Last Saturday afternoon I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I listened to the Northfield girls’ state semi-final basketball game on radio. For part of it I was driving, probably being a danger to other motorists. When I got to the house I waited and listened in the car until the first quarter ended and I had time to get into the house and get the radio on there. (I would say I ‘raced’ into the house, but this old body doesn’t race anywhere anymore.) With the radio on I sat down to enjoy the rest of the game. I didn’t sit long, though. I paced, I wandered, I sat, I leaned against the wall, I looked out the window, I got a small handful of pretzels, then immediately forgot them in the table. In my mind’s eye I took what the announcers were saying and transformed that into visible game action. They said the other team had twin sisters who were over six feet. I pictured them in my mind. I could clearly envision the Northfield players, but the Marquette team was fuzzy. The announcers were Northfield fans and when Northfield did something good the lead announcer would give a yell-cheer and I would be left wondering what had happened, but my mind would fill it in. When the game was over and Northfield had lost a tight ballgame, I was as worn out as if I had been there.

          I love radio. Living near Cleveland I enjoyed the Indians from the mid 60s on. As a kid I only saw a few games on TV. We had rabbit ears on the TV and a hill between us and Cleveland called Little Mountain, so TV reception was spotty. But radio was great. By the time the Cavaliers were formed TV reception was much better, but I was also much busier and seldom ever saw a game. I would listen on the car radio, which ruined a few dates, but it was the Cavs. Back in 1991 Marsha and Adam and I went on the only real vacation we were ever able to go on. We went to Disney in Florida. We stopped at a Crackle Barrel and Marsha picked up some tapes to old radio shows. The Shadow, The Lone Ranger and a few others. That made the whole trip. I think we had more fun in the car that at Disney.

          Radio causes your mind to work. The situation is set up by the announcer and then you fill in the gaps. Sometimes you fill the gaps with the wrong picture. I was a big fan of the Cleveland Indians’ second baseman back in the 60s. Tall, fluid motion, a fearsome sight at the plate. Then one game I was at a friend’s house. They had an antenna that seemed to disappear in the clouds. We sat in their basement and watched the game. I was SO disappointed to see that the second baseman who was so impressive in my mind    was a scrawny little 5’5” banjo hitter. Still, the imagination is a wonderful thing. When I read a book or listen to the radio or hear someone tell a story, I can see it in my mind.

          So, let’s give the mind’s eye a work out for just these few minutes.

          It is the 1800s. Sunday morning. In the cool of the morning, men, in some cases helped by their sons, are hitching a horse, or maybe a team, to a wagon or possibly a buggy. At some homes or farms scattered throughout fields it is simply horses being saddled. Already on the farms there has been several hours of work done on this ‘day of rest’, but it would not be considered work since animals needed to be fed and food prepared. Soon, girls began to emerge from the houses and began taking their place in the buggies. Boys were close behind, carrying a basket or two filled with the food for the noon meal. Lastly, the mother/wife who has been bustling around all morning getting breakfast, gathering eggs in the henhouse, making sure her kids were dressed in their best and putting together the noon meal emerged from the house, ticking things off in her mind to make sure she had done all that needed done. Once everyone was aboard (with a final check to make sure all had their Bibles) the family headed down the dirt roads toward church. Along the way they might see another family in the road and they were greeted with a friendly wave. And there would have been one or two homes that they passed where nothing much was happening since that family didn’t go to church. Mother would just lower her head and say nothing. Almost everyone went to church in the 1800s in Indiana.

          Now, in your mind’s eye, you see the steeple of the church in the distance through the trees. You are almost there. Mother gives instructions and the plan for the day. When she is done, her husband turns to where his sons are horsing around. He gives his Sunday morning lecture about the dire consequences that await the boys if they get out of line. And then the buggy pulls into the church lot. Lots of other folks are arriving as well. Horses snort at each other, the kids call out to their friends, a couple of older boys rush up to help the daughters down from the buggy and an older gentleman who has been standing with a group of men separates himself and steps over to the buggy to help the mother down. The father walks over to shake hands with the men while the mother gathers her brood and then the family walks together to the front door of St. Peter’s church.

