What a few weeks.

During the last week I have watched my FaceBook and Twitter feed carry on a long discussion fed by strong opinions on both sides of the same-sex marriage issue and both sides of the issues of race. Deeply personal reactions to flags, laws and how we are to live in this Nation together. I have listened and watched and seen some carry themselves with wonderful grace, and others with deep frustration and anger.

I am not one keen to dive into political or theological conversations on FaceBook. I need to have the time to pause and to think and to hear the tone in your voice. I need to be able to back up and correct how I state things. I need conversation in these topics, not wall posts. I listen, but I very rarely engage online.

This last week in the midst of listening to these conversations, deeper situations have held my attention. There is a young man who plays hockey a level up from my oldest. He completed tryouts a few weeks ago, even though he was not feeling well. His mother, concerned with his color, took him the ER the day after tryouts. They have been through a tailspin of diagnosis pointing to viral meningitis, viral infection, heart failure. Lungs filled with gunk. Liver and kidneys failing.

What is that argument on FaceBook? It does not have me holding my breath in the way that this young boy’s struggle has caught me and held my attention.

His mother has prayed. She has offered her fear and her distress alongside her hope and her trust in God.

She is trusting in a reality that is beyond what is before her eyes. She, and others reposting her thoughts, have kept us updated with each step of this young man’s struggle.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, in the midst of posts laced with hope, this young man Mitchell passed away.

All the other debates on FB feel trivial at the moment, and I apologize because I know they are not. I know they are deeply personal and important…but did you hear me? This young man who had just skated in tryouts for the highest level of hockey in our town, died three weeks after those tryouts.

At the same time, I heard from my family. A soccer teammate and friend of my nephew jumped into a river in Colorado to cool off. Strong, athletic, responsible young man. Hiking with friends who are co-workers at a camp, he hopped in a flooded river to cool off. Last I had heard they still have not found his body.

What do we do with the promises and the reality beyond what we see?

I have no idea how I would react in those situations, in the moments that follow. I cannot imagine the grief.

We could all list rapidly the stories of those in our lives who are walking through such deep pain and such tremendous struggle. Pastor Saeed and his family, little ones struggling with cancer, parents fading to dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Here is the reality, though. I do believe in a God who is true and who does fulfill His promises. I believe that He heard every one of those prayers, and that somehow he holds this grief and these situations in His care in a way we cannot understand in the moment.

Those promises…that reality, is founded on a the truth that He Is. The reality that He carries not only the desire, but the power, to care for those who believe in Him.

That He is the Way the Truth and Life.

And that means something.

That His revelation to us is true and even when things seem out of control, they are not. He is still there and there is a reality deeper than the surface we see.

That He rose from the dead.

Is this simply platitudes and fairy tales?

What if the reality is that the revelation of God is true?

What if the promises are true?

In order for the promises to be true, there has to be an authority behind them. There has to be One who causes the promises to be true. Otherwise they are simply platitudes we hang on our walls. Sayings we hope carry some encouragement.

When the promises are given by someone who has conquered death, they carry weight. They carry authority. They are spoken by One who can change everything.

And when God has spoken in ways we can understand, we need to pay attention. When it is not simply fairy tales and wishful thinking, we need to listen. We need to understand that He understands our reality far more deeply than we.

What does He say?

He says that His grace is there for us. For all of us. He says that He has overcome all the boundaries which keep us from knowing Him.

He says that He is near, and that He cares.

He says there is a way to live that brings healing and life, and there are ways to live which leave us broken.

He says to love our enemies, and to care for the widow and the orphan.

When those in our midst are overwhelmed, when they are beyond themselves with grief, there has to be a truth that is deeper than hopeful thinking. I need to pay attention to that truth, so I have something to offer those who are overwhelmed, those who are broken, those who are in despair.

Something to offer that changes everything.

Something that speaks to that mother mourning her son. To that soul that is in torment because they simply do not know who they are. To that child watching their parents age and slip to dementia. To the young person wondering how they will find a job, how they will succeed in a life that looks so daunting.

To them, the promises held by the One Who conquered death hold a reality that is more firm than any law can provide. In that moment, I trust that the reality that these promises are not fairy tales gives a foundation when there seems to be none.
Truth.

And here is the catch….that those of us who proclaim to know this truth live in a way that reveals the utterly amazing truth that we believe. That we live in a way that proclaims compassion and grace. Ultimately it is not about winning arguments, and sometimes we will come to different conclusions when we read the words that I believe are God’s revelation to us. Ultimately, it is about realizing we are all broken people needing grace.

I have been walking for a couple months now. Some weeks better than others, however for a few weeks I was walking between 5-10 miles a day.

It was a commitment.

It took time out of my day and called for sacrificing other things.

I walked so I would feel better, and so I could lose some weight. After about 5 weeks of walking consistently I was at a house with a scale (our scale is broken). I thought I would see how I was progressing.

I had gained 6 pounds.

I didn’t walk the rest of that week out of irritation and frustration.

This week I am starting again…realizing again that some things simply take time and commitment. They take discipline and a long view.

The walk of the Christian is the same.

I have always loved the book title from Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. The reality of our pursuing Christ, of our Christian walk of discipleship, is that it is a long obedience. Sometimes there are dramatic results which happen quickly, but far more often the results of the Spirit working in our lives play out over long lengths of time.

