I'm Hungry

I had a friend tell me that she enjoys my blog postings, but sometimes they are too long for her to have time to read. Oops! That sounds like some sermons I've heard. I'm going to try for shorter. I don't promise anything. Sometimes we just like to hear our own voice. Do you recognize the difference between hunger and appetite? Last Wednesday evening, I visited my friend Eileen Ayuso at the walk-in medical clinic sponsored by The Shalom Project at Green Street United Methodist Church here in Winston-Salem. The clinic averages seeing about 60 - 70 people each time it opens its doors. The staff is all volunteers! On Wednesday, I met doctors, PAs, nurses, pharmacists, folks with knowledge of medical claim forms, and people with no medical background at all, all giving their time to serve others. I don't know if all the volunteers are Christian. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't make a difference to the patients. Eileen would probably like for all volunteers to be Christian, but I think she would probably settle for anyone who has a heart to serve their fellow man. Each and every one of the clinic volunteers have a hunger to serve. So, you don't want to spend several hours in a crowded facility working with sick people, but you love to work with children. I know of opportunities to do everything from tutoring one-on-one to playing with children in a healthy, nurturing environment. All it takes is a hunger to serve. Okay, pressing the flesh is not your thing, but you love to garden. Both Maple Springs UMC and Green Street UMC have community garden plots. You can press the dirt instead of the flesh and, at the same time, feed the poor and hungry. All it requires is that you have a hunger for service. Do you like to help others shop for clothes? Would you like to run a little clothing shop of your own? Green Street UMC and the House of Service both have clothes pantries. I'm sure that there are others locally as well. Clothes don't get received, sorted, cleaned, checked, stocked, and made available by themselves. The greatest requirement to work in a clothes pantry is a hunger for service. Can you cook? Okay, a more difficult question... can you cook for hundreds? I have a friend who helps to cook and serve one day a week every week at the Samaritan Inn. She has a real hunger (please excuse the pun) for service. Do you enjoy grocery shopping, especially when it isn't your own money you are spending? There are lots of unfortunate people visiting lots of food pantries. There just doesn't ever seem to be enough volunteers to keep them stocked and open. All it takes to qualify is a hunger for service. "Mother, I'm hungry." "It's only an hour until dinner time." "I know, but I'm still really, really hungry." "Well, there are some carrot sticks in the refrigerator. Have some of them." "Ugh! I was thinking more about a couple of the chocolate chip cookies you have hidden behind the canned tomatoes on the top shelf of the pantry." "You aren't suffering from hunger. You are suffering from appetite! You know that there is a difference and you can wait until dinner." You probably recognize some version of this conversation. I had it more than once with my mother and Sara had it with our sons. They are probably having it with their children. There is a difference in an appetite for service and a hunger for service. An appetite for service sounds like, "That's probably a worthy cause, but my favorite TV show is that night. Do you have something that doesn't take as long to do and on another night?" or "That's a good thing you are doing, but I don't think I would feel safe in that neighborhood. Maybe you could ask me again the next time there is a volunteer need." A hunger for service sounds like, "What a great idea! Tell me what you need for me to do and get out of my way!" or "I have some extra time. Can you put me to good use somewhere?" My prayer is that I will never judge what any person does or does not do with their time, whether they have an appetite or a hunger, and that I will never loose my own hunger for service. God is good.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I don't know anywhere near as much about Dietrich Bonhoeffer as I would like, but everything that I learn makes him more of a personal hero. This morning, I read Cal Thomas' column in the Winston-Salem Journal editorial pages. He wrote about Bonhoeffer and a biography of him that has just been released. I'm quoting from Thomas' column: "Bonhoeffer quickly tired of the 'God-lite' theology at Union (Union Theological Seminary in New York) and decided to visit churches that held more substantive beliefs. He discovered a black church in Harlem where Adam Clayton Powell Sr. preached riveting sermons, and people joyfully worshiped God as if they actually believed he exists." I can't help but wonder, how many churches in Winston-Salem would Bonhoeffer have to visit before he found the one he sought? Am I doing what I can to make my church the one? God is good.

