An Anniversary

While a large part of the world marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, I find myself observing a different anniversary of a different death. Twenty years ago tomorrow, my mother, Joel Dee Hill, lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. Even now, at the age of 40, the thought of Mom's passing feels like a punch to the gut; the pain of loss less acute and more deep than 1987. Even then I found the date of her death so near what would have been the 10th anniversary of Elvis' death interesting. She had to have been one of the biggest Elvis fans on the planet.

A few weeks back, I wrote a tribute to my surrogate mom, Gay Dove, who passed away in June. I would be remiss if I didn't do the same for the woman who raised me and gave me a home.

Like Gay, I can't list everything that Mom was to people here on this blog. It would take up terabytes of space and the hosts might be more than a bit peeved with me. But I do want to make sure that I point out some of the qualities that were most special to me.

• Mom was one of the most loving people I've ever known, if not THE most loving. This was, I believe, most evidence in her dealings with my brother and I. I was adopted. Mom had been told that she'd never have children, and in the late 60's that was pretty final. A little over four years later, she went to the doctor to be treated for stomach flu and found out that the flu was in fact a pregnancy. My brother was in fact the miracle baby that they never expected they would have. While I will confess that my dad did play favorites to some degree, Mom never did. She made sure we were loved equally and treated equally despite our very different interests and the fact that our age difference made for less than tranquil domestic life. This boundless love is probably where my desire to adopt a child stems from.
• Connected with her love was Mom's ability to forgive. Mom had a rough life. Her father died when she was in her early teens, and her mom (my grandmother) remarried (to the man I knew as my grandfather). They had a child of their own (my aunt), and favoritism ensued. Mom and her brother Pat routinely received the short end of the stick, but she still forgave. When Uncle Pat tragically died when Mom was a young woman, she forgave. She was severely injured by a hit and run driver as a teen and she forgave him. As an adult, she was walked on and treated poorly by people at work, my grandparents, my brother, and by me. Her forgiveness knew no bounds. And when she sat in my grandparent's home on her 47th (and last) birthday; tubes sticking out of her, and listened with tears as my aunt told her she was a terrible parent, she still forgave. I don't know how she did it...especially since she didn't choose to follow Christ until late in her life; I just know that I wish that I had that gift sometimes.
• Mom loved God dearly. As I said, she didn't become a follower of Jesus until later in her life. But three things stand out to me as evidence of this. The first was the day I left for college. Mom gave me a Bible in which she had typed out and pasted Scripture references of comfort for me. I still have that Bible to this day and it is one of my most cherished possessions. Second, was her focus while she was so sick. She simply wanted to feel good enough to be able to go to church services. Finally, four days before she passed away, Mom looked at me from her hospital bed and said, "Trust in the Lord. Always trust in the Lord." Just writing about that still causes me to tear up.
• She was a tireless advocate for the things about which she was most passionate. Mom made trips to the state capital, talked to the local school board, and the superintendent numerous times as an advocate for gifted/talented children, and for ADHD back in a day when these were all very new topics. I remember her fighting to make sure I was challenged educationally and that I and others like me were treated as the special kids we were, not as bad kids.

Tuesday, August 18, 1987 will always be engrained in my mind. I remember being asleep and suddenly seeing Mom in her hospital gown saying, "I've died, and I don't want you to worry. I'm not in pain anymore." I know some of you will say I'm loopy, but I will insist even today that Mom's spirit stopped by to say goodbye to me before she left for good. I remember that being followed by a phone ringing at 7:30 in the morning and knowing that the call was to tell me Mom had died. I remember having to wake my brother up that morning to tell him the news.

But as much as those memories still stick to me today, so do the memories of the woman who sewed costumes for me for Halloween. I remember the woman who celebrated every Christmas by playing her Elvis Presley Christmas music 8-tracks (yes...I said 8-tracks). I remember the woman who sacrificed so much in order to make sure that Walt and I had the best life we could. I remember the woman who adopted me "factory fresh" out of the womb and loved me as if I were her own flesh and blood. Sure, I have regrets that she wasn't alive to see me graduate from college or to be present for my wedding, or to hold her grandchildren. But I also know that she's in a far better place and I will see her again. I'm sure some of my emergent peers might smirk a bit about the blatant Heavenly paradise reference, but that's OK with me, and I'm sure it's OK with her too.

