Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-23-23

Two weeks in a row, a “life story” with a practical message and a spiritual meaning. This one obviously is personal, so I should get it right, despite being barely conscious during some of it.

Some of you know that I write more than a weekly blog. Other blogs; roughly one magazine article a month; newspaper columns and op-eds; and books. It was my seventy-fifth published book that took me to New York last week. I have been doing interviews, recently the Charlie Kirk and Rita Cosby national radio shows / podcasts. The semi-official Book Launch of The Most Interesting American, Post Hill Press, my third book on Theodore Roosevelt, was scheduled on the campus of Long Island University / C W Post College. Close to Sagamore Hill, the Oyster Bay home of TR.

In addition to LIU, the events – press conference, reception, book signing, speech, public Q&A – was to be covered by C-SPAN for broadcast on its Presidential Books series. The events were co-sponsored by Theodore’s Books, the terrific Oyster Bay shop run by former congressman Steve Israel. For all the resourceful people involved, the real angel was Bernadette Castro, one of the nation’s great natural resources – furniture heiress; onetime New York candidate for the US Senate; 12 years the New York State Parks Commissioner in charge of historic preservation; and an amazing role-model of civic virtue and activism.

In short: I woke up woozy the morning of the events (forgive the technical and medical terms), but I had not eaten much in several days except for a grand dinner the previous evening; I had flown a hurried trip the week before; deadlines plagued me… who knows. It could not have been “stress” about my speech, because I have always said that I could talk about Theodore Roosevelt in my sleep. Inadvertently, here was to be my chance.

At the event, I stumbled in late; I half-realized I was signing my name one and a half times, or just scribbling; I needed help getting to the dining room. It was all a strange sensation, but more so for those who beheld this, ahem, esteemed author. I am sure that the guests (many and distinguished) thought I was drunk or having a stroke. Bernadette assured them that I was quite sober, and if I were sentient I could have assured them… well, in fact, I was not sentient. Medics arrived; then an ambulance; and I blinked back to consciousness in the loving arms of St Francis (the wonderful hospital bearing his name in Port Washington, NY).

When the dust had settled, so to speak, the consensus was not demon rum (I scarcely drink) nor a stroke but a “simple” case of hypoglycemia. My blood-sugar level had dropped to 37. I am on two meds as a pre-diabetic (“pre”? I am never early for anything) and maybe the disruptions of the previous days put those meds into overdrive.

(I only had problems with hypoglycemia once before, but that was in a spelling bee in sixth grade. Seriously, my late wife had diabetes since age 13, so I should be aware of some of the collateral issues. I am more aware, again. I am dropping jokes here as often as nurses who wake you up to ask if you are asleep… but for the first time in my life I thought I was going to die.)

Several days in the hospital; canceled appointments to see old friends and hoped-for business partners; and, having been rushed from my events, no books or papers or laptop or even a phone-charger. But the word had gotten out, and almost 700 well-wishers reached out, between phone calls and texts and e-mails I eventually received. In my case, “well-wisher” usually means people who wish I would fall down a well; but this was very special, really touching.

Among all the outreach, my daughter Emily called from Ireland, once for 45 minutes. And my son Ted drove up from Washington DC, where he is a TV news producer, to “hang with Pop,” and drive me to the airport after a day in Manhattan, just like old times.

To the impatient reader who wonders where is the “practical message, the spiritual meaning,” it is here, thicker than a dose of glucose syrup. Jesus was real to me through this. Not only my faith and grounding, nor that I was in a Catholic hospital. He truly was present in myriad ways.

I had a friend who was a professional skeptic (a.k.a. wiseguy) who once challenged me after some troubles I had. He said, “You keep giving Jesus the credit for the help you got. That wasn’t Him… it was all your friends! Wake up!”

OK. Chapter 2: For all of our conversations about politics and TR, and common work on causes like fighting the attack on historic statues… my greatest bond with Bernadette Castro is when we share personal stories, frequently centering on faith. She showed her character again this week.

This week could have been National Anti-Cliché week, because many of those messages and e-mails were from people who left fervent prayers and shared encouraging verses… as we all are to do, sincerely; not throw off Hallmark-like “Feel Betters” in circumstances like these.

A new friend in Michigan had volunteered to drive me to and from the airport (of course not knowing these things would transpire), saving me parking fees for a week and – surely – a shaky solo drive home, otherwise. A blessing. A friend from another state, who had sent a “love offering” to help with expenses… could not have known how useful that card would be. A blessing.

The hospital staff… well, ‘nuff said. I had interaction with so many people those days who showed Jesus, it was a reinforcement about the Healer, our Ever-Present Help in times of trouble. The Holy Spirit, you see, is the means and the motivator when we share the Jesus who lives within us.

So, Chapter 3. To skeptics like my old friend who said it was not Jesus but merely nice friends who show themselves in such crises (and as he, sadly, must have learned by now) –

It is Jesus who “works” in these situations. The Savior often chooses to work through His people. What better way? – win-win for everyone who is touched. I was ministered to; friends yielded themselves to share Christ’s love; and – I pray – others who hear this Gospel message may be blessed.

Yes. Let’s “wake up!” indeed.

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Click: Where No One Stands Alone

9-11-23

“9-11” will never lose its meaning in America; maybe it will have evocations as long as the world lasts. More than a mere “event,” it is one of those moments in history that people will always associate with where they were, what they were doing, when the news of the terror attacks occurred.

It might not lose its meaning, but will it lose its significance?

