My last three columns

December 5, 2009
Women grieve in silence and shame

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
It was a memorial service unlike anything I have ever done. It was done in the silence of the night.
The leader was a woman named "Cindy" who scurried me into the sanctuary, where the windows were covered with paper to keep out curious eyes. Signs outside the entry clearly announced that this was a "private memorial service."
Cindy seated me at the end of a semicircle of 10 women positioned to face an altar adorned with a cross, candles, roses and Communion trays. She made no effort to introduce me. I was the first outsider and could only be tentatively trusted through Cindy's invitation.
The memorial service was for a silent night of grieving. It was the conclusion of a 10-week support group for post-abortion mothers.
At this point, let me say that those who see this group as political will disrespect the grief of these women. The most amazing thing about this group was that it was not political at all. No one spoke of overturning Roe v. Wade. They weren't planning marches or printing bumper stickers. They were expressing what they knew best: their own personal journey of grief and healing.
After the invocation prayer and a song, I led a short Communion service in which I explained "the Communion cup was a reminder of the day that God became culpable in the death of his son. It was on that day, the world darkened with God's pain. Because of that day, God experienced your pain."
Then came the most difficult part in the service -- one by one, each woman stood before the altar, announced the name they had given their aborted child, then presented a personal memento in memorial to their unborn child.
Each woman presented a different face of pain at the altar. One woman spoke of a failed relationship with the father because of the abortion. Another attributed the loss of her adult daughter to her own sin of abortion 30 years previous. Another woman wept over three aborted children.
With each presentation, the women lit a candle and placed a rose under the cross, signifying each child and symbolizing closure, that their child was now in God's hands. It also was a commitment to leave their guilt with God and press on toward the life God had given them.
In the memorial sermon that followed, I addressed their complicated combination of guilt and grief.
"It's tragic that society has disrespected and silenced your grief as a way of dealing with guilt of their own. As a result, you meet in anonymity for fear your grief will be discounted."
But most of all, I spoke about grace and growth.
I asked them to imagine something that I often ask people who are in the stages of grief and guilt. I asked them to imagine a God who could use the same creative powers used in creating their babies to create something new in them -- a new growth.
But I think the most important point that I shared with them is something I try to share with everyone on both sides of the abortion debate.
"God's grace," I announced to this group, "is so much bigger than anyone can define. It's not dispensed like a Christmas sale item limited to 'three per customer.' "
It's the same grace that was fervently announced on the most holy of all silent nights.
"Don't be afraid," the angel said. "I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide."
That event was the arrival of God's grace in human flesh. It meant limitless grace to the world. But the best of all, this event allows us all to burst through the silent night of our shame and bring us into the marvelous light of grace.
Norris Burkes is a syndicated columnist, speaker and author. He also serves as an Air National Guard chaplain and is board-certified in the Association of Professional Chaplains. You can e-mail him at norris@thechaplain.net or visit his Web site at thechaplain.net.
December 12, 2009
Our 'hero' is imperfect, but with direction

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
"When we last saw our hero, he was in the midst of danger and mayhem . . ." begins the narrated script of many of the old-time radio melodramas.
With the many adventures I write about, I sometimes imagine you reading this column in the narrator's tone of these old shows.
But, rather than sounding heroic, my script would sound something like this:
Narrator: "When we last left our hapless hero, he'd dropped his hat in the toilet . . ." or "He actually volunteered to go to Iraq . . " or "He got in trouble with his wife again."
Judging from e-mail response to last month's column, this week's narration could begin:
Narrator: "When we last left our dunderheaded hero, he was being rude to the underpaid restaurant staff who discarded the 12-page speech he left on the restaurant table."
If you wrote one of those e-mails, you might see what happened next as some kind of cosmic payback for the bad karma I spread at the restaurant.
Let's continue with the story:
Narrator: "After returning to the hotel from the restaurant, satisfied that he'd sufficiently bullied the restaurant manager into reprinting his speech, our hero was so frazzled that he left his GPS on the seat and forgot to lock his rental car.
"Sometime while our hero was fast asleep, a thief stole his GPS from his rental car, leaving our hero directionless for his drive to Mansfield, Ohio, the following morning. Unwilling to become directionless while driving a car with Michigan plates on the day of Ohio State's big game with arch-rival Michigan, our hero was forced to give up his hard-earned book profits to buy a new GPS."
Sad, huh?
Not so much. The new GPS speaks an impressive list of languages. If you choose English, you have a choice of accents: British, Australian or Midwest American.
Unfortunately, the unit didn't have the voice I really needed, the voice of God.
After all, Christian tradition teaches that God gave directions to Moses from the Burning Bush, to Balaam from a donkey and to Paul from a blinding light.
In the 21st century, I think God ought to speak to us through a GPS. GPS could stand for, "God Pushing the Saints." If there were such a GPS, we could program our life journey to steer away from the dangers of anger and jealousy and set a course straight for integrity and grace.
Judging from reader e-mail last month, I definitely could have used a God GPS during my trouble at the Ohio restaurant.
But, short of such a miraculous GPS, here's the deal I make with my readers: I will continue to write about "Spirituality in Everyday Life," emphasis on everyday, not just the good days.
That means I'll continue to write about my failures in the situations mentioned in previous columns, professional and personal.
I make this commitment because I'm not writing about life in a monastery or in the sanctuary. I write about the world we share, a world of temptations, frustrations and transgressions. While I know it helps to read columns that give decisive answers, I also believe it helps to read that someone else struggles and stumbles with some of the same issues we all deal with.
Maybe that's why the Apostle Paul would encourage his readers to work out your faith with fear and trembling. Or, as the message translation puts it, "Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God."
So, no matter how many times you read this column, rest assured you often will read, "The last time we saw our hero, he had gotten himself in another fine mess, but fortunately, God is still granting him the grace to make his way through the messes."
Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You can also follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.
December 19, 2009
A gift that keeps on giving

