Remembering My Blessings

“Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” (Joshua 4:2,3)

Recording important events, historic occasions or legal transactions required significantly more effort in Joshua’s day than it does now. Agreements were chiseled in stone and monuments were erected at historic sites. Now documents and photos can be digitized and sent across the world almost instantly. For the occasion of crossing the Jordan, Joshua wanted to make sure the people remembered. Still ringing in his ears was the warning of Moses who had led the people out of Egypt and for forty plus years in the desert wilderness. Moses had warned them to not forget the events that had brought them there. He knew their nature and ours as well. Forgetting comes so easily to us. So Joshua told them to pick one person from each of the twelve tribes. Each one was to pick up a rock from the middle of the Jordan and carry it with them to the encampment they would settle in for the night. There they stacked the stones to fashion a historic marker of the day’s events. “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4:6b, 7 NIV)

Thanksgiving is about remembering. It is about visiting the places in your heart where you have piled up stones to mark the important events, the places in your life’s journey were you were up against it and God showed up. It is about those places where you knew you were blessed and you were sure you could never forget the feelings, the moment, the people, the place. But we can. We do. We forget our blessings and the One who provided them just as easily as they did in Moses’ day. His warning to them is a pertinent to us now as it was to them then. “Be careful!” “Don’t forget!” But they did. And I do. And so have you. So before this Thanksgiving passes, I’m taking some time to re-visit some stones that I have piled up through the years and remember their meaning.

There is the beautiful young woman on her father’s arm at the end of the aisle at that church in Tampa, Florida. Here are three little girls wrapped in pink and white baby blankets. And there is the hospital waiting room where we heard “it isn’t cancer, she’ll be ok” when she was twelve. Those stones over there are for three weddings, two grandchildren and two more on the way. And these are for the house on Fox Ct in Titusville, FL and the tiny apartment on Sutherland in Knoxville, TN so that I won't forget how far I have come. Places. Stones. Blessings. There are these and so many more.

This Thanksgiving, remember those places, those stone piles in your own life. Pay them another visit. And give thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jerald

Dad plus 16

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)

As of today, I’m 56 years or 20454 days old. I’m sixteen years older than my father was at the time of his death. Sixteen years seems like a long time, and it is, I suppose. But in those moments when I stop to reflect, it also seems remarkably brief. And that is what I have been doing the last few days. Mostly I’ve been reflecting on all the things I have been able to see, do and experience that my father didn’t.

He didn’t see us getting ready for our first day on our first job. My father didn’t see his children graduate from high school. He didn’t get to spend his twentieth anniversary with my mom. He missed witnessing the nervous excitement of his daughters as he walked them down the aisle to give them away to equally nervous young men. And what he wouldn’t have given to be able to see his children’s children, to hold them in his arms and to experience that moment when the lights go on as the weight of parenthood settles on their shoulders.

I have had those moments. I have had these sixteen years. I don’t care about the gray hair or the crow's feet. I have lived the past sixteen years…and in each of those moments when I have experienced such remarkable joy, I have thought about him and what he has missed. And I have wished that my wife, children and grandchildren could have known the sweet, funny, gentle man that he was.

I miss him today. I always will. I know that. But mostly what I am feeling today is a profound sense of gratitude. In the past sixteen years, I have experienced more blessings than I could have imagined.

What about you? Looking back over your last sixteen years, you probably can remember blessings of your own, as well as heartbreaks, hard times and even failures. But for a moment, think about the blessings. Take the time today to re-live those moments, to savor them and to give thanks for them.

What will the next sixteen years bring? I have no idea. But if they could be half as special as the last sixteen, bring it on!
Jerald

Pulling Weeds

Glimmers
September 8, 2011


“When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.” Matthew 13:26 NLT

I share the following with a caution: please do not read this and go away thinking that the chaplain is so spiritual that he is constantly thinking about scripture and God and such. And I refuse to be put on a pedestal. Sometimes I think of spiritual things while I am about the routine tasks of being a homeowner and sometimes I just mow. I don’t mind mowing grass. I love planting new annuals and shrubs. I don’t like pulling weeds.

Last week, unable to stand it any longer, I attacked a patch of weeds in the backyard flower bed. As I was on my knees pulling the weeds from the flowers, some of the flowers were pulled up as well. I tried to avoid it, but even so some of the flowers suffered along with the weeds. Now here is where the spiritual part comes in. I suddenly thought about the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30). “See,” said the Voice inside my head, “That’s what I meant.” “Try as you might to distinguish flowers and weeds, you will sometimes mess up.”

This is a cautionary tale- a parable about miss-judgment (I misspelled it for emphasis). Wheat and tares (weeds) look almost identical, especially in the early growth stages. Attempting to separate them out can lead to costly mistakes. Pulling the weeds sounds like a good idea, but wheat will be destroyed in the effort. When Jesus speaks of wheat and tares, he is really talking about people. It is a story to prove a point.