My son Ted was an intern at one of the major cable news networks at that time. Its studios are across the Hudson from lower Manhattan, and every day – before 9-11 – he could see the Twin Towers from the station’s parking lot. On that day he put in extra hours, working non-stop on the breaking news, correspondents’ feeds, editing video footage, some of which, featuring falling bodies and splattered corpses and collapsing monoliths, have still never been publicly shown.

I frequently have challenged audiences in some of my speeches if anyone could state, even approximately, the number of victims of terrorism there were on 9-11. Hands go up, and the invariable estimates are around 3,000. And my invariable response is this correction:

No. There were approximately 3,000 victims of murder on 9-11. The victims of terrorism are about 330-million… and still growing.

If there were “silver linings” to the clouds of smoke and dust on 9-11 it was that America was briefly united, even unified, in our response, grief, and resolution. Skeptics worried that clarity, patriotism, and some common purposes would be short-lived.

Of course, the skeptics were right. Many young people responded by volunteering for military service. American adventurism, however, has led to ambiguous results if not Pyrrhic victories. A Patriot Act inherently is flawed, perhaps compromising as many rights as it purports to protect. According to elections, surveys, and streets filled with spilled blood and broken glass, our citizenry is more divided than ever.

The terrorists are following an agenda. But who wrote it?

We are in this state not because of a few hijacked planes on 9-11. There were attacks before; many since; and 9-11 only represented the most palpable and perhaps symbolic of the threats America faces. In fact, as with the Roman Empire and all empires and decadent societies throughout history, such attacks are virtual metaphors for the self-destruction that essentially plagues us.

America has invited this situation by our abandonment of core values. Our society – indeed the West in general – is a Post-Christian culture. Among those who might say “I told you so” are the “great cloud of witnesses” described in the Bible (see Hebrews Chapter 11) and, by the totality of His Word and Commandments and Judgments, God Himself.

For further commentary (“Don’t take my word for it!”) I will commend some reflections by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He was the Soviet exile, a man who fought Communism and somehow survived persecution and prisons (the gulags) and escaped to the West after his writings were smuggled out of Russia; they won praise and Nobel Prizes.

I will quote him briefly but wish I could share his thousands of pages. Find his books! His analyses – his warnings – are dispositive today. They are not mere critiques of monstrous Communism. They recognize the Bureaucratic State that threatens “democracies” today. They attacked all of the decadent West. They recognized that the Crisis of the Twentieth Century was not confined to the Communist State into which he was born.

The infection, he said, is not Communism per se – although, of course, Marxism is alive in American education, media, and party politics – but secularism. The rejection of God. Therefore he attacked not only Stalin of the past but the Bidens of the present; not only the Soviet apparatchiks but the American Dark State:

If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than… “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”…The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.

We are witnesses to the devastation of the world, be it imposed or voluntarily undergone. …sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction. This plunge into the abyss has aspects that are unquestionably global, dependent neither on political systems, nor on levels of economic and cultural development, nor yet on national peculiarities.

It was Dostoevsky… who drew from the French Revolution and its seething hatred for the Church the lesson that “revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.” That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism…. hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.

Through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West ceased to stand for anything more lofty than the pursuit of “happiness”, a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to appeal to eternal concepts, embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system.

Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hate for their own society. Amid all the vituperation, it has been forgotten that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, freed from all limitations just as the various human rights are; that under communism (and communism breathes down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) — under communism the very same flaws become completely unbridled in any person with the last degree of authority; and that everyone else under that system truly does attain ‘equality’ — the equality of destitute slaves.

Instead of the ill-advised hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can only reach with determination for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently pushed away…. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone.

From more than 50 years ago Solzhenitsyn speaks to us. Prophesies fulfilled before our eyes. Solutions under our noses.

Several correspondents have written lately to me about so many “gloom and doom” subjects in these messages, when I promise “a song in your hearts.” Well, yes. But I am a reporter of Biblical things and current events – I try to eavesdrop on the Lord. So these messages convey the facts of our situations, not fantasy.

God, however, writes “between the lines”! Turning to Him, repenting and reforming, will heal our land and dispel gloom and doom!

It is not too late – as individuals and as a nation!

For I the Lord will hold your right hand; Fear not! I will help you! (Isaiah 41:13)

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A dear friend has written that this is a song not in our hearts but to our hearts:

Click: Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand

1-21-23

In this weekly blog I have been writing for almost 14 years I occasionally feel presumptuous on your attention as I attempt to share His messages. Eavesdropping, I consider it, on words that the Lord whispers and sometimes shouts to His children.

Today I will be more personal than I sometimes am. One more “share,” but with a lesson for others, I pray.

It was 10 years ago, January 21, 2013, that my wife Nancy died. She led a remarkable life, touching many people while she lived as she reflected joy, through her manifold sufferings; and since her death.

I had come home after college graduation and was promptly volunteered to be Sunday School Superintendent at my little church; I was introduced to Nancy the nursery-school teacher. She immediately struck me as the most beautiful girl I could ever meet, and that was a prophecy fulfilled – also her outward beauty.

Her nature can be illustrated by the first Sunday morning I visited her classroom. Utter chaos prevailed, kids screeching and climbing and doing everything possible. In their midst was gentle Nancy, urging, “Simon says sit down…”

Our first date was one month later to the day (a George Jones and Tammy Wynette concert) and one year later to the day I proposed. After we left the Chinatown restaurant Nancy called her family from a phone booth (kids, ask your grandparents what that is), and then I called a disk jockey I knew at WHN, the New York City radio station, and asked if he could maybe announce our news on the air. He did better, to our surprise. He invited us to the station. It was after midnight, and he instructed the guard in the lobby to let us enter, and he interviewed us on the air!

