Our faith is demonstrated through crisis management

I'm glad I'm sitting next to a chaplain," said a fellow passenger after hearing the pilot's announcement of a possible problem with our landing gear.

On our final approach, when we could see the emergency vehicles racing alongside us, my seatmate added, "I'm hoping you have some pull with the Big Guy upstairs."

That incident happened in the late '80s, but it wasn't the last time my traveling companions identified me as their good luck charm. It happened while patrolling in the aftermath of Katrina, during a bird strike on a military aircraft and also through a very dicey thunderstorm in a 35-year-old single-engine Cessna.

While sometimes charming, I know I'm not a good luck charm. Nevertheless, as I prepared to visit a few chaplain friends last month, I was praying for some of that luck.

My first visit was to a hospice chaplain who serves as comforting angel to the terminally ill. Unfortunately, she's not exempt from the devilish misery sometimes inflicted on good people.

While on an errand with her daughter, she met a drunken driver in the middle of a Sacramento, Calif., intersection. Her daughter is OK, but the jury still is out on my friend.

After weeks of hospitalization, she's still unable to speak and rations her weak smiles to one per visitor.

For my second visit, I went to Tucson, Ariz., to see retired Air Force chaplain Jim Young. Suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Jim's disease is more commonly known for its most famous victim, Yankees first baseman, Lou Gehrig.

It affects about 30,000 people in the United States by attacking the nerve cells that control voluntary muscle movement. Patients in the later stages of the disease keep their mental facilities, but often are paralyzed and die within five years of diagnosis.

If evil could customize a disease for my friend, it would be ALS. Jim's an articulate man with the voice of a PBS radio broadcaster. But ALS stole his swallowing ability, slurred his speech and took away one of his biggest joys, eating.

"It's a series of losses," he said as I poured liquid nutrients into his stomach through his feeding tube. "You don't know what will be next."

While Jim's disease left us both wondering what happened to clergy luck, the sense of entitled protection is not limited to clergy. In the hospital patients I saw as a chaplain, I found the feeling common among good church people.

It's not a false or off-putting piousness, but rather a subconscious belief that says: "God and I are on the same team, and I ought to be shielded from worldly dangers."

It's as though we expect a believer exemption on calamity.

It's much the same thought expressed by the older son in Jesus' famous parable of the Prodigal Son. The older brother became enraged with his father for planning a welcome home party for his younger son, who had previously disowned his family and squandered his inheritance.

The rage expressed by the older son has been called the ugly side of being good. It's our expression of discontent that we weren't blessed for our faithful service. It's an unjust anger over good things happening to bad people.

The hard truth is that people of faith are granted no more riches or inflicted with any fewer tragedies, temptations or infirmities than are those without faith.

Jesus asserted that God causes the "the sun to warm and the rain to nourish -- to everyone, regardless," meaning the passengers on my plane with the faulty landing gear were facing the same possible fate, no matter what their faith or lack of it.

Our landing was uneventful that day. But it reminded me that at the end of the day, it's really not how many calamities we avoid that demonstrates our faith, it's how well we fly through the calamities to manage a peaceful landing.

Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Write norris@thechaplain.net or visit thechaplain.net. You also cab follow him on Twitter, username is "chaplain," or on Facebook at facebook.com/norrisburkes.

My last two articles

We all are equal when we're born
BY NORRIS BURKES • FLORIDA TODAY • APRIL 25, 2010
It never was a good day when I was called for the death of a baby in the Sacramento, Calif., hospital where I worked as the chaplain for women and children.

But it was a doubly bad day in 2006 as I responded to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where two families had lost their children.

One child was Muslim and the other Christian.

The Muslim child had arrived in this world in the driveway of our emergency room three days earlier. The Christian child had emerged 10 weeks premature with a lung problem.

Now, they were both leaving their new world on the same day.

Once in the NICU, I was directed to the glass room that housed both families who stood just far enough apart to guarantee privacy issues. The Muslim family sought comfort from their religious leader, the imam. Close by, the Christian family stood waiting for me to baptize their child.

I stood in reverence within the sacred space as the staff carefully disconnected the babies from life support machines. Both children were wrapped in homemade blankets and placed into the arms of their mothers, who sat in rocking chairs exchanging knowing looks.

At that point, the usually noisy NICU fell silent in readiness for the emergency blessings of both children.