In memoriam:

Joel Dee Hill: June 28, 1940 - August 18,1987

Peace - Redux

A few weeks back, I posted something on about my struggling with finding inner peace, or more like having lost peace. Lately, I've had time on my hands (unemployment does that to you), have been spending a lot of time praying and journalling in order to gain some sort of spiritual insight as to just what is next for Christy and I.

As I was running errands yesterday, I was praying and it suddenly occurred to me that despite all the uncertainty around me right now, I felt more at peace than I have in many months. As soon as that came to me I started having a conversation with God about why this was. In His own unique way, the answer was made clear; I was free of inner turmoil because I was no longer struggling against what God was wanting to do in the next stage of my life. That was relieving to me, until I began to wonder exactly what it was I was struggling with God over.

The answer came to me during my quiet time as I was journalling. I was meditating on James 1:5-8, and the phrase "double-minded" jumped out at me. Suddenly, it made sense. I've been of two minds or at least had two trains of thought struggling within me. During this whole post-Sanctuary era, I've been praying about what's next for Christy and I regarding our ministry here in Ohio and praying for workers for the harvest here in Ohio. God seems to be saying something very different and the two have been clashing, hence my lack of peace.

So while the peace issue has been solved, this has reminded me about how easy it is to, in the pursuit of truly seeking the direction of God for our lives, inadvertently tune Him out because He's not where we expect him.

UGH!

This morning I read this article and this article in the Dallas Morning News that really troubled me. If you're not up for reading both articles, the short form is that a prominent church in the Dallas area agreed to do a funeral for a Persian Gulf veteran who was not a member of the church, and then 24 hours prior to the funeral notified the family that they would in fact not do the service because the deceased was gay.

Now beyond the fact that it's clear there were some major communication problems, there is something that is disturbing to me. But before I go further, I want to clarify my stances.

1. From my reading of Scripture, and the resultant teachings I see regarding the purposes of sex and of gender roles, I personally cannot justify the practice of homosexuality. That being said I have had many gay friends and students along the way. These are people who knew that I disagreed with the lifestyle, but likewise knew that it didn't change how I viewed them as a person or did it cause me to like them less.
2. From my reading of Scripture, and the resultant teachings I see regarding agape love as demonstration by Jesus the Christ, I cannot justify how many fundamentalist conservative churches treat homosexuals as second class human beings. Over the years the fundamentalist bloc has administered the same sort of treatment to women, the divorced, and the unwed mothers. I particularly dislike it when this treatment is then deliberately obfuscated by "loving actions", as might be the case with this situation as outlined by the statement read from the pulpit yesterday. This is just another example of the credibility gap in some churches; stated values and values in practice are divergent.
3. If some Christians are going to skewer homosexuals for their sin, then I challenge them to be consistent and skewer the gluttons, the gossips, the drunks, the liars, and the like; which in reality, includes ALL of us at some level.

Now here's what disturbs me.

We live in a time when the Christian Church is and has been rapidly losing credibility. I hear people frequently talking about how they like Jesus but hate Christianity. Why? The dichotomy between calling and conduct. This could have been a time when compromise could have been reached or better still, why not let the service take place with a mea culpa and the assurance that this was a ONE TIME DEAL. How hard would it have been to work out something with the family in which a pastor could have stood up and said, "We as a church do not believe in homosexuality. However, we believe in keeping our word, and we believe in treating all people with love and respect. That being the case, we open our facility to you to honor the life of your loved one."? I can't help but wonder how that might have impacted not only the family, but the gay community as well. I'm not saying that there would have been a massive turning away from the gay lifestyle, but perhaps, just perhaps, there could have been a thaw in the icy "us vs. them" relationship.

Jesus waded into the midst of the sinners, the socially and politically undesireable, in order to teach, to love, to redeem, and to restore. We should be doing the same thing. Unfortunately, too many times, it seems like we're too "Christian" to be like Christ.

Pitching Anxieties

Last night, I was writing an entry for my spiritual journal, something I've been doing for the last 10 years, regarding 1 Peter 5:7 which reads in the KJV:

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

I'd felt really drawn to meditate on this a bit, because truth be told, as much as I've wanted to be totally serene during this time of discontinuity in mine and Christy's lives, I just haven't been able to do so consistently. In fact, I'd have to say that more commonly, I'm more likely to bottle stuff up than let it go. But I digress.

