Susan is a lovely lady. Retired from Delta airlines, she has a wonderful home in Kentucky. From the pictures of the place you can see that a great deal of care and love has gone into the landscape and design of the home. A home that was enjoyed while she was working and now, in retirement, a home to be comfortable in as she putters around and lovingly cares for building and grounds. I don't mean, however, that Susan is doddering in her old age. She is hardly old. Retirement was 'early' for her. She has served her years, going up the ladder of success, attaining new heights. She could retire, but she really didn't want to do so. Not yet, anyway. She loved her work.
But, her father needed care. He lived in Northeast Ohio and was in his 90s. He had gotten to the point to where he couldn't live by himself any longer. Mostly he was OK, but someone needed to to be there at least daily to make sure of medicines and meals and that sort of things. And, more importantly, to keep him apprised of the tip off times for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Susan considered the job she loved and the home she treasured, took a deep breath and retired from the job, locked then house and moved home to be with her aged father.
And this was where I met her.
Caring for her Dad was not a full time endeavor and she needed something to occupy some time. Not one to sit at home and knit, she wanted something that she could dive into and help people. Her cousin's wife worked in the office of the funeral home I worked in, so one thing led to another and Susan was soon working for us. Not everyone can work for a funeral home. Sometimes working with people all the time who are in grief gets to a person. Women, especially, are emphatic to the point to where they feel the grief pain of others and they can only handle the job for so long. Susan, however, took to it like a duckling takes to water. Quickly, she became part of the team, and a valued part of the team, at that. She often worked visitations and funerals at the facility that I managed and we worked well together. When it came time for me to leave to go to Indiana and the Urbana Yoke Parish, Susan was genuinely sad.
Everything this week has distressed me. Canceling services on Sunday started it. While I certainly saw the need, I just hated to see us cancel. But, if someone had slid off the road and been stranded in sub-zero cold, that would have been horrific. The visitation and funeral for Marilyn Miller on Monday and Tuesday didn't help.Then the news of New York State's new abortion law and various other political maneuverings that are incredibly bad for the country. Along with all of that, I was looking for a particular video on You Tube and came across a channel that is all about posting videos of female newscasters and talking heads crossing their legs while wearing short skirts. Carla Krom told me once I was kind of geeky, and I suppose I am, and I might even be a bit prudish, but what kind of pervert tapes news shows and then goes back and takes out the short segments of women crossing their legs and posts those segments. And, knowing that this is happening, what kind of women continue to wear the short skirts? That channel would not exist if women, who complain about being sexually objectified, would wear a longer dress or skirt or even pants. And there are other things, as well. But it has not been a pleasant week.
Susan has a real sense of humor. Thursday afternoon I opened up the internet, allowing myself to drop in a foul mood, and I came across a posting from Susan. It is a cartoon, to which I am always ready to read. The cartoon is situated in a funeral home. Two women stand next to the casket and are looking in on a third lady, the deceased, as she lays in state. The casket, as it happens, is clear. The lid is open. One lady says to the other, "Lydia would have been so proud. She loved Tupperware."
To you, that probably isn't funny. To me, though, it recalled the first time I worked with Susan. It was before a visitation and I was walking her through the funeral home and explaining things. It was all very serious and dignified. I had a tendency to get quite serious when I was training someone. The last stop was the casket. I made some adjustments, explaining what I was doing and why I was doing it. Susan was quiet and watchful, not really knowing what she could and could not say around me. The walk through was over as we stood by the casket. "Susan, do you have any questions?" "Just one. Do they make clear caskets? You know, like Tupperware?" She caught me off guard and I laughed out loud. After that, anytime we worked together she would hit me with a joke at some point during the proceedings. Unexpected and always at the wrong time, but it made working with her a lot of fun. I think she would do it to me when she felt I was taking things to seriously.
So, as an emotionally draining week was drawing down (and it seems everything about my life right now is emotionally draining) I read that cartoon. It made me laugh out loud, something I do very little of anymore. I have been taking myself way to seriously of late, and I am sorry for that. There is so much to enjoy and to laugh about. Some times we need an old friend to remind us that life is really pretty grand. Some times we just need to look in a mirror to get a good laugh. We shouldn't be so serious minded. That is why the world is so easily offended these days. Lighten up!
And while you are at it, go to https://www.tupperware.com/ and check out those new caskets.