Fast-forward, another “to the day” anniversary.

A lot happened, of course, in between. We had a three-week European honeymoon. We had three wonderful children – Heather, Ted, and Emily – proud of them all; and four grandchildren. We lived in Weston, Connecticut; suburban Chicago; suburban Philadelphia; San Diego; and Michigan. We visited many national parks, had family vacations in Florida, Palm Springs, Europe, and points between. Many ups and a few downs.

Among the “downs” was her health. Diabetes had hit her at 13, and was the direct cause of eye troubles (virtually losing her sight twice), kidney failure, amputation of toes, and several strokes and heart attacks. She had heart and kidney transplants. She also endured celiac disease, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and when her new kidney was failing, early signs of dementia. Nevertheless she lived 16 years subsequent to the transplants, after being told she had “gained” possibly three to five years of extended life.

Nancy was not defined by her afflictions, however. She had a strong faith in God, and Jesus became her best Friend. Congenitally shy, she had a spiritual-heart transplant, so to speak, and became bold about sharing her faith. She started a family ministry at the hospital, all five of us holding services, visiting and praying with patients.

It is not true, nor fair to others with ailments, to say that she was never discouraged; eventually she grew sick and tired of being sick and tired. But, mostly, 15/16ths was a good record of defiance against defeat. She said, rather, that she would not choose to go through again what she had… but she wouldn’t trade her “walk” for anything. She inspired uncountable people.

Her Bible – well worn, full of highlights, notes, margin comments – has, underscored, Romans 14:8: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.”

I have claimed as a personal anthem of ours the words of the Gospel song The Far Side Banks of Jordan:

I believe my steps are growing wearier each day;
Still I’ve got a journey on my mind.
Lures of this old world have ceased to make me want to stay,
And my one regret is leaving you behind.

But if it proves to be His will that I am first to go,
And somehow I’ve a feeling it will be,
When it comes your time to travel likewise, don’t feel lost
For I will be the first one that you’ll see.

Through this life we’ve labored hard to earn our meager fare,
It’s brought us trembling hands and failing eyes.
So I’ll just rest here on the shore and turn my eyes away
Until you come, then we’ll see Paradise!

And I’ll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan;
I’ll be sitting, drawing pictures in the sand.
And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
And come running through the shallow waters, reaching for your hand.

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Click: Far Side Banks of Jordan

1-24-22

I shared this message on Facebook this week, and now will here, with you. It has been nine years since my wife Nancy died. Heart and kidney transplants were supposed to give her another three to five years… but she lived 16 more years, mostly healthy till the very end.

She inspired people and devoted herself to a ministry serving transplant recipients, donors, and those on life’s edge, including families.

This week was Sanctity of Life Week also, capped by the March For Life in Washington DC. President Trump, like many of us, once was pro-abortion, or at least neutral; then became the only president personally to address the March. President Biden, like many Catholic friends, claims adherence to the church teachings but rejects them in practice.

Life – living, protecting, honoring life – ought be the concern of all. This should be axiomatic… but in this world it is not even automatic. The devil wants to destroy our lives; governments want to control our lives; but God gave us life and Jesus sacrificed His life that we might have life and life more abundant.

Some years ago I edited the magazine Rare Jewel. We published a Sanctity of Life theme issue, and I asked Nancy to write about her experience and perspective, facing death and cherishing life. Edited, I offer it here. She also endured, besides the heart and kidney transplants, diabetes, strokes, cancer, celiac disease, amputations, and other challenges. Her story in part follows:

I was diagnosed with heart disease two months after my 41st birthday. My three children were 15, 14, and 11 at the time.

I also learned that I had had a silent heart attack sometime the previous summer, and that I had coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure (CHF), meaning that the arteries supplying blood to my heart were narrowed. There was no blockage that surgery could correct by bypass.

In the first diagnoses, the doctors thought that with medicines my heart disease could be kept under control and in 10 years or so I would have to consider the prospect of a heart transplant.

But after two more heart attacks in 10 months—and not so “silent” these times—the doctors told me that I would not survive a fourth heart attack. This news came on my 42nd birthday. Within the month I was transferred from our local hospital to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia and put on the transplant list for a heart and kidney.

Events moved quickly, and I really didn’t have much time to think about what was ahead. As a diabetic, I had assumed that at some time I might need a kidney transplant—I had never thought about needing a new heart! I also assumed that the whole process was like changing a battery: take out the old and put in the new.

Not quite. Because my doctors could not guarantee my survival at home for longer than two weeks, I had to stay in the hospital, with heart monitors attached to my chest, and an IV tube continuously feeding me medicines that kept my heart working at its maximum possible efficiency.

In the beginning of this process, I think most patients in my “group” of potential organ recipients were, like me, a bit naive. We didn’t know about some of the complications associated with the surgery. Strokes, blood clots causing the loss of limbs, and blindness were just some of the problems. Our group of approximately 16 patients was relatively healthy or at least stable, but every now and then reality would strike.

Without warning, people “coded” (heart stopping); sometimes they could not be revived. Other times those who had received transplanted organs would return to the hospital with rejection (the body trying to destroy the new organ).

We all know there are no guarantees in life, but no matter how young or old, we tend to take some things for granted. However, when hospitalized in a heart-failure unit, never knowing what the next minutes might bring, I developed a deeper sense of what was important to me.

I prayed for more time—time to be a mother to my children, for us to be together as a family. I cried out to God, How much longer? He answered in the words of I Peter 5:6,7: Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.

