My name is Caroline Weerstra, and I am a book addict. Yes, I admit it. I love books. It scarcely even matters which kind. I love fat ones and thin ones, old ones and new ones. I love fairy tales and horror novels. I love science tomes and historical records. My dream is to turn an entire wing of my house into a gigantic library. In reality, of course, my house is not large enough to have wings. Nor am I entirely certain what a house wing is. It is the sort of thing you read about in books. Especially old Victorian novels about creepy old mansions where inexplicable wails ring though corridors in the dead of night. There are always hidden wings to the house, with entrances concealed cleverly behind a bookshelf.
There would be nothing cleverly disguised by my bookshelf except more bookshelves. I am not interesting enough to have big adventures, nor cunning enough to keep such secrets. I would be demonstrating my Secret Corridor to all my friends within hours of its completion. "Look!" I would say. "Here is where I keep all my theology books. I sorted them by level of heresy!" One must have a system. (It is a side effect of having changed religious beliefs that one ends up with a lot of heretical books from the early years. I am never certain what to do with them.)
My daughter Kaylee is now reaching the age at which I can introduce her to my favorite books. It is like bringing her to meet dear friends. "My dear daughter, meet Elwin Ransom, who was kidnapped and taken to Mars by crazed scientists. This is Jim Hawkins, who fought pirates on Treasure Island. And I would like you to get to know Hamlet. He is a little crazy, but well worth knowing ..."
There is a wealth in literature, a feast of language and story and knowledge. It is one of God's greatest gifts. I honestly believe it literacy as necessary as food and shelter. Without books, the mind starves, just as the body starves without food.
So let's share ... Are you a book addict? What are YOUR favorite books?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
No Tomorrow
On April 27, 2011, David Wilkerson died. The car he was driving inexplicably wandered into the path of an oncoming truck. Wilkerson died at the scene of the crash.
I wonder how to react to such news. I must admit that when I heard it, I drew a deep breath. It felt as if a heavy weight sitting on my chest had lifted. "He is dead, and I am alive," I mumbled. "How ironic is that?"
An picture of my former home in Montana rose before my eyes, clearer than the dining room in front of me. I seemed to see the whole sweeping vista of grassland, horse pastures, distant mountains, and a beautiful home surrounded by lilac bushes and petunia beds. It all started here, here where my mother read David Wilkerson's book Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth and became obsessed with apocalyptic visions.
Thinking of Montana always makes me a little sad, because it reminds me of all that we lost, or rather all that we gave away. This picturesque landscape could have been the making of a very happy childhood with many long-term friendships. But we were only children, and we quickly became infected with my mother's particular brand of insanity. Soon, we were convinced that the United States was about to be destroyed by fire from heaven, and that our only path of escape lay in selling our home and venturing overseas to the 'mission field.' And so we left, even cheering our good fortune at finding someone to buy the house.
As I see it in my mind now--the beautiful old home, the rolling fields, the river--I always wonder why we did not see what we were giving up. The 'mission work' never really worked out the way my mother thought it would. No mass conversions took place, no great healing ministry, no glorious rapture or even martyrdom. After five years wandering around South Korea, we returned to the United States with little to show for our experience. I left home, my parents went back overseas, and after that, I rarely saw my family again.
Apocalyptic predictions (such as the one given by Harold Camping) are tremendously damaging. People who think that there is no future do strange things. And our family certainly became very strange. I remember lying on the turquoise living room carpet in that house in Montana and crying silently as I listened to my mother read David Wilkerson's book aloud to us and told us that the end was near. I thought of everything I wanted to do with my life--how I wanted to grow up and go to college and get married and have children ... and now it was all disappearing. There was no tomorrow. We had to act before it was too late. We had to sell the house and move to the mission field.
Except that there was a tomorrow. And here it is now. But what a lot of needless pain and anguish went into the discovery that, like every false prophet, David Wilkerson was wrong. I wonder whether he ever knew how many people suffered because of him, or whether he surrounded himself only with people who told him what a great man of God he was. I wonder whether he believed his own predictions or he was only attention-seeking. I wonder whether he went to heaven or to hell.