When we judge a person who comes to our hospital as a drug-seeker, a deadbeat, non-compliant, frequent flyer, neurotic who should be making better choices-we may have every reason to think so today- based on empirical evidence and observation. Our judgment about them today may be dead-on. They may look like a weed today. But who knows what will they be tomorrow, or next week, or next year at the end of the process? They may turn out to be something entirely different from what they appear to be today! What if two years from now, having completed rehab, they have found employment, obtained insurance, cleaned up, got their head on straight and they come back into our hospital for appendicitis, would we treat them differently? Honestly now…maybe we would. And that is the point. We don’t know how things will turn out. We don’t know who is a weed and who is a stalk of wheat by looking at them today. “Let them grow up together.” “Treat them all the same and let me sort out all that stuff at the end of the harvest.”

I know I will still have to fight the urge to draw conclusions and distinctions based on the foul language and self destructive lifestyles of some of the people I will meet in the course of my work. I am human after all. But I got the message…and I will fight the urge and do my best to love everybody the same and let God sort out all the rest at some later date.

Jerald

Are you ready for work?

Ezra 7:6 “This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses…”

I know that most of you who read Glimmers are not ministers. As such, it may be difficult to relate to much of what ministers are about, especially those ministers who have the task of preaching each Sunday. But modern healthcare is acutely focused on quality and if you’ll allow, I’ll do my best to show how much you and the minister share in common.

Paul E. Scherer writes in “For We Have This Treasure” about the seriousness of the minister’s task; “It takes muscle and sweat to write a sermon. To fasten a man’s attention and challenge his respect is not done lightly, no matter how worthy your material or how exalted your theme,” (pg. 144). Quality is not done on the cheap in any profession.

This readiness is of two kinds, says Scherer. “There is the kind that begins away back in the past somewhere and continues steadily through the years,” (p. 145). “Then there is that kind of preparation which begins when the threat or promise of next Sunday falls like a shadow or a song across the week. Generalities can go hang then, something specific has to happen, (p. 146).” The minister who does not keep the spirit sharp and the mind fresh and current is doomed.

In ministry, as in healthcare or any profession really, you come to your work with your accumulated experiences and education to draw upon. You have the first kind of readiness. However, you can’t rest on your laurels. The world keeps changing and the world of healthcare is no different. If you fail to keep learning, you fail. Or if you fail to bring all of your attention to the current moment to care for the person before you, you fail. And if you fail in healthcare, the consequences can be immediately catastrophic.

At the baccalaureate service on the night before I graduated from seminary, F. J. May spoke about the Old Testament prophet Ezra, the “ready scribe.” He had a lifetime of preparation - the first kind of readiness. And he had prepared himself for that instant when he was called upon - the second kind of readiness. Dr. May, one of the best preachers I have ever heard, told a story of his own lack of readiness. While he was in seminary working on his doctorate, he was also the pastor of a busy church. He missed the due date on an assignment and offered his work as an excuse. “Professor, I’m sorry I didn’t complete my assignment. I am the pastor of a very busy church and was unable to get it done.” As best as I can remember, his professor said “Rev. May, I am not here to hear excuses on why you didn’t get your work done. I’m just here to grade the work that you do.”

Our patients come here expecting excellence. We have made ourselves ready by our education and training. We are qualified, no doubt, or we wouldn’t be here. But the people we’ll serve today will not be grading us on how well we did on our nursing boards or the cogent thoughts of our doctoral thesis. They will be grading us on how well we bring all of our expertise to bear in this present moment, this sacred moment when their need meets our loving response (Erie Chapman). They’ll be grading us on how well we care for them. Are you “ready” for that?

Blessings to you all!
Jerald

The Problem With Hindsight

July 22, 2011
One of the things I remember from my early days of serving as a local church pastor is the sticker shock I experienced when I saw the price tag of the group health insurance for the ministers in my state. The plans would often change year to year as some new insurer took over. It turns out ministers are a high-risk group! That may seem surprising to some of you, but the reasons are not that hard to understand. Ministers often work long hours, answer phone calls at all hours of the night, walk with families through heartbreak, put a lot of themselves into their work…and often don’t take care of themselves very well. It is the last part that is the killer, literally.

In 1944 at Yale University, standing before young ministers on the cusp of their careers, Paul Scherer warned them to take care of themselves. It is an odd thing that ministers, called to be stewards of the Scripture and of the congregations they serve, are often not good stewards of themselves.
“My word to you is that you regard and treat this aspect of your ministry as fundamental. The training of the body may be of small service, as Paul says, when you compare it with training for the religious life (I Timothy 4:8); but squanderers of health are quite as culpable as any other squanderers and profligates. They will answer for it. The plain fact is that you cannot serve God as you might with an instrument that you have abused; whether from ignorance or with full knowledge, whether by harmful habits or by careless inattention makes no difference. And Life and God will some day render their account and want to know why.” (Scherer, For We Have This Treasure p. 33, 34)

I suspect ministers are not the only guilty parties here. Recently, my wife and I joined the fitness center run by the hospital. If you work here and you take a few steps, you can join it for free. FOR FREE! She has been going almost every day. I went with her to a Zumba class for the first time the other night. I don’t know if the ache in my gut afterward was from trying to copy the instructor’s moves or from laughing so hard at myself as I tried to keep up. It was a lot of fun and a great work out too.