          Inside, the cool of the morning has disappeared. The crowd of people has brought the temperature up to sweating hot. The windows are open so that the breeze will come in. But with the breeze comes an assortment of insects as well as the aroma of gathered horses. In the 1800s, though, it is hardly noticeable. That is the way church is. One of the older ladies is giving the piano a work out as a prelude and folks are visiting and talking. Then, the preacher walks in and the talk settles down to whispers. The preacher steps up to the pulpit and all gets quiet. He bows his head and begins to pray, the only amplification being the natural force of his voice.

          And so starts a typical three to four hour worship service back in the 1800s in a little crossroads in Indiana. Back in those days there wasn’t any Sunday School, but the singing and testimonies and prayer time and the preacher’s message more than made up for it. Imagine the heat building and the bugs getting worse or, in the winter, the drowsy warmth all those bodies created. Everything was different then. If we could transport back in time and sit in a St. Peter’s service then, we would be going crazy before the music was even over. By the same token, if someone from that day was plopped down in one of our services now, they would be totally befuddled when we were done in just a little over an hour. Times change because people change. It is inevitable.

          Now we come to another inevitable event. The last service at St. Peter’s.

          Those of us that are part of the church know the story. There are plenty of others in the community who think they know the story, but they do not. The story is based on reality, not on wishes. One congregation inhabiting two buildings across the road from each other, six months in one, six months in the other. Even though each building is used for only six months, both have to be kept up and maintained. Most churches struggle to keep one building operating, but to keep two going has been an ongoing thing for us for a long time. And, actually, it could have continued for a while longer. But there has been a growing concern as to whether or not that maintenance money couldn’t be better used to further the kingdom of God. Missions, outreach, Youth, music, camp……the list goes on. After months of study and consideration and, most importantly, prayer, a plan was formed and taken to the congregation. Decisions were made. Now, as we are ready to move to a fulltime worship center at Grace church, all the renovations and construction and new upgrades have been accomplished without having to borrow any money. If we had waited even another year, that would not have been possible.

          Personally, I have no stake in either building. I was born and raised in Ohio and I expect I will die there. Why burden the good folks here when I can be a burden to my son? But, in addition to Ohio, we lived in Tennessee, Alabama and Florida. The point is, there is no place that is ‘home’ for me like this is home to the people in our church. But even though I have no strong feeling for either St. Peter’s or Grace, my mind, my imagination, feels the power of life in both buildings.

          What do I mean by that? 1917. World War I. In my mind’s eye I see a mother, burdened with care and concern, asking for prayer for her son who has gone over seas to war, far from home. A few years later that same son standing up in church and asking for prayer for his mother who is suffering from the flu epidemic that is killing tens of thousands around the world. In my mind’s eye I see a young woman in the 1930s walking down the aisle of the church on her father’s arm as she heads for the young man who will be her husband. I see a young man who has struggled with alcohol finally make the decision to follow Jesus in all things. A building is just a building, but how many lives have been changed in the building? How much laughter, how many tears?

          After this Sunday, St. Peter’s will be closed. Urbana Yoke Parish will continue and will do great. But the church building on te west side of the road will be empty. Decisions will still have to be made as to what to do with it, and that will create more sadness. However, this is not a loss. Those who built the building knew there was a time when its usefulness would come to an end. The same will be true one day for Grace. But that building, with all of its history and with all that has happened there and with all the people who have passed through those doors……that building that was built for the glory of God, has accomplished what it was intended to accomplish. The Lord has been praised there. The Lord has been beseeched there. The Lord has been called upon there thousands of times. One Sunday morning as a few of us met for prayer before church, Claud Newcomb prayed and asked the Lord to allow His Spirit to roam among our pews. I had never heard that before and it moved me. On Sunday morning when I look out over the pews and the congregation I will know. He has allowed His Spirit to roam those pews for a long time.

          GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME; ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD!

          My eleven year old nephew looked at me with wide eyes. “How can you DO THAT?” Revulsion and maybe even a little fear was on his face. I adopted my most calm look and said, “Well, Joey, someone has to do it. May as well be me.” His face screwed up in a funny way. “How……? How……? How can you stand it?” “Well. Joey, it needs to be done. Would you like to come and help me?” He almost fell down. “Are you crazy? Uncle Larry, don’t you realize??? THOSE PEOPLE ARE DEAD!!!”

          It really bothered Joey and his younger sister Savannah that I worked with the deceased. When I took the job at the funeral home I was to mostly work with families of the deceased. But it turned out that actually working with the bodies of the deceased didn’t bother me at all and I had a bit of a knack. Wash them down, set features, dress them, get them in caskets…. I did just about everything except embalm, although I would assist in that as well. After thirty one years in church ministry, the Lord put me in a completely different ministry filled with grief and pain and emotional suffering. But it was an awesome time.

