This month we observe and celebrate Festival of the Christian Home and Mother's Day amidst additonal celebrations.  I visited with my soon-to-be eighty-seven-year-old Mother just last week.   It happened to be during the second anniversary of Dad's death.   We were able to share some of our sadness and emote some of our grief.  I continue to be amazed at my Mom's amazing physical energy and mental sharpness!  And, I continue to be grateful for God's gift of a godly and loving Mother! 
Among the many lessons and gifts that Mom has taught me (and many other folks) are these:
SACRIFICIAL LOVE:  I recall the many times that Mom sacrificed so that I, or my siblings, could benefit.  For example, she purchased clothing for us and got herself none.  Or again, the many trips out of town (giving up time, energy and financial resources) for all of us siblings so that we could have braces on our teeth - which she needed but never was able to receive.  On a daily basis she prepared meals, worked in our family garden, washed tons of laundry, taxied us to events and activities, cleaned house, some years in addition to employment outside the home....and still took time to console us, read to us, and attend to a plethora of needs and concerns.

SIMPLICITY:  Mom had been raised in a family considered by many as relatively poor and; in addition, during the depression years.  She had learned the way of hard work, little financial pay, and carefully saving - - wasting nothing.  These attributes and methods carried over into her adult and family life.  She appeared to have the gift of making "something out of nothing."  She could certainly take a little and make it stretch.  She taught me, and our family, the lesson of simple beauty.  More really can sometimes be less.  Clutter and over-abundance and obsession with material things can rob persons of perspective, freedom and joy.

SERVING:  At almost eighty-seven years of age, Mom, during most weeks hauls meals-on-wheels to shut-ins four days in the Appalachian mountains which she calls home!  From serving her Lord and church, to serving her family, to serving her community and neighbors, serving has always been a lifestyle - - a way of life - - for Mom.

Happy Mothers' Day 2012 Mom!   Thank you for the lessons I have received through you!   But, most of all thank you for being my loving Mom!

Reflection/Action:  Perhaps all of us during this month which observes Celebration of the Home and Mothers' Day would take some time to reflect upon and give thanks for those qualities we have received and learned from our family members.   Maybe you would be led to complete (or begin) a family map - - a genogram (websites are available to inform on this valuable family tool).    All of the above, and more, could lead to a renewed and stronger appreciation for your family and family members.  

Because of the torture, persecution, mocking and violent death on the cross that Jesus endured for all humankind, it is sometimes with ambiguity that I employ the term "Good Friday"!    That first, and orignal, Good Friday would have, no doubt, been anything but good....certainly for Jesus' followers.    Their hope was gone.  Their joy was absent.  Because Jesus was gone....dead and buried!    In fact, Jesus' followers were so disturbed and frightened that only one attended the crucifixion.  The others fled for their lives out of fear.   Nothing "good" about death and dying and tombs and tears!

And, yet, there miraculously was!  Jesus dying was our ticket to life!  Death on a cross wiped out our sin as a victor for good!  As the prophet of God proclamied, "By his stripes we are healed!"  Pre-resurrection Good Friday was not good.   But, praise be to God, the grave could not contain Jesus!  In Christ life conquered death!  And, now, truly.....every Good Friday since has been GOOD!

When my life is out of alignment and I need to regain proper perspective it is amazing how God resets my spiritual compass to true North through service, outreach or missions!   Our culture and our human condition combine to attempt to move us further away from what is good and right and needed.  We insulate ourselves.   We pile layer and layer of protections and things between us and vulnerability and dependency.   We like to consider ourselves as self- sufficient.   We aim to be in control.    Yet, the irony is that the person who considers themselves to be in control is, in truth, out of control.

Recently I spent 9 days in Haiti with a mission team.   Ever wonder why we call ourselves "Mission Team"?   Actually, we should probably call it something like "Missioned to Team."  Because that is what inevitably occurs.   You go with a mindset to mission and you end up being missioned to!    I never want to glamorize nor patronize the poor and poverty.   Poverty is horrible and demeanoning.    But, there is something within the poor (and the broken and the handicapped, for that matter) that is close to the surface - - hand-to-mouth; day-to-day.  And, therefore, I affirm and observe that they in many ways are closer to God...or, at least, more aware of their dependency (including dependency upon God).  Perhaps this is why Jesus declares, "God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." 

