In an old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, the two have the following conversation. Calvin says to Hobbes: "Live for the moment is my motto. You never know how long you've got." He goes on to explain: "You could step into the road tomorrow and WHAM, you get hit by a cement truck! Then you'd be sorry you put off your pleasures. That's what I say, live for the moment." Then he asks Hobbes, "What's your motto?" Hobbes replies: "My motto is look down the road."
In looking down the road in 2010, I don't see myself continuing this blog. I'm pretty sure those who encouraged me in the beginning have moved on to other things. Plus, I'd hoped for comments and dialogue which haven't happened. So, I think it's time to pull the plug.
I very much needed to do this right after I retired and I'm glad I did it. It was rarely a chore and often fun. Thanks to those who encouraged me and read my musings. If you think plug pulling is not in order, you can email me at jerry.harber@gmail.com and we'll see. Otherwise: it's been fun.
Peace,
Jerry+
Monday, November 30, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Life and Death
Yesterday, my wife's family made the decision to remove her dad from a ventilator. He's been declining since having broken his hip. For weeks, he's been on oxygen and the last several days on the vent. When we got to the hospital yesterday after church, his doctor told us he doubted Charles, 87, would last through the night. The family decided to not keep him alive artificially.
We'd agreed that everybody could be at the hospital by 4:00--many live in Arkansas--and that would be our target time. It actually ended up being 4:30 when we all left the room and the staff began disconnecting him from his various tubes and removed the vent tube. Within five minutes, we were all back, not knowing if Charles would last a few minutes, a few hours, or even a day or more.
For the first time in over two weeks, he was able to open his eyes. He couldn't speak, but I could see him looking deeply into the eyes of his wife of over 60 years . He stared for what seemed to be five minutes as if he was aware she was there looking back. It was a beautiful moment. Then his gaze drifted and his eyes closed. We watched the monitor that showed his respiration rate, his heart rate and his oxygen level in his blood. They all began a slow descent. At 5:15, they showed zero and nothing but flat lines appeared on the monitor. Charles was gone. His last moments had been peaceful as we had prayed they would be.
Slowly we drifted from his bedside and prepared to leave the hospital for the last time. As we gathered in the lobby later, someone said, "I'm hungry. Let's all go somewhere." So three generations of survivors headed out in search of food. Half an hour later, we were sitting together at a long table at a local restaurant. The conversation was light-hearted for the most part. There is no weeping. No reminiscing. Just banter as we ate so we could go on living.
I have experienced the death of my grandfather, my father, my mother and both my two brothers. One of my brothers died in his home, to be discovered later. But, my grandfather died in our home. My father, mother and older brother in hospitals. Watching Charles decline over the past several weeks has brought back a lot of memories. I watched my grandfather, my parents and my brother, decline with death approaching and inevitable. All those memories were stirred up. My sympathy for my wife and her family, my sadness at Charles' passing, were all bound up in my own reexperienced pain.
At my age, the death of others close to you offers an opportunity to project into the future, too. I know that the day will come, probably within in the next 20 years, when my family will be gathered at my bedside, perhaps making hard decisions. I don't mean to sound morbid about it, but I am very aware today of my mortality.
Still, life goes on. We will experience the pain of the funeral and burial later this week, but in the meantime and afterwards, life will go on. We all have to make the most of it. That's what I've been thinking.
Peace,
Jerry+
We'd agreed that everybody could be at the hospital by 4:00--many live in Arkansas--and that would be our target time. It actually ended up being 4:30 when we all left the room and the staff began disconnecting him from his various tubes and removed the vent tube. Within five minutes, we were all back, not knowing if Charles would last a few minutes, a few hours, or even a day or more.
For the first time in over two weeks, he was able to open his eyes. He couldn't speak, but I could see him looking deeply into the eyes of his wife of over 60 years . He stared for what seemed to be five minutes as if he was aware she was there looking back. It was a beautiful moment. Then his gaze drifted and his eyes closed. We watched the monitor that showed his respiration rate, his heart rate and his oxygen level in his blood. They all began a slow descent. At 5:15, they showed zero and nothing but flat lines appeared on the monitor. Charles was gone. His last moments had been peaceful as we had prayed they would be.
Slowly we drifted from his bedside and prepared to leave the hospital for the last time. As we gathered in the lobby later, someone said, "I'm hungry. Let's all go somewhere." So three generations of survivors headed out in search of food. Half an hour later, we were sitting together at a long table at a local restaurant. The conversation was light-hearted for the most part. There is no weeping. No reminiscing. Just banter as we ate so we could go on living.
