The Cocoon Broke Open

The Cocoon Broke Open

(“Many people are suffering—crushed by the weight of their troubles. But the is a refuge for them, a safe place they can run to.” Psalm 9:9)

The doorway was locked to him,
he would not have entered anyway.
The doormat said, “all welcome”,
he knew he would have to become like them.

His wounds were invisible to all but his friends
who listened to his soul.  

So people thought his tears were
for dramatic effect. They thought he should control
his emotions. They thought God should have healed him.
They thought he must have done a lot of nasty shit to
be so broken so easily.

And maybe he did.
And maybe he didn’t.

He tried the promise of sanctuary in the habitat of
pews and stained glass,
to tents and loud guitars,
to youth groups and flag football,
to speaking in tongues and baptisms in ponds,
to trying to stop rainstorms with mighty prayer
and repair the breaches that
did not desire to be repaired.

And finally, the cocoon broke open and his
slimy
wings felt more vulnerable than before. For a moment
he wished
to be back in the front row, reading the hymns, tapping his toes,
and imaging halos around the choir members.

In time his wings were dry, and fluttering,
getting his bearings, he landed upon the first place
he could find. Her hair was auburn as she worked
in her garden. He alit upon the top of her head, resting
before his next excursion. And then, unexpectedly he
heard her thoughts:

“Now I feel like a Disney princess.”

A Sky Waiting to be Filled

A Sky Waiting to be Filled

(“Are any among you suffering? Let them pray. Are any cheerful? Let them sing psalms.” James 5:13)

A sky waiting to be filled with
tears of pain
or
songs of joy. It surrounds everything.

A friend’s gaze sitting on the swing
waiting
to reflect back anything
in your heart today.

The breath moving and silent
carries the human cries from
within the infinite soul to
the eternal ground of being.

Angels may hover, they may not exist,
while some insist on squeezing confessions
out of the unbelieving.

And I hope to simply be satisfied with

Being seen.

Did You Choose Your Suffering?

 

Did You Choose Your Suffering?

(“Even if he killed me, I’d keep on hoping. I’d defend my innocence to the very end.” Job 13:15 [The Message])

“Did you choose your suffering?”

He read the old fan letter again. The words seemed
a continent away. It was one envelope among many,
and the question haunted him for all its implications.

“Do you think you suffer more than others?”

And his cheeks grew red, his forehead hot at
the words that, worlds away, exploded from
the page like serpent’s teeth.

“Do you know your suffering offends me?”

His fingernails itched, he reached for
the medicine, the resin that filled the fissures in his skin.
He could not put the letter away.

“I’ve meant to tell you for a long time.”

His feet shook, the foundations crumbled at
the sentence he knew was to come. He had read it
far too often.

“Did you know I was healed from head to toe?”

His brain sent spears across his temple
while his face burned with a pain that never
healed. And he prayed.

Do you know me? Do you?
Do you hear me? Will you?
Put your head on my heart.
Put you hand on my hand.
Touch my lips with the first light of dawn.
Let me know, through word or warmth,
that there is more to you,
to me,
than what you think you see
through time-locked eyes.
Come be the size of me
when the questions loom larger
than proofs and theorems can answer.

“Did you, though? Did you choose your suffering?”

Clipped Wings

Clipped Wings

(“If one part is suffering, then all the members suffer alongside it. If one member is honored, then all the members celebrate alongside it.” 1 Corinthians 12:26)

Someone had clipped the bird’s wings
and now he could not fly; not only for distance,
but for sheer folly and for time.
For more than a decade he simply hopped from
root too root underneath the trees where
the nests of cousins and brothers,
comrades and others,
settled in comfortably every Spring
and sang the songs that make men and gods smile.
He still could sing, but the tune never carried further
than the retaining walls around the yard.

Not only was his flight stolen, but the stumps of wings
were chronic wounds. He was not raised to be a stoic bird,
his voice was loud as a mockingbird. And time, and other time,
he wailed in his pain; a decade of catching the wind had been
removed from him.

