He was a kid from Indiana. A farm kid. One of the biggest days of his life had been when his Dad finally bought a tractor. The two old mules seemed to like the noisy thing, too. He worked side by side with his father to prepare the land, plant, cultivate and finally harvest. He had to go to school, of course, but he didn’t like it. His mind was way beyond the boundaries of his small school. He loved to look at the stars and imagine going there. On the rare occasion that a plane would fly over, he would stop what he was doing and stare until it disappeared from sight. One year at the county fair they were selling plane rides. Oh, how he wanted to go up for the fifteen minutes! But he didn’t have the money. All he could do was stand and watch as the biplane taxied out, rolled out across a pasture and slowly climbed into the sky. Oh, to be so free! But he was earthbound.

And farm bound, as well. They had sports at his school, particularly basketball, but he had little interest. If he’d had the extra time, he might have played, but winter was still busy on the farm. One hundred and sixty acres. Originally a homestead. Just he and his father to work it. Equipment needed to be fixed, wood needed to be split and stacked and carried and, of course, the livestock needed to be cared for. Just some milk cows, a dozen or so hogs, some chickens and two old mules that seemed to be enjoying their retirement. But by the time you have cleaned out stalls and hauled in feed and everything else needed to keep the animals happy, well, basketball wasn’t very important.

He grew tall and very strong. He read everything he could about the growing war in Europe. He imagined himself running off to England when he hit eighteen years old. He would be a daring Lancaster bomber pilot pulling off daring raids. His mother prayed that America wouldn’t get in the war and his father, a veteran of the Great War, always looked worried. But the boy had visions. The big question, though, was how to get to England? That would be the struggle.

In school one day the teacher was talking about Canada. It seemed Canada was still, technically, a part of England. When you went to Canada, you were actually on British soil. Wow! Canada wasn’t far! It would be way easier to get to Canada than England, and then he could join the Canadian Air Force (did they have one?) and get to the war that way.

He was a farm kid, though. The war would probably be over by the time he could get there. Life wasn’t fair.

And then, in early December of his sixteenth year, came the most horrible news. America had been attacked in a place he had barely ever heard of by a little nation that had no business going to war with the USA. All of his thoughts had centered on the war in Europe and now here were the Japanese attacking us in the Pacific. Who did they think they were? Why, we would beat those little guys every which way, you just wait. So, the farm kid listened to every radio report and read every newspaper article. FDR declared war. Good! Now we would box their ears a good one! Only it didn’t happen that way. Not by a long shot. America was in the war and troops were headed over two vast oceans, east and west, but they weren’t turning the tide of war. Spring of 1942 came and Jimmy Doolittle led his attack on Tokyo. American troops landed in Africa. It was heating up! But victories just weren’t coming.

He was going to join up, but his father said no. He wasn’t old enough to join by himself and the old man needed him at home. He would not be eighteen until he Fall of 1943. There had better be some fighting still to do.

The Indiana farm boy fumed and fussed the rest of the year. Word of victories began to filter in. The tide wasn’t turning very fast, but the Allies were starting to hold their own a little better. Another cold winter and suddenly it was 1943. The Allies were starting to gain some ground. The year moved along (aided by a cute little blond haired girl from a farm across the way) and it was finally September. Eighteen years old! Dad, I’m off! You’ll have to do without me for a spell! His father shook his hand with a sad look, his mother and two sisters cried and wailed and embarrassed him and the cute blond girl wept and promised to wait for him, which made him smile with pride. Skipping his senior year, but that didn’t matter. He signed up with the Army so he could fly bombers.

But the Army had a different idea. During Basic he signed up for flight school, but they had plenty of flyboys. The Army needed ground pounders. He was shocked at first. He had never even considered being a foot soldier. But if it got him into action, so be it.

Basic ended and his class didn’t even get to go home for a bit. It was all rush-rush. Next thing he knew he was marching up a gang plank with his full kit on his back boarding a huge ship. They were heading out to England. Maybe there he could get into planes!

Getting there, however, was a problem. First, they were told that if they were torpedoed, wait for the ‘abandon ship’ klaxon, leave your kit and get topside. Then they told them that if you were going to be sea sick, get topside. He snorted at that last. He had been out on the water lots. He would be fine. But he found that a rowboat on a calm Indiana pond was somewhat different from a troopship in the Atlantic. Day and night, he was on deck. Eat a little something and he was leaning over the rail. Other GIs laughed at him good naturedly. One evening he was leaning against the rail trying to catch his breath when a major smoking a cigar ambled by. He came to something resembling attention and weakly saluted the major. The major replied with a return salute and asked him what he was doing on deck. The young soldier thought quickly and told the major he was looking for periscopes. The major smiled and told him to keep up the good work.

By the time the ship pulled into port at Aberdeen, Scotland, the Indiana farm kid didn’t care about planes or glory or even the cute little blond haired girl back home. He wanted firm, unmoving ground under his feet.

He expected to ship out to Italy right away. That was where the real fighting was going on. Instead, he wound up at a training camp somewhere. There was ocean nearby, but for a while they went no where near it. They were just run through drill after drill. This was stupid, he thought. If you are not going to put me on a plane then let me go somewhere and fight! Training, marching, running. Let me soldier! Sometimes, passes were issued to allow the men to go and have a good time in town. He never went. He would take the time to write to his sweetheart back home. They were not to mention where they were, but he wouldn’t have, anyway. She would not have believed a town actually carried that name. Once in a while he would get a letter back. The last one he got before the world came unglued for him simply said, “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!”