When we are struck by a circumstance which used to excite in us anger or frustration and we react instead with compassion and patience, we realize the work that has been happening. Prayer and reading Scripture, worship and teaching and community have been at work in our character.

I don’t think any of us could imagine a circumstance that would allow for a reaction of anger and frustration as much as the shooting in Charleston. In the midst of a Biblestudy to be met with something so evil.

The forgiveness that was evidenced, immediately, by the family members and congregation in Charleston happened because that is their character. The reaction of forgiveness could not have simply been manufactured that evening in an attempt to do what they thought was correct. They reacted with grace, with great emotion, and with forgiveness because they have pursued the One who makes that possible. In the moment they showed the result of years of walking in prayer and the reality of a God who is both Just and Compassionate.

I don’t know that I could have reacted so quickly with such grace. There is still deep mourning, deep grieving. That does not overshadow the grace that has been so on display.

The result? A community which has joined together in their mourning. No rioting, no violence. Grace. Still calling for justice, yet so marked by grace.

The rest of us? We are grasping at ways to react. Banning flags, ridding ourselves of guns. Hugging people we might not otherwise hug. Listening with a more compassionate ear and trying to hear through the anger and the frustration.

We want to stop this from happening again. We want to somehow shore up these people with compassion…and sometimes the best way we find to do that is to shout angrily against the evil, or even the symbols of the evil.

We have to do something. The evil in our midst demands a reaction.

We can only react with forgiveness and grace when we are so immersed in the language of Gospel that it comes naturally. Otherwise we are left to our insufficient fixes.

There are some things we can do physically and immediately to move forward. We can dialog and we can listen, and we can care deeply. Not cliche, not simplistic…we can truly deeply care. More than our agenda or what makes us uncomfortable, we can listen with Gospel reality.

Gospel which calls for reconciliation and grace and true peace. Gospel which calls for caring for others more deeply than ourselves. Gospel which proclaims hope in the midst of confusion. Gospel reality which proclaims a God who intervenes and transforms.

it is good to debate and to think through our stands on all the issues involved. Let’s follow the example of those who are most intimately impacted, and who have earned to have a louder voice, reacting with grace and forgiveness. Debating with grace and compassion.

Taking down a flag will not solve evil.

Flying a flag will not secure freedom. 

Transformation by the Gospel will prepare us for the next moment we are shocked and we hope to react in a way that proclaims we are Children of the Savior.

“My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually” – Frederick Buechner

In the last few months I have heard of several more people with families members now marked by Dementia or Alzheimer’s. Several more families now watching the person they love diminish before them. Several more families wondering how to care well for these loved ones, how to walk through this new season without becoming exhausted and overwhelmed.

Those that are closest to me, I refer to my Dad. The husband of one of these I told to call my Dad because he has walked through this with a wisdom and a grace that give strength. Not perfectly, and he will say he has done so with nothing remarkable…but the truth is he has shown all of us how to walk well in the season of suffering. I’ve learned from him. His story gives strength to those who hear it; they know they are not alone and that this challenge is not impossible.

The reality is that so many are touched by some form of this disease. The quotation from Buechner above is often used, mostly because of the deep truth it tells. We need to hear each others’ stories because they tell us more about our own situation. They give us strength in the midst of our own fears or our own uncertainty. We need to hear the testimony of those who have walked a little further in the struggle than we, and can tell us of God’s grace.

In the Book of Revelation, when it tells of the accuser of the saints being conquered, this is said:

“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” Revelation 12:11

Our testimony carries weight.

Our stories carry weight.

So. To those friends who have just begun the journey of Alzheimer’s or Dementia, to those who are overwhelmed with fear and sadness: God is still there. God is still in the midst and His grace is present. The testimony of the saints who have walked this way proclaims that.

Here is what my testimony in the middle of this journey proclaims:
It’s okay to be sad, to be overwhelmingly saddened by the loss of the personality of the one you love. To grieve deeply as life events unfold and you are aware that this person who is present is not completely with you…and to know how different the situation would be if they were. To know how they would love your children, to know how they would laugh and would rejoice over your accomplishments.
It is okay to grieve, in the midst of the journey…but know you cannot grieve the entire time. There will be moments of laughter in the midst of this craziness. There will be moments of light.

Dad: “Good morning, my dear. I love you.”

Mom: “Well. What do you want?”

———————

Brother: “Mom, did you like that restaurant?”

Mom: “Yes.”

Brother: “Would you like to go back?”

Mom: “Well, not tonight!”

There will be glimpses of that personality that pop up. And they will be all the more treasured because they are rare and they will bring a flood of memories of who that person is who is in your midst still.

 Laugh and rejoice in those moments, and don’t be afraid to laugh.

This is a long and tiring mourning. This is a slow losing of the person in front of you: pace yourself. Rejoice when you can, and mourn when you need to. Then look for God in the midst. See Him in graces small and large. In family coming together in the midst of struggle. In strength you didn’t know you possessed. In appreciating this person in ways you might never have done without this change.

And realize that as we weep over this disease and what it does, we weep with God. This wounding of creation, this loss…I truly believe that He grieves with us. As Creation groans…as we groan. We cling to the promise of new life, of new creation. Of grace and of a Creator who cares and who intervenes and who redeems. We cling with hope as we hear the testimonies.

Tell stories. Tell of the one you love and remember them well, in the midst of the struggle. Write down the stories and remember. Know that you are not alone and pay attention. Know that eventually your testimony will bring strength to someone.

Again, Buechner

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”