          He was an 80 year old child. In four decades of ministry I would have to say that he was one of my favorite people. I absolutely loved all my interactions with him.

          James lived with his brother William in an old apartment building across the street from our church in Ohio. William was the older by three years and he watched over James like a hawk. James was very simple minded, mentally around six or seven years old. The problem was, William himself only had the mind of a ten year old. I never got all the back story on the two. There had been an older sister who had married and had children, but no one, including James and William, had any idea where she was. To them, she was still a young mother over in the big town. They didn’t know the name of the ‘big town.’ Considering the size of our town, the ‘big town’ could have been most any place. She was likely dead by the time I met the brothers. William claimed he remembered her changing James’ diaper. When William told me that, James blushed so much I thought his head would explode. So, James and William lived together and no one knew much about them. They were just two old men who wandered around town together.

          William had a crippled leg and could hardly walk. He used a cane and James always helped him, although James hobbled when he walked, as well.. Right around the corner from the apartment building was a convenience store that they ‘shopped’ at. They would go in and get what they needed and go up to pay, putting their money on the counter. The women that worked there would count out a little and ring them up, giving them change back. After the brothers would shuffle out whichever of the women working that day would reach into a little jar under the counter labeled ‘WJ Fund’ and make up the difference on how much they actually owed. Quite a few of us gave to the William and James Fund. They both had Social Security, but by the time their landlord was done ripping them off and they had paid for their utilities and all, there wasn’t much left. And then William refused any kind of help from any agencies. He was going to take care of James and no one was going to interfere.

          William didn’t want to go to church and wouldn’t let James go, either. Too many people there wanting to know your business, he’d say. So, I worked it out with the convenience store to call me when they left and I would hustle down to the corner about the time they got there. I would talk to them a bit and then, since I was going their way, offer to carry their groceries. I wasn’t the only one in our church to reach out to them in a covert manner. If we had a carry-in, and we had them often, someone would always take a lot of food over and tell them either they took it or it might get thrown out. If they needed to go to the doctor, one of our men would take them in his car for a fare. A quarter a piece was the going rate.  All kinds of things like that. Like most churches on Sunday morning before the service begins, ours was a noisy place with folks visiting back and forth. One morning as I was talking to our organist, the whole place got quiet. Nick and I both looked up to see William and James hobbling in and heading for a pew. Nick said, Wow, under his breath and I just nodded my head.

          When you entered that church, you had to go upstairs to get to my office. We were handicapped accessible, but neither William or James could operate the equipment. So it was, less than a week after that surprise visit in church, that I heard the door open and a frightened voice call out. “HELP ME! HELP ME!” I was out of my chair and to the top of the stairs in a couple of heartbeats. James was standing there with tears on his face. “Something is wrong with William! He won’t wake up!” I ran past James and across the street and into the apartment. William, indeed, would not wake up, nor would he ever wake up in this life again. He had passed in his sleep leaving his crushed younger brother behind.

          Our ladies’ group, called the WMU (Women’s Missionary Union) paid for the funeral with the help of donations from the church at large. The brothers were such a fixture in town that it was just about the largest funeral I saw in my time there. The funeral dinner had more people than we could handle, but there was still a lot of food to send home for James. It was as though the community and the church couldn’t do enough for the little guy. He told me a few days later that he couldn’t keep on taking their help, William would not have liked it. “James,” I said. “William took care of you. Everyone wants to help William out now.” That was enough for James. He became the personal project of the WMU.