And I learned to trust Him. Just as He was taking care of me, He would take care of my family. And each time I asked “How much longer?” He would remind me of a promise I made to Him that I would stay for as long as He wanted me to. And God gave me His total peace.

In all ways my hospital stay—18 weeks before organs became available; then three weeks after the operation, until I could go home—was a good experience. I came to know God in a more intimate way, to learn to trust Him and His ways, and to appreciate all that He has given me. I began praying for the other patients on the floor; first for those on their way to the ER, then weekly Bible studies, then prayer support groups. We started a family ministry that lasted more than seven years.

I have seen all three of my children grow up. Heather is a youth minister in Michigan; Ted is a television news producer [now in Washington DC] and Emily moved to Ireland after doing missions work [and has started her own business of American-style foods.] And, I have four beautiful grandchildren. I am very proud of them all.

At one time I did not have real hope, leaning on my own view of life. But as Psalm 119:50 says:

My comfort in my suffering was this: “Your promise preserves my life!”

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Click: I’ll Have a New Life / Everybody Will Be Happy Over There

9-30-19

Do many people confess this – ‘I Don’t Know How To Pray!’ – or would, if pressed? You would be surprised how many Christians, even, are uncomfortable when called upon to pray audibly, or front of others.

My late wife Nancy’s birthday was last week; and she died almost seven years ago. I have written how she suffered almost uncountable numbers of ailments and afflictions, including cancer, strokes, and heart and kidney transplants. She never stopped attending church all her life through, but her natural shyness plus an upbringing in church and home that did not encourage spontaneous and public praying, brought her seldom to pray in front of others. Even before our family, at mealtimes.

But when she was listed for transplantation, she began a ministry on the Heart Failure floor of the hospital. She saw a need, particularly as – believe it or not – clergy seldom visited and prayed with patients there.

A Catholic priest scurried through once a week, sharing the Host and the Sign of the Cross to Catholic patients on his list, and then moved on; scarcely chatting. Protestant clergy, sometimes from patients’ home churches, occasionally made calls and had conversations more than prayers. In those times, almost 25 years ago, transplant recipients were wired to monitors and telemetry units, so the machinery and poles prevented them from even venturing to the chapel on the hospital’s ground floor.

It seemed curious and, frankly, cruel to Nancy that patients were receiving medical care but not spiritual care.

She started a hospital ministry. She visited rooms. She had us bring Bibles that she could distribute. It became a family ministry, even as our children Heather, Ted, and Emily would pray, sometimes with children of patients. We began holding services on Sunday mornings in rooms, or the lounges, or atrium, depending on attendance.

And attendance grew. Patients were wheeled in; nurses joined as they could; family members timed their visits to the services. We dealt with crises of faith. We saw miracles. We played recorded music, always surprised that rural men fell in love with Black spirituals; faithful Jewish couples lost themselves in the joy of Southern gospel songs; Hispanics sang the traditional hymns in Spanish as we sang in English.

And before we knew it, people prayed with us… and prayed, themselves. Enthusiastically, and spontaneously. People opened up to request a specific prayer, as, they said, they never had done in their lives. Patients shared thanks for things that happened during the week, or for a breakthrough they experienced. Very often, patients or family members were bold enough to ask God questions, in front of all us. (You don’t know how liberating, and Biblical, it is to answer “I don’t know! I don’t know, either! Let’s pray about it!”).

Sometimes widows or widowers, or children of patients who died after transplantation, or during procedures, or while waiting, came to thank us all. And to share peace with their “new” families. Local TV stations, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, did multiple stories on Nancy and this ministry. We continued it as a family for almost seven years after she received her heart and kidney, until we moved to San Diego.

Nancy received more than a heart and a kidney; she had a personality transplant. This woman who was so shy that she seldom audibly prayed over dinner… became a prayer warrior.

“Out of the abundance of the heart, so the mouth speaketh.” Once, a patient’s wife said that she believed her husband was “listed” at that time and in that place, in order that he learn about Jesus from us. He accepted Christ – over which she had prayed for years – but I don’t believe God sends sickness. The lesson, however, is that our job is to turn circumstances around on the devil.

There were many times patients prayed, in front of others as well as the Lord, for the first time in their lives. I still can almost hear the accelerating thump, thump, thump heartbeats on the monitors at those times. Spiritual emotion. Once, on New Years Eve, a sweet hulk of man from the Philly suburbs requested that we all gather in his room. “I don’t know how to pray!” he confessed… but declared that he wanted to do so, for the first time in his life. He did, through tears – his and ours – and his “Amen!” was followed by the biggest smile you could imagine.

Is it possible, dear reader, that you don’t know how to pray? Is it awkward? Either before others, or privately to God?

If so, that grieves God more than you can know. He wants to communicate with us; the Bible says we should share the burdens of our hearts. He knows them… but he wants to hear from you. Is there a guilt that impedes you? Confess it! He knows that already too! Are you so joyful that you think prayer is not necessary? Shame on you! You have extra reason!

All of us live a little south of Heaven and a little north of Hell. We are in a common (even crowded) place from which to approach the Throne of God. You don’t know how to pray, or what to pray?

If your slate is that empty, start by simply praising Him. Thank Him for Who He is, and what He has done. Can’t think of anything? You will. It will start as a “sacrifice of praise” and then start to roll. He will speak to your spirit. Are you getting through? The Bible says that the Holy Spirit will speak, even groan when we are troubled, to God on our behalf. Pray. I pray of you.