          Your reaction to that might be like Joey’s reaction. However, the Lord created n me a desire to minister. This is not the same as preaching. Ministering at the time of need is a huge thing for me. I have always thought I would enjoy being a hospital or nursing facility chaplain. Working at the funeral home gave me the opportunity to minister to people in distress. The work I did with the deceased was because it needed to be done and it freed someone else up for what they needed to do.

          Sometimes there were kids who had a million questions. Sometimes it was a parent trying to find a reason. Sometimes an adult child trying to hold it together as they worked out Mom’s funeral. Sometimes a grieving spouse who didn’t know how they could go on. It always revolved around grief, but it was always different.

          And, believe it or not, there was almost always humor.

          Part of that, I guess, was orneriness in me coming out. Humor has its place even in a funeral home. You don’t go looking for a laugh, but when it comes you go with it. A steady diet of grief demands a little humor, both for the funeral home worker and for the families involved.

 We had two locations. Both locations had, at one time, been private homes. In our main funeral home, the basement housed the embalming room, make up room, casketing area and dressing area. Everything was done there for both funeral homes. The basement in the other home, the one I eventually managed, had supplies and old records and such like. In that home there was a stairway going down to a landing and then a closed door going into the basement. The stairway was closed off with a gate. One night, during a visitation, I came across four little kids, all under ten standing at the gate looking down. Normally the stairway was lit so that it didn’t look scary, but that night the light had burned out and it did look scary.

“What do you think is down there, Ryan?” “I don’t know, Gwen. Could be anything.” They were discussing the darkness and the horrors that the darkness concealed. The oldest one just stood there and looked bored. Finally, they asked him what he thought. “Look, I’ve been down there before. That’s where they stack the bodies.” I had been standing nearby, enjoying the conversation. But when the boy said that, I stepped up. “You’ve been down there? You want to go down now?” Well, the little snot had no idea what was down there, but he sure didn’t want to go down. The other kids got a good laugh when he took off. I explained to the kids there was nothing down there except office stuff, and they were satisfied.

Sometimes kids made me laugh for completely unusual reasons. I often worked at both funeral homes in one day. When that happened, two or three times a week, I would start at the main home around 7:30 in the morning and wrap it up in the evening at the home I managed around nine or so. On one such night it was about eight o’clock and I was exhausted. We had a visitation going on and all I wanted to do was sit down. I didn’t want to go to my office, so I went to the coffee room. Coffee, tea, water and cookies. Who wouldn’t want to sit down in there? In the coffee room was a thirteen year old named Luke. The deceased was his uncle, who had died of a drug overdose. He was pretty upset by his uncle’s death. I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation. As we talked his step mother, a very attractive woman, walked in. She dropped into a chair, pulled off a shoe and started rubbing her foot. “Oh, I hate wearing these heals!” The heals looked like ice picks. Luke looked at her and then looked at me. His question was to me. “Why do they wear shoes like that if they hurt so bad?” “I don’t know, Luke. Something wrong in the head, I guess. Ask her.” The step mom put the shoe on and stood up. “When you wear heals like this it defines your calf muscle and makes your butt look good.” Then she walked out. I was a little shocked and when Luke looked at me, I had no idea what to say. He got a little smile on his face and with a glint in his eye he said, “Well, lucky us!”