          And he thrived. He had never eaten so good. It got so his clothes wouldn’t fit, so one of the men took him shopping. He could come to church all the time, which he had never been allowed to do, and he had a church family, which became his family to him. He opened up to people. At one Wednesday morning Bible Study, someone asked him how he was getting along. He said he thought about William a lot, just sitting up there on the clouds strumming his harp and wearing that long white dress (by which he meant the robe and harp and clouds we see in comics depicting heaven). Wistfully he said, “Someday I’ll be there with old William, sitting on a cloud and playing that harp thingy. I don’t think I’ll wear the dress, though.”

The county eventually came in and threatened the owner of the apartments with closure until he brought every thing up to code. It was pretty easy to convince James to leave there and go live at an assisted living place. When he did that his life really opened up. He became a social butterfly. Any activity they were having, he was in the middle of it. Different folks in the church, including Marsha and myself, would stop in to take him for drives. He had lived less than two miles from Lake Erie for as long as he could remember, but had never seen the Lake. We took him to see the Lake. He just stared, his mouth hanging open. “All that there is water?” He just couldn’t believe so much water you couldn’t see the other side. To him, it had to seem like the land ended right there and water stretched on forever. He loved to watch the Cleveland Indians. They had a player at the time named Jim Thome, who eventually wound up in the Hall of Fame. James loved Thome. They even had the same name. For his birthday one year I had contacted the Indians and explained about James and asked for a signed photograph of James’ hero. What I got back was the photo actually signed by Thome and a note on the back telling James how cool it was that they had the same name and how much it meant to Thome to have such dedicated fans as James. Marsha got it framed and we went over to give it to James. He was beside himself. He went from calling him ‘Thome’ to calling him ‘my good buddy Jimmy.’ It was very, very neat.

His favorite song was ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ A child’s song to most of us, but James was a child. He always wanted me to sing it with him. “Jesus loves me, this I know,” both of his hands would go to his heart. “For the Bible tells me so,” tears would begin to well up in his eyes. “Little ones to him belong,” that old and craggy face would soften and the years would drop away. “They are weak and He is strong,” a smile would begin. “Yes, Jesus loves me!” His eyes would turn to heaven and you just knew he was thinking of Jesus and William. “Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so!” Such a look of joy and satisfaction on a wrinkled and lined face.

Have you ever considered what we need to have? The newest vehicle. The nicer house. The spectacular entertainment. The well ordered church service. If these things are missing from our lives then we feel our lives are missing something. But what if we could appreciate a ride in someone’s old car? What if a bed and a chair and a small 12 inch screen TV was a joy beyond words? What if looking at an endless stretch of water took our breath away every time? What if ‘Jesus Loves Me’ brought us to tears every time we heard it? One of our ladies once said to me that she felt sorry for James because he had missed so much. I told her that if she spent a lot of time with him, she would start feeling sorry for herself because she was missing so much wonder and joy.

James believed in Christ with the simple and pure faith of a child. Some day I am absolutely certain I will stand in Glory, stunned by the majesty and thrilled by the presence of God. A man will walk up to me on strong and sure legs. Even though he will be young, I will know it is James. “This is it, Pastor. This is what I saw and felt every day. Enjoy!”

Jesus loves me!
This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

          In the Fall of 2016 I ran a series through our church prayer chain called Forty Days of Prayer. The series, which ran for forty days, was given to me by Melissa Wilcox. I timed it to end on Thanksgiving Day and each day, along with the prepared prayer devotional, I added my own thoughts on that day’s theme. As the Forty Days of Prayer neared an end I found myself in a group of several of our ladies and the conversation came around to the Prayer emphasis ending. They wondered if it might be possible for me to keep e-mailing my thoughts on things. Hey, I’m a preacher! I can always think of something to say. It’s kinda like it’s my job.

          I didn’t like the e-mail format for some reason. Mary Earle, of Mary’s Moments fame, has her own blog. (for those of you who are not a part of the church, that link is https://mary-marysmoments.blogspot.com/) I asked her for help and she explained how I, too, could become a blogger just like her. Christmas was soon upon us and I was quite busy, so I didn’t get started until January.