My Mother

My mother is 89 years old! My father and his father both died at 73 years. I would like to make it to 74 just to set a bit higher standard for the men of the family. I don't know if I want to be able to celebrate my 89th birthday. Almost a year ago, my mother moved into what we would have once called an "old folks home." I'm pretty sure that term isn't considered politically correct now a days. She doesn't require a lot of special attention, but she needs more than the family is capable of providing should she live in one of her children's homes. In truth, at her age, she would probably drive us crazy even if she needed no special attention. She has advanced dementia now and won't ever be going anywhere else to live. Sara, my sisters and brothers-in-law, and I have been working on getting her condo ready to sell for the past few days. My knees won't allow me to do a lot of picking up and moving nor bending and stretching to do painting, so it fell on me to clean out her desk and safe and get her paperwork organized a bit better. I've stumbled across what she must have considered important documents and keepsakes. To me they all represent memories. I found a picture of my great grandmother surrounded by her children, including my grandmother. I found her birth certificate and her wedding certificate. I found vacation pictures, old letters - including some I had written to her, and newspaper clippings. As I sat here tonight, thumbing through these things, I felt like an interloper. I found myself smiling and having tears running down my cheeks at the same time and I don't know why. I think that it must be that her memories trigger memories of my own. God knows, trying to raise four children, with only six years between the oldest and the youngest, should qualify her for sainthood. She loved us, nurtured us, and did her best to have us be the best persons that we could be. I'm ashamed that I probably failed her miserably. I haven't heard her sing in years, but my memory is of her singing like an angel. When the six of us piled into the car to travel on vacation, she would often sing the old gospel hymns. I learned "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot" and met Jesus through my mother. Today, she lies in bed or sits in a wheelchair mostly lost to the world around her. I have no idea what the mind does when one has dementia. My prayer is that it takes her to times and places when the world was a wonderful place to be. I hope that she gets to play with her three sisters as a young girl. I hope that she still takes pride in joining the Army when WWII broke out. I hope that she still smiles as she holds me and watches my father graduate from the University of Nebraska and that she knows he couldn't have done it without her. I hope that she still misses him when he gets called back to serve in Korea. I hope that she still cruises to the Caribbean with her sisters and their families and enjoys their home at Myrtle Beach. I hope that she swells with pride when all four of her children graduate from college. I hope that she still wonders at the joy of being a grandmother and then a great grandmother. I pray that all bad memories of all bad times are gone and that these, her last days, are a wonderful time for her. God is good and I pray that He will be especially good to my mother.

Lucas II

Lucas Little passed away from this life on Wednesday, June 16th. I cannot imagine a pain greater than loosing a child; a child of any age. I cannot imagine the anguish God must have felt as Christ hung on the cross, knowing that He could save his son so easily. I cannot fathom a decision that meant having a child to die in order to save me, but I have been made eternally grateful that Christ willingly gave His life and God allowed it. I have at least four sets of friends who've lost a child: Wiley and Anne, Lee and his wife, Cory and Michelle, and now Burnie and Tina. Oddly enough, they are all Christians. They all have a burning love for Christ, even after a devastating loss. They seem to grow stronger in this love every single day. I don't know. I've never asked them straight out, but the promise of being rejoined with their child eternally must bring them great comfort. There is no doubt in my mind that there is not one single day that they don't miss their child. That is to be expected. We all miss those we love. The greater mystery and the inspiration for me is that, my friends, who love their missing child, love their God so much the more. I will continue to pray for Burnie and Tina and the family and friends of Lucas. I will continue to thank God for my own children. I will continue to try to borrow from the strength of my four sets of friends. I will remember, as Burnie says at the close of each blog entry, "God is good." www.prayforlucas.blogspot.com God is good.