At first the others, sorry for his loss, spoke to him from the
safety of their branches and offered sorrow, lozenges and prayer.
They would say he did not look in pain,
and that his wings were as beautiful as ever before. He wore
them high off his back as often as he could, but cried once night
shrouded him from the view of the mothers and their fledglings.
His singing stopped after no one listened anymore, but
crying, that awful sound that comes from a bird that is hurting,
cracked the midnight more often than the annual flocks imagined.

Each spring they began again, “How is your pain today? Have you
tried flying upside down? Have you tried seeds instead of worms?
And why don’t we see you at our morning gatherings to chirp at
the sun?” And then they would say, almost every day, for almost
an entire decade, “And we will pray for you.”

Agony takes its toll upon the most remarkable birds,
the eyes shrink to black, the legs wobble like toothpicks,
and the song is undiscernible as music at all. Then the soul,
the soul dries up like watermelon left on the vine too long.

Finally he squawked like a parrot, hissed like a rooster,
the pain had torn a hole where his heart had learned to sing.
This time the flocks did not even ask their questions,
but berated his attempts to sing of his grief. How does a bird
get over losing its voice,
how does it move past its wingless existence?

And occasionally, from the sky, a fellow flyer would hear his cry
and shout from above, “We are praying for you.”

For
ten
long
years
they
said
they would pray.

For
ten
long
years
nothing changed.

For
ten
long
years
he
longed

For visitors who would come and
take him under their wings.

You Cannot Outwit the Pain

You Cannot Outwit the Pain

(“The Lord was angry with Israel again, and he caused David to turn against the Israelites. He said, ‘Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.’” 2 Samuel 24:1)

It is impossible to outsmart the pain,
no matter your reinforcements, the arrows outwit your
finest strategies.

Rally the troops--and head, feet, lungs and heart
will still beat with the impulses; the grated shards of the brain.

Line up your best defenses, pray, sleep, cry, weep or sing,
and the pain will laugh once the amen is hummed; the sting awaits
the next unguarded thought.

The broken leg instructs the brain to crawl,
the broken arm presses the brain to scrawl,
the broken heart shatters the brain’s defenses,
and pain wraps it all with aching for the deep
and moats too wide to cross.

Suffering is only denied to those who throw their pain away,
who; anger and heat, judgment and fire, lies and deceit,
platitudes and bromides--setting the world ablaze to heal
the burn they will not feel.

You cannot outwit the pain.

But the aching know the pain is wiser, higher, wider,
and uncrossable. It is inscrutable and hidden behind
cupboards and bookshelves, prayerbooks and hymnals,
climax and nadir, silk and sackcloth, others and our own;
it will not retreat though we have assessed the enemy,
completed our military census,
and called its name out plain.

It is impossible to outsmart pain.
And perhaps that is why such willing wrists
took the iron spikes as a scepter,
took such abusive cries as a coronation song,
and cried like we all cry when pain makes us feel

forgotten.

Why have you forgotten?

It is impossible to outsmart the pain.

The Doorway of Suffering

“It was certainly our sickness that he carried, and our sufferings that he bore, but we thought him afflicted, struck down by God and tormented.” Isaiah 53:4

Suffering is one of those issues that makes it difficult to accept a loving God. The conundrum goes: If God is all-powerful, but He does not relieve suffering, then He cannot be all-loving. If He is all-loving, but cannot relieve suffering, then He cannot be all-powerful. But what if there is a different way to look at suffering and God’s involvement with pain?

First, it should be observed that we live in a world where suffering is possible. I just finished taking a walk. If I trip over a boulder and sprain my ankle, I will be in pain. God could have created a world without gravity, or boulders, or pain receptors. And, next universe, if you want to create one, give that some thought. But this is the universe in which we dwell.

My sprained ankle will heal, and the immediate pain tells me something is wrong and to tend to it. But what about meaningless pain? What about suffering that appears to have no purpose?