Then came the day they climbed aboard landing craft and started practicing beach landings. After that, all communication to home or anywhere else was cut off. Suddenly superiors were all business. The waters around England are rough any time of year, but Spring seemed particularly wicked. They didn’t spend a lot of time on the landing craft, but it was all misery to him. He had wanted to fly bombers. Now, drowning was looking pretty good.  

And then came the BIG day. They clamored aboard boats and headed out to sea. Thousands and thousands of men, coming from everywhere. Brits, of course, and Canadians and French and Poles and who knew who else. And Americans! More Americans than he would have thought lived in the whole state of Indiana. Whatever was going to happen was going to be really big.

It didn’t matter how big it was, though. Once on the transport ship he started the familiar heaving. When they called for the men to board the landing craft, he couldn’t do it. He was too weak. An officer came to him and asked him if he wanted off the boat. Yes, he gasped. Well, soldier, over there is land and the way to get there is on that landing craft. Suddenly that had a real good ring to it. Over the side and into the boat.

The wave action was worse on the small boat. Torment! A French soldier was in the bow of the boat, cheering and pointing. “Pays natal, PAYS NATAL!” The Indiana kid shook his head. He wants paid? And then the Frenchman went quiet. He toppled over into the boat, a ghastly tear in his chest. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and then his eyes just stayed open, empty and staring. The sea sickness was gone as the Hoosier stared at the dead French soldier.

The gate fell and the men rushed off. Into very deep water. Being tall, the young soldier fared better than some. He slogged forward, held to the ocean floor by his kit. Waves washed over his head and little splashes leaped around him. Bullets, his mind informed him. Well, OK. We kind of expected that, but still the actuality was surprising. The closer he got to land the shallower the water got. And then he was on the beach. Running around the obstacles that had been placed by German engineers.

What followed was worse than any movie he had seen in town. First, it was all noise and yelling and screams. Men, his comrades, ripped apart by enemy fire. Then there climbing and shooting and fighting. If an officer or a sergeant gave you an order, you followed that order. You didn’t have to know that officer or sergeant. You just trusted them completely because of a piece of brass on their collar or three or more stripes on their sleeve. The young man left the thinking to others. Days went by. Somewhere he got a second stripe on his sleeve. Corporal? How? More marching, more fighting. Gradually his mind began to work again. People were depending on him. That seemed to galvanize him. They left the beaches of Normandy behind, along with the horror that was D-Day, and they moved farther inland.

By the time winter was coming on, the Indiana kid was a man, a two striper who had a squad to look after. When replacements came into the squad, they were told by the others to just do what the corporal tells you and you will be alright. A grizzled vet who had only been in the Army a year.

Early morning, December 16, 1944, in a forest called the Ardennes, the young corporal was dreaming a sweet dream of the blond girl he had left behind. Mail hadn’t caught up with them yet, so the last message he had was “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!” In his dream he was home. A wonderful meal had been prepared and he and the blond were about to eat. “Hey, corporal! Wake up! The sarge says there are reports of activity up ahead. C’mon, Corporal! WAKE UP!” And just then, the world exploded. An 88mm HE tank round slammed into a nearby tree. The sweet dream was gone. He was shouting out orders. “FORM A LINE!” But instead they had to withdraw. The German attack, known to history as the Battle of the Bulge, had caught the Allies completely flat footed. The day was spent in retreat. Several days, actually. Over a week. In the dark of the morning on Christmas Eve, the allied troops that the corporal was attached to, were hunkered down in a village with the unlikely name of Foy-Nôtre-Dame. The misplaced Hoosier was exhausted. The Germans wanted that village. The orders were to hold it. The young private next to him was softly crying. He had come into the line just before the initial attack and had seen no combat before. The corporal wondered if he had cried some time after D-Day. He couldn’t remember.

When the Germans attacked it wasn’t really a surprise. And it wasn’t as intense as they had thought it would be. But they had overwhelming numbers. The boy next to him screamed and rolled over, dead already. Then it felt to our young Hoosier that someone had grabbed his leg while he lay there and yanked. Yelping, he looked down. His leg was a shambles. Didn’t even look like a leg. As he stared at his leg, the pain began. Amazing, he thought. At first it didn’t hurt. But now the pain was getting white hot. He dropped his head into the rubble of the village and closed his eyes. He would bleed to death soon. The pain! Death needs to come soon!

He heard voices behind him. “They got the corporal!” He couldn’t die! Not yet! His men needed him. He pulled his head up. He pulled his rifle over. The young dead soldier close by didn’t need his rifle. The corporal took his rifle, too. He began to fire at flashes in the dark. “Somebody go get the corporal!” He fired his rifle dry of ammunition. He started firing his dead comrade’s rifle. Two men dropped down next to him. “C’mon, corporal. We gotta go!” “You go! I ain’t backing up anymore!” Then they heard the rumble of tank treads. “Panzers!” the corporal gritted out. “Go NOW!”

