Pandemic Thoughts

For the past month we have been avoiding the virus and staying home with a few exceptions for doctors and groceries. I have watched all the news reports I can stand. I have read countless comments on Facebook and posted a few myself. I find it all very repetitive and overwhelming at this point.

The appropriate mantras have been repeated over and over. “We are all in this together. We will get through this. It’s going to be all right.”

We are in it together, in one sense. We are all human. We are all subject to illness and death. What one does can affect many, for good or ill. We need each other for emotional support, for providing information, for guidance about what we should do, for providing food and supplies, for providing health care.

No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.

. . . . .
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee. --John Donne, Meditation 17, 1623

John Donne found value in suffering. He said that it is good for us to share our neighbors’ pain: “No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it.” In other words: No one suffers alone, and being aware of another’s pain makes us stronger and more able to live.

But in other ways we are not together. We are “social distancing.” We are cut off from friends and loved ones. My family and I are among the privileged. We have a secure guaranteed income in retirement (although we have temporarily lost about twenty percent of our savings investments). We have a comfortable home that is paid for. We have very good health insurance. We have pretty good health for our age. We have cable TV with Amazon Prime and Netflix. We have books to read. We have a network of friends, family, and church members who keep in touch by phone and internet.  We have strong faith and spiritual resources. There are many more people who do not have these things and are struggling with little hope. Many of them are struggling financially. Many of them are sick. Some are dying. We are not together in our circumstances.

As for getting through it, of course most of us will, but not all equally well. The majority of us will either not get sick or will have moderate symptoms and get well. Some will have a very hard time getting through the viral infection. Some will pass through it into death. Some will pass through it into bankruptcy. Some will never be the same due to traumatic stress. This takes a lot of the strength out of the third mantra. “It’s going to be all right.” In many cases that is superficial optimism. There is some value in positive thinking and whatever degree of hope we can muster. There are many heroic stories of people helping each other. We need to look on the bright side and encourage one another, but the ability to do that runs out unless we have deeper reasons to hope.

The ability to hope in the face of suffering and tragedy depends on experience, wisdom, and emotional maturity. But most of all it depends on sources of strength beyond ourselves. Years ago I read in a forgotten self-help book this profound insight: “None of us is born strong enough to withstand life.” We can get some of the strength we need from other people, but we can’t always count on that. Ultimately, if there is to be enduring hope, it must come from some deep, eternal source. Some reality that is so strong that it can stand anything. Something we still have, or something that still has us, when we have nothing else. Something that is stronger even than death. Something that is the source and meaning of everything.

That source has been conceived of in many ways by the world’s philosophies and religions. I find the best answer to be in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures and in the faith communities that live by them. The source and meaning of everything is God, who created the universe and is greater than the created order. God, who created it all, has made Godself known through acts of redemption and renewal throughout history, most of all, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the physical embodiment of God, both human and divine. Throughout the Bible, and most of all in the compassion and suffering of Jesus, we are assured that God loves us, cares for us, suffers with us, and gives us life that is stronger than death. The source of our hope is God’s promise that in the end all things will be made right and complete. This does not mean we will not suffer or that evil will be overcome before the end. It does not require us to have all the answers or know all the details of how God works. But it does mean that whatever happens, we can trust God. This is the ultimate source of hope.

This has been very personal for me for several years since I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. It has been successfully treated since then, but it still threatens to end my life at some point. At eighty-two, I can’t expect to live too many more years regardless of the cancer. What then, do I hope for? I hope to see my grandson graduate from high school in four years. I hope to be spared severe suffering. I hope to live to ninety. But however those hopes may be realized or disappointed, I rest secure in the hope, the confident expectation, that God loves me and cares for me, and that when my earthly life ends, I will be with God forever.

We are all in this together. We are going to get through this. It’s going to be all right.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. --Psalms 46:1, 2, NRSV.

Seeking God with Your Heart

In two previous posts I expressed my desire to experience the presence of God and my understanding of how this might come about. This post continues the discussion.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 offers this promise: “Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”

These words from Jeremiah are very encouraging to me in my quest to know God and experience God personally. They tell me God hears my prayer and I can find God. This will come as I seek God with all my heart. The biblical understanding of heart is much bigger and deeper that our usual usage today. It describes the core of our being and the center of our will and action, as well as the source of our love, our deepest desire and commitment.