That, I believe, is the real question when we deal with suffering and God. For over ten years I have endured a daily headache that averages a pain level of six or seven out of 10. After numerous doctor’s appointments, tests and medications, I was diagnosed with a rare malady called New Daily Persistent Headache. You wake up one day with a headache that never goes away. Experts have little idea what causes it and it is extremely rare. So, I have wrestled with God over this “meaningless” pain.

Not only does it appear meaningless, it also has stripped significance and purpose from my life. I recently retired from active ministry nearly 10 years before I had planned. I simply could not continue conducting the duties of a pastor, manage the pain, and, well, remain somewhat sane.

What do we do when our suffering has no answer? How do we deal with afflictions that seem to have no purpose? I can reason that my suffering is still the result of a world where suffering is possible. My parents’ DNA combined in such a way to make me susceptible to this particular illness. I am not the only one to have a body that doesn’t work at its optimal level.

What if God, instead of relieving our pain, actually enters into it personally with us? How is this possible? The prophet Isaiah hints at it when, envisioning Jesus’ suffering, he says that He carried our sicknesses and bore our sufferings. Here we have a God who, no matter how else He deals with suffering, is not absent in it.

He does not come to us as if on a mission trip, visits our poor country of pain, holds a Vacation Bible School, bandages our scrapes, and then goes back home. He is not even a missionary from a privileged country going to live among the poor in another land. No, He becomes the poor, He carries the suffering of this world in His own being.

This is portrayed for us in the cross. Jesus was not some stoic that marched resolutely toward his destiny without thought or emotion. The night before his crucifixion he prayed three times that the cruelty of the cross would be taken from him. His distaste for the bitter cup caused him to sweat “drops of blood”. His agony began before the first whip sliced his back, the thorns pierced his head, the beam scraped across his open wounds or the first nail was driven into his hands and feet.

The desire to withdraw from taking our pain was so intense he invited his three closest friends to be with him in those final hours. “Please, stay with me, guys. Stay here. Stay awake. Pray for me.” Today he might have left them behind in the living room while he went to wrestle alone in the den. Solitary there, pleading with Father God, he asked that the awful moment could be taken away. And yet, because of the love between Jesus and the Father, he acquiesced, saying, “But, your will be done.” And, because of His love for all who suffer, he said, “Your will be done.”

His sorrow must have only increased when he went back to the living room to see his three friends snoring away on the couch and recliner. Three times he asked them, he needed them, he wanted the companionship of those who would simply wait with him in his darkest hour; and they took a nap.

Over the next twenty-four hours Jesus would suffer excruciating pain, emotional abandonment and a true spiritual suffering so intense that he would quote the Psalms, “My God, My God, why have you left me all alone?” Though the Father never left him, the intensity of suffering caused him to experience the same black void that pain creates for every human.

I do not understand all of this mystery, believe me. And, it needs to be said that “suffering” and “sin” are not meant to be equated. People suffer for a myriad of reasons, and one should never assume it is the result of some lack of faith, wrongdoing, or curse.

But I do know that Jesus is in this suffering with me. He has not alleviated it. Being a Jesus-follower has not lowered my pain level. But it has heightened my empathy level. When Jesus took the suffering of the world on himself, that became the entryway into every individual’s pain. So, what if my pain is meant to be an entry into other people’s pain?

Notice that the Scripture says he took our suffering upon himself. If I only find solace for myself in this truth, then I think I am missing the entire point. Jesus did not simply take my pain; he took the world’s pain as his own.

So, as his follower, as part of what is called the “Body of Christ”, my pain calls me to use it as an entryway into the suffering of others. Once Jesus took the suffering of “us”, he eliminated “them”.

To be like him, my suffering should allow me to enter the pain of a refugee family at a foreign country’s border. It should be the door into the suffering of a friend fighting cancer, a homeless woman on the street, a gay high schooler who feels rejected by peers and perhaps by his own family. To be like Jesus means I feel the affliction when three Louisiana Black Churches are burned. I feel the sorrow of those who want to follow Jesus but have been hurt by those who carry his name. To be like Jesus means I run that chance of being misunderstood.