The woman was a little stooped with age, and she hadn’t been very tall to begin with. Her hair, still with a few sprigs of blond, ruffled in the breeze. She stood on the porch of her home and looked out over their Indiana farm. It had been in her husband’s family for generations. She remembered the first time she had bounded up those steps to this house, which had been new back then. The farm had been a lot smaller, but her husband had managed it well. He had gone to Purdue on that new G.I. Bill and had become quite the farmer. He was handicapped, but he didn’t live handicapped. Oh, that was so long ago! But the Lord had given them good health and five strong children, fifteen wonderful grandchildren and….how many greats? Hard to remember now a days. Then she heard a noise. Looking around the corner of the porch she saw the youngest of the greats. A little guy who was SO BORED out here on the farm. He was playing with some little plastic, well, dolls.

“Great grandson,” she said with mock severity. “What are you doing?” “Playing with my Action Heroes.” She looked at him with a small smile. “Really? Why don’t you go and spend some time with a real hero?” “Yeah, that’s funny! There are no heroes around here.” “Well, great grandson (my, I wish I could remember his name!), you sit on this swing and I will be right back and show you a hero!”

She bustled away, a smile on her lips. She returned in a few short minutes with a simple wooden box. The little boy looked bored.

Grandma sat down on the swing and slowly opened the box. Inside were various medals and badges and ribbons, carefully mounted, and right in the center of the mountings was a red, white and blue ribbon. Attached at the bottom of that ribbon was a five pointed silver star. In the corner of the box were the two stripes of a corporal. The boy’s eyes grew large.

“Who do these belong to?” Grandma pointed out across the yard to where an old man was leaning on a cane and looking out over a field of soybeans. An old dog had laid down and was waiting for the old man to move.

“There is a man who fought in the greatest war of all time. He fought hard. He had a terrible wound but kept firing to hold off the enemy while ordering his men to escape. The enemy was almost ready to break through. The war might have been lost….” Her voice trailed off. “G’ma, what happened!”

She caught herself. “American tanks showed up just in time. By the time the medics got there he was unconscious from loss of blood. His leg was nearly shot away, but he was going to do whatever he could to save his men. He won the Silver Star for heroism. Grandpa is a real hero. My hero.”

The little fellow watched his aged grandfather for a bit. “Yeah, he’s my hero, too!” With that, he jumped off the porch and sprinted out to the old man.

The old woman watched from the swing. Softly, as if still talking to someone, she said, “Yes, my soldier boy came home.”

        Thank you, veterans. Thank you, families, for raising and giving us heroes.

          As I write this, there are still five states to go in the counting for President. Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Alaska. As of right now, Alaska has a huge Trump lead, but Anchorage and Fairbanks have yet to report. Alaska will likely go Trump, but there are only three electors for Alaska. So, it is Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada, and right now they are all to close to call. Control of the Senate is still up for grabs. And the House, while still unresolved, will almost certainly remain under control of the Democratic Party. However, it may be that by the time you read this, all will be resolved.

Personally, I do not like writing about politics. I prefer to write about the work of the Lord in our lives. But this is a time when we have to consider both Christianity and politics. Please bear with me.

         The history student in me is hearing alarm bells ring. It seems most people do not have real knowledge of history. People just don’t like it. Anything prior to the year 2000 is ancient history and is useless. Even the events of 09/11/2001 no longer matter. A famed American philosopher, George Santayana, coined the often repeated quote, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There is an undeniable truth in the quote. (Winston Churchill said it better, but who has ever heard of him?) We are seeing now, however, that the lessons of history are of no use.

The Democratic Party has been relentlessly drifting towards socialism for decades now. The last few years the thing that riles conservatives is the call from the Democrats to ban guns. This is inane to me. Saying guns kill people is like saying that my pencil wrote the wrong answers on a test. Even so, the clamor continues. I no longer have a firearm, but it is merely because I have no use for one. I am very opposed to the government taking them away.

Socialism goes further than that, though. And that is what I wish to explore here.

If you ask most people thirty five and older what the letters USSR stand for, they will tell you communist Russia. Anyone younger will have a problem because it is ancient history. But. USSR does not stand for communist Russia. It stands for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There were many nations other than Russia that made up the USSR. Now, if you ask people what NAZI stands for, many will say it stands for Trump and his Hitler tendencies. Which is, of course, stupid. NAZI stands for, in German, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. In English that is National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Both called themselves socialist. Now, someone out there is rolling their eyes, but it is a fact that the two most destructive regimes to ever to exist were socialist.

Webster’s defines socialism as, “a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.” Someone might say that the NAZIs were fascist, but that person has no idea what a fascist is in reality. Fascists are so much like communists that it is hard to see the difference. So, from Webster’s definition we see that socialism is a stepping stone to communism. Webster defines communism as “a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism, a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.” In communism there is no private ownership. Your farm becomes the government’s, your home becomes the government’s, your labor does not benefit you, it benefits the government.

I was in Pittsburgh in January and got into this conversation with a young adult. BUT, he said, WE WILL DO SOCIALISM RIGHT! To which I replied, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. To which he looked me right in the eyes and said, “Huh?”

There is no way to do socialism right. It has always, always, always given rise to dictators and strong arm rulers. I have been amazed over the years at the number of people who point out that the early church followed a socialist way of life. That is completely true, too. But it wasn’t put forth as government. The early church was more reminiscent of a family. In a family it is all for one and one for all. In a government situation, however, the traditional role of a father in a family is taken over by the dictator, and he is never a loving and kind father figure.