I have experienced the death of my grandfather, my father, my mother and both my two brothers. One of my brothers died in his home, to be discovered later. But, my grandfather died in our home. My father, mother and older brother in hospitals. Watching Charles decline over the past several weeks has brought back a lot of memories. I watched my grandfather, my parents and my brother, decline with death approaching and inevitable. All those memories were stirred up. My sympathy for my wife and her family, my sadness at Charles' passing, were all bound up in my own reexperienced pain.
At my age, the death of others close to you offers an opportunity to project into the future, too. I know that the day will come, probably within in the next 20 years, when my family will be gathered at my bedside, perhaps making hard decisions. I don't mean to sound morbid about it, but I am very aware today of my mortality.
Still, life goes on. We will experience the pain of the funeral and burial later this week, but in the meantime and afterwards, life will go on. We all have to make the most of it. That's what I've been thinking.
Peace,
Jerry+
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
All Saints
This past Sunday was All Saints Day. The day entered the Christian calendar in an odd fashion. Beginning with the persecutions in the early centuries of the Church, many who were killed for their faith were dubbed "saints." In the beginning, local communities might begin to venerate a local saint. They might also build a church on or near the site of his/her martyrdom or obtain a relic belonging to the saint for an existing church. These individual saints might well be recognized nowhere but in their original community.
As Christianity grew and the need for more order and organization was felt, many of these local saints were accepted by the whole Church as someone who represented the best of the faith. A day was set aside to remember them with a feast and a special Eucharist. Soon, the calendar began to fill with saints and by the 1500s there were as many as 70 or 80 feast days a year! (That's about one a week, which could really cut into production since feast days were holidays. How this got dealt with is another story though.)
Even so, religious leaders began to be concerned about saints who might never have been recognized for various reasons. To remedy the situation, a day was set aside to remember all the rest of the saint, especially those without a "day", and that day of recognition became All Saints Day.
Human beings being what they are, some were perplexed that not everyone was being prayed for who had died, so the day after All Saints Day was designated All Soul's Day so the Church could pray for all souls who had died in the faith, no matter what the circumstances. Most churches just do this remembering on All Saints Day and don't celebrate All Soul's Day. Thinking, I suppose, "enough is enough."
Like all good things, it's easy to let this good thing of remembering take on a life of its own. Or worse, just ignore the "saints." Even taking into account the exaggerated "lives" of some of the saints, especially the earlier ones, we would do well to learn from them and the sacrifices many of them made. A study of the lives of saints, once a very popular devotion, might be helpful again. At least, that's what I've been thinking. What about you?
Peace,
Jerry+
As Christianity grew and the need for more order and organization was felt, many of these local saints were accepted by the whole Church as someone who represented the best of the faith. A day was set aside to remember them with a feast and a special Eucharist. Soon, the calendar began to fill with saints and by the 1500s there were as many as 70 or 80 feast days a year! (That's about one a week, which could really cut into production since feast days were holidays. How this got dealt with is another story though.)
Even so, religious leaders began to be concerned about saints who might never have been recognized for various reasons. To remedy the situation, a day was set aside to remember all the rest of the saint, especially those without a "day", and that day of recognition became All Saints Day.
Human beings being what they are, some were perplexed that not everyone was being prayed for who had died, so the day after All Saints Day was designated All Soul's Day so the Church could pray for all souls who had died in the faith, no matter what the circumstances. Most churches just do this remembering on All Saints Day and don't celebrate All Soul's Day. Thinking, I suppose, "enough is enough."
Like all good things, it's easy to let this good thing of remembering take on a life of its own. Or worse, just ignore the "saints." Even taking into account the exaggerated "lives" of some of the saints, especially the earlier ones, we would do well to learn from them and the sacrifices many of them made. A study of the lives of saints, once a very popular devotion, might be helpful again. At least, that's what I've been thinking. What about you?
Peace,
Jerry+
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Solving Problems
Back in 1978, I was assigned to a small parish in Memphis. Like all United Methodists, I arrived in the summer. Toward the end of the summer I was asked if we were going to resume Sunday evening worship services when fall arrived. Since it was the first I'd heard about it, I needed more info.