Cemeteries were not kind to me. There was a family who wanted to do a butterfly release as the service ended at the cemetery. This can be very beautiful. A box is opened and the butterflies take off and fill the sky, the meaning being that the loved one’s spirit is free. You actually buy the box of bugs on-line and they are delivered in a day or two. I cautioned the family not to do this because it was the end of October and might get cold. I could see in my mind the butterflies getting about a foot or two out of the box and then doing a nose dive, dead before they hit the ground. But the family went ahead and ordered the little things. It actually turned out to be a nice day, but a little chilly. The fellow they had designated to release the butterflies came to me and told me the bugs were there. I told him to bring them inside, the cold would kill them left in the car. So, of course, he left them in the car. When the time for the release came, he took off the lid and gave the box a little jerk to get the butterflies to soar free and about a hundred tiny little carcasses exited the box and quietly crashed to the ground. In one cemetery they had dug out a tree, leaving a huge hole. Then it snowed almost two feet and the hole was nowhere to be seen. With about seventy five people around, I found the hole. When they pulled me out, I said, “Now you all know where it is at. You are welcome.” Another time it was a small country cemetery that barely had room for the hearse to pull in. So, everyone parked on the street. The night before it had rained and then froze over. It was treacherous. I helped people out of their cars and up the little hill to the grave site and then back again when the service was over. I had gotten the last person safely to their car and was headed toward the funeral home van when my feet flew out from under me in full view of everyone. I hit the road so hard I was dazed and it took me a few seconds to realize I was sliding slowly downhill on my back. I finally stopped when I grabbed the van’s bumper as I went under it. And then, there was the time after a Catholic funeral we went to the cemetery. The priest rode with the funeral director and I followed with the hearse. It was snowing and raining at the same time and the cemetery, like most cemeteries around there, was all up and down hill. The grave site was down in a little gulley and I worried that the pall bearers would slip with the casket. As I waited for the pall bearers to reach the hearse, the funeral director walked up to me and, with a disgusted voice, said, “Take care of the priest. I’ll take care of the casket.” We did things just so there, and this was out of the ordinary. But he was in charge that day. I walked up to the other car and opened the door for the priest. The man was sitting in the seat, sobbing. He had a little bottle in his hand that actually said ‘Holy Water’ on it. “Sir, are you OK?” I asked him. He looked up and through the tears said, “I can’t get the holy water open! I can’t bless the casket!” One whiff of his breath and I knew he was falling down drunk. I took the bottle from him and attempted to twist the cap off. It would not budge. In my mind I could see the alter boys back at the church laughing about how they glued the cap on. “Oh, what am I going to do? I can’t bless the casket!” “Sir,” I said, “it is nasty out here. Just shake the bottle over the casket and no one will see that no water comes out. No one will know.” “HE will know!” Now, I am thinking that the Lord also knows that the priest is three sheets to the wind, but I let that go. “Sir, we can’t get the cap off and we have to do this thing.” I hauled him out of the car and walked him to the top of the hill. With my right hand under his left arm pit, I walked him down the muddy hill side to the grave. Once he started the service, he was flawless. Training and habit took over. Afterward, he bawled his eyes out because he didn’t properly bless the casket. When the funeral director and I got back to the funeral home, we had a serious talk about protocol.

   I know people assume that funeral home people have a twisted sense of humor and that it centers on the ghoulish. Maybe in some funeral homes it does. I don’t know. Our funeral home and our people were not like that at all. During my nine years at the funeral home, I really feel I worked with a bunch of heroes. Men and women who were often profoundly affected by the grief of the ones we served, but who offered care and consolation. Often, I would see one of our staff sitting with someone, holding their hand and praying with them. I love those people still today. Good friends all. I wish all of you could have met them. And the humor we shared was sometimes a lifeline.

Never give up on the joys of life. There is enough sadness and suffering and pain. Look for the smile.

Blessings.

          January 22, 1973. Just five days after my seventeenth birthday. I was a junior in high school and was deeply involved in events in my school. Just a teenager trying to have fun. I was interested in world events, though. Despite talk of ending the Vietnam War, I fully expected to be going into the Army a year later and going off to war. President Nixon was working to open China as a trading partner and I was interested in that, since they were a Communist country. I read all the updates on the Cold War. I was a part of that generation that knew we could be wiped out by nuclear war before we knew what hit us, so I was concerned. Probably the biggest thing on my mind, other than my date with Barbara Montgomery that coming Saturday night, was the Super Bowl, which had been played the week before and in which the undefeated Miami Dolphins had won, 14-7, over the Washington Redskins.

          Yes, January 22, 1973 was just another day in America.

          Except that, on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that abortion was legal. It would be based on whether a state allowed it or not, but the high court specifically put the restriction on abortion that it was only allowable in the case of the mother’s health and welfare and if the ‘fetus’ was viable. A viable fetus is a fetus that can live outside its mother’s body.

At seventeen I had the ability to make my own mind up about things, and I felt, even then, that abortion was not right. But I also believed that it would be rare. Medical procedures were improving all the time and it would become more and more extreme for the mother’s health to be compromised and, as far as the fetus’, health, we were told that usually if the fetus was defective, the mother miscarried anyway. It really didn’t seem so bad. I remember my mother talking to a friend and my mother saying it would just become a form of birth control. I rolled my eyes and thought, Gosh Mom, that will never happen!