You don’t need to be confined to a hospital’s Heart Failure floor, but, believe me… we all need heart transplants.
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Click: Prayer

8-5-19

I am writing this in the first week of August, a time that once, and elsewhere, carries more significance than a new calendar page. In the 19th century, a lot of magazines published “Mid-Summer Numbers,” observing some sort of moment in the earth’s cycle, like taking a breath. In Europe – France especially – the entire month of August is devoted to vacations; trips far away from home. Some streets in Paris are virtually empty except for unlucky waiters and gendarmes.

For me, August reminds me of summers growing up outside New York City, in New Jersey. The Jersey Shore? Palisades Park? No, as an eternal foodie, my memories are of the best corn and the best tomatoes on earth. It is futile to seek such quality elsewhere, but these weeks beat Spring flowers and Fall harvests in many ways. De gustibus and all that…

It requires no stretch to see a spiritual aspect to the unique time between planting and harvest. We make plans, we live in hope, we anticipate; we pray. Planting seeds is a metaphor for being intentional about life, and commitments, our directions. Harvest? We anticipate the results of our work and plans. And prayers.

This week my son Ted, my daughter Emily, and I coincidentally went through separate but similar experiences, all related to the work we do. We praise God (always) for His leading, and His hand, the calling on our lives. But sometimes – without stopping to acknowledge God as the Master Farmer – it seems like we plant soybeans and we harvest alfalfa (or whatever those two plants look like; have mercy on this City boy; this is still a metaphor).

That growth period is just as important as Planting and Harvesting.

When Emily was very young, missionaries from Central America visited our little church and made a presentation about their work. Somehow their stories, their passion, affected her. As young as she was, she was overtaken with emotion and tears and… a conviction that she would serve in the missions field when she grew up. She eventually went to Bible College, joined missions trips to Mexico, Russia, and Ireland. And Ireland again. Her heart was joined there – in two ways; as she fell in love with Norman, attending a Bible college in Dublin, marrying, and being fruitful and multiplying. Still serving the Lod, of course.

Would all this have happened without that impactful visit of a missionary family decades ago? Maybe, or maybe not in the same way… but as a father I am awestruck at the growth (and nurture) of certain seeds that are planted in lives.

My friend Becky Spencer (writer, missionary, singer, songwriter) and her husband Tracy run a B+B and a Thrift Boutique in Kansas, to help finance their longtime work in Swaziland, now eSwatini in Africa. (I’m sorry, but the country’s new name sounds more like a video game to me…) It is a land with many challenges of health, poverty, disease, and education. And more. These past weeks has seen her crew from GrandStaffMinistries (.com, you know) experienced some family crises among relatives before they left America; financial challenges of course; a stolen passport at a stopover airport; stolen credit cards and money at another airport, followed by crazy rules and balky “facilitators” when help was needed; a ton-of-bricks debilitating infection to Becky herself… and so forth.

[And just as I write this, I received an emergency message from Becky in eSwatini that their facilities have caught fire that is spreading. Please pray, friends!]

Hard truth: when the devil attacks, it often means that you are doing something right. But when missions work – schools, clinics, worship centers, food sharing, teaching – is savagely attacked… is this God’s harvest for work well planned?

Well, yes, it is. For the overall accomplishments and victories of Grand Staff Ministries; for the work Emily has done and the blessings she receives; for the results of yieldedness that unfolds for Ted and me (and multiplied other testimonies), God does not bless our agendas. It’s about His plan, not our ideas of what His plan should be. He knows where we are headed. (Pssst – I can share a secret about how to know it: It is where He wants us.) And, almost always, He does not ordain where, and in what form, that harvest will be manifested.

Excuse me: He does ordain it. He just seldom shares it with us. And if we do work as unto the Lord, there are no “good” results or “bad” results; only God-results.

In fact I believe there is an aspect to spiritual planting-and-harvesting that we seldom think about. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices to serve Him, by serving others; we understand that, and we obey (not often enough, most us, but that’s another message). But our Sovereign God can use other people and other methods. But… the fact that He chooses us is a reminder that He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

It is truly the case that God wants to do a good work in us, not only in third-world kids or starving villages or abused women. By sharing Christ, sharing resources, and sharing ourselves we do not only do favors for the “lost”… but for ourselves.

And that is good theology. God will not take our lives, or our souls, for granted, as we do good. He cares about us as much as the people we serve.

Mary did not merely honor and bless Jesus by anointing His feet. She was blessed, and received honor and blessing from the Savior, for the choice she made. “The poor ye shall always have with you.” St Augustine saw that not as an admission of futility. He recognized that God wants to encourage in us, not only our loving targets, the reality of His love.

Not something only to deliver, but something to live, ourselves. Harvest time approacheth.

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Click: Thank You For Giving To the Lord

1-21-19

January 21 is the anniversary of my wife Nancy’s death. It often seems easier for people to say “passing” instead of “death”; and with many people, about many situations, “passing” is perfectly appropriate. Not like passing, say, over the River Styx. In Greek mythology, that river separated the living from Hades, or hell, and grief was associated with that last journey.

In Christian typology, we pass from this life to Heaven, to Paradise, to Eternal Life. It sometimes has been corrupted by fictions of Limbo and Purgatory, but those way-stations are not in the Bible. Believers can be assured that upon death we will be in the presence of Jesus; standing before the Throne.

Sometimes it is called the Great Hope, also known as the Blessed Assurance. During Nancy’s long illness – several heart attacks, then transplanted heart and kidneys – she started a hospital ministry, praying with patients and their families, and conducting weekly services. This was on the Heart Failure floor of Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.

She waited four and a half months for a new heart after being listed. The ministry – a family ministry on the floor, with my children and me fully participating – continued for many years. Nancy could identify with hurting patients, because she also was plagued with diabetes, celiac disease, cancer, five mini-strokes, amputation, dialysis. The counsel of people who have shared your pain or problems always resonates.