I cannot know his mind. All that I know is that one morning when he got into his car for a drive, there was no tomorrow for him. I will leave the rest to God.
I wonder how to react to such news. I must admit that when I heard it, I drew a deep breath. It felt as if a heavy weight sitting on my chest had lifted. "He is dead, and I am alive," I mumbled. "How ironic is that?"
An picture of my former home in Montana rose before my eyes, clearer than the dining room in front of me. I seemed to see the whole sweeping vista of grassland, horse pastures, distant mountains, and a beautiful home surrounded by lilac bushes and petunia beds. It all started here, here where my mother read David Wilkerson's book Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth and became obsessed with apocalyptic visions.
Thinking of Montana always makes me a little sad, because it reminds me of all that we lost, or rather all that we gave away. This picturesque landscape could have been the making of a very happy childhood with many long-term friendships. But we were only children, and we quickly became infected with my mother's particular brand of insanity. Soon, we were convinced that the United States was about to be destroyed by fire from heaven, and that our only path of escape lay in selling our home and venturing overseas to the 'mission field.' And so we left, even cheering our good fortune at finding someone to buy the house.
As I see it in my mind now--the beautiful old home, the rolling fields, the river--I always wonder why we did not see what we were giving up. The 'mission work' never really worked out the way my mother thought it would. No mass conversions took place, no great healing ministry, no glorious rapture or even martyrdom. After five years wandering around South Korea, we returned to the United States with little to show for our experience. I left home, my parents went back overseas, and after that, I rarely saw my family again.
Apocalyptic predictions (such as the one given by Harold Camping) are tremendously damaging. People who think that there is no future do strange things. And our family certainly became very strange. I remember lying on the turquoise living room carpet in that house in Montana and crying silently as I listened to my mother read David Wilkerson's book aloud to us and told us that the end was near. I thought of everything I wanted to do with my life--how I wanted to grow up and go to college and get married and have children ... and now it was all disappearing. There was no tomorrow. We had to act before it was too late. We had to sell the house and move to the mission field.
Except that there was a tomorrow. And here it is now. But what a lot of needless pain and anguish went into the discovery that, like every false prophet, David Wilkerson was wrong. I wonder whether he ever knew how many people suffered because of him, or whether he surrounded himself only with people who told him what a great man of God he was. I wonder whether he believed his own predictions or he was only attention-seeking. I wonder whether he went to heaven or to hell.
I cannot know his mind. All that I know is that one morning when he got into his car for a drive, there was no tomorrow for him. I will leave the rest to God.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Post Presbytery Analysis: Grace and Jellybeans
On my way to Presbytery this year, my husband had asked me why I enjoy attending these events so much. I am ex-UPCI, and that designation generally comes with a large dose of distrust toward all manner of clergy.
"You are scared of pastors and elders," he said. "Why do you like meetings that are so packed with them?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Pastors are like tarantulas," I finally offered. "Really fascinating to watch in their natural habitat, but absolutely terrifying if they show up in the pew next to you and want to shake hands."
"Except our pastor?" he laughed.
I shrugged. "I've had that tarantula around long enough to be pretty sure that it doesn't bite."
There is more to my interest in Presbytery, however, than the sort of interest one might have in wildlife. Presbytery is medicine for an ex-cultist. There is a striking blend of annoying humanity and profound faith that weaves itself through the entire event. My notes collect little absurdities and deep reflections like a child collects pebbles on a beach:
(1) "The singing is incredible!" It was. When I described it later to my husband, I said, "They sing like they believe it!" Every time a hymn was sung, the voices rose in a chorus loud and strong, with no hesitation or whispering. With no worship leader or choir or band, they sang with fervency and conviction, as though they knew that God Himself was right there among us.
(2) "The toilet seat was up AGAIN!" Apparently, even Presbyterian ministers become markedly less civilized when their spouses are absent. The main restroom at the church in Upton was a small, one-person bathroom, and the sign on the door indicated that was available for the use of both men and women. Three times I visited the restroom during Presbytery, and all three times, the toilet seat was up. My husband points out that he was been to many, many men's restrooms in his life, and he has seen far worse violations of common decency. "Maybe they didn't put the seat back down again before they left the bathroom," he said, "But, on the bright side, at least they put the seat up."