But then the argument became that it should be OK in the case of rape or incest. Kind of made my skin crawl, but, well, maybe. And then, while I was home from college for spring break, I found out that a girl I had gone to high school with had an abortion. No rape, no incest, her health was good and there was nothing wrong with the fetus. She just had an abortion because she didn’t want the baby. And that was when it ceased to be a fetus in my mind and became a baby.

It was also at that time that I decided abortion was murder and was wrong at any time after conception. You betcha. I am one of those crazy people. In my way of thinking, we now know what causes pregnancy. We also know how to prevent pregnancy. It doesn’t just happen. “Things just got out of hand!” An excuse, just like the excuse, “I fell into sin.” We go into sin with our eyes wide open and we go into a sexual relationship fully understanding what could happen. Things only get out of hand when we allow things to get out of hand. And, regardless, it is not the baby’s fault.

My mother was right after all. Abortion is a form of birth control. If you have an unwanted pregnancy, you can end it. It is so common place that society has just accepted it. We don’t raise an eyebrow.

Except when there is a new wrinkle. Remember fairly recently an antiabortion group was able to take some video of Planned Parenthood meetings in which Planned Parenthood officials were talking about harvesting baby parts after an abortion for resale? Little eyes, little hearts, little lungs, new skin, little kidneys and so on. Big splash there for a bit. But abortions just kept happening. We got over our indignation. Planned Parenthood has lost some funding. We are good till the next wrinkle.

And now the next wrinkle has come. New York State has passed a bill that allows for late term abortions, even to the point of aborting during labor. Literally killing a baby when it is minutes, even seconds, from emerging from its mother. If the abortion fails then the live baby can be placed on a table until it dies. This has caused people around the country to react with horror! But it has been going on for some time now. New York is not the first state to make late term abortion legal.

Alaska allows late term abortion, as does Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington D.C. They were all before New York. In a couple of those cases there just was never a time limit imposed on when the pregnancy could be terminated, but late term abortion has been legal in this country for a long time. In fact, the US is among just four countries in the world that allow late term abortion. USA, leading the way. Perhaps what has set New York apart is the fact that New York is New York. We tend not to think too much of the other eight that have been butchering babies all along, right up until that baby could safely be born, healthy and happy.

Then there is the case of Virginia. Virginia is a southern state that is part of what used to be called the Bible Belt. As such, it would have been the first Bible Belt state to allow late term abortions. Opponents have managed to stop it for now, but supporters are going to continue until the backwoods types give up. While much of the state is rural and many of the people are church goers, there is a growing element of out of staters moving in. Many folks who work in D.C. live in Virginia and commute. The state capitol is only 100 miles from the nation’s capital. So, the northeastern portion of Virginia, highly populated with D.C. types, is gaining ground in the state’s government. However, Virginia’s governor is a lifelong Virginian. He should know better. But, in an interview with radio station WTOP, Washington D.C., Governor Ralph Northam said the following; "When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way. And it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that's non-viable. So, in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So, I think this was really blown out of proportion."

Yes, that is right. Once the baby is born, if the doctors and family want, the child can still be aborted. They would even resuscitate the baby while they have their conference and decide what to do. At least in New York there is no resuscitation. You make the decision ahead of time. The Governor is for this bill. The Governor is also a medical doctor. (One source I read said that he was a pediatrician, but that was the only place I read that, so I am going to shy away from that statement.) He would understand the proposed procedure better than anyone of us. When he says “I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he can tell us because he knows.

So, imagine the scene. The baby is born and there is a defect or problem they didn’t pick up before birth. The child is cleaned up, maybe receives medical attention to relieve any suffering, and the doctors involved sit down with the family and mother to discuss the situation. I don’t know much about the birthing process of humans, but I would think that the conference would not be immediately following birth. A little time, maybe, for the parents and family to talk. Maybe even allow the parents to hold the baby. I don’t know, but there would be some procedure involved. The doctors involved would have other cases to attend to, as well, so it might be several hours before everyone gathers together to hash this out. Depending on the birth related stress of the mother, maybe even the next morning. So, everyone gets comfortable and they talk about the pros and cons of aborting the child. Finally, it is decided that allowing the child to live would be too much of a hardship for everyone involved. So, they decide to abort. Who does the abortion of a living, breathing, crying baby? And, how is the abortion done?