So now it appears that we are on the slippery and steep slope heading down to the sewer that is socialism. People are posting on Facebook that they are loading up on guns and such like. Your choice. But I have a different concern.

In the Soviet Union, in NAZI Germany, in communist China, in North Korea and in every other so afflicted country, they do round up weapons. Nothing says total control like fear of the government. But there is something else. Karl Marx (the creator of socialism and communism) wrote that “Religion is the opium of the masses”. (In the original German it just goes on and on.) Marx’s thinking was that if the people have access to religion, they will turn away from government. Because of this, in every socialist/communist regime ever, Bibles are confiscated from the regular folks. Churches are either eliminated or so heavily controlled by the government that they hardly resemble churches. In all of that, though, the underground church, the church of Godly people willing to die for their faith, flourishes.

This also is what socialism breeds. Don’t be foolish and believe otherwise. When we lived in south Florida, I had a conversation with an older Cuban man. He told me that when the revolution was taking place in Cuba (where the communist forces of Castro were warring with and seeking to overthrow the leadership and army of Batista) he was drawn to communism. He had always been poor and this was a way for him to rise up a little. His only concern was for his faith. He was told that he would be able to worship God as he saw fit. So, he fought for the communists. And then, in a fairly short while, he was in prison for his faith.

 In my sermon on 11/01/2020 (which is available on the church website http://urbanayokeparish.com/worship-videos) I shared a passage out of Luke. Luke 21:5-19 is the entire passage and deals with the time before the end times begin, but right now I wish to look at just verses 14 and 15. Jesus is talking about the hardships Christians will face at the hands of government, but this will be an opportunity to share the Gospel. Jesus says, Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. I believe He will have to give us knowledge because our Bibles will be gone and our churches will be shuttered. Churches have already been closed in some states in the name of COVID and for the last decade and a half the Bible has been said to be full of hate speech.

Read your Bibles. Not just devotions, but really read them. Store that knowledge up. We are on the very verge of losing everything. A land that was once a land of equal opportunity will become a land of equal outcome, and a land that promises you can worship how you wish will become a land that closes the door on that wish.

And you know what? This is the reason we Christians are here. This is our time, our opportunity. Offering hope to a hopeless world.

 

         Three things that bug me. Some of you are guilty of these things and some of you are bugged by the same things that bug me.

1.)  Cell phones. It is not the phone itself. I have made peace

with cell phones as a whole. What bothers me is that they have become so much more. You can be in a store and pay for purchases with your cell phone. You can surf the web with your cell phone. You can check your e-mails with your cell phone. You can watch TV or movies with your cell phone (that has to be a tough experience). You can play games with your cell phone. You can check on your medical condition with your cell phone. I have even heard (you won’t believe this) that you can actually make real phone calls on your cell phone!

         There are people out there who never use computers, for whatever reason. If we called cell phones by the term that actually defines them, ‘pocket computer,’ their usage would go down. Some people are scared to death of computers but they use their phone in every way they would use a computer, except that they are destroying their vision by looking at a thumbnail size screen instead of something they can actually see.            

         Wednesday I had a doctor’s appointment in Ft. Wayne. I haven’t been to Sam’s Club since the pandemic started, so I left a little early so as to stop in there and get a couple of things I like to get at Sam’s. As I walked up one aisle there was a young lady at the end with one of the little carts they set up to give free samples of crackers or cheese or whatever. Only this little cart had nothing on it. When I got to it, I asked her what she was doing. She said, “Well, sir, step around here and I will show you.” We stepped to the front of the cart and there was a cardboard cutout advertising some kind of contest. “Scan this symbol and you will get the entry form for the contest.” Now, I am thinking that customers don’t do the scans. The employees scan the codes at the end and tell you how much you owe. Then I thought there must be some way to scan it with my Sam’s membership card. It was in my shirt pocket, so I pulled it out and said, “With this?” She gave that little laugh young people have always used that means ‘silly old guy.’ “No, sir. Scan it with your phone!” “Oh, I see. Well, my phone won’t do that.” “Oh, of course it will, silly.” She actually called me ‘silly.’ “Is your phone an i-Phone or an Android?” “Young lady, it won’t work. I don’t have a data plan.” Because of her mask, all I could see of her face were her eyes, but they got as wide as saucers. Total disbelief. Then she turned to someone else and started in on them.

         I have been told that I don’t understand technology. I was programming computers back in the 1970s. I understand tech from the inside out. I just don’t think that a phone should be anything else but a phone. My current cell phone has way more capability than my first computer. But it is only a phone!

         Call me. We will talk.

2.)  I don’t watch TV news. Ever. I listen to the radio and I read

from various news feeds on the internet. And I HATE when someone starts the news on the radio or on a newsfeed with the words “Three things you need to know.” Aghhhh! You don’t know anything about what I need to know! And when someone says “Three things you need to know,” it is their opinion. It is what they want me to know. I don’t need to know that Ellen and her wife are fussing, I don’t need to know that Michelle and Barack have bought an 11 million dollar house on Chesapeake Bay (Think about that. If they really believed in climate change, would they have bought a water front home?), I don’t need to know that Alex and JLo were heard speaking loudly to each other. I don’t need to know what LeBron’s political beliefs are.