The poor, the broken, the handicap have much to teach us.   Perhaps the greatest lesson they teach us is that we are also poor and broken and handicapped.   For, unless we see this about ourselves we are indeed blind.   Henri Nouwen puts it this way:  "The suffering person calls us to become aware of our own suffering."
How can I respond to someone's loneliness unless I am in touch with my own experience of loneliness?  How can I be close to handicapped people when I refuse to acknowledge my own handicaps?  How can I be with the poor when I am unwilling to confess my own poverty?

When my life is out of alignment.... when I need to regain proper perspective.....God seems to speak to me the loudest and clearest when I am willing to engage in outreach and service in Jesus' name. 
  

Tomorrow morning a mission team from our church leaves for the country of Haiti.  I am so honored and excited to be among this group!  This will be my third trip to this Caribbean country.  The first time I was a thirteen-year-old lad going with my Dad (a medical doctor) on a medical mission team.   We travelled to Cap Haitian on the northern coast of Haiti.   I recall as a young boy watching the Haitian folks, some who had walked all day, arriving to get in line so that they and their children might be treated for various medical conditions.   I also recall the patience practiced as they waited in a long line for long hours to finally be seen.  I contrasted this with a trip to the grocery store, for example, in my American home town....and, how we folks can't wait ten minutes in an express lane without getting impatient and sometimes irate.   What lessons in patience I learned!

My second trip to Haiti came when I was thirty-two years of age.  My wife, Karen, and I, along with a church mission team worked alongside some Haitian folk to help construct a residence for a nurse.  After mixing mortar and carrying concrete blocks all week long, one of the Haitian workers  whom I had worked beside all week, approached me on our last day, alongside our interpreter.     "Tumah, wants to thank you for your work here among his people this week.  He also wishes to give you a gift."     And, with that Tumah stepped forward and handed me a dozen eggs as a gift of appreciation!   Do you know what a dozen eggs means to a family in Haiti?    It could well be the food for one day for one family....if they are  fortunate!    I felt almost bad for taking this from Tumah.   But, the interpreter reminded me, it was a gift and it would be an insult to not receive it.    So, the eggs were enjoyed by our Team that evening for supper.     In the midst of such abject poverty what a generous gift!

These Haitian accounts, and many other Haiti stories, have been planted in my psyche and heart since I was a young teen.   I have often reflected upon what life lessons God has taught me through the Haitian people.   Now, early tomorrow morning I head to Haiti for a third journey to that land.  I know God will have so much more to teach me through the people of Haiti.....if only my eyes and my heart is open!   O Lord, may it be so.

Our human condition lends itself to staying in comfort zones.   We like the familiar.  We don't handle change too well.  I am a creature of routine.   Perhaps we all are.  But those of us who rate high "J" on the Myers-Briggs Temperament Profile have a high propensity to structure, routine and closure.   Closure and things like written lists give us a sense of control in life (psuedo though it may be).   If I am to be spontaneous, and open to change, then I will write "be spontaneous" on my list.

One of the inevitable downsides to being overly structured and unwilling to shake routine, thereby attempting to avoid change, is that it stunts growth.   No stretch, no growth.  No resistance, no strengthening.  I read some time back an interview with a young man who dives for exotic fish for aquariums.  He said one of the most popular aquarium fish is the shark.   He explained that if you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium.  Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured.   But if you turn them loose in the ocean, they grow to their normal length of six to eight feet.

That can happen to us in life too.   Perhaps you've seen the cutest little six-inch Christians who swim around in the same, comfortable, small puddle.   Yet, if these same believers reach out into a larger arena, into the whole world, only then do they truly grow and promote Christ and His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

One winter season our family had an unwanted and a surprise guest in our house.  A mallard duck somehow made her way into our chimney but could find no passage of escape!  The contour of the chimney made exiting impossible and the glass covering the fireplace opening prevented exiting in that direction....thankfully for the home dwellers!     One early morning Karen and I were abrubtly awakened by a horrible racket seemingly coming from our living room.   As we got up and further inspected, we noticed this fowl in our fireplace!    So, what to do?!  We finally came up with a plan.   Karen would open the glass covering while I would move in with a blanket and capture the bird.   It worked!  I grabbed the mallard, which was exhausted by this time with lack of food and water coupled with repeated efforts at "prison-breaking," and took her to our front porch.  As I opened the blanket she spread her wings and headed in flight toward a nearby lake.   Finally she was free.   At last she was liberated.  Yet, without outside intervention she would never have made it.