Remarkably (no, for Christians, “predictably”) we saw conversions, a few miracles, family members and casual visitors touched in vital ways. Jews attended our open services. Blacks loved the Southern Gospel music we sometimes would play; rural farmers discovered the blessings of Black spirituals. One woman whose husband died after transplant told us she believed that her husband’s heart failed just so he would wind up at Temple and attracted to our services, where he became a Christian. A “God thing,” she thought. That is not biblical… but those were the sorts of emotions and testimonies.

I could write this message about hearts around Valentine’s day, too; but the messages are universal. Also… Nancy received her new heart, ironically, on Valentine’s Day. That became her new birthday, but we also remember much on the day of her home-going.

“Home-going” is what some Christians call it. Properly. Other terms were natural about Christianity and salvation… when confronting heart failure. “Give your heart to Jesus”… “Create in me a new heart, O Lord”… so many verses. It made it easier, or frequently more challenging, to construct messages or offer a prayer. But, oh, the church services (funerals; “home-goings”) we discovered, for instance in the Black churches – “preach-offs,” joyous singing and dancing. The ecstatic prayers and songs of the Pentecostals.

One focus of Nancy’s ministry was to enforce and reinforce the point that “head knowledge” was not enough for a child of God. Passing a quiz, reciting Bible verses, even merely attending church gain you nothing in themselves. We had emotional adherents who had never been to churches in their lives; one big fella cried when he confessed to never having prayed, publicly, in his life… before he did so in our fellowship. But Nancy did not feed them weak milk.

“You must do more than know things in your head,” she said. “You must know in your heart… believe deep down in your heart.” That Jesus is the Son of God; that He died for our sins; that God raised Him from the dead. Heart knowledge.

That basic message, the “old, old story,” is all that humankind needs. Head knowledge will follow. Good works will be the result of a redeemed life. The “fruits of the spirit” come in the life of a born-again believer. But Nancy preached about the nature of those “fruits,” what the next steps were after one’s spiritual heart was transplanted.

The heart, even more important than the mind, is the first change in the life of new-born believers. An ancient German hymn is titled, “Heart and Mouth and Deeds and Life.” Tending to those things is not only a road-map for Christians, but wisdom for the lives of every person. In all aspects and ramifications.

Nancy tended to those matters in life, and was an example. Christ’s example, of course; the light unto our paths.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata, number 147, based on those words. It is one of his most profound, and contains several passages that are commonly heard today. “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” for instance, is the 10th movement Chorale:

Jesus remains my joy,
my heart’s comfort and essence,
Jesus resists all suffering,
He is my life’s strength,
my eye’s desire and sun,
my soul’s love and joy;
so will I not leave Jesus
out of heart and face.

Let us remember, from the Beatitudes of Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

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Click: Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

9-26-16

Leave it there, leave it there,
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there;
If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

One of the many remarkable things about the Lord – the God of the Bible we worship, and the faiths that are built on His word – is that He instituted the gift of prayer.

Other religions have gods, some of them have myriad gods. Gods who might be worshiped, or demand sacrifices, or exist as dead prophets or wise men, or statues. The God of the Bible we know, who revealed Himself by inspiration, intervening in history, causing laws to be written, performing miracles, and ultimately revealing Himself through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, also bestowed the gift of Prayer on His children.

We take this for granted, but other “gods” did not do this. They cannot have conversations with their followers. Those religions are one-way streets. We should daily be awestruck that God wants to hear from us. He wants to know us. He wants to whisper truth and love to us, answering our prayers.

We can take our burdens to the Lord. And what’s more, in the words of the old hymn, we can with confidence “leave them there.”

If the world from you withhold of its silver and its gold,
And you have to get along with meager fare,
Just remember, in His Word, how He feeds the little bird—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

I have a personal connection with that old gospel song. The story behind its writing is a wonderful story.

After the heart and kidney transplants of my wife Nancy at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, she and I and our three children conducted a hospital ministry to heart-failure and transplant patients. For six years until moving to California we conducted services and visited patients’ rooms once or twice every week.

In our services, Leave It There became a favorite hymn, often requested by patients, some of whom heard it for the first time in those services, and by patients who came and went through the years.

If your body suffers pain and your health you can’t regain,
And your soul is almost sinking in despair,
Jesus knows the pain you feel, He can save and He can heal—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

After a time I learned the amazing coincidence (?) that the gospel song had been written only a few blocks from where we met for those services. Charles Albert Tindley, born in 1851, was the son of a slave. By age five he was orphaned, but at 17, after the Civil War, he had taught himself to read and write. He moved from Maryland to Philadelphia, working for no pay as a church custodian but, aspiring to the ministry, he learned Greek and Hebrew. The African Methodist Episcopal Church accredited him on the basis of outstanding test scores and preaching skills. For several years he was placed in different churches in different cities, impressing his congregations and winning converts.

Eventually Tindley received a call to a congregation in Philadelphia, and this servant of God became pastor of the church where he once worked as an unpaid janitor. When he preached his first sermon there, 130 members sat in the pews. Eventually under him the church had more than 10,000 worshipers. He preached, he championed civic causes, and he wrote astonishing hymns and gospel songs. One of his hymns, I’ll Overcome Someday, was transformed with different words and tempo into the Civil Rights anthem We Shall Overcome. Tindley Temple United Methodist Church was his “home,” and today there is a C A Tindley Boulevard in Philadelphia.