I learned that the service was about two years old and typically broke for the summer months. Attendance was maybe 20 people as compared to perhaps 150 on Sunday morning. Plus, these 20 would almost always have been present at the morning service. My initial reaction wasn't very positive since it seemed to me it was a lot of expense for little return--to put it in business terms. After all, it meant paying utilities to open the building again, paying the organist for a second service, and the extra time for me to prepare a second service with sermon. I kept that thought to myself and instead asked this question: What need are we trying to meet by adding a second service?
One of the things I experienced over and over in couple counseling and in business consulting is an interesting phenomenon. People often "prescribe" before they "diagnose," that is, without fully understanding the nature of a given problem, people launch into a solution. One school of therapy even posits that when couples do that, the problem they come to see the therapist about is the solution they had imposed on themselves. The therapist is advised to "get them to stop doing that" in the hope they will stumble upon a more effective solution.
An example in couple therapy which I encountered frequently was lots of arguments between spouses, often very heated. I might ask a husband or wife, "what do you hope to accomplish by yelling at your spouse?" The answer isn't as straightforward as you might expect. It typically took some probing and in almost every case, the goal was to "get my spouse to love me." Needless to say, the solution of yelling wasn't accomplishing that.
With that in mind, I asked my parishioners this question: "what are the reasons behind adding a second worship service?" When all was said and done, this was the answer: "some of us don't thing we're getting enough out of the morning service." I asked, "Will doing more of the same solve the problem? After all, attendance is pretty low at the second service."
I suggested there might be two alternatives open to us. One would be to reexamine the morning service and see if there were some way to have it meet the still unspecified need. Another would be to offer a series of small classes on Sunday night all about Christian living. We opted for the second solution.
For our first series we had three small groups; one led by me and two led by visiting leaders. Our average attendance over the six weeks of the experiment was 70. I'd say we had found a solution to whatever was missing on Sunday morning.
The question: "What problem am I trying to solve?" is a very important one. And typically it requires some "onion peeling," that is, some investigation that probes the easy answers. My experience tells me it almost always pays off. I've been thinking about this when I see institutions at work. Quick answers, such as, "more cops on the streets," or "a second worship service," probably aren't going to make any real difference. But quick answers are tantalizing because they give us quick relief. But quick relief rarely solves underlying problems or addresses underlying needs.
Peace,
Jerry+
I learned that the service was about two years old and typically broke for the summer months. Attendance was maybe 20 people as compared to perhaps 150 on Sunday morning. Plus, these 20 would almost always have been present at the morning service. My initial reaction wasn't very positive since it seemed to me it was a lot of expense for little return--to put it in business terms. After all, it meant paying utilities to open the building again, paying the organist for a second service, and the extra time for me to prepare a second service with sermon. I kept that thought to myself and instead asked this question: What need are we trying to meet by adding a second service?
One of the things I experienced over and over in couple counseling and in business consulting is an interesting phenomenon. People often "prescribe" before they "diagnose," that is, without fully understanding the nature of a given problem, people launch into a solution. One school of therapy even posits that when couples do that, the problem they come to see the therapist about is the solution they had imposed on themselves. The therapist is advised to "get them to stop doing that" in the hope they will stumble upon a more effective solution.
An example in couple therapy which I encountered frequently was lots of arguments between spouses, often very heated. I might ask a husband or wife, "what do you hope to accomplish by yelling at your spouse?" The answer isn't as straightforward as you might expect. It typically took some probing and in almost every case, the goal was to "get my spouse to love me." Needless to say, the solution of yelling wasn't accomplishing that.
With that in mind, I asked my parishioners this question: "what are the reasons behind adding a second worship service?" When all was said and done, this was the answer: "some of us don't thing we're getting enough out of the morning service." I asked, "Will doing more of the same solve the problem? After all, attendance is pretty low at the second service."
I suggested there might be two alternatives open to us. One would be to reexamine the morning service and see if there were some way to have it meet the still unspecified need. Another would be to offer a series of small classes on Sunday night all about Christian living. We opted for the second solution.
For our first series we had three small groups; one led by me and two led by visiting leaders. Our average attendance over the six weeks of the experiment was 70. I'd say we had found a solution to whatever was missing on Sunday morning.
The question: "What problem am I trying to solve?" is a very important one. And typically it requires some "onion peeling," that is, some investigation that probes the easy answers. My experience tells me it almost always pays off. I've been thinking about this when I see institutions at work. Quick answers, such as, "more cops on the streets," or "a second worship service," probably aren't going to make any real difference. But quick answers are tantalizing because they give us quick relief. But quick relief rarely solves underlying problems or addresses underlying needs.