Eleven years ago, twins were born to an Ohio couple. Before the birth the doctor discovered that one of the babies was profoundly deformed. Her organs were forming up on the outside of her body. He explained that she would likely die in the womb and her decaying body could possibly corrupt the living child’s body and kill her, as well. He recommended an abortion. The family refused. Both children would be given the chance to live. As it happened, the little one with the issues did die in the womb, but it was far enough along in the gestation process that a C-section was performed and both were delivered. One dead, one perfect and healthy in every way. The family selected our funeral home to handle the cremation for the deceased child. I volunteered to do the cremation, not because I had to, but because I didn’t want anyone else to have to do it. When the time came, I went down to where she was. At the hospital, they had wrapped her in a baby blanket. Had even put a little stocking cap on her head. With just her face showing she looked like any sleeping new born. I picked her up and looked into that beautiful face for a long time. I walked into the embalming office, which was empty, and sat down in the office chair. I was Daddy again. I began to rock the little one and then I sang every lullaby I could remember singing to my own son. Finally, I came out of it and I got up and took her to be cremated. I ask the question again; Who does the abortion of a living, breathing, crying baby?

That person would have to be some kind of monster, yes? To me, Virginia’s governor is just such a monster. As luck has it, a great many, even in his own party, are calling for his resignation. But they are not calling for his resignation because of the statements he made to WTOP radio. Horrible statements in which he talked about killing babies after they were born. No, no. Something even worse. In 1984, while in medical school, Ralph Northam dressed up like Michael Jackson and wore blackface for a dance contest.

Since his own party is not horrified at all by his infanticide talk of killing babies after they were born but are incensed because he put on blackface 35 years ago for a contest, I would say there are plenty of monsters to go around. So, with more monsters than we can count, let’s jump twenty years into the future, or maybe just ten years, and look at the Governor’s statement again, only updated to fit that future time.

 "When we talk about the aged and the time to die, these are done with the consent of obviously the family, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way. And it's done in cases where there may age related issues that could, in time, render the elderly non-viable. So, in this particular example, if the elderly is in distress, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The distress would be eased. The elderly would be kept comfortable. The elderly would be resuscitated if that's what the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the family as to what to do.” Couldn’t happen? Abortion was only for the mother’s health or if the infant could not survive outside the mother’s body. That is how it was sold to us. Now they already leave a live baby on a table until it dies and they are talking of physically killing a live baby. It most certainly could happen. Let the old folks die with dignity, they would say.

          Best course of action? Remember, we are talking about monsters who take the killing of babies in stride while getting livid over someone in blackface thirty five years ago. You are not going to change those evil hearts by marching on Washington or trying to legislate morality. You and I cannot change those evil hearts. Only the Lord can do that, my friends. We need to begin to pray for those people who have no trouble planning murder. Not pray that they meet some horrible death of their own, but that they will be pierced by the power of the Lord. Pray for their salvation. Pray that God’s people will begin to share the power of God. What made this country great and strong and wise was God’s people praying for our leaders to be believers and merciful. And, conversely, our country began to fail and fall now to the point that we have monsters among us because God’s people are to busy to spend the sweet hour of prayer we sing about and spend serious time reading their Bibles. We have let the monsters live. Now we need to call on the Lord.

          February 1, 2019. Today’s date.

          Your first instinct is to say, “So? What significance is there in February 1, 2019?” And that is the point. There is no significance to February 1 of any year, mostly because there is no significance to February.

          Of course, I know that some of you were born during this month, so that denotes significance. I suppose someone out there was married in February, although of the couple of hundred marriages I have performed, only one was ever in February. They wanted to get married on the anniversary of their first date. There was about two feet of snow on the ground but it was 50 degrees with a southerly wind. Quite nice until the beaming couple stepped outside into the crowd expecting to get pelted with bird seed and instead got snowballed. I caught them by the arms and pulled them back inside the church and we stood at the door looking out the window as a full fledged snowball fight ensued among the guests.