Another song was Take Your Burden To the Lord, and Leave It There.

When your enemies assail and your heart begins to fail,
Don’t forget that God in Heaven answers prayer;
He will make a way for you and will lead you safely through—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

Today I write to recall those great truths, that we can communicate with God; to remember those days of ministry and sharing Jesus with people who were wracked with pain and, sometimes, doubt; and that we don’t have to bear our burdens alone.

But I also want to remind us that there are many prayers and petitions and requests and burdens at the foot of the cross, left by God’s children… but, I wonder, are there the proper number of thanksgivings, praises, prayers of gratitude?

It is our human nature to turn to God when things are bad. He welcomes these prayers, never turning away a hurting heart that contains sincere anguish or pain or confusion or repentance. Never. But it is human nature also to turn to God less often when we have joy.

Do you find this happening? When there are problems, we seek God. Even insurance companies call disasters “acts of God” (boo, by the way). But when things go “right,” how often do we ascribe it to good luck, or the result of patience, or brag about our talent or hard work…?

No, bring Gratitude to the Lord, and “leave it there.” There is room at the cross for that, too.

I humbly would add to this great hymn, about the glory side! One of my verses would be:

When the answers start to come, and your days no longer glum,
And God’s blessings have so sweetly cleared the air,
The joy is not your own; Father sent them from the Throne!
Take your praises to the Lord and leave them there!

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Leave It There became a signature song of the husband-and-wife duo Joey + Rory. Their bittersweet story has “gone viral.” Rising stars of gospel-bluegrass-country music, their fans were happy when sweet Joey became pregnant; and shaken but prayerfully supportive when their baby Indiana was born with Down Syndrome. Soon thereafter, Joey was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Her illness, prayers, surgeries, and “life at home” was shared with fans and prayer partners… right to the end. Joey died on March 14, 2016. This video shows singer Bradley Walker – who has Muscular Dystrophy – with Val Storey and the legendary Carl Jackson. They sing Leave It There where Joey Feek is buried, a wooden cross marking her gravesite.

Click: Leave It There

8-26-13

It is a familiar scene this time of year. Children go off to school, some walking up the steps of the yellow school bus, some into the front doors of the school where you drop them off, some into the car, off to college. Familiar scenes; also familiar feelings, at least for parents.

Separation anxiety, of sorts. Landmarks. Turning points. All very emotional. For me, as a father, these scenes were especially emotional, because my children appeared to seldom notice anything special at all about them. Tra la la, they couldn’t wait to board the buses or run for the schoolyard. The most sentiment ever displayed was my son Ted’s annoyance at my insistence to photograph him on the porch, each first day of school year after year (because, um, I KNEW that some day he would cherish the memories) (that day might yet arrive).

It all threatened to get really slobbery when they went off to college. At those points I was ready to grab each of my three kids around their ankles, unwilling to let them go. They reflected no such emotion. I have chalked this all up, by the way, to their active sense of curiosity and adventure, nothing to do with me being the Weirdest Dad On the Street, proven by such episodes.

OK, I exaggerate a little (I tend to exaggerate at least a million times a day). But we need to remember – which means, when I write it, that I often forget – that the “saddest” things in life really are sometimes the sweetest.

When we sign up to be parents, part of the contract is to let go some day. Actually day by day. It is not a mixed blessing, even if we get, in the immortal words of Maynard G. Krebs, misty in those moments. In a recent essay I quoted Theodore Roosevelt, when he said that both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Likewise, no less, are dirty diapers, silly tantrums, going off to school, asking for help with homework, the first date, the second broken heart, going off to college or the military, and watching them get married.

“Time and Chance happeneth to all,” we are reminded – and we do need reminders – in Ecclesiastes. If God sees sparrows falling to the ground, He also sees them when they leave the nest… and fly. If Mama Sparrow is not sad about that (which is my guess), neither should we regard our tears as anything but droplets of joy.

Our first born, Heather, I assumed to be exceptional from her first breath, so when she was three months old or so, I festooned the house with large signs labeling everything, just to help her to read a day or two sooner than otherwise. My son Ted entered a more sensible world. Our youngest, Emily, we knew would be our last child. My subliminal response to this, I now realize, was to keep her a baby forever, to preserve her like amber in childhood (hers, not mine). I tried to hide from her the knowledge of things like bicycles and solid food.

I kid again, a little, but rearing children, after all, is more about your values at the time than their “molded” personalities afterward. It is unavoidable, and not to be regretted but rather celebrated. Savor it all, parents, even the separation of day care, summer camp, or college in some state you cannot locate on a map.

Part of God’s sweet plan of life is that when you have children, and nurture them, and train them, and endure (and share) all the dramas of childhood, the hours drag by slowly.

… but when the kids have left home, for whatever the myriad reasons, the years then go by quickly. Remember that, while you still have the gift of remembering.

One of Emily’s friends is Amy Duke Sanchez, whom we would not know except for having “let go” of Emily when she left for a faraway college right about this time of year. Recently AmyDuke forwarded to me a very wise saying – “Don’t ask God for anything until you’ve thanked Him for everything.” That is not merely a template for constructing your prayers.

It is a reminder to stop and think about the implications of “everything.” We know that all things can work for good, and we need to see that our momentary regrets, especially in this, the Season of Empty Nests, can really be puzzle-pieces in God’s eternal and joyful plan.

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Even after mxplf years (gee, how strange: a typo) since my youngest went off to college, I still get as misty as Maynard G. Krebs when I listen to Suzy Bogguss’s bittersweet classic about a child’s Rite of Passage, “Letting Go.” The lyrics about the empty nest, and turning the page on memories, are wonderfully captured in the video with the song. Please treat yourself.

