last four columns

I've been away this month celebrating our 30th anniversary on a cruise in Australia and New Zealand. We had a wonderful time!

I've posted the last four columns below.


December 26, 2009
Lessons learned in past year

NORRIS BURKES
SPIRITUALITY
Many of us enjoy reminiscing at year's end, and columnists are no different.
For that reason, and because I, too, am trying to wrangle some family time at Christmas, I've reflected on the three most important spiritual lessons I learned during my deployment at Air Force Field Hospital in Balad Iraq earlier this year.
Pray for everyone, even your enemies
I struggled with the literalness of Jesus' command as I was asked to pray for the surgeries in two operating rooms. One surgery was for a soldier who would die, and the other surgery was for the insurgent that had likely caused this carnage. The insurgent received the best medical care possible from the same people who were grieving the loss of a fellow service member.
Jesus summed it all up in the Sermon on the Mount: "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy'?
"I'm challenging that," Jesus flatly stated. "I'm telling you to love your enemies. . . . If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that." (The Message, Matthew 43-44a, 47)
Our trauma team didn't settle for run-of-the-mill.
And just so you know, neither did the fellow soldiers of the soldier who died; they were the ones who skillfully applied the life-saving tourniquet to the enemy combatant.
Forgiveness is for all, expecially ourselves
When a wounded squad arrived in our emergency room blown apart by an IED, there was a wounded medic who was tearfully asking whether she had done everything possible to save her battle buddy, an expectant father. He had pled with her to save him, even as he bled to death.
In a nearby bed, the other squad member taught me that forgiveness was for everyone when he asked me to "pray for the insurgents that did this."
"What should I pray?" I asked dumbfounded.
The soldier responded by telling me to pray the prayer that Jesus prayed from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
If he can forgive the insurgent, how cannot I forgive my fellow man of his most common failures?
All we have is this moment
I learned this best on our way home from Iraq when we attempted a landing in Baltimore. The landing was aborted because of a blown tire, and the inside of the plane was a wreck.
As we circled for another attempt, we assumed the crash position. I thought I should pray, but what should I pray? I felt tested. Should I pray for myself? For others?
I hoped this prayer test was only a quiz, not the cumulative final exam.
I bowed and felt a presence waiting for me to speak, a presence that I already knew in my heart.
"Thank you for this life," I prayed. "Thank you for my wife and family."
A moment spun through my head. I didn't feel like I'd been a great dad. The times I'd been absent -- physically and spiritually -- went through my head.
The lacking suddenly made me feel like I was being weighed on a scale in a spiritual assay office. The assayer was squinting through his one-piece eyeglass at the life I had put down.
I glanced up wondering whether my prayer was too selfish. "God, what about all these people?"
A soldier was about to meet his new son for the first time. An airman was trying to make a marriage work again. They all wanted another chance.
But alas, the only chance we have is the now, not the future. May God grant us all the courage to make that chance count this New Year.
January 2, 2010
A resolution that can change your life

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
I've have a great idea for your new year's resolutions.
Throw them out.
I guarantee that you only need one resolution. This resolution has the potential to change your life forever.
Resolve: This year I will forgive the person who has made my life miserable for the past several years. The truth is that holding on to a grudge is living in the past. It's holding onto dead issues, and that's why I liken it to talking to the dead.
No worries. I'm not talking about séances. I'm talking about the way we tend to resurrect issues and hurts that are dead and gone.
In this area, I occasionally play the medium. As I've said to congregations all my preaching life, "I live where you live. I walk where you walk."
One afternoon eight years ago, I had been flirting with some of these dead issues, hurts I couldn't seem to release.
These hurts came nearly as audible voices, and when my wife overheard me conversing with them, she challenged me to call my pastor.
But wait. I was a pastor, so who does a pastor call? I called my life pastor, my father-in-law, Wil. During the next few days, he challenged me to make time to work on releasing these hurts.
"How?" I asked.
Wil answered that question a week later when he showed up at our home with my mother-in-law. He brought my wife and me into our living room and we formed a circle.
From that circle, he read something that changed my life. It was called, "A Litany for Our Deepest Hurts." Here's how it read:
Leader: Because there are pains that do not heal as physical pain does with time, surgery or medication, we are engaged in this spiritual covenant in anticipation -- now or soon -- of eventual healing of our spirits.
Response: I accept and enter this covenant as if I were beginning a brand new journey in life.
Leader: The deeper the hurt, the longer the journey, whether in minutes, hours or days, to that healing destination brought about by forgiveness and release.
Response: I promise to move in that direction. I may not move as fast as you think I should, but today or daily I will release and surrender either all or some part of this cumbersome weight.
Leader: These hurts have many names such as bushwhacked, waylaid, back-stabbed, slandered, deceived, etc., and none hurt like that received from a perceived friend.
Response: I will cease giving it a name and simply reject anything in my mind and spirit that is counterproductive to what God has planned for me.
Leader: Ceasing to dwell on this matter is not a matter of weakness, for it will free your time and mind. Therefore, if you are willing to stop looking back and instead face a forward direction, then our mighty God will be better able to bless and direct a forward-moving life.
Response: Because I know you are right, I hereby give up to God my so-called "rights" I have attached to my hurts, knowing he will deal with those involved while also leading me "in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."
Since then, I've shared this litany with many audiences in the talks I've given in the past few years. No one has said that it's a magic pill, but most have found it useful as a strong first step toward deliberately ceasing to call on these dead issues.
As for myself, I continue to remember the litany as a daily touchstone, reminding me as does my Al-Anon friend, "Do you want to be right or righteous?"
January 9, 2010
Sex addiction most trying of them all