Non-fiction

I mostly read fiction. Because my 6 or 8 favorite authors just cannot write as fast as I can read and to flex my mind muscles once in a while, I have been known to pick up a non-fiction book. At Seeds, Monday night worship, a few weeks ago, the name Leonard Sweet came up. Dr. Sweet is the Dean of the Theological School at Drew University. His writings were recommended and the church library happened to have a copy of "A Cup Of Coffee At The Soul Cafe" so I checked it out, both from the library and by beginning to read it. I should know better! Rarely do I stop reading right in the middle of a fictional story to think about what I've read. Since this isn't true with non-fiction, it takes me a lot longer to read a book. If I happen to own the book, I like to make margin notes and underline and highlight and leave pieces of paper marking the spots I want to revisit. I don't own "The Soul Cafe" so all I can do is put in little pieces of paper markers. I want to share one of those with you. The following is quoted from the book: Here is a a recent interview with a sharecropper's child in Selma, Alabama, by Raymond Wheeler of CBS-TV: "Do you eat breakfast before school?" "Sometimes, sir. Sometimes I have peas." "And when you get to school, do you eat?" "No, sir." "Isn't there any food there?" "Yes, sir." "Why don't you have it?" "I don't have the 35 cents." "What do you do while the other children eat lunch?" "I just sits there on the side" (his voice breaking). "How do you feel when you see the other children eating?" "I feel ashamed" (crying). If I had tried to guess how this child felt, prior to reading his last answer, I would have guessed several feelings before I got to "ashamed". I'll tell you that his child's situation made me "mad"! I'm mad at me. I'm mad at the United States. I'm made at humanity in general. Why don't I do more? Why don't we do more? Why should any child be hungry or feel ashamed that he doesn't have the money to eat? In this particular case, we aren't even talking about a 3rd world country, we are talking about the United States, the most blessed country on Earth. There are those who are at work. I have teachers in my family and I've known many dedicated teachers. I've never known one who didn't spend at least some part of their paycheck to try to help some child live a little bit better. I have another friend who volunteers to feed the homeless one day every single week at the Samaritan Inn. This same friend is also very involved with the support of an orphanage in Haiti. At Maple Springs, members donate cash and food to our community food pantry. When we do our semi-annual project to package meals for shipment to very poor countries, we have volunteers from age 5 to 85. Many are doing as much as they can. I'm not. "And whoever causes one of these little one who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea." Mark 9:42 NKJV You cannot teach of a loving god if you cannot be heard past the rumbling of an empty stomach. A child going to bed hungry will find it hard to say his prayers. If you feel that you will be outside of your comfort zone volunteering to feed the hungry (and I would urge you to give it a try), then buy a little extra food when you grocery shop and give it to a food pantry. Donate a little bit of money to an agency that has a good reputation for feeding the stomachs and souls of the hungry. If you feel you can, volunteer to rub elbows with the hungry at the Samaritan Inn or anywhere else feeding the hungry. In Winston-Salem, Green Street United Methodist serves dinner every Wednesday evening. Go help set up, serve, and clean up. You won't need to work hard to find a way to serve both God and the hungry. I'm nowhere near where I would like to be in this endeavor. My prayer is that I'll find places where God is already at work and will join Him there. I ask that you hold me accountable. When you see me, ask me to tell you what I'm doing about feeding the hungry. I hope to never find myself able to help a child (not just a youngster, but any child of God) who is ashamed because he is hungry and realize that I have not done so.