         I need to know the weather. If I am going to Ft. Wayne or Indianapolis or Ohio, I need to know the traffic. I need to know what medicine to take and when. I need to know the welfare of our people. It is a sad commentary on humanity when news people believe the silly and inconsequential things are important.

3.)  People who drive up to the speaker at a fast food place and

take five minutes deciding what they want. You are driving along and you decide you are going to McDonalds. You change lanes, turn against traffic, drive into the parking lot, get into line and then slowly inch forward. After all that, you get to the speaker and the worker in McDonalds asks you what you want and then you say “……………………..well, let’s see. What do I want? Hmmmm. Do you have blueberry pie? No? Oh, OK. Didn’t want a pie anyway. OK, I’d like a Whopper and a….wait, what? You’re out of Whoppers? You don’t sell Whoppers? What do you mean Burger King sells Whoppers? Where am I?” People, it is a fast food joint. It is not going to be a gourmet meal. Order something and eat it. You are not going to like it anyway. It is going to be nasty. It is a fast food joint!

         Last week one morning, I whipped into McDonalds for a cup of coffee. For a wonder, there was only one car in front of me and only one person in the car. Great, I thought. In and out. This person made seven different orders. Wanted them all in separate bags. And nothing was written down. He sat there reading the entire menu. I wanted to get out and order for him! And, being the North Manchester McDonalds, it took them forever to put the multiple orders together. Finally, I got to the speaker. I ordered my medium coffee with cream. The girl taking my order seemed relieved. I paid and then sat forever waiting for them to fill the previous order. When I finally got to the window, the young guy in the window thrust the cup of coffee at me, which I took. When I got to the office I took a sip. No cream.

         These things bug me!

         So, what is the point here? What Spiritual heights have we climbed? Actually, none. The virus seems to be surging some. The election is upon us. Everywhere we turn we hear doom and gloom. And I have done you a favor of sorts. For just a few minutes here I have taken your minds off of all the serious and worrisome things in the world and I have given you some nonsense to enjoy. All sorts of uncertainties are ahead of us. But today, for just a short bit of time, you have found out that your pastor has issues with cell phone usage, being told what to think and time wasters in the drive-thru. Today you are no better off for reading this blog. That is true. But come Wednesday morning, the day after the election and amid the ongoing pandemic, we are all still going to be making our way in an uncertain world and still dealing with our own issues. Life will go on.

 

         Some of the descriptions here may sound familiar to some of you. It is not the same story as before, but the people involved are the same. All that happened that night, and since, has bothered me more than anyone can know. There was nothing I could have done that night but, maybe if I had been more forceful before….well, the story.

         I first met Betty when she was twenty years old. Married already, I was struck by her good heart. She obviously adored her husband, although I wondered what it was about him that lit her fire. That happens often, though. Two people who seemed so different, yet they come together. I had known her husband a long time and he really liked his beer and marijuana and didn’t mind getting into a fight now and again. Usually at a bar when his enjoyment of drink got the best of him. I had heard he had gotten married and I was looking forward to meeting his wife just so I could see what kind of hardnosed woman would have him. Betty was a shock.

         Grew up in church, a caring and compassionate girl who had given her life to Christ in her early teens. So sweet it almost seemed fake, but there was nothing fake about Betty. As the years went by we only saw them now and again, but Betty was always the same.

         They had two children, a boy and a girl, and they were brought up in church. They loved their Mom and their Dad, but they were well aware of their father’s problems. You see, he had set his sights on Betty and started going to her church. She had fallen in love with him and they had gotten married and then she found out it was a sham. Betty suffered humiliation and shame and even some physical abuse, but we didn’t find out about that later. At least I didn’t find out until later. There was a time, a long time, actually, when Marsha was a wonderful Pastor’s wife and I believe Betty confided in her.

         The years rolled by, as years do. Word filtered down that there were real problems. Then there was some infidelity on the husband’s part and Betty could not go on. It killed her inside to do it, but Betty left him. She felt she had let her kids down, her family down and his family down. For Betty, however, the greatest feeling of shame was that she felt she had let Jesus down. Like many women in that situation, she could blame only herself.

         Then came that night, I guess fifteen years ago, Betty was watching their grandson for overnight. Around midnight the front door was kicked open and her husband barged in. He grabbed Betty and began to beat her with the butt of a shotgun and his fist. She had several broken ribs, almost all the bones in her face were shattered, a cracked skull, one ear nearly ripped off and dangling. He told her he was going to blow her away and the baby with his 12-gauge shotgun. Fortunately, all the yelling he was doing and all the screaming she was doing and all the wailing the baby was doing alerted a neighbor, who called the police. The police arrived just before he could fire his gun.

         We were at my sister’s house for a cook out when my sister told me what had happened. It wasn’t clear yet whether Betty would live or die, but the baby was safe. I felt I had been kicked. Marsha wore the same face I wore. Totally stunned.