(3) "They don't argue when they are out-voted." This has always been a shocking feature of Presbytery for me. As an ex-UPCI woman, I tend to expect pastors to behave like spoiled children, throwing fits and threatening people with hell if ever they do not get their way. When the vote is taken and one pastor dissents from the common opinion, I suck in my breath and wait for the explosion. But it never comes.
"The 'ayes' have it," the moderator proclaims, and then adds dryly, "Unless we need to see a show of hands. We do need a two-thirds majority on that one."
Laughter briefly ripples around the sanctuary, and then the meeting moves to the next item on the agenda.
It is amazing.
(4) "Missionary work is very practical." The discussion of missions work revolved around common sense concerns. A seminary in Uganda needed more staff. One missionary suffered severe back pain and needed to serve in a field where the roads were less rough. Another missionary was facing frustrations with visas for his wife and children.
There is nothing super-human about Presbytery, and for ex-Pentecostals, that is like finding water in the desert. At Presbytery, no one gets up in front of the crowd to shout that he has healed 400 people and traveled in a chariot of fire. Such extravagant claims of supernatural power are commonplace in the UPCI, and they might seem exciting to someone who has never lived day in and day out with those expectations upon them. In reality, no one can live up to Pentecostal expectations. We are humans. We cannot call angels to carry us when we are tired. We have back pain and frustration with government bureaucracy. We cannot heal those struck down by cancer or other diseases. Eventually, we die.
The drama of Pentecostalism becomes emptier and emptier the further one digs into it. Healings are claimed but then fail to materialize. People are told they do not have enough faith to receive God's help. They try harder. They pray harder. They fast more. They work and work and work and work, and in the end, they have nothing to show for it.
The emptiest souls of all are the pastors, who have learned to cover all their failures with layers of showmanship and lies. Their role is to spur exhausted people on to do more and more in the hope that it will all pay off one day. Someday, the sky will open and the miracles that everyone was waiting for will finally arrive -- if we only do a little bit more. People die waiting, disappointed and wondering whether God will even open the door of heaven to them, or whether it will turn out that they did not have enough faith even for that.
There is, truly, a lesson on grace in the mysterious jellybean dispenser in the basement. One could not get the candy out by shaking it or twisting knobs. There were no magic words or rituals of fasting and 'claiming the promises' that would make any difference. Just hold your hand out, and suddenly, there it is.
We often forget amid the emphasis on Jesus' divinity that He was also a man. He ate and slept, worked and rested. He knows what it is like to be tired. He tells the weary that if they will come to Him, He will give them rest. He does not hide His blessings in some unnavigable maze where people run themselves to death searching for salvation.
Presbytery is far from perfect. Some of the presbyters talk too much. Some of them show up unprepared for their presentations. Some no doubt have had their quarrels with one another. Some leave the toilet seat up.
But it is a beautiful imperfection because it is real. It is a church on a rock and in no danger of being swallowed up by shifting sands. We can never achieve anything by running around trying to prop up a house with a bad foundation. But here on the rock, there is a sort of deep quiet even amid life's uncertainties.
Here, you only have to hold your hand out.
"You are scared of pastors and elders," he said. "Why do you like meetings that are so packed with them?"
I thought about it for a moment. "Pastors are like tarantulas," I finally offered. "Really fascinating to watch in their natural habitat, but absolutely terrifying if they show up in the pew next to you and want to shake hands."
"Except our pastor?" he laughed.
I shrugged. "I've had that tarantula around long enough to be pretty sure that it doesn't bite."
There is more to my interest in Presbytery, however, than the sort of interest one might have in wildlife. Presbytery is medicine for an ex-cultist. There is a striking blend of annoying humanity and profound faith that weaves itself through the entire event. My notes collect little absurdities and deep reflections like a child collects pebbles on a beach:
(1) "The singing is incredible!" It was. When I described it later to my husband, I said, "They sing like they believe it!" Every time a hymn was sung, the voices rose in a chorus loud and strong, with no hesitation or whispering. With no worship leader or choir or band, they sang with fervency and conviction, as though they knew that God Himself was right there among us.