Peace,
Jerry+
Monday, October 19, 2009
Puritanism--Again
CANTON, N.C. (October 13, 2009)—The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles that aren’t the King James Version, as well as music and books and anything else Pastor Marc Grizzard says is a satanic influence.
Among the authors whose books Grizzard plans to burn are well known ministers Rick Warren and Billy Graham because he says they have occasionally used Bibles other than the King James Version, which is the sole biblical source he considers infallible.
According to the church’s Web site, members will also burn “Satan's music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies.
This except came from the Salt Lake City newspaper which quoted the AP as its source along with the church's website. USA Today also reported that this church is, in fact, conducting the bonfire.
The Church's website is now shut down. When I tried to access it, I got a malware intrusion attempt, for what that is worth. However, this story showed up on other news sites too, so I think it's trustworthy.
Sad.
Peace,
Jerry+
Among the authors whose books Grizzard plans to burn are well known ministers Rick Warren and Billy Graham because he says they have occasionally used Bibles other than the King James Version, which is the sole biblical source he considers infallible.
According to the church’s Web site, members will also burn “Satan's music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies.
This except came from the Salt Lake City newspaper which quoted the AP as its source along with the church's website. USA Today also reported that this church is, in fact, conducting the bonfire.
The Church's website is now shut down. When I tried to access it, I got a malware intrusion attempt, for what that is worth. However, this story showed up on other news sites too, so I think it's trustworthy.
Sad.
Peace,
Jerry+
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
William Tyndale
Yesterday was the feast day of William Tyndale, an Anglican priest, born in 1495. He's noteworthy for two reasons. First, soon after become a priest in 1521, he became obsessed with the notion of translating the Bible into English. This was not a popular idea. Christians were not allowed to read the Bible in any language other than Latin. Which, of course, meant most didn't read it at all. The typical parish church didn't possess a Bible in any language, and in those that did, any reading of it publicly was in Latin.
Tyndale strongly believed everyone had the right to read it and in an argument with another priest who opposed him, he said, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Earlier Wycliff had produced a handwritten translation based on the Latin Vulgate, but Tyndale worked from the much superior Greek and Hebrew manuscripts to produced his. His New Testament was printed in Germany where he was in exile, and was smuggled into England where it was received with great enthusiasm.
Tyndale's translation introduced new words and phrases into the English language which were subsequently used in the King James Version and continue to be used today. Examples include, Jehovah, Passover, scapegoat, and phrases such as "let there be light," "The powers that be," "My brother's keeper," "the salt of the earth," "The spirit is willing," and "Fight the good fight."
Tyndale was also a vocal critic of the Catholic Church. While he was distressed over many of the typical abuses of his time, he also taught, wrote about, and preached about a new concept: salvation as a gift of God. Much as Luther was also teaching, Tyndale asserted that no good works on a human's part would gain a person salvation. Salvation came by grace. It was this teaching that eventually resulted in his death.
While living in Belgium and working on his Old Testament translation, he was betrayed to the authorities by a person he had befriended. He was arrested, tried for heresy, and sentenced to die by fire. At his execution, in an act of mercy the executioner strangled him prior to lighting the fire. But Tyndale revived long enough to say, "May God change the King's heart."
Two years later, Henry VIII did have a change of heart. Mile Coverdale took Tyndale's work and did some revisions. The resulting Bible was published under someone else's name and it was ordered by the King that every parish church have a copy. On the first day a copy was available in England, people took turns reading it aloud all day long to hungry souls. As a result of Tyndale's dedication and persistence, our religious lives have forever been enriched.
Peace,
Jerry+
Tyndale strongly believed everyone had the right to read it and in an argument with another priest who opposed him, he said, "If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost." Earlier Wycliff had produced a handwritten translation based on the Latin Vulgate, but Tyndale worked from the much superior Greek and Hebrew manuscripts to produced his. His New Testament was printed in Germany where he was in exile, and was smuggled into England where it was received with great enthusiasm.
Tyndale's translation introduced new words and phrases into the English language which were subsequently used in the King James Version and continue to be used today. Examples include, Jehovah, Passover, scapegoat, and phrases such as "let there be light," "The powers that be," "My brother's keeper," "the salt of the earth," "The spirit is willing," and "Fight the good fight."