Suffering is hard enough. But, to allow yourself to empathize, to feel the pain of any and all groups, no matter who they are, may cause people to question who you are. It made them question Jesus’ identity, didn’t it? Isaiah says that we though “he was afflicted by God”!

I may not understand suffering. And, I get depressed plenty of times, feeling the hope drain from my being. I yell at God; I tell Him he doesn’t know what he’s doing. But, in the small, quiet corners when my brain is not on fire, I know suffering is a door. It is the very entryway for God’s love to me in Christ, and it is the passageway for my empathy toward others as his follower.

Binding the Wounds

Binding the Wounds

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor.’” Zechariah 7:9, 10a

Jackie Robinson, the player who broke baseball’s color barrier, endured a difficult rookie season with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fans hurled racial slurs and mailed death threats, opposing pitchers threw beanballs, and even some of his own teammates started a petition against him.

One man who stood by him was shortstop Pee Wee Reese. At one game, fans sitting close to the field abused Robinson mercilessly, and it looked as if he might be near the breaking point. At that moment, Reese walked across the field to where Robinson was playing, and put his arm around his teammate’s shoulders. The crowd fell silent.

Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese showed the courage to stand for what was right, even when the majority opposed them. Similarly, Zechariah encouraged the Israelites to pursue true justice, even when many were practicing hypocrisy and self-centeredness.

We have witnessed much suffering across the world in the past several months. Hurricanes have ripped across Texas, Florida and the Caribbean. Over 350 people have lost their lives in Mexico’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake. In South Asia typhoons and flooding have taken 1,200 lives and forced millions from their homes. And now, just in the past week at least 59 were killed and more than 500 injured by a mass shooter in Las Vegas.

It is easy to feel overloaded with the scope of suffering we encounter. But if there is one thing every follower of Jesus is called to do, it is to continue showing God’s mercy and compassion as much as we can. If anything, disaster and grief can awaken greater depths of empathy within us for those who suffer.

True justice not only reacts in sympathy toward victims, but also acts to prevent future harm. We must open our hearts to the cries of those who endure not only the catastrophe of natural disaster, but to those who endure the continuing trials of poverty and injustice. Just as Pee Wee Reese stood up for Jackie Robinson we need to risk standing for those who are forgotten, misunderstood, and unfairly judged.

When we consider that God in Christ entered the world as a human, becoming a servant to us and suffering violent death at our own hands, our minds can hardly fathom the depths of His love. We did the worst possible thing to the Father of Love; we killed God! And what did Jesus do while hanging upon that instrument of death and violence? He said, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

That should leave no doubt in our minds about God’s heart toward humanity. Like the Good Samaritan, we are not called to tell people “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you hadn’t traveled that road.” Instead, exercising “true justice”, we meet the need and go beyond the boundaries of race, religion, poverty or any other human constructs and simply bind the wounds of those who suffer.

My roots are in the South. Though our family moved to Southern California when I was in second grade, I was born in Texas and spent nearly every holiday with grandparents in Tulsa, Okla. After Patti and I were married we moved to Oklahoma to be near my dad. That “southern courtesy” still runs through my veins.

Grandmas call you “hon” and people say, “Well, bless your heart” in response to just about anything. (Sometimes meaning the exact opposite of “bless your heart”, though.)

God is calling for something more than courtesy. The prophet Zechariah reveals the heart of God as he calls the people to more than surface level kindness, but to action rooted in heartfelt affection… “let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

That’s the real key, isn’t it? What we say and do is always a product of our inner self. Take some time and reflect God’s actions of compassion as revealed in the Cross. Consider how He sacrificed for us in the middle of all our muck and dysfunction and let His faithful love energize your own.