(2) "The toilet seat was up AGAIN!" Apparently, even Presbyterian ministers become markedly less civilized when their spouses are absent. The main restroom at the church in Upton was a small, one-person bathroom, and the sign on the door indicated that was available for the use of both men and women. Three times I visited the restroom during Presbytery, and all three times, the toilet seat was up. My husband points out that he was been to many, many men's restrooms in his life, and he has seen far worse violations of common decency. "Maybe they didn't put the seat back down again before they left the bathroom," he said, "But, on the bright side, at least they put the seat up."
(3) "They don't argue when they are out-voted." This has always been a shocking feature of Presbytery for me. As an ex-UPCI woman, I tend to expect pastors to behave like spoiled children, throwing fits and threatening people with hell if ever they do not get their way. When the vote is taken and one pastor dissents from the common opinion, I suck in my breath and wait for the explosion. But it never comes.
"The 'ayes' have it," the moderator proclaims, and then adds dryly, "Unless we need to see a show of hands. We do need a two-thirds majority on that one."
Laughter briefly ripples around the sanctuary, and then the meeting moves to the next item on the agenda.
It is amazing.
(4) "Missionary work is very practical." The discussion of missions work revolved around common sense concerns. A seminary in Uganda needed more staff. One missionary suffered severe back pain and needed to serve in a field where the roads were less rough. Another missionary was facing frustrations with visas for his wife and children.
There is nothing super-human about Presbytery, and for ex-Pentecostals, that is like finding water in the desert. At Presbytery, no one gets up in front of the crowd to shout that he has healed 400 people and traveled in a chariot of fire. Such extravagant claims of supernatural power are commonplace in the UPCI, and they might seem exciting to someone who has never lived day in and day out with those expectations upon them. In reality, no one can live up to Pentecostal expectations. We are humans. We cannot call angels to carry us when we are tired. We have back pain and frustration with government bureaucracy. We cannot heal those struck down by cancer or other diseases. Eventually, we die.
The drama of Pentecostalism becomes emptier and emptier the further one digs into it. Healings are claimed but then fail to materialize. People are told they do not have enough faith to receive God's help. They try harder. They pray harder. They fast more. They work and work and work and work, and in the end, they have nothing to show for it.
The emptiest souls of all are the pastors, who have learned to cover all their failures with layers of showmanship and lies. Their role is to spur exhausted people on to do more and more in the hope that it will all pay off one day. Someday, the sky will open and the miracles that everyone was waiting for will finally arrive -- if we only do a little bit more. People die waiting, disappointed and wondering whether God will even open the door of heaven to them, or whether it will turn out that they did not have enough faith even for that.
There is, truly, a lesson on grace in the mysterious jellybean dispenser in the basement. One could not get the candy out by shaking it or twisting knobs. There were no magic words or rituals of fasting and 'claiming the promises' that would make any difference. Just hold your hand out, and suddenly, there it is.
We often forget amid the emphasis on Jesus' divinity that He was also a man. He ate and slept, worked and rested. He knows what it is like to be tired. He tells the weary that if they will come to Him, He will give them rest. He does not hide His blessings in some unnavigable maze where people run themselves to death searching for salvation.
Presbytery is far from perfect. Some of the presbyters talk too much. Some of them show up unprepared for their presentations. Some no doubt have had their quarrels with one another. Some leave the toilet seat up.
But it is a beautiful imperfection because it is real. It is a church on a rock and in no danger of being swallowed up by shifting sands. We can never achieve anything by running around trying to prop up a house with a bad foundation. But here on the rock, there is a sort of deep quiet even amid life's uncertainties.
Here, you only have to hold your hand out.
Presbytery - Part 3: A Very Brief Meeting
So what was Presbytery like this spring?