Unceremoniously, I opened a bottle of sterile water and placed a drop on the baby's forehead asking God to "bless this child in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." With that, the Christian mother dropped her face into her palms and released sobbing words though her hands.

Nearby, the Muslim parents read aloud the prayers of Mohammad from the Koran. The Muslim mother released her grief in much the same way as the Christian mother, through her hands.

In the next few hours, I watched our child-life specialists make inked footprints and handprints and present them to the parents as mementos. The prints of the two children looked very much the same and illustrated the eternal path they would walk hand in hand.

While our social worker and I juggled family visits, the child-life workers bathed and clothed the babies.

While the families were dressed a bit differently, both expressed the same grief. I saw both mothers cry. I saw both fathers cry.

Both families grieved the loss of tremendous potential. They equally grieved their children's lost childhood, a future soul mate and their child's potential to make a difference to the world.

Each child was equally created and loved by God. They were born the same and they died the same.

It's often said that death is the great common denominator, but that would sorely miss the picture painted that day in the NICU.

I think birth is the greatest common denominator. Birth is the point at which we all begin the same. The problem comes somewhere between birth and death, when we exaggerate our differences to claim that our nation, our skin color, our religion or our political party makes us better than others.

Whenever I'm tempted with this kind of exaggerated comparison, I hum an old Sunday school song in remembrance of these babies. While a bit politically incorrect, this Christian song expresses a sentiment celebrated in most world religions.

"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."



Unimaginable actions bring spiritual consequences
BY NORRIS BURKES • FLORIDA TODAY • APRIL 18, 2010

If you follow my column, you know I sometimes find spiritual issues in the headlines. The headlines this past week proved full of unimaginable issues.
The first story that captures my attention is the upcoming Supreme Court case of Albert Snyder, whose son's military funeral was protested by a self-described "Baptist church."

I use the qualifying quotes because I can't repeat what I call them. It suffices to say that it may enjoy IRS status as a church, but by no stretch of the imagination is it following the teachings of Christ, or the Baptist church for that matter.

Just a few observations:

First, to those who feel groups such as this one support their criticism of mainstream religion, it isn't a religion, it's a cult. It isn't affiliated with any Baptist convention or association.

The Princeton University Web site concurs with the definition given during my graduate courses on cults. Cults are "followers of an unorthodox, extremist or false religion or sect who often live outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader."

The charismatic leader of this cult has fathered or grandfathered most of his congregation. They definitely qualify as extremist in their belief that military deaths constitute God's punishment upon the United States for tolerating homosexuality. It is a cult by any religious or social definition.

My second observation is for journalists. When referring to this cult, please use qualifying language such as "self-described Baptist church."

When you call them Baptist, you not only stoke the flames of religious intolerance, but you allow them to highjack the religious heritage of millions.
It's my heritage, and it started with the Anabaptists of Europe and came to America in 1638 with Roger Williams of Rhode Island.

This cult isn't historically Baptist, and its actions tell me they've grossly distorted the message of the one whose name they claim.

The second story that caught my attention this week was the return of an adopted son to Russia by his American mother, something I find unimaginable.
The return set off an international incident, but as an adoptive parent myself, I can tell you the temptation to sever a troubled adoption isn't rare. Still, only 2 percent of adoptive parents will return their child to the foster system.

This raises the question for all relationships: When is it time to give up on love? When and how do you know there is no possibility of restoration?

Nearly every relationship struggles over the question of quitting. Couples examine divorce. Children seek emancipation. Employees and employers seek terminations. Voters recall elected officials.

Relationships are complicated, and it's normal to ask: What evidence do I need to justify the severance of a relationship? What level of hurt will I endure before I end this imprisoning association?

None of us can know what this adoptive mom endured, but I do know that when dealing with relationships, Anne Lamott, author of "Traveling Mercies," was on target when she wrote, "Families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness. At some point, you forgive the people in your family for being stuck together in all this weirdness, and when you can do that, you can learn to forgive anyone."

God created the family as a way to mature the whole family. The truth is that we are no more able to choose our family than we are able to choose who rides with us in our office elevator.

Like elevators, families can sometimes feel claustrophobic, and there comes a point where we'd like to discard a few family members between the mezzanine and a rooftop ledge. But we are meant to make the journey together.

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.