As we wait this Advent Season....waiting for Christmas, and more specifically waiting for the arrival of Christ, may we be reminded that we, imprisoned in our addictions and idolatries, cannot liberate ourselves.  Jesus comes to set us free!  God, thankfully and graciously, invades our world and our egos in order that we might be liberated and rescued!  This is the joyous anticipation of Advent, even in the very center of waiting and wondering.......Jesus...Immanuel....God with us....Savior of the world.....is coming to our world....to live in our hearts....to rescue us from sin and self....to set us free!  As I remember and reflect upon the beauty of the mallard taking flight after being freed, I am given a picture, an image, that deeply encourages my soul!  Our deliverer is coming!  Help is on the way!

I will always remember with great fondness a former church member of mine by the name of Paul.   Paul was filled with gratitude.  His signature statement was, "It's great to be alive!"  And he truly LIVED  each and every day.   And, I remind myself, his life was not always easy.    Toward the last part and season of his life his wife had alzhiemers disease.    He kept Bea at home with him as long as he possibly could.   But there arrived the day when he had to place his mate of more than 60 years into a nursing facility.    That was an enormously difficult day!   With tears in his eyes and a positive faith, Paul made the trek and did the gut-wrenching but necessary action.

For years Paul made the trip from home to nursing home, twice each day, to feed Bea her meals and to lovingly speak to her and to comb her long, silver hair.  He would often speak words of love and encouragement to Bea as he stroked her hair lovingly with his hand; saying words like:  "Bea, I'm so glad God gave you to me!"     "You are the love of my life!"  "It's great to be alive and to be here with you!"   And the times that I was privileged to enter into this sacred space with two faith-filled and positive personalities I was encouraged and inspired!  Often at these visits with Paul and Bea, after visiting and sharing together and after a word of prayer, Paul would hand me an offering envelope for our church, which contained his tithes and offerings to help enable and sustain ministry, frequently saying: "Pastor, God has been good to me and Bea.   Life is a blessing!    It's great to be alive!  Please take this offering to the church."     Gratitude seeped from Paul!  Thanksgiving and gratitude contiually generated his generosity in every aspect of his life.

We can so easily miss out on seizing the moment because we are either looking back at yesterday or anticipating tomorrow.    Sometimes we seem to be living on cruise control and not really absorbing nor realizing the beauty of  the here and now.   In this fog and funk we begin to refer to life as mundane, ho-hum, and ordinary.

Not long ago my wife Karen and I refected upon this "ordinary" trap that can so easily snare all of us human beings.    We had several folks in our congregation who were going through serious health and medical trials and treatments.    We discussed how these particular folks would simply long for and treasure a so-called ordinary day!     How their lives had changed from one day to the next when they received these medical diagnoses.   Suddenly, ordinary day became a longing.
Earlier this month I experienced a wild and chaotic day.    I took our daughter, Anna, to the college campus she attends for her classes.   As we drove onto the school grounds a policeman flagged us down, telling us to vacate the premises because the college had received a bomb threat.      Later that same day we experienced an earthquake.    Our church staff was seated around a conference table as the earth shook!     That evening a hurricane hit our Eastern coastline.      A bomb scare; an earthquake; and, a hurricane...all in the very same day!      I wondered what would be next!     I was thinking I should be alert for the locusts to come ravaging!       I can surely tell you that I welcomed ordinary after that wildly eventful day!
May we truly have our eyes open to the gift and beauty of each day!    May we recognize the special opportunity that every moment of each day offers.     And, in doing so may we see the extraordinariness of ordinary days.      Seize the day...right now!   Don't wait for tomorrow or some day.
Leo Buscaglia shares (submitted by one of his students):
Remember the day I borrowed your band new car and I dented it?   I thought you'd kill me, but you didn't.    And remember the time I dragged you to the beach, and you said it would rain, and it did?     I thought you'd say, "I told you so."   But you didn't.       Do you remember the time I flirted with all the guys to make you jealous, and you were?      I thought you'd leave me, but you didn't.     Do you remember the time I spilled strawberry pie all over your car rug?     I thought you'd hit me, but you didn't.    And remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was formal and you showed up in jeans?   I thought you'd drop me, but you didn't.    Yes, there were lots of things you didn't do.    But you put up with me, and you loved me, and you protected me.   There were lots of things I wanted to make up to you when you returned from Viet Nam.    But you didn't.