NORRIS BURKES
SPIRITUALITY
For those of you looking for the perfect last-minute Christmas present, I have an idea.
How about giving someone a kidney?
Brilliant, huh?
The idea occurred to me one holiday season while taking a break from my hospital chaplain job to renew my military ID.
In her effort to get me out quickly and back to the hospital, the clerk failed to check the box on my ID indicating my desire to be an organ donor.
When I pointed out the omission, she readily fixed it.
"Thanks," I told her, "It's for Elaine."
"Elaine?"
"Well, for Elaine and all the people like Elaine," I said.
Her puzzled look invited a more thorough explanation, so I happily recounted meeting Elaine in our hospital dialysis unit. Elaine was an energetic Guam native whose constant excitement about life gave her a smile that challenged the boundaries of her face.
"Isn't dialysis for people who don't have livers?" asked the clerk.
"No, people who don't have livers are sort of . . . how can I put this delicately? They are sort of dead. Dialysis is for people who don't have functioning kidneys.
"People like my friend Elaine can live without kidneys, but they have to go to a dialysis clinic three times a week for 31/2 hours. At the clinic, their entire blood supply is pumped through a filter to remove impurities."
"What kind of impurities?" she asked.
"Pee."
"Pardon?"
"Urine is how healthy kidneys remove impurities from your body," I explained. "If you don't have a kidney, then you need dialysis to remove those impurities. And while thankful for this life-saving process, many patients like Elaine wait for a kidney that will free them from the limitations of dialysis.
"That's why it's important for us to have the box checked on our IDs and driver's licenses."
"Cool," she said as she returned my warmly laminated ID as I returned to the hospital for our annual Christmas Advent service.
Coincidently, a few hours later, I ran into Elaine.
"Chaplain, did you hear? I got a transplant last month. The hospital called at 2 a.m. to ask if I still wanted a kidney because they had one waiting from a 45-year-old accident victim."
"Wow!" I exclaimed, adding a mumbled postscript, "Glad they checked the right box on their ID."
"Pardon me, chaplain?"
"Oh, uh, nothing. That's an amazing Christmas present. You look so great."
"Yeah," she said reaching in her pocket for her bottled water. "This is what's really amazing. I can drink all of this."
Most dialysis patients are unable to urinate and have rigid liquid limitations. Too much liquid and the lungs are flooded. Without dialysis, patients literally drown.
"Wow," I said. "Let me buy you a soda."
For the next 30 minutes, Elaine and I talked as she drank her soda and swallowed the 17 pills she takes three times a day. With the prospect of spending Christmas with her new gift, she was giddy and grateful, thoughtful and thankful, playful and prayerful.
Finally, she stood to make her exit, "Well, chaplain, it looks like it's time for me to go."
"Oh," I said, saddened that our impromptu celebration had ended so quickly. "Where are you going?"
Mustering her biggest smile of the morning, she simply pointed across the hall. I turned to look over my shoulder and flashed an agreeing smile as I noticed her finger pointing to the women's restroom.
"Merry Christmas, Elaine."
Additional Facts
Learn more
Each day about 68 people receive an organ transplant, but another 18 people on the waiting list die because not enough organs are available. This year, give the gift that keeps on giving. Visit Organ Donor. gov or kidneyregistry.org.