Loving God is central to the religion of Israel as seen in Deuteronomy 6:5-7, the Shema, the basic confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.”

When I re-read these words recently, I was struck by a question: Do I really love God? I think about God. I pray to God, I worship God. But do I love God? Do I devote my whole being—heart, soul, and strength to God? Do I desire to be close to God? Do I feel affection for God? Do I long for the presence of God? Do I value God above all else? And I had to answer, Not always, maybe not very often.

This led me to a decision. I will meditate on loving God. I will sit quietly in God’s presence and allow my feelings as well as my thoughts to reach out to God. I will meditate on God’s love for me. 1 John 4:10 reminds us that love starts with God’s love for us: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us.”

I am convinced that we will experience God when we devote ourselves to loving God with all our heart. And, as I will discuss in the next post, loving God also involves loving our neighbor, and acting out that love in ways that bring us into contact with God.

Experiencing the Presence of God

 What I want at this point is to know God and to experience God in a personal way. This is how I ended my last blog, and I want to pursue it further.

Where do you start? I think by being still. Psalm 46:10 advises, “Be still and know that I am God.” Recognizing God, letting the reality of God sink in, paying attention to God, is where we have to start. To do that, we have to stop other things for a while, clear a space in our consciousness, let God be God, set our minds free to know the ultimate reality over all things. It even means we don’t have to work at it. We don’t have to do anything but be in the presence of God. Just be still and know. This practice is often called contemplation.

Contemplation assumes that we do know something. God has made himself known—through actions in the history of Israel and the church, through the revealing life of Jesus Christ, through the Scriptures, through the teachings of the church through the ages, and by the witness of people today who know God. But contemplation looks at that, condenses it into one supreme truth, lays aside the study notes, and simply knows that God is God. There is a lot to know about God, but you don’t have to know very much to experience the presence of God.

Contemplation grows into prayer. Awareness of God calls for a response. Personal knowledge involves two-way communication. Prayer is confession, taking honest inventory and admitting the things that keep us from God. Prayer is adoration, pouring out our hearts in awe and wonder at the greatness of God. Prayer is giving thanks as we express our gratitude for God’s blessings. Prayer is petition, as we ask God to provide for our needs and the needs of others. Most importantly, prayer is conversation between a child of God and the loving Father.

Prayer grows into worship and community. The knowledge of God has to be shared with others and expressed publicly. We are helped by the presence of others who know God. We are supported by the worshipping, witnessing community, which is the church.

The fact that God tells us to be still and know God suggests that this is something we have to be told. Experiencing the presence of God doesn’t just happen. It requires an intentional movement. It also needs to be reinforced and sustained by repeated practice. It’s not something you do once and then move on. It is a way of living that leads to fullness of life.

Jeremiah 29:12-13 offers this promise: “Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”

Longing for God

I find myself these days wanting to experience the presence of God. I have never been inclined to mystical experiences. My religion has been unbalanced toward the intellectual side. My Baptist background, though it called for a personal relationship with Christ, gave more emphasis to reading the Bible and attending church services. Many of these services attempted to reach an emotional climax, but this was designed to lead to a confession of sin, repentance, and a transactional acceptance of Jesus as Savior.

We were always suspicious of secular experiences of spirituality—finding God in nature, poetry, drama, music, --because they did not focus on Christ as the way to God. Very emotional experiences, such as in Pentecostalism, were suspect because they could not be controlled within the confines of our standards of doctrine and behavior. Classical mysticism was closed to us because it was associated with Catholicism. Even Protestantism, as I appreciatively found it revised by Karl Barth, rejected mysticism in favor of the Word.

As I grew older and learned more, I realized that my piety and my theology were too limited. As I reached my eighties and now face prostate cancer, I have begun to seek something I had been missing. I have long anchored my faith in trusting God. There is much we—and I—do not know. I don’t know how I will face suffering as health declines. I do not know very specifically what will happen when I die, or what lies beyond death except in general terms based on symbolic language in the Bible. But I can accept the unknown because I really do trust God. I know that the ultimate power over all things is the loving father revealed in Christ.