          And so, on January 11, 2017 was my first blog. Exactly two years ago today.

          It really wasn’t going to be much. I figured it would start with a couple of dozen readers and then dwindle. I was going to have triple by-pass in April of that year, so I figured that if it lasted that long I would chronicle my recovery and then be done with it. Really, more something for me to do.

          I started out three days a week. Hard to keep that up and actually be a pastor, so I dropped to twice a week. That really was a chore, too, so now it is mostly once a week with an occasional second one coming out. But, why am I still at it?

          Blogspot, the organization that provides the free blog space, keeps track of how often you are read, what countries you are read in and various other things that interest geek type people. I knew that going in, but I really expected 30 people in Wabash County, Indiana. Dropping it when interest waned would be no real loss.

          As of today, January 11, 2019, my blog has been read 14,027 times. That is a cumulative number, but the next one really surprises me. This blog is read in 62 countries. This I really do not understand. Obviously, there are English speakers in every country, but what could be so interesting here that people in 61 other countries other than the USA would care to read the blog? There have been almost a thousand reads in Russia alone. Russia? I am almost afraid I am going to be named as a person of interest in the current Russian probe against the President. But the blog is read in places like Afghanistan and Bangladesh and South Korea and Taiwan and mainland China, as well. This has caused me great wonder. Americans are everywhere. They work in embassies, they are soldiers stationed far from home or they might work for multinational companies. Also, in some countries there are people tasked with reading anything that comes out of other countries as they seek for hidden messages and the like. I am sure that for those people, they find my blog a treasure trove of clandestine information. All of this would account for some of those readers in overseas countries, but surely not all?

          At any rate, I intend to keep writing, at least for a while. The internet circles the globe, accept for North Korea. Maybe I am just an assignment to some bored out of their mind political officer in the basement of some ugly block building in some country somewhere. But they are there. They may be staring at a flickering screen with blurry eyes trying to grasp what some nut in Indiana s trying to say, but they are there reading the blog. And, if as they are combing for hidden messages, they happen to read that Jesus Christ died on the Cross as a sacrifice for their sins and if they accept Him as their Savior, they will have an eternity in heaven, well, what is wrong with that? If, as they are reading, they find out that this country isn’t as decadent as the news media seems to think it is, what is wrong with that? And, if some US soldier who has been in the field for weeks, returns to his base camp and accesses the internet just to touch base with home, and he stumbles upon a blog that reinforces the things he was taught growing up, what is wrong with that?

The fact is, every one of us has a unique opportunity to share some aspect of Jesus. All too often we pass on it. We don’t want people to laugh at us or think we are weird or blow us off. But you take the chances as you get them.

So, for a while yet, we will continue to put out the blog.

Blessings.

          It is never easy to admit you are wrong.

          In November I resigned from the Urbana Yoke Parish as pastor because of the fact that my wife of 43 years had left me. The reason? Well, I am still not sure except that she said the ministry had finally just become too much for her. Unless you have been in ministry for all of your married life, you cannot understand that thinking. The ministry looks like a pretty cushy job. But there have been many vacations canceled or cut short because of the ministry, many get togethers with family or friends disrupted, many dinners that have gone uneaten, many times the pastor has come home not wanting to talk or visit. Imagine being married to someone who has an interest more compelling than you. You can be involved, as well, but not to the level your spouse is involved. It can wear on you until it gets to be to much. It is not all that unusual to see an older couple in ministry, but usually they came into it a little later in life. Marsha married a man committed to the ministry. Less than two months after we were married, I was called to my first ministry endeavor, Youth Pastor at a church in Tennessee. Our whole married life has been in the ministry. It is unusual to see a couple in fulltime ministry for over 40 years.