But God Knows

But God Knows

“But He knows the way that I take. When He has tried me, I will come out as gold.” Job 23:11

I hate losing things, especially something valuable or irreplaceable. I have carried a picture of my wife in my wallet for over 40 years. It is her senior picture. The edges are well-worn, but the beauty in that photo never fades. Several years ago we made a road trip from North Dakota to New York State to visit our son and daughter-in-law who were attending university at Binghamton. Within a day of arriving I could not find my wallet anywhere. I won’t go into details, but we scoured the car, our clothes and everywhere we could think, and found nothing.

One Mite of Grace

One Mite of Grace

(“It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf.” Philippians 1:29)

Time has frozen some of the machinery down,
other pieces are worn, gears ground, belts dry as parchment,
and oxidation fills the spaces between nuts and bolts and spacers.

Every joint which first swung freely creaks with effort, to begin
even half a younger man’s backswing. And the follow-through,
we once taught to others at the plate, stops before the shoulder
clicks
with every overhand throw.

I knew my calves would ache about now, my feet sore from standing,
I expected no supple angles, no ground touched with unbent knees.
But I still thought I would swing the racket, chase the high fly balls,
and hunt my slice buried near the adjoining fairway. The serves
would be slower; the drives
would be shorter, and I might make a muffled sound when
bending over to snatch the tee.

But, at 60, I never dreamed I would sit out my favorite play-times
altogether.

So, now I have pain. It never matters where the clock hands point;
the pain remains, and advances. The pain squeezes and takes more chances
with my thinking than I ever did
hoping to make the team. No one can see it, this intimate enemy,
and I rarely let it show, though its armies bombard my cranium
and set fires within my head.

My Loving Jesus, yet and then; is this my promised suffering?
How will it help, now and friend; to paint You beautiful when I barely
sing for minutes before the volume must cease altogether?

And not only me, Sweetest Sovereign, but soulmates who cannot still
rise from their beds. Pain and its alliances have nailed them prone
and tossed them alone. Careers and income blown away; the
dead leaves of dying trees: Shade and Proud.

If our suffering is a gift indeed; let us breathe the mercy
and refuse to waste one mite of grace today.

All I Want

All I Want

“All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him from death. I want to share in his sufferings and be like him even in his death. Then there is hope that I myself will somehow be raised from death.” Philippians 3:10, 11

“All I want...”. It makes me think of the silly Christmas song, “All I Want for Christmas are My Two Front Teeth.” When the bite of winter is in the air and people are log-jamming their way through retail store aisles, we ask “What do you want?” Our middle son, Jonathan, is great at putting a very specific list together for us each year. I’m the worst. “Could I have a two-week vacation in Paris, please?” Of course, no one passing out gifts in my house has the resources to provide such a gift. I usually say, “You know, I’m not really sure.” So, our daughter buys me fashion, our oldest son; books or music, and Jonathan, well, I never know what he will give; but I’m always pleasantly surprised.

You Only Look at Me

“I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me.” Job 30:20

Recently a good friend of my passed away unexpectedly. He had heart problems, but no one had pronounced an end date. As far as he and his family knew, he had a few, maybe many, good years ahead of him. Alan was the director of a drama ministry and we had invited him to bring a Christmas-themed production to our little church here in Southwest Washington.

More on Pain and Suffering

"The men who were holding Jesus in custody taunted him while they beat him. They blindfolded him and asked him repeatedly, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” Insulting him, they said many other horrible things against him.” Luke 11:63-64

It would be the utmost arrogance for me to assume the pain I have endured for nearly six years comes close to Jesus’ suffering. I have a headache of unknown causes diagnosed as New Daily Persistent Headache. I endure pain twenty four hours a day, with an average of six out of 10. It takes more than one try most days to simply get out of bed, and my physical activity has been severely limited. My wife and I just visited our kids and granddaughter for 14 days in Minneapolis and I ventured outdoors only once, with the pain keeping down the rest of the time.