Spring 2011 Presbytery was held in a small church in Upton, Massachusetts. By the standards of Orthodox Presbyterian churches, the building was quite modern, having been constructed in the 1970's (according to a sign engraved on the outside of the building). The church had two floors. The main floor housed the sanctuary and a handicapped bathroom, while the basement .... well, I actually have no idea what was in the basement. Due to my own handicap issues, I never ventured down the stairs. However, I imagine it must have been lovely, because the representatives were constantly wandering down the stairs and coming back up in a jovial mood with handfuls of jellybeans which were apparently available via a motion-sensitive jellybean dispenser (no, I'm not kidding).
"I would like to point out," said the hosting pastor, "that you merely have to hold your hand under the dispenser to receive jellybeans. Some of you have been completely befuddled in your efforts to get the jellybeans out other ways."
"There is a lesson on grace in there somewhere," commented an astute pastor in the audience.
I counted forty-eight people present, only three of whom were women. Possibly there were more women in the basement hovering over the jellybean dispenser, but if so, they never emerged to the main floor.
For the first time, I was able to attend the entire Presbytery meeting. I was there at the opening on Monday at 4pm, and I was there when the last prayer was prayed and the doxology sung on Tuesday around 2:45pm. In the eyes of our Presbytery, that constituted a Very Brief Meeting.
The breathtaking pace of the meeting obviously caught some of the presbyters by surprised. Several committees, when called upon, demurred in mild embarrassment, asking that their reports be postponed until they were better prepared. "I normally do not speak until this time tomorrow," said the chair of the Foreign Missions Committee. "You know, when the presbyters eyes are glazed over and they don't even know who is talking anymore."
By the next morning, the confusion had evidently been resolved, and the committees took to the pulpit with new energy and purpose. (See graph below for breakdown of Tuesday discussion).
The morning began with a sermon by a man who was seeking licensure as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The same man was later examined by the Presbytery on his theological views.
However, the main focus of the meeting seemed to be on missions. The Home Missions committee reported on various church-planting efforts with encouraging reports and discussion of difficulties and challenges at each location. The Foreign Missions committee discussed relief efforts in Japan and several locations in Africa, and the need for another missionary family to join the one already serving in Haiti. An OPC chaplain recently returned from working with soldiers headed to and from Afghanistan spoke of the terrible heartache, sleep deprivation, and exhileration of working with soldiers who were in such desperate need for spiritual guidance.
The other key feature of this Presbytery meeting seemed to be prayer. The representatives prayed over everything--for each mission work, for the chaplains, for the committees, for the food being prepared downstairs, for the guy who left early because his wife called him to say that the baby was sick... I wondered whether they prayed more than usual this time, but I suspect that it was only the faster pace of the meeting that made such prayers more frequent and thus more obvious.
As I watched them stand every few moments to earnestly entreat God on some matter, I was struck by an impulse to add my own prayer request. I wanted to tentatively raise my hand. "Excuse me? Yeah, I know I'm not really supposed to have the floor, but I'm just wondering ... My husband's father died last night, and he is really sad about it. And he has to go out of town for the funeral, and I have a really difficult time when he is gone because I'm ill ... will you pray for both of us?"
I never did work up the nerve for that, and so I will always wonder whether they would have prayed for us if I had asked.
Spring 2011 Presbytery was held in a small church in Upton, Massachusetts. By the standards of Orthodox Presbyterian churches, the building was quite modern, having been constructed in the 1970's (according to a sign engraved on the outside of the building). The church had two floors. The main floor housed the sanctuary and a handicapped bathroom, while the basement .... well, I actually have no idea what was in the basement. Due to my own handicap issues, I never ventured down the stairs. However, I imagine it must have been lovely, because the representatives were constantly wandering down the stairs and coming back up in a jovial mood with handfuls of jellybeans which were apparently available via a motion-sensitive jellybean dispenser (no, I'm not kidding).
"I would like to point out," said the hosting pastor, "that you merely have to hold your hand under the dispenser to receive jellybeans. Some of you have been completely befuddled in your efforts to get the jellybeans out other ways."
"There is a lesson on grace in there somewhere," commented an astute pastor in the audience.
I counted forty-eight people present, only three of whom were women. Possibly there were more women in the basement hovering over the jellybean dispenser, but if so, they never emerged to the main floor.