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
While the Associated Press recently named Tiger Woods Athlete of the Decade, I think he also might have the Addiction of the Decade.
Multiple adulterous affairs in such a short marriage are more common to the acts of sex addict than they are of your common adulterer. People who misbehave at this level aren't merely guilty of off course antics as described by the press; this is an addictive behavior.
While late-night TV is having fun with Tiger jokes, sexual addiction is no laughing matter. Like all addictions, it strikes people in all walks of life, from the skid-row pervert to the office manager.
It even strikes people of faith who do their best to follow the admonition of their faith. For Christians, it's found in Galatians: "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality . . . because these are improper for God's holy people."
Most of what I've learned about this subject, I've learned from the counseling of "God's holy people." As a chaplain, I've heard spouses promise before God that this would be their last time. I've heard them weep until they thought they'd squeezed every last ounce of sin from their soul, only to see the addiction return.
This especially is true for the sex addict whose mainline is Internet pornography. I've sat with spouses who've wept over their fears of inadequacy to their husband.
"Haven't I offered him enough?" asked one especially beautiful wife.
"You absolutely have," I assured her, "but this whole thing isn't about sex. It's not about you. It's about his addiction."
What makes this addiction particularly problematic is that there is no public support for the sex addict as there is for people who are addicted to food, alcohol, drugs or gambling. Most employers or family members will react in supportive ways when these addicts seek treatment.
So, forced into secret, sex addicts take the only way they know. They try the white knuckle or cold turkey cures. They apply all their willpower because they have to keep making a living. They lie to themselves promising that they will change. "This will be my last time!" they swear. But, alas, it's not.
Thankfully, there are serious treatment solutions for this addiction. The treatment road starts with an assessment test. The Sexual Addiction Screening Test was created by the foremost expert on the subject, Dr. Patrick Carnes, to assist in the assessment of sexually compulsive behavior. You can find it at Carnes Web site, www.sexhelp.com.
If you have the addiction, however, treatment cannot begin without acknowledging the common adage: "Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery."
That's why the most common treatment successes are found in self-help groups like Sexaholics Anonymous (sa.org) or Sex Addicts Anonymous (sexaa.org). Both groups practice the basic principles of recovery found in the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Woods truly is a legendary golfer, but can you imagine how truly great he can be if he gets the treatment he needs to free his mind from this garbage and really play golf? I hope we don't have to imagine too much longer.
Good luck to you, Tiger.
January 16, 2010
1st impressions sometime merit 2nd chances