May all your days be extraordinary! 

This week my wife, Karen, and I observed and celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.    I am incredibly blessed to have such a loving and giving and patient spouse!    In some ways these past 30 years have seemed to fly by.   In other respects, when I reflect upon all the experiences and life journeys that Karen and I have experienced together....hey, it adds up to a lot!

One thing I am reminded of as I reflect upon thirty years of marriage.....a strong, lasting relationship (of any sort) takes a lot of time, investment, patience and nurture.   In fact, I Corinthians, chapter 13, often referred to as "The Love Chapter" when describing love begins this way:  "Love is patient; love is kind...."    Whenever I read these characteristics of love, along with the fourteen additional descriptors of true love, I get convicted.    How often in my 30 years of marriage have I not practiced patience!    How many times did I not engage in kindness!    And on and on.    Ah, but then I read (I Corinthians 13:5b) true love "keeps no records of wrong," and I am given renewed enthusiasm and hope for my marital relationship (and any other relationship)!    Forgiveness!   Grace!   Mercy!    When we've received it from our Creator we then can share it with others...and with our significant other!      
I am so grateful that Karen is a grace-filled person...she would have to be to be married to me!     I am thankful that she does not keep a record of my wrongs done against her.   And, I also want to reciprocate and  practice that same grace toward her.     Yes, a lot of patience....a big dose of kindness and a ton of forgiveness....From God and from one another......has enabled us to reach thirty years together and counting!    It is a gift.   This relationship I count as a treasure.    And to Karen is awarded The Purple Heart Award for sticking it out...lo these thirty years.   Of course, she has no choice.   I have told her on more than one occasion, "Karen, if you ever leave me...I'm going with you!

On this Independence Day weekend I give thanks for the opportunity and privilege of living in a land with so many freedoms.   There are many on this globe who do not enjoy these same liberties.   May our prayers go out to them, especially those living under totalitarian and oppressive governments.    May we also remember and show our gratitude to those who stand in harms way so that we may be the recipients of such great freedoms.

I believe and affirm that our Creator God created all human beings to be free....free from oppression; free from inhumane ways....and, freed for shalom  - - a wonderful and rich Hebrew word filled with God's pro-active peace consisting of, not just the absence of war/conflict, but filled with the justice and mercy of a loving God.

This is where our deepest and best freedom comes from.....God's shalom!   God frees us from our sin and from our self.   We humans are broken and self-centered and sin-ridden...hubris (or selfish pride) eats away at even our best laid plans, thoughts and actions.   Yet, God, in and through Jesus Christ makes a way to restore us....to set us free...to truly liberate us.   Romans 3:24 celebrates:  "By the free gift of God's grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free."     

We on the Wesleyan Branch of Christianity are a movement which celebrates and emphasizes God's grace......amazing grace!    We often speak in United Methodist circles of God's same grace manifest in at least three manners:  Prevenient Grace;  Justifying Grace; and, Sanctifying Grace.      We cannot escape God and his grace.  It is all around us.  It surrounds us.   It invites us.  It woos us.  It even protects us.    This is God's prevenient grace.   The grace that seeks us out.  The grace that convicts us.   The grace that first loves us...so that we may even love God.

While Prevenient Grace does not require a human response, Justifying Grace does.   In Justifying Grace we admit our need of God.   We agree with God that we cannot solve our sin and self problem.    As we admit/confess our need of God and God's grace, God offers us reconciliation...salvation......redemption.    We no longer attempt to be self-sufficient.   We no longer try to prove ourselves.    We rest in God's amazing, forgiving, healing justifying grace.  What liberty!   What freedom!

While Justifying Grace frees us from our self and from our sinful ways, Santifying Grace frees us to walk the Christian journey.    Sanctifying Grace is a shared project with God in which we accept God's guidance for our life and living.  It is living our life so as to look more and more like Jesus.    As one Wesleyan theologian puts it, Prevenient Grace speaks to us as Barely Human;  Justifying Grace as Truly Human; and, Sanctifying Grace as Fully Human.

God is offering us total and complete freedom....both now and forever!     As we give thanks for our temporal national freedom may it remind us of a deeper, permanant and universal freedom in and through Jesus Christ.