Poems and Prayers and Promises

In 1968, I first heard the music of John Denver. Now, 42 years later, I am still a big fan. This evening, as Sara and I drove across town, we were both singing along with his songs. We don't know all the words to all the songs, but we didn't miss many (I, of course, sound much better than she does.) One of my all-time favorites is "Poems and Prayers and Promises": "and talk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in; how sweet it is to love someone, how right it is to care." I don't know much about poems. If songs are poems set to music, I have many poems that I love, especially old-time gospel hymns and folk songs. At the same time, I like to read from the Song Of Solomon. I enjoy some of the work by the Beat poets like Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti. I never get tired of "Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I know the words to several bawdy limericks. If I ever get a chance, I think a class on understanding and appreciating poetry would be good to take. I don't know much about prayers either. I have absolute faith that prayers are heard. I don't begin to understand how and why they are answered the way that they are. I am reading a book now in which the author says that, "I don't believe in predestination, fate, chance, or luck. I believe that a combination of free will and random chaos controls our destinies." I think that this couple of sentences is a good jumping off point for deep discussion. God allows us free will to make both good and bad decisions. God is in control, but I am not sure how He exercises that control. If the term "random chaos" is used to describe events like a person, driving as safely as humanly possible, being hit head on and killed by a drunk driver who walks away from the crash, then it seems that God must be allowing random chaos. Even if the driver who was killed has prayed for travel mercies just prior to setting off, I do not and cannot believe that God has not heard the prayer. It is the way in which the prayer is answered that has always puzzled me. When it comes to promises, I believe that a man's word should be his bond. I also believe that we do now and always have failed miserably at keeping promises. How often do we hear someone say, "I promise you" or "trust me" and wince? We know that the good intention is present in the moment, but will the promise be honored in the long run? God keeps His promises. He doesn't promise that you won't have trouble in your life. In fact, you may feel like you are leading the life of Job, but He has promised us an everlasting, heavenly life with Him and that word will be fulfilled if we only believe in the promise that has been delivered to us through Christ Jesus. How about "things that we believe in"? I believe that the Ford F150 is a doggone good truck. I believe that the Wake Forest University football team will always be fun to watch, but will never win a national championship. I believe that natural gas feels warmer when it heats than other methods. I believe that I attend a church that has one of the finest staffs that it is possible to assemble. I believe that Sara got the short end of the stick when she married me. I believe that Autumn, Maddie, and Reese are the prettiest and smartest grandchildren ever. I believe that wearing a tie to work does not make a person one bit smarter. I believe that a mountain vacation is better than a beach vacation (although it is a pretty close race!) I believe that North Carolina is the most wonderful state in the union, followed closely by parts of Virginia and Colorado. I believe that even a menial task can be a wonderful experience, especially if it is done to the best of your ability and even more so if it is done for someone else. I believe that cake is better than pie (another close race!) I believe that, the older I get, the less reason there is to hurry. I believe that the generations that will follow mine are no worse, only different. I believe that it is okay to dislike an individual, but it is absolutely wrong to hate a group. I believe that dogs make much better pets than cats and that the Labrador Retriever makes the very best pet of all. I believe that, the older we get, the more temperature changes bother us, although I believe that most of us would rather the temperature be on the warm side more so than the cold. Hardly anyone retires to the North. I believe that there is never a time we don't have enough room in our hearts to add another friend. I believe that everyone has a story to tell and that most are interesting. The problem is that some of us do a much better job telling the story than others. I believe that the worst live theater production is better than most movies ever made. I believe that the term "God sightings" should be applied to every single thing in our lives. They are always there if only we look. I believe that there is no such thing as bad banana pudding, that Jif is the best peanut butter, and that western style BBQ is better than eastern style. I believe that God loves us and that covers it all. How sweet is it to love someone? How right is it to care? There is nothing in this world like love. Try holding a newly born baby or the hand of a dieing friend. Try receiving the smile of someone whose day has been brightened by your presence. Try sleeping at night when you know that someone you love is upset with you. Love can't be easily defined, but it can make your heart grow to bursting with happiness or break your heart from sadness. Life without love is unthinkable. I cannot imagine a life without it. Love sparks caring. Caring ignites service. Service is a sign of love. Like a wheel within a wheel, just try to picture a world full of love. If you can picture it, you can live it. Give it a try. In the past few weeks, I've experienced the joy of renewing old friendships, celebrating birthdays with extended family, and finding opportunities to add friends to my life. God is indeed good. Please pray for Lucas Little and his family and friends. Pray for my friends Paul and Mark who are both having a tough time. Pray for Danylle, away from her family, and for her family who misses her. That's just the top of my list. Add to it as you see fit and talk to God. You'll be glad you did.

Lucas

I've known Burnie Little for many years now. We began as a doctor - patient relationship. He's actually a PA, but I see him much more often than I ever do my doctor. We accidentally took the same Spanish class together at Forsyth Tech one time. He grew to be my always friend and, many times, my spiritual guide and mentor. He has known me in my good times and my bad. We shared coffee and meals together outside of his office. I heard how his wife, Tina, home schooled his two sons and he could not keep the father's pride in his family hidden nor did he want to do so. Burnie and Tina have a relationship with God, through Christ Jesus, that I strive for in my own life and fall short of achieving. The wonderful thing about this relationship is that it supports them even when times are very, very bad. This is a bad time. Their oldest son, Lucas, is in trouble. Lucas Little was involved in a serious car accident on May 27. He was admitted to intensive care in critical condition with brain trauma, fractures of the skull, cervical vertebra, right leg, and bilateral collapsed lungs. He remains in very critical condition today. Because the whole Little family is so loved, admired, and respected, they were slammed with requests for news about Lucas. Burnie set up a blog so that he can post current news and he is very faithful about keeping it up. In the blog, Burnie does updates on the condition of Lucas, asks for prayer for specific needs, and lets us know a bit about how the rest of the family and very close friends are doing. Burnie, Tina and I serve a mighty God who is capable of doing things far beyond our imagination. He is in control of this entire situation. We believe that it doesn't hurt to let Him know that we praise Him and seek His help. We ask that you help us with this effort. Please read Burnie's blog, pray for Lucas and the things Burnie lists, and add Lucas to your prayer list and to your church's prayer list. God is good. http://www.prayforlucas.blogspot.com/