What I want at this point is to know God and to experience God in a personal way. This is the desire expressed by the psalmist:

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (Psalm 42:1-2, NRSV)

--To be continued in a future post

42 and the Meaning of Life

William Thomas and his friend Walter Earl were twelve and fourteen years old in 1887. They lived in Trappe Springs (now Garner), Texas, about forty-five miles west of Fort Worth. One day their Baptist parents caught them playing cards, which was strictly forbidden. They then turned to dominoes, which were allowed, but thought to be boring. They created a new game in which the spotted tiles made up suits and yielded a point total of 42. The game called 42 caught on and became a popular Texas pastime taken very seriously by adults. (Dennis Roberson, Winning 42, p. xii).

Many 42 players are as devoted to their game as people who play Bridge, often playing every week. My wife’s 102-year-old aunt has played all her life and still plays twice a week in the nursing home. During an extended stay in Texas last year I was reintroduced to the game. I could see why it is so popular.

Recently I happened on an article about the Internet in the New Yorker magazine (Jill Lepore, “The Cobweb,” New Yorker, January 26, 2015, p. 40). It contained an odd fact that caught my attention. In the 1979 humorous science fiction novel, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a hyper-intelligent race of beings built a computer to calculate “the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.” After millions of years the machine came up with the answer, “42.” Clearly those Texas boys were on to something back in 1887.

A Tale of Two Churches

            On Sunday, August 4, I worshipped at Immanuel Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, where I served as pastor for 30 years. This is an old church that is home to an educated congregation of academic, business, and professional people. Most worshippers dress in their Sunday best, including suits and ties, but some come in good casual clothes. I felt very much at home in the beautiful sanctuary with large windows on each side looking out on the green landscape of the upscale neighborhood of Belle Meade, hearing the wonderful Moller pipe organ played by Dr. Richard Shadinger, and listening to the 30 voice choir in their formal robes, led by Dr. Jerry Warren. As always, I admired the floral arrangements by Charles Businaro, a skilled and experienced decorator. The service was led by Pastor Steven Meriwether and Associate Pastor Tambi Swiney, both dressed in their black pulpit robes with gold stoles. Tambi delivered the sermon, telling about a group from the church who had just returned from a mission trip to Hatii. We sang hymns from our new Celebration Hymnals. We took communion together at the end, coming to the front to receive the bread and the cup. It was a true experience of worship.

            The next Sunday I was back at the First Baptist Church, Lorena, Texas, where I served as interim pastor for eight months. This is a small town twelve miles south of Waco, just beside I-35, where more than 100,000 cars and trucks pass by every day. It is also an old church, even older than Immanuel. It serves a small but growing community of good hard-working country people, a few educators and professional people, and a number of commuters who work in Waco. It is a lot closer to what most Baptist churches in the South and Southwest are like. The worship is what is called blended, that is, it combines a choir, familiar hymns, contemporary songs, a band with drums and guitars, a screen for projecting the words to the songs, a warm and friendly atmosphere, and frequent applause. A few worshippers and choir members raise their hands in praise as we sing and pray. No organ, no choir robes. Also, no suits and ties, except for the preacher, the music leader, and the pianist. This, too, is a true experience of worship. (For the record, neither church’s worship service is bringing in the crowds.)

            Immanuel Baptist, being a more academically oriented congregation, has a lot of members who ask questions and think outside the box. They are very much in the orthodox Christian tradition, but they could not pass a strict doctrinal test. They treasure the Bible and believe it, but they recognize that it needs interpretation and that some of its features are conditioned by historical and social circumstances that are not essential to the faith and cannot be directly applied today without some theological analysis. They support new seminaries that train ministers to think critically and interpret theologically. They ordain women as ministers and deacons and give them positions of leadership in the church.

            Folks at Lorena are more traditional, like most Texas Baptists. I started my ministry preaching to the dairy farmers in Jack County, Texas, and I was trained at a Texas Baptist college and a Southern Baptist seminary in Texas. I remember talking with a man at an associational meeting in Jacksboro one night in 1962. When I told him I was a seminary student, he said, “Well, the seminary ruins preachers.”