The Friends without Words

“They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves.” Job 14:22

We all are stymied when it comes to the right words and expressions to aid a friend who is enduring chronic pain or a life tragedy. What words are there when a man discovers his brother, barely a year older than he, was just found dead and had no indications that his body was giving out. What do you say to the family who lost their jobs, moved to a new city, and within two weeks lost 75 percent of their belongings in a house fire? What do you tell the father young son in his mid-20s just fell at his wife’s feet, succumbing to heart failure?

God's Credibility in Chaos

“I know that you can do anything. No one can keep you from doing what you plan to do.” Job 42:2

I suppose this is exactly the place where most followers of Jesus want to arrive. In fact, we give mental assent to the truth Job expresses: “Because God is God, I know that He can do anything. And, because He can do anything, nothing can stop His plans from going forward.” It all sounds so simple, so logical, so reasonable.

Are Enduring

Are Enduring

(“Resist him, strong in your faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are enduring the same kinds of suffering.” 1 Peter 5:9)

Blankets and clothing,
baby cloths and netting,
what can I give for the suffering;
what can I do for the hunted left out in the storm?

Food banks and free dresses,
toy donations and grandchild kisses,
what does it mean so close to me;
what can I do when most of me is spent on
another trinket the in-crowd on tv insisted would
change my life, make me free, and give me all the love
and company a man could ever ask for. I would change the
car I drive
if I had the money.

Until one mother calls me to give her child a ride home,
you see, practice will go past nine tonight and it is far too
late for a young teen to walk home even our little hamlet.
“She would walk, otherwise,” I promise, the mother almost
apologized…and I stopped her. “Of course she can have a ride.”

I would change the car I drive
except for families I know
that don’t possess even one.

Boxes of underwear, schoolbooks and pencils,
a hand-drawn mural for the school-wall from eight little
children in Sunday School that only know
some others as tiny as they are scared of halls that once
felt so safe.

All they know, and I know, is Jesus gave. My garage has boxes
filled with things I haven’t seen in a decade. My life is too crowded
to keep from filling a hole somewhere that lets in far too much winter air.

I Will Do Anything

“I will do anything you ask of my Father in my name. In that way the Son will make my Father's name great.” John 14:13

There is a current television ad that features a person who has just had an accident with their car. They look around, sing the “State Farm” jingle, and just like a genie in a bottle, the insurance representative appears on scene. Not only does he take care of their automobile, but it seems he has unlimited power to supply fast food and reunite families. If only solving my problems were as easy as whistling the right tune.

The Honor of Suffering

“He allowed you to believe in Christ. But that is not all. He has also given you the honor of suffering for Christ. Both of these bring glory to Christ.” Philippians 1:29

No one enjoys suffering. I just came from a visit with a friend who spent the last eight weeks in hospitals and convalescent care. In his 80s, he broke his leg over two months ago and had a nasty infection invade where the break occurred. He has been home three weeks and finds it extremely painful to walk. Even though he had the attention of doctors, nurses and therapists while away, he willingly gave all that up to be at home alone. Any of us would feel the same way.

Shallow Thoughts on Suffering

“One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” Luke 23:39

It is easy to see this criminal on the cross as a blundering fool spouting the venom that was simply part of his unlawful lifestyle. Even though Jesus was innocent and unjustly crucified, most who received that sentence were the worst of the worst. So, it is no surprise that we are quick to deride this fellow’s sarcasm that ugly day.

God's Nearness in our Trials

“You protect me with your saving shield. You support me with your right hand. You have stooped to make me great.” Psalm 18:35

Life is full of adventure, wonder and surprises around nearly every bend. But adventure cannot exist without the possibility of misadventure. Wonder sometimes comes like a box full of question marks asking why when we have cleared a row of hurdles, a hundred more wait ahead. And for some, life has dropped bomb after bomb upon them so that bad news is no surprise at all.

Of Pain and Suffering

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” Philippians 1:29

Even though I have suffered with a chronic headache since November 2008, now over two and a half years, I feel like I am whining if I call my experience “suffering”. It seems especially complaining when I compare it to the suffering that early Christians when through; the kind of suffering Paul refers to when he tells the Philippians that they were granted “to suffer for Christ”.