          But except for a few things like that, February has really nothing much going for it. There are some contrived things. Super Bowl, but that used to be on the last Sunday in January until the NFL realized that by having a week off from the last playoff game and the Bowl, they could make more money. Presidents’ Day falls in February, but that started because both Washington and Lincoln were born in the month and February is such a crummy month, they decided to make a party. Boy, yeah, Presidents’ Day is a non-stop party at my house. Then there is the big one. Valentine’s Day. Here is a ‘holiday’ about love that is celebrated on the day St. Valentine was executed in 269 AD. And what was the scoundrel’s crime? He was performing marriages for Roman soldiers. See, Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry. Valentine was performing the marriages. So, they killed him. Unlike 21^st century America, they took their laws seriously. All the mushy stuff on Valentine’s Day is in remembrance of an execution. Then, in February, is Ground Hog Day. If the ground hog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania sees his shadow on the morning of February 2, there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, there will be an early Spring. The people in Pennsylvania, and especially the people in Punxsutawney, take this seriously, as do the people in the surrounding states. It is a huge event in Punxsutawney, where they have a keeper of the ground hog. The ground hog in question, Punxsutawney Phil, is a huge critter who gets pampered year round. They claim he is over 100 years old, but he looks like all he does is sit on the couch in his underwear all day, eating chips, drinking beer and watching TV. BIG ground hog. I think they probably get a new one every 5 years or so. Once you get away from Pennsylvania or New York or West Virginia or Ohio, though, Ground Hog Day isn’t much of a deal. In fact, I don’t think anyone else has noticed it, but as an Ohio boy, I picked up on it right away. Our church’s sausage and pancake breakfast is February 2 this year. And what is sausage? Ground up pig. So, we are having ground hog on Ground Hog Day. Maybe it was intended that way, but it is always the first Saturday of February, so it would only fall every once in a while on Ground Hog Day. Anyway, come and eat!

          Except for basketball enthusiasts, February is a downer month. (I know. I live in Indiana now. For the rest of the country, except for Kentucky and Kansas, basketball is a sport designed to bridge the gap between football and baseball seasons. In Indiana, Kentucky and Kansas, the other sports are just there to soothe the pain of not having basketball.) In the rest of the world, hockey holds center stage in February. And it is hockey, at least in part, that provides my worst memories of February.

          As I said, back in the olden days, the Super Bowl was played in January, so that was the end of football season. Baseball’s Spring Training started in February in the warm climates, but jumping jacks and wind sprints made boring reading in the newspapers. High school baseball and track training started in February, but fielding hot grounders off the gym floor or running through heavy snow was not fun. February was a bummer. None of our sports were February friendly. Even basketball was hard because you often took your life into your own hands just getting to the games. That just left one sport.

          Hockey.

          No one liked hockey. Across the horizon to the north, on the other side of Lake Erie, was Canada There, hockey was, and is, king. Where I grew up, however, it was hardly loved. Near by Cleveland had a minor league hockey team. The Barons. Nobody I knew went to watch them. I took my son to see the minor league team play a few times. He liked hockey. But, honestly, he was the only person I ever knew who grew up in Northeast Ohio who liked the sport. And he hasn’t gone in over twenty years.

          So, no one really liked hockey.

          But every year, the call would go out the first Saturday in February. “The game is at 2. See you there.” Nothing to do in February. Even the farms are pretty quiet. So, the brave male teens would begin to gather at Call Pond and at 2 o'clock the puck would be dropped.

          Why Call Pond? I don’t know. It was a mostly stagnant little pond. There was so much scum and debris in it that it took forever to freeze. By February there was ice over the whole thing, but no one ever knew how thick the ice was. I remember once about eight of us going down as we struggled for the puck, and the ice cracked and water started oozing through. We all scrambled off and went home. After all. No one wanted to be there anyway. Why were we playing hockey, a sport we didn’t like, on unsafe ice in the cold? Nothing else to do. There was none of the laughter or fooling around that teenaged boys typically engage in when they are involved in competition. It was more like when we were all in a hay field loading up the bales of hay. Didn’t want to be there, let’s wrap this up, I want to go home. But it was February and Call Pond was sort of frozen and we always played hockey.

          February is the shortest month for a reason. They could have made January and March with 30 days each instead of 31 and made February with 30 days, and it all would have worked out. But, no, as the Catholic Cardinals met way back when to design a new calendar, they decided to shorten February. After all, there is nothing much to do and hockey wasn't a thing in Rome. It is just a nasty month and deserved to be shortened.

          But we have to live through it. Psalm 118:23-24--- This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Obviously, the Lord isn’t really referencing February here, but it still fits. Make each day special and before you know it, those 28 days will be gone.

           Blessings!

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.