         Betty went through several reconstructive surgeries. Her recovery was long and slow. Even then, in a letter to me, she couldn’t bring herself to blame her husband. It was the alcohol or the drugs or the fact that they had split up. Betty thought I would hate her. Her mother in law did hate her and she tried to turn her family against Betty. She claimed that Betty had been having affairs for years. Anyone who even knew her a little bit knew better. That mother in law was my aunt, Betty’s husband was my cousin and it was pretty traditional in our family that when someone dies from within the family, their closest kin are blamed. Every time. My sister and I killed our mother. It was just the way it was, I guess. So we didn’t believe our aunt. Neither did the courts. My cousin was found guilty of attempted murder. He went to prison here in Indiana. In the Spring of 2017 he died of cancer while handcuffed to his bed at IU in Indianapolis.

         Betty was sure all of us hated her, but my heart broke for her. She went a while being afraid of men, and who could blame her? She did have a friend from childhood and from her church, a man by the name of Tom, who helped her out when she needed it at her floral shop. Tom was a really nice man, quiet and reserved, but Betty told Marsha that she would never, ever let another man to be close. Betty’s emotional scars ran deeper than even the physical scars.

         Betty has always been a woman of faith and now she was holding onto her faith with both hands.

         Marsha left in November of 2018. Betty was broken hearted. But she immediately thought of me. “Larry, you come for Thanksgiving. The kids will be here and the grands and Tom and it will be fun!” I told her no. I didn’t want to be with anyone and I hate driving in Indy, but I was intrigued that Tom would be there. Slowly, on her Facebook page, Tom was showing up more and more. He has always been heavily involved in church. A good, solid man and it began to appear that he was pulling Betty out of her isolation. I have always felt that Betty deserved a better man and Tom surely fits the bill.

         And then came the message I have been expecting for the last year. Betty and Tom are getting married. I laughed when I read the words. However, the next words quieted me. Betty and Tom want me to do the wedding. Betty and I have known each other for well over forty years. I am not a hugger, but Betty has been hugged by me. We consider each other cousins even though it was only by marriage, but we are close. However, I would not have even considered being asked to do the wedding. I sat and thought about it. December 12. Do the wedding, spend the night in Indy and rush back in the morning for church. Doable. For Betty I would do that and a lot more. I sent her a message and told her I would be so very honored to do the wedding.

         God has a plan. For Betty and for Tom. God has a plan for you, as well. Dark times emerge in our lives. Obviously, they aren’t all as traumatic as Betty’s, but God is there for all of those times. I am filled with joy that my cousin has found happiness.

         1 Peter 5:6-7 gives us this; Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Betty stood humbly before the Lord and He is exalting her to a better life than she ever had before. And He can do so for you.

           I wouldn’t call it a crisis of faith. I guess I wouldn’t call it a crisis of faith. I don’t know. Maybe it is a crisis of faith. At any rate, I am struggling with an issue. One of those things that fills your mind and interrupts your thoughts. And it should not be there. I should have faith. I should have trust. I should……yeah, I know everything I should have. But what I have are restless nights. It is on my mind as I drift off and on my mind when I wake up. Not a crisis of faith, but a struggle of faith. 

          In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shutdown, our church is doing pretty well. Better than a lot of churches. We stayed connected throughout the shutdown. Ministry continued, just different. Since coming back we have been able to social distance in church, more or less, and we have, as a congregation, managed to avoid the virus. The folks have a good attitude. We are bringing in new members. We are bringing back the ministries we had to shelve during shutdown. We are not only going to be alright; we are going to thrive.

          So, what is the problem?

          We have no one to lead our Youth group and we have no teachers for our kids. This actually wasn’t a problem early in the year. The pandemic took everything away, even church services. We went on-line and did OK, but now we are back and our kids are being neglected. In 45 years of ministry, I have never been in this place. Now, on the back end of a long ministry, I find myself facing something I have only experienced by talking to other pastors who were dealing with it.

          You see, I always did the Youth as well as pastor the church. Truth be told, I always enjoyed the Youth more than the adults! I just always connected with teenagers in a way that was different than with adults. Maybe it was their higher level of energy or maybe it was the fresher outlook. I don’t know. But it was fun. Times change. Now I am older than some of their grandparents. That connection isn’t possible any longer. But the desire to see them connected to the Lord is still there. And the kids in Sunday School. Loud, wired, driven by that special child-like insanity! Ready to be molded. I have always had brave souls who have taken deep breaths and walked into the den of lion, well, cubs.

          Understand, I have no problem when people decide, for whatever reason, that it is time for them to step away. My feeling has always been, thank you for the time you have given and God bless you. That is a natural and common occurrence. But, all at once is tough.

          I have been in touch with Huntington University for some student who might want some practical experience, but with no luck. I have talked to people and, again, no luck. I really do believe in God’s time, in God’s way, in God’s place. The way the Lord has worked around this church, I know He has a plan and a purpose. He is preparing people right now, both in the church and outside. His time, His way, His place. I believe it! But still…

          And then, the Lord showed me a song early in the week. As always, it is the words that stir my soul. These words are powerful.

I am thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;

Yes, I am His! I have heard His voice! In the pages of the Scripture and in the depths of my heart, and I know He loves me!
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Interesting word. “But.” Knowing He loves me is wonderful, BUT I want, need, to be drawn closer all the time. I need to feel Him close when my heart is troubled.

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the power of grace divine;

Yes, Lord, every day renew me to Your service. Nothing is more important! And Your power becomes mine!

Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

OK, here is where it gets tough sometimes. Hard to look up with hope when you are feeling like you are beaten down. And it is even tougher to put away your own will, your desire and your certainty of what is right, and embrace His will. Surely there is something I can do…..OK, Lord, I will back away and let you lead.

O the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God,
I commune as friend with Friend!

I heard a preacher once say we sing “Sweet Hour of Prayer” like we mean it and then we grudgingly give Him five minutes. But I know, and can tell you for fact, when you spend that hour in prayer there is a communion unlike any other. As the song says, I commune as friend with Friend. Oh my! The amount of coffee I have consumed across a table in a greasy spoon restaurant or in my office or around a dining room table, communing with friends, would fill an Olympic sized pool. But how much sweeter that time spent with the Lord.

There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;

I can’t understand it all right now. I am human. I know about His love, but right now I cannot fully understand it. I won’t know until I make that short journey, until in a flash I am absent from the body and present with the Lord.

There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee.

There have been joys here, but nothing like what is to come.

And then the chorus---

Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to Thy precious, bleeding side.

A lot of people draw away from that imagery, but it is only in the shed blood of our Savior that we find our salvation. Where we find love and joy and peace.

          Yes, I am struggling, But while I struggle, I also know that He has it all taken care of. I have to be more aware and alive to His knowledge and power! A month ago, I talked to a man in a church who was looking for a pastor. He was on the search committee and was overwhelmed by it all. I said, “Just think of it, John. God already has your next Pastor out there and pretty soon He will let you meet him.” I need to practice what I preach!

          In the mean time, is the Lord working on you?

             She was six when I first met her. Shy, maybe even a little afraid of me. Her hands were folded in front of her and she was staring at me. Who was this new person at the church? All the adults were talking with him. Calling him Pastor. Who was he? I was watching her out of the corner of my eye and I finally excused myself from the group I was talking to and I bent down and stared back at her.

          “What’s your name, young lady?” Clearly, she wasn’t quite ready to confide in me that information, but the adults and the Youth seemed fine with me. She took a deep breath.

          “Ashley.”

          “Ah, OK. I was going to guess that. You really do look like an ‘Ashley.’ But there is more. Hmmm. Yeah…..I am going to call you Ashley Doodle.” Her face went from serious to laughter in a second. After that she was Ashley Doodle or Doodle or, for short, Doo. Even now in e-mails or Facebook I call her one of those names. Married, 31 this December and the mother of two little ones. Still call her Doo.

          She wants to be a good Christian, and she works at it. She and her husband and kids are in church on Sunday. She reads her Bible. She prays. The kids are taught Christian ethics at home. She does well. She also wants to be a good American. Takes it seriously. Votes. We don’t always agree, but I never told my kids how to vote, just insisted that they vote and that they do so as informed young people.

          And so, I was a little surprised earlier in the week when I saw she had posted on her Facebook page; “That’s it! I am done with politics! I am not voting!” I immediately started to type a reply, but then I stopped. I understand the frustration. For the most part, national politics have degraded to name calling and finger pointing. Even threats. It is very frustrating. So much so that people are being turned away from the whole thing. Because of the evil that is coming to the surface in the political world, many are opting out of the process. There is no longer a high road in politics.

          Seeing Doodle’s note made me think back many years. A Youth group meeting. Elections were near. I don’t remember if Doodle was in the group yet. If she was, she would have only been first year. We hadn’t actually started the meeting yet when one of the kids asked me why did we have these long campaigns. I answered that campaigns gave the candidate the opportunity to get the message out. It seems like that year there was a senator or governor running against an incumbent president. The same Youth who had asked the question then said that it seemed like a lot of money and time could be saved if the candidate just got on TV and stated their case, answered some questions and went home. Then have the election. I laughed and said it didn’t work that way, and he immediately asked why not. And then he asked a brilliant question. “Pastor, has any of the campaign changed your mind?” I told him no, it had not. I had researched the candidates and had made my choice long before the campaigns began in earnest. That set off more conversation. Why couldn’t everyone be like that? If people are swayed in the campaigning, aren’t they kind of clueless? Has any candidate changed their beliefs and plans midway in the campaign? How much money does this cost? And then one of the girls asked another brilliant question. “Don’t these people already have jobs? How can they spend so much time running for something when they were elected to do the job they already have? Their job is not being a candidate.”

          They were asking questions I could not answer. It doesn’t make sense to a teenager to answer a question by saying, “Well, it has always been that way.” For that matter, it shouldn’t make sense to any of us.

          I am antiabortion. I am antisocialism. (Never forget, Hitler and Stalin were socialists.) I respect the flag. I respect the country. I respect my fellow man. I knew who I was voting for in this election before anyone ever heard of COVID-19. I don’t care for the president on a personal level, but there just isn’t anyone else. None of the campaigning has moved me in the least.

          I think it would be so great if a president would come out one day as the election season was coming up and say, “Folks, I am pretty busy in my job as president. I really don’t have time to do all those candidate things. Next Tuesday night at 8 Eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain and 5 Pacific I am going to go on air and outline my plan for the next four years. I am going to tell you what I believe and what I want done. And then I am going to go back to work and take care of the country. No campaigning, no debates, no kissing babies, no shaking hands and no rallies. This is the biggest job in the world and I was elected to see to it. I will talk to you again Tuesday evening.”

