Category Archives: grief

Entertaining Angels

Posted on by
Reply

The sheer mind-bending stress of being your foster mom led to iconic images lodged in my head–

You two sitting across the table from me the first day I met you. Sizing me up over peanut butter sandwiches.

You eyeing your brother suspiciously. A lot.

You waking up one night when he woke up screaming (night terrrors) and looking at him with sleepy exasperation and then flopping down in relief when I scooped him up and took him to another room to ride out the storm–your body language was not my problem, back to sleep.

One night when you were ready for bed in your winter jammies. Your hair curly and adorable. I tickled you and you giggled, for a rare moment of laughter and peace.

You can be angry at me all you want. But you can’t stop love.

Your other mom

The whole town gathered at his door

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 1:32-34 (NIV)
That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. [33] The whole town gathered at the door, [34] and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

His door?
The whole town gathered at his door?

It is a beautiful image–a crowd of people. Some have bunions or arthritis, others have problems with acne or depression. Some might be paralyzed, others deaf or blind. They would have had cancer, depression, disease.

In the course of a 24 hour period a man has a demonic outburst in church and then the whole town sees/hears/responds to Jesus healing power by trucking out their infirmities.

A very good thing.

Imagine if the story went like this–

They saw what Jesus did for the demon possessed man but they did not want their neighbors to know about their weaknesses, illness, and grief, so they stayed home. Pretended they didn’t have any problems. Died prematurely.

Welcome to the American Christianity. Sure, we have hand sanitizer and flu shots now….But the truth is you have to have the courage, honesty, and desperation to admit you have a problem if you want to get healed.

I have a problem. I do not trust easily anymore. I used to be very trusting. Too trusting, you could say. But then that trust was broken, not by one or two people but a lot of people and my children were hurt. I watch my children in pain.

The loneliness and grief can seem overwhelming. So every day I go to Jesus’ door and I wait for him to heal me.

And he does, thank God.

A whacky miracle

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 1:23-28 (NIV)
Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, [24] “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” [25] “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” [26] The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. [27] The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.” [28] News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

I have heard that Beethoven added percussive elements to his fifth symphony because he was tired of people drifting off. Do not know if that is true, but I do know that a rousing case of demon possession will wake you up in church.

The first question: why is this guy in church, possessed? Wouldn’t you think the demon would have steered clear of Jesus?

Ultimately no one steers clear of him. He says we will all face him either in love or judgment.

I once saw something like this happen in a very large church outside DC. A man stood in the morning service (hundreds of affluent parishioners) and began shouting at the pastor.

He was ushered to the foyer and as he talked to the escorting deacons he began to take his clothes off at which point a man of action (former marine) put him in a headlock until EMS arrived.

Memorable. But this story is extraordinary.. Jesus makes the demon leave. He doesn’t need either a marine or EMS.

We watch too many horror movies when in truth real life is full of ordinary horror.

Demons do go to church and sometimes they appear to run the show–not with loud exclamations but with quiet joylessness, fear, envy, lust, and greed.

How does the story change if the man with the demon is just an ordinary guy? How about if he seems quiet and earnest and tends to participate in Sunday school? How about if the demon is just the spirit attached to fear, lust, or pride?

What do you want to be free from? And what do you want to be set free to do?

These questions shape our souls. The answers are of eternal significance.

The story to the bone

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 1:16-20 (NIV)
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. [17] “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” [18] At once they left their nets and followed him. [19] When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. [20] Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Let me just put the modernist paraphrase on this–an itinerate carpenter sees some dudes with legit jobs and tells them to quit them for an unvarnished Ponzi scheme.

I once got in trouble for trying to rid a church of a Ponzi scheme…those were good times.

Today this sentence popped into my head–kindness is it’s own reward.. I thought, not really…. Avarice, power-mongering and Viagra are their own rewards.

Kindness is a discipline practiced with one eye trained on eternity.

Same with this story. Take 12 grown men with decent jobs and make them penniless outlaws for a quack story about Resurrection? That is bad economics.

That is Jesus. What He calls us to leave is as important as what He calls us to pursue.

He says–

leave your life to gain it

and

take up your cross and follow me…

If he is wrong we are fools. If he is right….
Run to Him.

Mark: the superhero gospel

Posted on by
Reply

My young son loves superheroes, none more than Batman. With a generous amount of fast forwarding through schmaltz, I have been watching the latest Batman movie. I keep thinking it is a star-studded bloated mess. I also think that there are few movies worth perishing for and that the disaster in Colorado is all the more tragic when the film is all soulless violence.