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
I once brought a schnauzer home that immediately disliked all of my children and only tolerated my wife.
Sometimes, we aren't much different than my old dog, Heidi. Truthfully, haven't you ever reacted with immediate dislike toward someone?
I can recall three such encounters in my life.
My first encounter came when I was teamed with a college student to lead worship services in a local church. The college student was a man of deep faith, but when I learned he was the offspring of a ruinous rendezvous between his pastor father and the church secretary, I had a hard time disconnecting the young man from the sins of the father.
My second unpleasant encounter came years later on the second day of my one-year chaplain internship at a state university hospital.
As the interns met to share our faith journeys, I shared that I arrived there after taking a leap of faith to leave my well-paying pastor's position for the $10K a year internship.
The woman next to me then shared her story, but nothing in the world could have prepared me as she cleared her throat to speak: "My name is Vicki, and I'm a Catholic lesbian."
Suddenly, this woman made me feel that leaving the security of a salaried position for this internship would be the biggest mistake of my ministry.
Nonetheless, I graduated from the training and was hired by a Texas hospital, where I immediately felt repulsion for yet a third person. It was in the doctor's lounge that I extended a very reluctant hand to greet a doctor who regularly performed abortions.
I guess I figured that systematically excluding these undesirables from my life put me in good company with the disciples who followed Jesus.
Or did it?
Following Jesus on a pilgrimage to Galilee, his disciples hesitated as Jesus suggested a shortcut through an undesirable territory called Samaria. The Samaritans were undesirable, as they differed with the Jews over where God could be worshipped.
While the disciples objected to the shortcut, they bravely offered their company to protect Jesus. They protected him right up to the time they deserted him looking for their fish taco. I'd have been right at home with these brothers.
Left alone to find water, Jesus encountered a woman at a well and made his thirst known to her. Spewing sarcasm, the woman challenged Jesus' motives for confessing his thirst to a woman, especially a Samaritan woman, five times divorced with a live-in boyfriend.
Jesus brushed aside her sarcasm and won the woman over by persistently demonstrating his vulnerability and willingness to be involved in her well being.
Like the biblical world, our modern world is full of people who worship God in different ways, and recent events give us impulsive justification to despise different customs, lifestyles and religions. This impulse is best squelched by those who heed the advice of the Love Chapter recorded by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. "If I have not love, I become a clanging cymbal."
Eventually, with some God-given grace, I managed to squelch my repulsion for these three people. Good thing, too.
The offspring of the errant pastor introduced me to some awesome worship that year. The lesbian introduced me to an AIDS ministry and its countless victims.
As for the abortion doctor, he posted a flier in his office offering my services to all his patients. And unlike the protesters outside his home, he actually invited me to his home. By the way, we kept the dog for 14 years until her death a few years ago.
As for my wife, she learned to like the dog OK, but she said she'd boycott this column this week if it's about the dog, thereby proving the Scripture that says a prophet isn't always welcome in his own home.
Do you watch for God in your rearview mirror?

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY
We all do it.
We see a police car parked alongside the road, and we let off our accelerators.
And maybe, if you're like me and grew up on too much Eliot Ness or "Highway Patrol," you jokingly mutter something like, "Uh, oh, copper" and you glance down to check your speedometer.
Well, that was pretty much the scenario a few summers ago as I puttered down a side street returning to my hospital chaplain job with a milkshake designed to cool the 108-degree weather we'd had in Sacramento, Calif.
I was in a rush and didn't notice the parked police cruiser until I passed it.
"Uh, oh," I muttered as I checked my speedometer and then checked my rearview mirror to determine whether the cruiser was in pursuit.
It wasn't.
Maybe it wasn't occupied. Dared I pray that it was one of those parked cruisers used to slow people down?
I looked back again and held an extra long stare, but the glare off the patrol car windshield was too much to determine whether an officer was in it.
And that's when I noticed something else in my right mirror. It was an octagon-shaped sign standing in the intersection I just passed through.
Apparently, I had blown right through the stop sign the police unit had likely been assigned to monitor.
OK, this time I may have muttered more than "uh, oh."
I slowed; I even pulled to the curb in anticipation of the inevitable ticket. Waiting for the siren, I began to imagine the conversation likely to ensue:
"Officer, I'm sorry I was too busy making sure you weren't after me to see the stop sign. You do see the irony in that, don't you, officer? Ha, ha."
I held my breath. From the curb, I assumed a position of prayer. "Oh, God, pu-leeese."
A few thoughts immediately came to mind.
First, I thought of the four people killed in our county on the previous weekend when inattention caused one driver to cross the road and collide head on with another car.
I was thankful this ticket would encourage me to avoid that fate.
But mostly I thought of how often we live our lives with the thought of being monitored. While we're looking in our rearview mirror, life happens right in front of us. Perhaps what we miss may not be as life threatening as running a stop sign, but potentially it can be.
Worried that a boss is watching our work, we miss our child smiling at us. Worried our spouse is policing our credit card purchases, we work on covering our past tracks rather than opening forward lines of communication.
We also treat God like that sometimes; as if God is the officer policing our lives. In his time-tested book, "Your God is Too Small," J.B. Phillips describes people who see God as the "Resident Policeman." He describes this policeman as the "voice of our conscience."
When our conscience produces guilt, we feel caught by the policeman.
Phillips admits that while God uses our conscious to inspire "some inkling of the moral order," our conscious is not God. God is not a patrol officer. God is not about the business of producing guilt.
People do a great job of producing guilt on their own, as I discovered staring at the police car.
From the curb, my heart raced with the moral beating I was giving myself. I studied my rearview mirror carefully. The car wasn't moving. It likely was unoccupied. Like the scarecrows in the cornfield, the cruiser was a decoy.