reflections

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecc. 12:13

Last week was a cascade of reflections as I retraced some very old steps, revisiting friends and places from my childhood. The home where I learned how to ride a bike, discovered the magic of the Lone Ranger on radio, spent enchanting rainy afternoons rummaging in the attic, and was first set free to roam the neighborhood is now a slum. No self-respecting family would want to live there amidst unkempt yards, peeling paint, and “beware of dog” signs everywhere. The corner grocery store where we traded five empty pop bottles for a full one is boarded up, just one more dead building among many. I retraced my steps to school that had to have been a mile or two and found they were only 4 city blocks.

I visited my old one-room country school house where now lived Tim Fitch and his wife. He invited me in where I saw those same old floor boards where once I trembled as a fledgling 5th grader coming as a city boy into this strange new world. Outside, the boys’ and girls’ outhouses still stood, and I saw many of the same old trees, now ancient with age, under whose branches we played countless softball games. Memories returned of a red plastic lunch box and after-lunch story times as we listened to the old WLS radio station out of Chicago where dads could hear all the latest hog and cattle prices that so affected their lives.

By gracious chance, I met some of those old classmates from that humble school and was staggered at the deep pools of experience, life stories, joy, and calamity that stood before me in comparison to the easy, uncomplicated, exuberant lives I had left behind so many unscarred years before. The tall, strong boisterous one I so remembered was now disabled, struggling to deal with a number of near-crippling injuries. Another was caught in a mystery of pain, frailty, and estrangement from job and family yet the spirit that drew us together as friends was the same. He called me his “best friend,” which left me reeling as I reflected back on the 50 years of silence that had passed between us.

And then there were the high school classmates who had reached out to me, people I had really never known who now made a deep impression with their gracious hospitality towards me as a fellow survivor of that class of ’62. One spoke from his wheelchair, a man disabled in an accident in middle age who still worked, traveled, and created marvelous woodturnings. We talked eagerly of life and woodworking and jobs and children with him and his ever faithful wife as if none of his personal tragedy had ever happened.

I could not visit the grave of my longest boyhood friend for his ashes were scattered on some lake in Canada, but visited instead the resting place of his son who represented all that was good in my friend’s life. I met the son’s widow for the first time, and we filled in the pieces of our ragged accounts of years gone by and retraced the journey of faith that now bound us together; new family ties. Tears and prayers became cords of hope and love as we drew close together, a down payment on better days to come.

I spent time with old church friends, my now semi-retired “youth group,” as we reconnected the dots of our lives. The old church building itself was alive with a thousand memories as I went from room to room recounting the aches of adolescence. We talked of lives now ended, marriages dissolved, wayward children, and other tales of woe. Yet there were victories, too, as we witnessed those still smiling faces that bore testimony of a well worn and tested faith.

So many old faces speaking out with still familiar voices, so many stories, from classmates to cousins, lifetimes now ripe to the full, all spilling out, calling for some way to make sense of it all, while I stood there with my puny collection of years. I somehow am drawn to the words of another old man who looking back could only conclude, “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Rather anti-climactic, I know, but it’s the only memorial that seems fit to raise.

Pain

“… every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” John 15:2 KJV

While wading through the fever-ridden swamps of educational philosophy these days in our public school system, you will encounter some curious sign posts. One of them points to “rigor.” It is a cry for coursework that means something, for grades that count, and for a diploma that represents hard-earned accomplishment. Its supporters call for tougher standards, greater accountability, and an end to watered down subjects. This is reflected in the increasingly more difficult academic path that has come down by legislative fiat from our state legislatures which is just now poised to take effect at the high school level.

The other curious sign post you will find directs us to discover “student centered” education. It promotes an intimate and personal identification with the student, their particular needs, their feelings, and their points of view. With it goes the hope and desire that by learning about the student and this particular generation, we can discover how to motivate and inspire them to achieve, and lo, even to graduate. It is a touchy-feely approach that seeks to cater to individual needs, to find out how and when we can create some kind of educational experience that will enable them to flourish and succeed. Students fail and drop out because we fail to care or listen or relate or use the latest teen-popular technology.

Like most great conundrums, there is some element of truth in both positions. What is especially curious is how both of these currents of thought are alive and well at the same time in this present chaotic morass that exists in our schools today. I don’t fault them for trying. Something is dreadfully wrong in our society and the public school system has the unenviable mission of trying to fix it. But these opposing visions are on a direct collision course with one another.

We at CFC are not totally immune from these conflicting feelings. We all like the idea of “rigor” until junior brings home a failing grade in tears. Then we question the sensitivity of the teacher who seemingly rides roughshod over tender feelings and threatens to quash a young spirit with their unreasonable demands. Which leads me to the following.