He spoke from the hospital bed, aided by the oxygen flowing through the tubing that hung over his ears and under his nose. “If I had known I was going to live so long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” he said, half smiling and totally serious. His story was as clear an example of 20/20 hindsight as I have ever heard. But that is the problem with hindsight. It yields wisdom, to be sure, but the consequences of the lessons learned are sometimes irreversible.

Life and God will indeed render their account.

I’d rather learn from forewarning any day. You?

Blessings to you all,
Jerald

Buried Treasure

July 11, 2011

I found the treasure buried in plain sight on my office bookcase. I have had it in my possession for over twenty years. I don’t recall when or where I purchased it. It must have caught my eye as being something of possible value as a young preacher learning his craft. I remember reading it with the cursory kind of attention the young often give to the wisdom of the aged and experienced and was not then particularly impressed.

Now as I read it, what riches I find! Paul E. Scherer’s book For We Have This Treasure is a truly a gold mine. It dates back to 1944, to dark days in American history. The Great Depression had given way to the Great Madness of WWII and it seemed as if there was no end to the evils a human could perpetrate on another and the world was all but overwhelmed with a purposeless dread. At that moment, Paul Scherer stepped into a lecture hall at Yale University to address young ministers on the importance of their calling. Some of what he said applies uniquely to ministry, of course. But, whether you believe it or not, preachers are people too and much of what he said applies to all of us.

One of the temptations common to ministers and everyone else I suspect, is the temptation to think that somehow God left something out or made a mistake with us. We compare ourselves to someone else who we may think looks better or sings better or speaks better and wish we were anyone else but the person that God made us to be. If that speaks to you as it does me, then listen to this: In preaching, he says, the one thing that is unique that you bring to the table is yourself. “The human heart is not new, the need is not new, the truth is not new, the method is not new. You are new. You are a bit of God’s unrepeated handiwork; and what he means to accomplish by you, he must accomplish through you.” (Scherer, p. 38)

Sure, we ought to be good stewards of our bodies and our minds and be the best us that we can be. But to strive so hard and to be filled with such frustration that we are not like someone else we think is better in some way is to belittle ourselves and God.

You have your unique fingerprints, your unique iris pattern, and your unique self ..."a bit of God's unrepeated handiwork" to offer to God and the world for a reason. It would be a sad thing to go through life and only offer an imitation, even a good imitation, of a somebody that has already been tried.

Blessings to you all,
Jerald

The Starship Atlantis

Glimmers

July 8, 2011; the final voyage of the starship Atlantis.
Imagine that line being read by William Shatner. Imagine a truck with a cramped cab and a massive cargo trailer attached to three huge, powerful rockets and you have our beloved Space Shuttle. And today was the last one. The very last one. It is hard to imagine that.

When the first Shuttle went up on April 12, 1981, I was newly married and working as associate pastor of a church in Sanford, FL. Officially dubbed STS 1, I watched from the church parking lot as Columbia hurtled toward space. Even from that distance, it was quite impressive.

The Challenger disaster is one of those "I remember where I was when it happened" moments, like the Kennedy assassination or 9/11. We were living in Selmer, TN at the time. I was the pastor of a small church and was working as a substitute teacher at the middle school that day. All school work stopped. People sat stunned in their seats. Here in Central Florida, the grief was deeper, I’m told. The atmosphere turned from celebration to horror, and then to mourning in a matter of seconds. Here monuments to the crew remain to remind us. There are schools named after crew members McNair and McAuliffe and for the vehicle itself. Here we live surrounded by the history of Space.

I know people who were charged with going to Texas to search for pieces of Columbia in the aftermath of its breakup during re-entry in on October 15, 2003. For some the impact was akin to the PTSD that soldiers experience after combat. And yet the program endured.

With the exception of those two missions, the Shuttle has been remarkably successful. Because of the Shuttle program, we have the international space station and the Hubble telescope. And we also have microchips and MRI machines, artificial hearts and smoke detectors, LED lights and digital mammography, Mylar balloons and Kevlar vests, microwave ovens and cell phones, sports domes and football helmets. These are a few of the thousands of inventions and advancements that owe their existence to the program.

Atlantis is STS 135. 134 times we have witnessed this marvel climb into the skies, clouded in steamy vapor and shaking the earth as the sound reverberated outward from the launch pad. 132 times twin sonic booms have announced the successful completion of the assigned mission. And now we wait for it just once more.

We will miss you indeed.

Jerald