          What do you think would happen with that? The media would melt down! They make huge money during campaigns. The opposition would freak out. Hard to call someone a name when they are not responding. And the voters would have to do a little digging to get their answers, but that would be good.

          As Americans, we have an obligation to vote. More than an obligation. A high privilege. We vote our conscious, but our conscious has to be guided by our faith. Which brings me to the next point. We, as Christians, need to pray for our leaders WHETHER WE LIKE THEM OR NOT. “Yeah, well, in the Bible times they didn’t have anyone like Obama or Clinton!” No, but they had leaders who threw Christians in to starving lions or blood thirsty gladiators. Leaders who could order the deaths of male children under the age of two. People in authority who could order a stoning. Or even a brutal crucifixion. In 1 Timothy 2:1-6 (a time of persecution) we have this; First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, Godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. 

          It seems the prayers were for the leadership to come to Jesus. Think what a world that would be.

          Never forget that God is in control. If we want our nation to return to Christian ways and values, we need to first bring ourselves back to Christian ways and values. We cannot legislate it, but we can give it to Jesus and accept His way.

          

 

            Therefore, we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. (For we walk by faith, not by sight.) Now, we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and be present with the Lord.

Words of great comfort, words we have heard many times. There are many poems and songs that carry words of comfort and peace. “Go Rest High On That Mountain” is a song that seems to give hope. We could list many such words and poems and songs. The difference with the above words, however, is that they are straight out of the Word of God. 2 Corinthians 5:6-8. There is a special comfort to me when the Bible speaks. I have used that passage many times, both for those in grief and for myself. Pastors have their own grief and that passage, when it is a believer who has died, has helped me through countless dark times.

‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.’ Orville Chamberlain’s passing has me turning back to this passage once again. I find solace there, but also a question; at what moment does the soul leave the body? Obviously, at the point of death, but when does that occur? 

2004. Emergency Room at Geneva Memorial Hospital, Geneva, Ohio. Fellow pastor and friend Harry Pischura lay on a steel table. I had never actually seen anyone paddled with electricity to get their heart restarted. It surprised me, for some reason, to see that it was pretty much as on TV. Obviously, I wasn’t supposed to be in a place where I could see this activity, but he was Pastor Pischura and I was Pastor Wade and no one was telling me to leave. I was there with his wife and I was blocking her view. Time after time the doctor hit Harry with voltage. Time after time there was no change on the EKG monitor. Finally, the doctor stepped back. Quietly he called the time out so it could be noted as the time of death. A nurse asked him to try once or twice more. The man on the table and the woman who was squeezing my hand hard enough to break bones had just had a child a couple of weeks before. With a deep sigh the doctor applied paddles once more. And the monitor came to life. The heart was beating erratically, but it settled down quickly enough into a regular, strong beat.

Had usual procedure been followed, Harry would have been pronounced dead and there would have been no further effort to revive him. But there was that last little bit of life. When does the soul leave the body?

I would hate to be a doctor and have to make that call. All your education and training and years of experience, yet you might be wrong. That would weigh heavy on me.

I like it so much better to be as it is from my perspective. ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.’ I don’t have to determine between life and death. To me it is all about life. ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord.’

What amazing things await us in heaven? I don’t really know. The Bible gives us a little insight, but not all that much. We think we know. Fluffy clouds, all fenced in with St. Peter at the gate checking folks in as though they were entering a water park, but that is just made up. I think if we really knew what was there, people would be doing all they could do to hurry the process along. But a hint would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Bonnie Gleason was a wonderful lady. She had a quick wit and she could hold her own with me in any verbal exchange. Because of a negative reaction to a medication, her liver failed. She was put on a transplant list but she went very quickly. She was dying and I was the only one with her. Hr husband was deceased, she had no children and her niece had not yet gotten to the hospital. As she lay there in a hospital bed, slipping away and gripping my hand, she related stories of her life. Then she grew quiet. Her eyes grew large. She spoke once more. “Oh my! Pastor, do you see that?” “See what, Bonnie?” “No, of course you can’t! Not your time! Oh my!” A smile was on her face, a smile that lit up the room. “Oh my! More than I imagined! I wish you could see this!” Then her grip eased. She slumped against the mattress. She spoke no more. The monitors brought the nurses and then a doctor. They fussed over her, but she was gone. One nurse said to another, “Well, at least she had a smile on her face.”

I have been in the presence of saints when they have passed. Not all had that reaction, but most are on pain meds or some other kind of drug to make their passing easier. But Bonnie’s passing was all the hint I would ever need. “Oh my! More than I imagined!”

I grieve for Martha and Scott and Kitty and their families. I grieve for Doris and for Max and their families. I pray for Brian, who is doing his uncle’s funeral. He would have it no other way, but it will be a difficult labor of love. I also think of all those people in all those other countries where Orville and Martha traveled, those people who were taught better farming by a smallish man from America. I wonder how many lives he saved by helping them to avoid famine. All those thoughts run through my mind.

But mostly, I see Orville standing there, a beautiful light shining on him. After all, absent from the body, present with the Lord. I see him looking around at all that is before him, a great smile on his face. “Oh my! More than I imagined!”

Blessings.