I received this e-mail the other day from a friend living and working as a teacher in Nicaragua. He writes:

I just got back from the gym, and, after 5 days in a row, I am sore. I have pain. Now, it is a good kind of pain. It signals that I have done something. I increased weight beyond what I could do without pain. No, I did not overdo, but my muscles are going through the cycle of pain and rebuilding they must go through for strength to increase. This morning, while conferencing with my student teacher, she told me she felt God had specifically given me to her as a mentor. Why? Because I do not rush in to tell her exactly what to do in every situation. I have sat back and watched her go through the pain of lessons that did not go right, discipline plans that needed to be adjusted, and the frustration of having to work through that. She says this has made her a better teacher. Before this she was not sure she wanted to teach. Now she will be back next year as the science teacher on our team. As a somewhat charismaniac I have lived through the era when we felt Christians should not have to deal with pain. Many of us were surprised when it came our way, frankly. This, however, is false thinking. Rocky would not have been the hero to all he was without his black eye, and bleeding face. There can be no victory without a battle. There can be no growth, it seems, without pain at some level. So, I am thankful for the pain I have lived through. Each major battle in my life has been used to make me the person I am today. That is not to say I came through it all with a smile. Quite the contrary, I have often railed and screamed in private. Sometimes I have done so in the not so private. Yet, I am still here. As Lawrence Chewning wrote, "The anchor holds, in spite of the storm." There are no major storms in my life right now. I am in a time of calm. I pray that I will face the next battle with these thoughts in mind. Be blessed today. Life is good. God is better. -Dan

Pain and rigor. May we allow it to do its perfect work, lowering anchors that hold in spite of the storm.

encouraging word

“Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.” -Pro.12:25 KJV

It started out as a rather routine Sunday school exercise. Attempting to illustrate the importance of words and the meanings they bear, we went around the circle each sharing an instance when someone had spoken a word of encouragement into our lives at some point along the way that had a particular impact on us. The average age in the room was near fifty which was illuminating as these secure, well-grounded Christian people began recounting episodes in their lives which, more times than not, had happened decades ago. The stories started spilling out of various circumstances and times when someone had affirmed them and brought hope to their roomful of doubts.

One mature lady reached back to her high school days when in a conference with a couple of teachers, one of them remarked how, in her opinion, this young student could do anything she wished and affirmed her abilities. It was a thought that had never struck into her young and immature mind. A lawyer in the room told of another high school teacher who had singled her out with a compliment and a challenge. “You can write,” she told her, “and I want you to take this college level test.” As a result, she did and scored exceedingly well. But after earning an exemption from English coursework at college and completing an undergraduate program in finance, she found herself in law school once again having to write. Her first paper came back with a big fat “C” on it, and she thought her world was crumbling around her. As she sat crying in the student center, a professor came along who reassured her that one bad grade does not doom a career. “I know you and have studied your admission papers. You have what it takes.” And that began a long and fruitful mentoring relationship that brought her to where she is today.

A pre-school teacher recalled how an otherwise uncommunicative parent had written a note at the end of a term thanking her and the other teachers for all they had meant to her child and their family. It was a huge encouragement in an otherwise thankless environment. A retired teacher related how a student had returned to affirm that she had made a difference in a young life. It was a huge comfort that she had not labored in vain. Another teacher had recalled a truculent band student who had dropped out much to his relief and was surprised to hear positive and grateful words from this student some years later in spite of his self-confessed immaturity at the time.

Another woman related the intense emotional and legal struggles surrounding the settling of an estate in her dealings with a not-so-lovable real estate agent. After much travail of spirit and urges to kill, she decided to give grace and allow time for the agent to do the right thing. After all the legal wrangling and matters were settled, that agent returned to offer words of thanks for her acts of deliberate graciousness. It was a confirmation that God’s ways are higher and better than our ways. A middle aged gentleman shared how he had known he had great potential as a young student but had fought with feelings of failure all his life. His wife, one day, affirmed that he was actually ideally suited for a life as a purchasing agent, and it had made a huge difference in his life.

What struck me most was the depth of doubt that each of us wake up to and walk with each day. We manage to function quite well anyway but desperately need to hear those words of affirmation and encouragement spoken into our lives by those we respect. How quickly these folks recalled instances that had happened often years and years before with such clarity amplifies for me the importance of these words of vision, affirmation, and encouragement spoken into one another’s hearts. There is no call for flattery here or for ignoring the chasm of original sin that rips through all our lives. But the power of a healing word is as strong a medicine as any. We walk among and pass by those who lie by the sides of the road having been assaulted by the thieves of insult, weariness, discouragement, or injustice. May we have the eyes to see the broken in spirit and the wisdom to minister the healing balm of a life-giving word.