I decided to look up the definitions of what I believed were key words in the parent koine Greek. This is what I came up with:

Casting: Strong’s defines this as “to throw upon”; not a passive or gentle act.
Care: anxiety; distraction
Careth: cares for; desires to take care of

Usually when I do this, I wind up using this to rewrite the passage or paraphrase it in my own words. In this case, the "Tim Translation" was: “Throwing your anxieties upon Him (God), because He desires to take care of you” I started to really think about that. THROWING my anxieties upon God. He asks me to throw my worries on Him. Not gently lay them at His feet, not ritualistically present them as if they were some sort of offering, but to actually THROW them at His feet. Suddenly it hit me that perhaps the reason God says it's OK to throw our cares upon Him is because if we throw them, we have to let go. We can't control what we don't hold.

Take a pitcher in baseball for example. The pitcher has a vast repertoire of pitches; sliders, fastballs, fork balls, curves, sinkers, knuckleballs, etc. Each of these requires the ball be gripped in a certain way, and thrown in a certain way. The pitcher can be meticulous in making sure the grip is correct and that the mechanics of delivery are correct, but once the ball leaves his hand, there is nothing he can do to change the flight. If a mistake has been made, he can't just run in front of the ball, intercept it, and try again. On the contrary, once the ball is released, the pitcher has to trust that the ball will go where he intended it to go, that the batter won't swing at it (and if he does, he misses it), and that the umpire will call the pitch a strike if the batter doesn't swing. Ultimately, once the ball is released, the pitcher lives by faith.

I'd submit that such is the case with us and our cares. We can prepare for every eventuality in dealing with the trials of life, but ultimately, once we choose to let go, to throw those cares upon the Father, we have to live by faith. It's really not possible to get in front of the released care, intercept it, and take it back to the "mound" for another go. If anyone were to suggest otherwise, I might ask if they ever truly released the care in the first place.

All that being said, I'm not sure I'm that great of a "pitcher". I wonder how many followers of Christ really are?

The Cult of Personality

I read this article today on how a the results of a recent survey seem to criticize the media for excessive coverage of celebrity scandals. I would have laughed about it were this not so tragic, and in reality telling about the American "cult of personality".

Honestly, I don't get it. I just don't. This is not something that I personally obesses over. In the past three years the only "celebrity" news items on which I truly invested any time were the deaths of Presidents Reagan and Ford, Pope John Paul II, and James Brown. Why? Those were people whose contributions to the world will continue to be discussed 100 years hence. I can't see that Paris, or Britney, or Lindsay, or Michael Vick have contributed anything of substance that would be discussed any more than a month from now. I mean, really, do you think that a century from now, musicologists will be discussing Oops, I Did It Again as a seminal work of 21st Century pop music? I doubt it. What about anything that Lindsay Lohan has committed to film? Somehow, I don't think we'll see Mean Girls on Turner Classic Movies. Michael Vick? Let's just say that I don't ever expect to see his bust in Canton; he's the 21st Century version of Randall Cunningham. Lot's of flash, no substance. Somehow I don't think we'll see his name being mentioned with Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, or Joe Montana as the great quarterbacks in the game.

It disturbs me that issues that deserve coverage like the Virginia Tech Massacre, the Minneapolis bridge collapse, the Benoit Family murders / illegal steroid use story, rising fuel costs, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the very disturbing trends within our own government (on both sides of the aisle), are pushed to the back burner as soon as the latest Lindsay Lohan mugshot comes out. Quite frankly, I wonder how much coverage Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, or 9/11 would get now?

But worse than the media coverage of this sort of drivel, is that Americans apparently blame the media for it. Mr. Pot, may I introduce you to Ms. Kettle? The media only sensationalizes this sort of stuff because WE watch it. For them, it's all about ratings, and they're only going to show what brings in the ratings. So here's an idea, if over 50% of Americans polled blame the media, and another 30% blame themselves, then why don't we solve the problem simply by NOT WATCHING? Don't watch that Nancy Grace special focused on Nicole Ritchie's arrest. Turn off ESPN when they start doing extended coverage of Michael Vick's trial. How about turning the TV off altogether, reading a good book (or even the Scriptures), or even spending some time talking with God?