For the first time, I was able to attend the entire Presbytery meeting. I was there at the opening on Monday at 4pm, and I was there when the last prayer was prayed and the doxology sung on Tuesday around 2:45pm. In the eyes of our Presbytery, that constituted a Very Brief Meeting.
The breathtaking pace of the meeting obviously caught some of the presbyters by surprised. Several committees, when called upon, demurred in mild embarrassment, asking that their reports be postponed until they were better prepared. "I normally do not speak until this time tomorrow," said the chair of the Foreign Missions Committee. "You know, when the presbyters eyes are glazed over and they don't even know who is talking anymore."
By the next morning, the confusion had evidently been resolved, and the committees took to the pulpit with new energy and purpose. (See graph below for breakdown of Tuesday discussion).
The morning began with a sermon by a man who was seeking licensure as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The same man was later examined by the Presbytery on his theological views.
However, the main focus of the meeting seemed to be on missions. The Home Missions committee reported on various church-planting efforts with encouraging reports and discussion of difficulties and challenges at each location. The Foreign Missions committee discussed relief efforts in Japan and several locations in Africa, and the need for another missionary family to join the one already serving in Haiti. An OPC chaplain recently returned from working with soldiers headed to and from Afghanistan spoke of the terrible heartache, sleep deprivation, and exhileration of working with soldiers who were in such desperate need for spiritual guidance.
The other key feature of this Presbytery meeting seemed to be prayer. The representatives prayed over everything--for each mission work, for the chaplains, for the committees, for the food being prepared downstairs, for the guy who left early because his wife called him to say that the baby was sick... I wondered whether they prayed more than usual this time, but I suspect that it was only the faster pace of the meeting that made such prayers more frequent and thus more obvious.
As I watched them stand every few moments to earnestly entreat God on some matter, I was struck by an impulse to add my own prayer request. I wanted to tentatively raise my hand. "Excuse me? Yeah, I know I'm not really supposed to have the floor, but I'm just wondering ... My husband's father died last night, and he is really sad about it. And he has to go out of town for the funeral, and I have a really difficult time when he is gone because I'm ill ... will you pray for both of us?"
I never did work up the nerve for that, and so I will always wonder whether they would have prayed for us if I had asked.
(Coming soon: Post-Presbytery Analysis).
Presbytery - Part 2: Death at Presbytery
I wrote in my last blog that I was prepared for all surprises at Presbytery. I packed up my medicine, brought lunch and coffee, remembered my jacket ... but I sit now on the bed at home as my husband scours the Internet for the best deals on plane tickets. He is going to his father's funeral. One cannot protect oneself against all surprises.
Deaths are always a shock, even when they are 'expected.' We knew this day was coming -- knew it better than some who were more affected by it. My father-in-law himself refused to acknowledge that he was dying until the last few days of his life. In the early months of his diagnosis, those around him were praying for healing and 'standing with him in faith.' I looked on it all with stoicism born of having lived with chronic disease for much of my life. "I pray that God will sustain him," I said, because I could not say that I believed he would live.
Perhaps my tone sounded cruel, but if so, it was only reality that bruised and cut. The fantasy in which people recover from terminal cancer and live forever is a lie, and, like all lies, it bursts like a delicate soap bubble against even a tiny blade of grass in the real world.
By the time that my husband and I were leaving for Presbytery, the bubble of illusion that surrounded his father had already been vaporized by the steady march of cancer. My father-in-law was weak and his breathing irregular. We had been told three weeks earlier to expect his passing any time. What do you do when you are waiting for the news that you do not want to hear but know could come at any time? Oddly enough, you go on as if nothing were happening at all. You get up in the morning, eat breakfast, get the kids started on their schoolwork. You practice for the annual talent show and plant sunflowers in the yard. You pack for Presbytery. You do all those things because another unpleasant truth in the real world is that life goes on even when someone is dying. You cannot sit in your house and wait, because life does not wait for such things. And finally, when the end comes, it warrants a couple of days in which people gather to say their goodbyes, and then everyone scatters to pick back up where they left off with living.