Tyndale was also a vocal critic of the Catholic Church. While he was distressed over many of the typical abuses of his time, he also taught, wrote about, and preached about a new concept: salvation as a gift of God. Much as Luther was also teaching, Tyndale asserted that no good works on a human's part would gain a person salvation. Salvation came by grace. It was this teaching that eventually resulted in his death.
While living in Belgium and working on his Old Testament translation, he was betrayed to the authorities by a person he had befriended. He was arrested, tried for heresy, and sentenced to die by fire. At his execution, in an act of mercy the executioner strangled him prior to lighting the fire. But Tyndale revived long enough to say, "May God change the King's heart."
Two years later, Henry VIII did have a change of heart. Mile Coverdale took Tyndale's work and did some revisions. The resulting Bible was published under someone else's name and it was ordered by the King that every parish church have a copy. On the first day a copy was available in England, people took turns reading it aloud all day long to hungry souls. As a result of Tyndale's dedication and persistence, our religious lives have forever been enriched.
Peace,
Jerry+
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Spice of Life
Variety, they say, is the spice of life.
When I began teaching my current class on The Early Church, I asked each participant his/her reason for taking the course. Prominent among the answers was a desire to know about the way in which early Christians thought, lived and worshipped. At least one student said he and a friend felt called to establish a Christian mission that was modelled after the New Testament Christian community. He hoped to discover in this class what that should be.
I understand the interest in knowing what the Church was like in the beginning. Worship is more meaningful to me when I'm reminded that some of the prayers we pray, many of the words of the Eucharist, and more have centuries of history behind them. The very form of the worship service and the form of the Eucharistic Prayer date from the first century. This is an important emotional connection for me.
As an amateur historian, I'm taken by how many times in the 2000 year history of the Church, various Christians have been on the quest the young man mentioned above is on. In the U.S. in particular, a "return" to the purity of the early Church has shaped many denominations and even created a few.
The bad news is: there is no single "early Church." There was a variety of organizational models, (that is, who was to lead the assembly?), a variety of forms for baptism, for the Eucharist, for belief systems and on and on. Just on the matter of what was used in the Eucharist, some used bread and wine, some bread, wine, water, some bread and fish, some bread, wine and olives, and some bread, wine, water, and milk and honey. Some early communities were led by the householder who hosted the gathering--meaning some women presided at the Eucharist. Some were led by a council of elders; some a council with a senior elder as overseer or president; some by those who had some charism, such as prophecy or healing.
In short, variety seemed to have been the order of the day for a couple of centuries. And you know what, each community's individual members seemed to have been nurtured, some fed well enough they were willing to die for the faith. So, what I've been thinking about is: what does that say about today's variety of beliefs and practices? I know what I've concluded. What about you?
Peace,
Jerry+
When I began teaching my current class on The Early Church, I asked each participant his/her reason for taking the course. Prominent among the answers was a desire to know about the way in which early Christians thought, lived and worshipped. At least one student said he and a friend felt called to establish a Christian mission that was modelled after the New Testament Christian community. He hoped to discover in this class what that should be.
I understand the interest in knowing what the Church was like in the beginning. Worship is more meaningful to me when I'm reminded that some of the prayers we pray, many of the words of the Eucharist, and more have centuries of history behind them. The very form of the worship service and the form of the Eucharistic Prayer date from the first century. This is an important emotional connection for me.
As an amateur historian, I'm taken by how many times in the 2000 year history of the Church, various Christians have been on the quest the young man mentioned above is on. In the U.S. in particular, a "return" to the purity of the early Church has shaped many denominations and even created a few.
The bad news is: there is no single "early Church." There was a variety of organizational models, (that is, who was to lead the assembly?), a variety of forms for baptism, for the Eucharist, for belief systems and on and on. Just on the matter of what was used in the Eucharist, some used bread and wine, some bread, wine, water, some bread and fish, some bread, wine and olives, and some bread, wine, water, and milk and honey. Some early communities were led by the householder who hosted the gathering--meaning some women presided at the Eucharist. Some were led by a council of elders; some a council with a senior elder as overseer or president; some by those who had some charism, such as prophecy or healing.
In short, variety seemed to have been the order of the day for a couple of centuries. And you know what, each community's individual members seemed to have been nurtured, some fed well enough they were willing to die for the faith. So, what I've been thinking about is: what does that say about today's variety of beliefs and practices? I know what I've concluded. What about you?
Peace,
Jerry+
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