Click: Letting Go

11-19-12

I had planned to write today a version of my annual Thanksgiving message – subsection B, the rant about how “Thank You” and “You’re Welcome” have become abused, misused, and confused terms these days. So, you will have a year to notice how people might still utter “thank yous” but how the responses are, these days, almost always “Thank YOU,” or “You bet,” “Sure thing,” or “No prob.” All of which invite us to think about the value of sincere thanks and heartfelt responses, social habits, and the meaning of it all. If there is a meaning.

There is a meaning, but it is worthwhile to think about social graces that expire, and why.

Instead, today, I was knocked off course by an e-mail I received from a friend; in fact, several recent e-mails. They have touched me, especially as I make the obvious link to the essence of Thanksgiving: giving thanks.

I have been rocked recently by professional and personal events, the personal matters mostly due to (and not to be mentioned in the same breath as) health crises of my wife. She has been in the hospital for almost three weeks, and this is, I think, her seventh hospitalization this year. We have had blessings and travels during the “good” periods lately, but this year has been visited by several mini-strokes, pneumonia, kidney failure, and grim diagnoses about her 17-year-out transplanted heart.

Nancy’s faith is strong, but I think she is getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. Through it all, the support of family and friends has been a comfort. And a hundred little things that are not little: the concern and indulgence of my agent and publisher; prayers from unknown and surprising places; and so forth. People who do not just say, “I’ll keep you in prayer,” but, having the face-to-face opportunity, pray right in the moment. Friends who, when they say they are willing to drop everything and help, mean it; and we know they mean it.

And the e-mail I received this morning, from a friend who did not even know of Nancy’s recent crises:

Dear Rick, I’ve been praying every day for you and for your family. I know I didn’t write to you after your grandbaby died, and I feel bad about that, but I don’t want you to think that means I don’t love you, because I do. It’s easy to pray for you. I would find it hard to forget!

But something about the season of Advent changes all that. Words start to flow like milk and honey! … If you have some time, I’d love it if I could call you and have a good talk. If not, don’t worry, I get that! But consider this message a hug and an expression of genuine friendship and great regard. My brother in Christ! It’s just so great that God loves us, and love is just such a cool thing!

Well. Is there better medicine that that? And I don’t mean to disparage the precious notes and calls from other friends, from brief “I’m thinking about you,” to long letters, all precious. A friend in Arizona with whom (I regret) I don’t speak to as often as we used to, reminds me that Thursday of every week he prays for me and my family. Another friend is bursting with news she knows I want to hear, but gives me space and a prayer that the space is occupied with blessing. Reaching out in such ways is what friends, especially Christian friends, DO.

In the family of God, NOTHING is more precious than the fact of family: we are brothers and sisters in Christ, children of a loving God who has graced us with salvation and a promise of eternal life, with Him in glory.

And part of that blessed truth is that we have a promise… but we don’t have to wait for the promise to fulfill itself in Heaven. We can know it now, and in the midst of trials, share the love of Christ in a way that the world can hear about but never FEEL, Hallelujah.

This is something we don’t often enough gives thanks for in and of itself; at least I don’t. It is a wonderful gift of God, and truly a gracious thing, because we hardly deserve it. While we were yet sinners, God visited humankind and sent His Son to assume the guilt for our sins. On this Thanksgiving week, I picture it like this: our natural selves rebel and insult God in many ways, uncountable times, and God’s response is almost like “Thank you.” Huh? “I am sending my only-begotten Son as a sacrifice for your transgressions. Believe on Him.”

That is not exactly a “Thank you,” of course, But as His “You’re welcome,” before we even repent, it is a form of advance-“Thank you”… and it merits from us a lifetime of continual “Thank YOUs” and “You’re welcomes,” and praises and gratitudes. And thanks. Of the most profound sort.

What my friend this morning showed is the proof that Christ lives in us. That is to say, such expressions as she made is evidence of the Spirit-filled heart, for we are told that in such things it is not us, but the Christ who lives within us who enables us to do such things.

I am reminded of the mirror-image, an insight Nancy had during our hospital ministry after her transplants. When Satan attacks us, it is not us whom he hates – for, clearly, he has little regard for us – but he hates the Christ within us. The more Jesus in our hearts, the more he attacks.

Abraham Lincoln set aside the third Thursday of November for the nation to gives thanks to God. He summed up sentiments of previous leaders, and anticipated powerful proclamations from some of his successors in the office. Indeed we should give thanks to God for our bounties and harvests, our material blessings. But Lincoln also admonished, and people like my dear friends remind me, that we must remember, and cannot help be thankful for, the Author of those blessings. How He works in our lives; how He lives in fellow believers; how He can, and should, inhabit our works.

Thank God.

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The moving hymn “Now Thank We All Our God,” appropriate this week and every week of our lives, has an interesting story behind it. The best hymns do. It was written by Pastor Martin Rinckart during the Thirty Years’ War. In the Saxon town of Eilenburg, the site of battles and pillage and plagues, he was the only clergyman who survived to minister to the ravaged populace. At one point he performed 50 funerals a day, and the year he wrote this hymn, 1637, he performed more than 4000 funerals. Nevertheless, in the midst of it all, he wrote “Now Thank We All Our God” for his family. Was there any way to summon peace and praise in such circumstances, except by the Holy Spirit? “Nun Danke alle Gott” was used as a theme several times by Bach, and was – and should be – a vital component of church worship ever since. It was translated into English by Catherine Winkworth in 1856.

Click: Now Thank We All Our God