All of us are at the same time completely irreplaceable and completely irrelevant. The march of history thunders on with us or without us, and yet each person occupies a unique time and place. Each life is like the sun--so crucial, so bright and blazing up close, but lost amid billions of other stars if we could step back a few thousand light years to view the whole Milky Way.
As for myself, at the moment that one little star blinked out forever, I was at Presbytery. My phone emitted a tiny cheep, and a text popped up to the screen. "Dad is in a coma." A few hours later in our hotel room, my husband received the shock that we had expected ever since the cancer diagnosis more than a year before: his father had died.
We looked at each other across the hotel room as the kids dashed about in their swimsuits, excited about the promised swim in the indoor pool. We had barely arrived, but we thought about packing up and heading home ... to do what? The funeral would not be held for at least three days.
There was no family to see back in Schenectady, and our pastor was here in Massachusetts, presumably at a hotel somewhere down the street.
And so my husband took the children swimming. We ate dinner. We snuggled on the oversized blue chair in our hotel room and talked in low voices about our thoughts on death and dying, while the children watched a movie in the next room.
We stayed at Presbytery.
To be continued.
Deaths are always a shock, even when they are 'expected.' We knew this day was coming -- knew it better than some who were more affected by it. My father-in-law himself refused to acknowledge that he was dying until the last few days of his life. In the early months of his diagnosis, those around him were praying for healing and 'standing with him in faith.' I looked on it all with stoicism born of having lived with chronic disease for much of my life. "I pray that God will sustain him," I said, because I could not say that I believed he would live.
Perhaps my tone sounded cruel, but if so, it was only reality that bruised and cut. The fantasy in which people recover from terminal cancer and live forever is a lie, and, like all lies, it bursts like a delicate soap bubble against even a tiny blade of grass in the real world.
By the time that my husband and I were leaving for Presbytery, the bubble of illusion that surrounded his father had already been vaporized by the steady march of cancer. My father-in-law was weak and his breathing irregular. We had been told three weeks earlier to expect his passing any time. What do you do when you are waiting for the news that you do not want to hear but know could come at any time? Oddly enough, you go on as if nothing were happening at all. You get up in the morning, eat breakfast, get the kids started on their schoolwork. You practice for the annual talent show and plant sunflowers in the yard. You pack for Presbytery. You do all those things because another unpleasant truth in the real world is that life goes on even when someone is dying. You cannot sit in your house and wait, because life does not wait for such things. And finally, when the end comes, it warrants a couple of days in which people gather to say their goodbyes, and then everyone scatters to pick back up where they left off with living.
All of us are at the same time completely irreplaceable and completely irrelevant. The march of history thunders on with us or without us, and yet each person occupies a unique time and place. Each life is like the sun--so crucial, so bright and blazing up close, but lost amid billions of other stars if we could step back a few thousand light years to view the whole Milky Way.
As for myself, at the moment that one little star blinked out forever, I was at Presbytery. My phone emitted a tiny cheep, and a text popped up to the screen. "Dad is in a coma." A few hours later in our hotel room, my husband received the shock that we had expected ever since the cancer diagnosis more than a year before: his father had died.
We looked at each other across the hotel room as the kids dashed about in their swimsuits, excited about the promised swim in the indoor pool. We had barely arrived, but we thought about packing up and heading home ... to do what? The funeral would not be held for at least three days.
There was no family to see back in Schenectady, and our pastor was here in Massachusetts, presumably at a hotel somewhere down the street.
And so my husband took the children swimming. We ate dinner. We snuggled on the oversized blue chair in our hotel room and talked in low voices about our thoughts on death and dying, while the children watched a movie in the next room.
We stayed at Presbytery.
To be continued.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Presbytery, Spring 2011
It is nearly Presbytery time again, and I am packing like a squirrel storing up for winter. During each of the two previous Presbytery meetings that I attended, I found myself woefully ill-prepared in some measure or other. The first one saw the Great Crash Off My Meds that left me weak and wobbly, struggling helplessly in the kitchen to get the lid off my medication. The second Presbytery caught me without a lunch.
