains reunion at a really weird place where I ran around and with certainty, created trouble with my cousins. I can honestly say that I don't remember the place having a playground set. I clearly wasn't dressed for it in the first place but when did that ever stop an "around' ten-year-old boy?

I can't remember any conversations about "that person in the box." No trauma that I can think of. 

I can dimly recall the news that our neighbor's (Bert and Lena Garner's son) was killed in Vietnam. And that mom and dad had a blond-haired guy (Barry?) who came over and showed them a lot of pictures of the war. I vividly remember that I was not included in the viewing. Love. 

As I reflected today (Monday) on the death of the civil rights leader, I couldn't help but think of how difficult it is now days to love through shielding. You almost can't. My heart hurts for my grandkids. 

It longs for ticks and worms and gum and leeches.

 

The Artist

 "On thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." 

This is one of my favorite psalms. It really is a prayer request. I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. I want to gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh. I want to have a heart that seeks him in His designated place of worship. 

I started a new series on Sunday morning called, "We Believe" based on the Apostle's Creed. Our first foray into the study we looked at "I believe in God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." Summarized:  God exists. God is personal. God wants us to draw close. And the last...God is an artist. 

I couldn't stop thinking about this last point. Toward the end of my sermon (which unfortunately did not switch to my power point presentation), I showed multiple pictures of Hubble telescope galaxies, nebulae, starburst, etc..., a bug-eyed monkey, a hedgehog, a beautiful deep blue Owl, and ultimately, the diversity in humanity with a picture of a bunch of ethnically diverse kids. 

I told Deb on the way home Sunday that without the Hubble, no one would have ever seen those images. Point:  God didn't make beauty first and foremost for me. God made it for Himself. God loves to create beautiful things for His own pleasure. 

He could have so easily made everything like my old 1960's television set: black, white, and shades of grey. But He didn't. And I fully believe that when I get to heaven there will be colors that I have never seen. I'll get my 64 crayolas out and say, "Nope. That's not in the box." 

No wonder John had such a hard time describing the things in heaven. "It was like..." "It looked like..." 

Some commentators believe that "the beauty of the LORD" has to do with his character of kindness and graciousness." Not so. I believe that God is beautiful as only He can be and as only He defines it. 

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." But in this case beauty will be in the eye of everyone. "Your eyes will see the King in his beauty" (Isaiah 33:17)

As a theologian I humbly assent to this fact: In the beginning God created, He didn't teach. 

I think it's time to make room for the watercolors in the midst of my textbooks. 

At least the colored pencils are in my right-hand drawer. 

Candy Store

"Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them." (2 Chr. 13:7 NIV)

When I was in Romania in 2005, I stayed with a pastor who had been confined and tortured on multiple occasions for being a follower of Jesus in a communist/socialistic country. He would often be abducted on his way home from the church, interrogated about other believers, and then dumped out in front of his house usually in the middle of the night or early morning. 

I was walking with him in the salt mines a half a mile under the earth - the place where political prisoners went to die - and he told me that he had been to America once but didn't like it. I asked why. He said, "It is too difficult to make decisions. I went to the grocery store for a box of cereal and found that there were so many types and flavors that I was almost paralyzed. I couldn't make a decision. In Romania you have one, sometimes two choices. It's simple. I walked out of the store without any cereal and came home and had an egg - a white egg, not a brown egg, or an organic egg, or a free-range egg - an egg."

I certainly cannot empathize with my friend's abuse, but I can remember the paralysis of having 50 cents given by my grandma for the old IGA store down the street. Penny candy - bubble gum, taffy rolls. I can get a bag of that stuff. Or do I go with the big guns - Payday, or $100,000 bar, or Almond Joy, or Zagnut, (do they even sell that stuff anymore?), maybe the standard M & M's or Snickers? Lord, please don't let anybody come in and rush the decision. Pressure. Okay...just give me a comic book. But which one? Uhhhhhh.......

I feel a bit like that today. Paralyzed. Indecisive. Trying to figure out what to write as I begin the new year. Wondering if I should continue. Does it make a difference? Is it just another writing deadline that I can dump? 

What do I write about? It's not that I don't have any ideas but rather too many. My world has not left me bereft. 

It has, however, reminded me that there are stories to be told, stories to be kept, and stories that need to simmer. A walk in a salt mine taught me that. 

Not once did my friend dwell on the past but joyfully looked to the future and was wondrously present in the moment. A quiet sense of what is important, of simplicity, of decisions that may not need an answer...today. 

I will write what is on my heart, my wrestling of the day. And along the way...hopefully...bring some of my friends along for the journey. To enjoy a Zagnut bar or a Ripley's Believe It or Not ghost story or to laugh at Yosemite Sam and Bugs Bunny. 

Thank you to all who encourage me to keep writing.

Have a blessed New Year!