          We often learn things when we are younger that we hold onto later in life, even though if we were to study it out, we would find that what we had learned was wrong. When I first accepted Christ, 45 years ago, I got involved in a very legalistic church which led to going to a very legalistic college. The educational portion was fine, but the belief system was very strict and, in many cases, created by man. As the years have gone by, I have worked to unlearn a lot of what I learned in college as pertains to the harshly strict thinking we were exposed to. That ‘unlearning’ process was mostly spurred by circumstances that demanded more study. I had never encountered my wife leaving me, though.

          When this happened, I fell back on what I had learned when I was an impressionable young man. Specifically, in this case, 1 Timothy 3:1-7. Keep in mind, I learned this at a school that said moustaches were a sin. The school had people called campus checkers (always male) who went around writing down names of people violating the rules. They could make a female kneel before them on the sidewalk to see if their skirt or dress touched the ground. Anyway, 1 Timothy 3:1-7 says;

1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer (in this case the overseer is the pastor, as is clear in the passage), he desires a noble task.

2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
          To me, given the teaching I had received at that college (not my seminary training, that was not legalistic) I had no choice but to resign. Once my wife left me, I was no longer the husband of one wife, nor was my household in order. I was no longer qualified to pastor. Now, I had two agonies to deal with, both of which were simply breaking my heart. My wife had left and I could no longer pastor.

At no time, however, did I have peace about resigning. People tried to convince me otherwise, mostly using the example of Hosea in the Old Testament who was told repeatedly by the Lord to continue on even though his marriage was forfeit. As I explained to my son, though, a prophet and a pastor are two different callings and they were required to live under two different set of rules. Similar, but different. Still, I was struggling with this decision. I just felt it was wrong. The Lord was working on me and I soon began to fully explore the passage.

First, I examined it in the original language, that being Greek. Their sentence structure is different from ours, but the above is a faithful translation. In their sentence structure they often have really long sentences because they put an entire thought into one sentence, where we tend to break that thought down a little into two or three sentences and create a paragraph. Verses 2 and 3 make one sentence. We would easily make it 2 or even 3 sentences. Because it is one sentence it is one thought. It has to do with how one presents oneself to the world as concerning their self control and actions. I have always taken out the portion that says "husband of one wife" and applied it solely to marital status. Marsha leaving me essentially removes my wife and thus disqualifies me as a pastor. However, this segment is part of a larger thought. Since the whole thought is concerned with how one controls oneself, that segment is as well. I then looked it up in various commentaries. I seldom use commentaries and when I do, they are the old commentaries, such as Matthew Henry. These were written by real men of God. Not to say the newer writers are not people of God, I just trust the older writers. Every writer I read said that it was legal then for a man to have multiple wives. The Greek wording is actually "a one woman man." This was so the pastor, or overseer, in this passage, would just have one wife at a time. One writer pointed out that if you take this passage in our way of thinking then an unmarried man, or a man whose wife had died, would be ineligible to pastor.

          The next thought is in verses 4 and 5. This is pointed at keeping your kids in line, because if you cannot do that you cannot manage a church body. The word 'household' is used, but laid into that thought is the idea of children, so it is about the children. One writer addressed the issue of a marriage breaking up. He said that it totally depends on the circumstances of the break up. If the man is at fault, as in the sense of adultery or abuse or some negative, then he is unqualified. If, however, it is because of the actions of the wife, the husband may still continue as a pastor.

I believe, Biblically speaking, that I may continue as Pastor of the Urbana Yoke Parish. My decision to resign was poorly thought out and due, at least in part, to a broken heart.

I presented this to the church yesterday at a specially called business meeting following the service. I asked the church to consider allowing me to rescind my resignation. In a seriously overwhelming majority, the church voted to retain me as pastor.

It is still a struggle. I believe I can effectively pastor. If I see that I cannot, I will not be a burden to the church. But, whether or not I can effectively pastor, the fact remains that at the end of the day, I am alone without my best buddy. That is hard. However, Philippians 4:13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I have claimed this verse many times in my life and I have never been let down. This time looks to be much harder on me than ever before, but He is my Lord, so it is good.