But THIS time ... ah, this time, I am planning like it is a trip across the Sahara. Nothing will catch me off-guard this time. I will have food. I will have medicine. I will have water to take the medicine. I will bring an extra jacket in case it is cold. I will bring a clipboard and pen. I will have my cellphone ... My husband, glancing over my shoulder at the ever-expanding list, informs me that I will also need a camel to carry it all. I write it down on the list: CAMEL. You never know.
My pastor tells me that there may be no need for much packing. "There's not a lot on the agenda," he says. "We may be out early." He says it in a hopeful tone, the same tone that all New Yorkers use to say every autumn that it will doubtless be a mild winter.
"I could file a complaint against you," I suggest helpfully. "That would give Presbytery something to do."
"What complaint?"
"Oh, I don't know, but I'm sure I can think of something fun. Is there anything in your wardrobe that is woven out of two kinds of material? Because, you know, Leviticus 19:19 CLEARLY says ...."
I expect that it would STILL be a short Presbytery, although also a highly amusing one in which every pastor and elder present would be able to go home and say to his respective spouse, "You won't BELIEVE what we had to discuss at Presbytery."
But, alas, we shall have to be content with the current agenda.
Stay tuned. There will be reports, pie charts, pictures ... possibly even a poem. After all, what is Presbytery without The Presbytery Reports?
But THIS time ... ah, this time, I am planning like it is a trip across the Sahara. Nothing will catch me off-guard this time. I will have food. I will have medicine. I will have water to take the medicine. I will bring an extra jacket in case it is cold. I will bring a clipboard and pen. I will have my cellphone ... My husband, glancing over my shoulder at the ever-expanding list, informs me that I will also need a camel to carry it all. I write it down on the list: CAMEL. You never know.
My pastor tells me that there may be no need for much packing. "There's not a lot on the agenda," he says. "We may be out early." He says it in a hopeful tone, the same tone that all New Yorkers use to say every autumn that it will doubtless be a mild winter.
"I could file a complaint against you," I suggest helpfully. "That would give Presbytery something to do."
"What complaint?"
"Oh, I don't know, but I'm sure I can think of something fun. Is there anything in your wardrobe that is woven out of two kinds of material? Because, you know, Leviticus 19:19 CLEARLY says ...."
I expect that it would STILL be a short Presbytery, although also a highly amusing one in which every pastor and elder present would be able to go home and say to his respective spouse, "You won't BELIEVE what we had to discuss at Presbytery."
But, alas, we shall have to be content with the current agenda.
Stay tuned. There will be reports, pie charts, pictures ... possibly even a poem. After all, what is Presbytery without The Presbytery Reports?
Kaylee on Calvinism, Part 2
The free will of man means that God lets people decide. In I Kings 18:20, Elijah says, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” So that is a decision for man. Sometimes people wait for God to determine the outcome, but God tells us to repent. In Acts 2:38, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you.” So we have to make a choice, and everyone has to decide to turn their hearts to God.
Sovereignty of God or free will of man? Which goes first? Does God choose you first or do you choose God first? The answer is it’s both. But where I go to church, we emphasize that God chose you first, because God chose people even before the world was made. Now it’s time to answer the question, remember the bullies beating up Miley Cyrus? Why God let that happen? Did the bullies decide to beat up Miley, or is God in charge? What about if it happens to me or to you? The answer is, well, actually, we don’t know why these things happen. God is wiser than us, but sometimes, we think that he did it to change people’s hearts or some reason like that. But we still don’t know why he let bad things happen. We have to trust God.
Sovereignty of God or free will of man? Which goes first? Does God choose you first or do you choose God first? The answer is it’s both. But where I go to church, we emphasize that God chose you first, because God chose people even before the world was made. Now it’s time to answer the question, remember the bullies beating up Miley Cyrus? Why God let that happen? Did the bullies decide to beat up Miley, or is God in charge? What about if it happens to me or to you? The answer is, well, actually, we don’t know why these things happen. God is wiser than us, but sometimes, we think that he did it to change people’s hearts or some reason like that. But we still don’t know why he let bad things happen. We have to trust God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