I understand what he meant. To let go of the literal interpretations and the simple, dogmatic answers opens us up to some dangers and struggles—some would say a slippery slope that will destroy us. Education can cut us off from ordinary people, who are most of the people. But some of us find that we have a stronger faith if we face the doubts and questions and come out on the other side. We also find that today’s complex world cannot be engaged with simple, dogmatic answers. A young person who has been taught not to trust science will have a hard time dealing with college, and a harder time living in our scientific age.

            Well, then, what have I been doing in a traditional Southern Baptist Church? The answer is that God has led me into intentional interim ministry in my retirement years. I came to the church as an outside consultant to guide them through an established process of self-study and planning in order to be ready to call a new pastor. I was not there to change their theology or their worship, although I did preach to them the Bible and basic Christian doctrine, and I worshipped with them gladly.

Moreover, they have ministered to me. I have found these people to be genuine, committed Christians who are as close or closer to God than I am. They study and know the Scriptures. Their Bible knowledge is impressive. They witness to the Gospel and help people come to faith in Christ. They believe in prayer, and they do more of it than a lot of Christians I know. Their worship is lively and fervent, and I am impressed at how well they join in congregational singing (unlike some contemporary churches I have visited, where the people just stand there and watch the praise team sing). Many of them practice tithing—a helpful by-product of taking the Bible literally. Also, though they may not put as much emphasis on education as my Nashville friends, they are just as smart. I have learned this year that truck drivers, carpenters, auto mechanics, and electricians are usually very intelligent. A lot of people who never went to college could easily have done so if they had chosen to or been able to when they left high school. They are also hard working and dedicated. The lay members of this church do the work, lots of it, and do it gladly. They don’t tell you “No,” like many over-committed upper-middle-class people do. They are also fun to be with. I have enjoyed lots of potluck meals and domino games. I have found the people of Lorena to be true friends, and I have come to love them a lot.

Serving the same church for thirty years can make you think the whole world is like that, but it’s not. Being in three different churches the past eight years has been a learning and growing experience for me. God wants, and the world needs, lots of different kinds of churches.

A Change of Plans

Peggy and I came to Waco, Texas, the first of January this year so I could serve as intentional interim pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lorena, a small town about twelve miles south of Waco on Interstate 35. This was my second interim position in Texas. I signed up for interim work there because our daughter and her family live in Waco, and Peggy has a lot of relatives in the state. We rented a small apartment in Waco and looked forward to spending a year or more with the people at Lorena. We planned to make short trips to Nashville every six weeks.

On the first trip back I went for my annual physical and found that my PSA (prostate specific antigen) had risen significantly, a possible indication of prostate cancer. It took several more trips to get more tests and a diagnosis. In May I went to my urologist for a biopsy and was told that I have a very aggressive type of cancer. Another visit in June led to a treatment plan and shot to suppress the hormones that feed this kind of cancer. There was no sign of metastasis in the bone scan or the CT scan but there is the possibility of some microscopic local spreading. This meant that surgery is not indicated, and the best approach is hormone therapy and external beam radiation. I began hormone therapy on June 6.

On July 29 I met with my radiation oncologist and began preparations for treatment to commence in late August and continue for nine weeks. This kind of treatment is not too hard on the patient, and I will be able to be active and feel reasonably well during the process. I currently have no pain or other symptoms and can function normally. I expect the treatment to be successful.

I am glad to live in a time when people are more open about cancer, but I still find that many do not know how to relate to the cancer patient. Cancer is still a scary word and a scary reality. There are many kinds and degrees of cancer. For some people it is a terminal illness. For many others it can be cured only by means of debilitating and painful treatment. Mine is not in those categories, so I don’t want people to be worried about me. On the other hand, it is potentially dangerous, so I do appreciate people being concerned and offering their prayers.

I will conclude my service at Lorena on August 17 and move back to Nashville. I greatly regret not finishing the work there, but they have found another experienced intentional interim minister in the area who can step in and pick up where I left off. The people in the church are very loving and supportive and we have enjoyed very much being with them. We are grateful that we will always have friends in Lorena. We have other friends and relatives in Texas whom we had hoped to visit during our stay and several side trips we wanted to take, but those will have to wait a while.