Mark, by contrast, is the superhero gospel. People often note how fast the narrative moves and how time and action drive the story.

Mark 1:13-15 (NIV)
and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. [14] After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. [15] “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

We are still in the first chapter and we ask these questions–
wild animals and angels?
John in chains?
And how near, exactly, this kingdom?

The King. The king is who you want to follow. All the way to the end of the only true superhero story that has ever mattered.

Memorial Stones

Posted on by
Reply

We live in a party culture. We buy things on time. We are more likely to joke about the grim reaper on Halloween than face the devastation of death–especially tragic, violent death.

This year some of my friends lost family members. At least one death was a homicide. Lives were changed forever and I know that my friends carry their grief. I carry it with them.

I posted the report for this blog because I have been thinking about a baby girl named Toryn Buckman. She was brutally tortured and murdered. Just a baby.

Someone out there mourns for this little one, but can any of us face the statistics? Several thousand children die each year as the result of child abuse in the US alone.

Any country that is so dangerous for children is…not safe for anyone.

Grief and Christmas

Posted on by
Reply

A few years ago my family had a nightmarish Christmas.

We found ourselves at a mall, just before closing. I felt a special connection with all the other down-to-the-wire last minute shoppers.

In fact, to this day I have a great fondness for those people–the outliers, the late-workers, the Walmart cashiers, health professionals who have to work during the one or two times a year our culture shuts down for “family.”

The “family” in the nativity story is a pretty bedraggled eleventh hour at the mall sort of tableau–teen mom, far from home, no room at the inn…

It is a lonely story. We are all safe in the stable. There may not be a rocking party in it’s quiet grubbiness, but it is the birth of hope.

Come in. There is room for us all…

A Christmas Memory

Posted on by
Reply

One year after we discovered that our adopted son Charles had abused our children and others we suffered additional blows. More loneliness. Less community.

We had already lost family and close friends, our children’s friends because people treated us as though we were contagious, people we had known for years. The second Christmas brought more loss–from our church.

I went to the grocery store and saw a dear friend from another church. We had a brief conversation in the bread aisle and she saw the pain in my eyes as I told her the short version of our story.

Later that week I was complaining to God–
Why so much pain and loneliness?

I gathered our family and we began to sing Christmas carols. A few minutes later it sounded as though we were not the only singers. We went to our front door to find a group of carolers from my friend’s church singing in front of our house.

My friend was there. She said that after our talk in the bread aisle she felt God telling her to add a stop to their scheduled houses.

I appreciated my friend
I appreciated each singer

But I marvel at this God of Christmas who is able to rebut my loneliness and despair with song. Songs of light in the world.

Grief Poetry

Posted on by
Reply

I have been a little off today. Not looking in my side mirror enough, burning the toast–I wanted several times today to nap. Just nap. Today was a beautiful day and I could see myself caved up under a quilt.

The old dude I did not see in his shiny jeep would have preferred that.

This time I know what is wrong. It is more than my usual December malaise. It is more than my customary invisible arrow lodged in my sternum.

No. This was the weight of grief. The unavoidable heaviness that accompanies grief–knowing that ordinary families like mine are facing hell for the long haul, knowing we are not safe.

I do hold my children tight and I am constantly aware of their grace in my life.

It hurts to know the terrible thing we all face in death. The sign of a torn universe, waiting for consolation.

Memorial Words

Posted on by
Reply

The words are familiar, the voices quavering–

a table before mine enemies

Psalm 23 at the memorial for children who should have been safe at school.. What do we do with our grief? With Christmas? With all those presents for the fallen?

I have been praying for the Krims. I knew this holiday season would be terribly hard for them. Now I have this image in my mind–20 homes without their babies.

I keep thinking-they were six, they were six, they were just little.

Yes. I know some were seven. Seven years is long enough to fall in love with a bright light in the world and long enough to know that the dark has grown darker with each light extinguished.

These people will never be the same.
We should never be the same.

Yes. I know that each death hurts and the hurt is the more unrelenting because it was so cruel.

Cruel. Cruel like our enemies. Cruel like Herod ordering the murder of babies. A king who murders children?
This table set for us in the presence of…

Our enemies.
Chief among them, death itself.

We forget sometimes that the baby in the manger is the Man on the cross.

In the presence of our enemies.
He dies
To set this table where light cannot be snuffed out–
No matter what
Heaven