As I said earlier, I really don't get this fascination with celebrity scandal. Maybe we're so jaded as a nation that we truly enjoy watching those who are supposedly better than us get their comeuppance. Maybe we are watching because for a brief moment we feel like we're part of something or someone that's "bigger" than us. Maybe we've gotten to the point that we just want to be entertained and we'd rather watch stories about celebrity screw ups than be overwhelmed with more bad news about the wars, the housing market, oil costs, and politics. Maybe watching coverage of these celebrity scandals is our anesthetic that numbs us from the reality of the world today. If that's the case, I want to share with you something Jesus said:

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.”

Until next time, peace.

Deaf Ears

My last couple of posts have elicited a great deal of support via comments and e-mail, and I'm appreciative of the sentiments. The journey's just getting started I'm sure, but it's comforting to know that many people are out there praying for Christy and I.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog.

Having three dogs and a cat requires a lot of food; so Petsmart is a common stop for Christy and I. A couple of Saturdays back, I was making my bi-weekly stop for dog food, cat litter, and the like, when, as I pulled into a parking spot, there was a knock on my window. I rolled down the window and an older lady handed me one of those cheesy vinyl keychains you might get at a discount store. Attached to the the keychain was a little note explaining that she was deaf and she was selling these to support herself. I signaled to her that, unfortunately, I had no cash. She smiled and walked off. When I came back out about 30 minutes later, I saw she was still out there in the parking lot, trying to sell some keychains.

As I drove off, I felt guilt over not being able to help her, and an anger over the state of the world. Despite this area's economic problems and the overall economic malaise that sits upon this nation, we still are one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We have vast resources; SURELY we have more to offer this woman than selling cheesy keychains for donations. I mean, if we can offer vast welfare resources for others, some of whom quite frankly are milking the system, then SURELY we can offer people like this woman more that that? For crying out loud, she's just DEAF! She's not incapable of taking care of herself. She's not an invalid. She just can't hear!

When did we as a country, and perhaps as the church in America lose sight of our responsibility to help those who are less fortunate? I cannot imagine that Jesus would have told her to go sell novelties in Nazareth and ask her to bring Him the money. No, He would have taken action. Maybe He would have healed her (and this is the most likely), but at the very least, I imagine that Jesus would have performed some miracle to make sure that this deaf woman was taken care of.

Why isn't the church looking out for "the least of these"? Why can't we do something radical...say pay for the woman to have a cochlear implant, or at the very least provide people like her with real opportunities to have a chance at a real life?

Why aren't we taking action, or has the call of Jesus to show compassion to those in need fallen upon deaf ears?

A Very Special DVD

This past Saturday, I received a package containing a DVD. Not just any DVD, but a very special DVD. I received a DVD recording of Gay's memorial service. Debbie knew that I had been struggling with guilt over not being able to be at the service, so she brought the service to me...a month later.

As I popped the DVD into my laptop, I wasn't sure how I'd react. Seeing old faces, hearing old voices, having a window opened into a part of my life that ended 7 years ago. The orchestra that I played with for 7 years; the pastor who was foundational in getting my head on straight 15 years ago. All were there, and all were there to celebrate the life of the woman whom I called mother for most of my adult life.

I know that time passes and people age, but I have to admit that I was shocked at how time has aged my former music pastor, Rod, and Pastor Speer. The people whom I was close to at this church when I first started attending 15 years ago were now grey. It was shocking! For a moment, I had to step back and compose myself and remind myself that If I've aged, so have they. I guess that this shock of seeing people changed is really the crux of the old saying, "You can never truly go home."

Yet as I watched this, I had to celebrate not only Gay's life, but also what God had done in this church, and in me over the past several years. I remember playing in that orchestra from nearly the outset and watching it grow over 7 years. The work that God has done and hte beauty that has been created through the current incarnation is absolutely amazing. I'm grateful that God allowed me to play with such amazing artists and in truth, people.

As I listened to Pastor Speer, I was reminded about the impact he had in my life. Without his teaching, as well as Joe and Gay's mentoring, I might never have overcome my bitterness toward God and I certainly wouldn't be empassioned for ministry like I am today. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I'd even be alive.

I may not, at this stage of life, gravitate toward the style of worship at Cielo Vista Church. At this stage of life, I might not even consider it as a church home were I still living in El Paso. But in watching a very special DVD, I was reminded of the special place it holds in my physical and spiritual life.