New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Column first week in June 2017


Column:

A Rose By Any Other Name

"Do you believe that we'll recognize each other in the next life?" asked Dr. Nesbitt, stopping me just short of our morning staff meeting.

I shot him a puzzled look and he returned fire with a rolling chair in my direction. Nesbitt was the Medical Director of our hospice group. He reminds me of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek because he was both lovable and cantankerous. Mostly, he adored unanswerable questions.

"I think the Bible hints at it. I don't think there's a clear answer," I answered.
"I guess I haven't told you about Josefina."

"No," I said. I settled into my chair, as he'd obviously set me up to hear another one of his stories he calls "Hospice Goosebumps."

"Josefina died a few years back, but not before she taught us a thing or two," Nesbit said.

"She was my patient for nearly six months when she went into transition," said the doctor, using a hospice euphemism for dying. "She became deeply comatose for five days without eating, drinking or speaking."

Even as a chaplain, I know that a patient will often pass within three days without water, but apparently Josefina had extraordinary care from three attentive daughters who lived nearby. But more than that, she seemed to be postponing her death until her fourth daughter could arrive from the Philippines.

On the fifth day, the last daughter arrived and all four were standing watch over Josefina when their doorbell rang. At the door was the team's hospice social worker, Margaret, who'd come by for a final visit.

The daughters invited Margaret into the crowded bedroom where a very devout Catholic family had set up candles, pictures, rosaries and statues of saints. Margaret had visited the room multiple times, but never with so many visitors and the elaborate altar-like displays.

Margaret paused to decide how she'd get close enough to bring some encouraging words. Then it came to her. She just up and crawled into Josefina's double bed and whispered softly into her ear.

"Your daughters are all here now. It's OK to let go."

I nodded toward Nesbitt, acknowledging, "Those are good words I've used myself to encourage patients who are having trouble letting go."

Nesbitt continued. "Yes, but Josefina remained quiet, undisturbed, giving no hint she would heed this advice."

Margaret gave it one last try, this time with some light levity. "By the way, when you get to heaven, look around for a feisty little Italian lady. That'll probably be my mom. Please tell her "hi" for me."

With that, Josephina suddenly opened her eyes wide, turned her head to the startled social worker and said loud and clear, "Rose?"

"Margaret burst into tears," Nesbitt stated as matter of fact.

Startled, I blurted, "Wait! What? Our social worker started crying?"

I asked because I knew hospice staff will try to keep their own emotions at bay. The family must feel their own grief, not that of the worker.

"Why was she crying?"

"Care to venture a guess as to the name of our social worker's feisty Italian mother?" Nesbitt asked.

"Rose?" I said, but there was no volume in my throat.

"Josefina died a few minutes later," Nesbitt added. He gave his story an impactful moment before he restated his original question.

"So now do you think we will recognize each other in heaven?"

I stood and slowly walked toward our meeting. I don't suppose I ever did give him a good answer.

However, let me say, if you get to heaven and see a crusty old doctor, wearing a wry smile and pitching confounding questions to a crowd, that's likely to be Nesbitt. Say hello for me, would you?
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Read more at Norris' website or write him at comment@thechaplain.net

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Column for Memorial Day


Column:

Editors, if you'd like to run this piece on Memorial Day, let me know and I can send you a past column to fill the place of my regular column.


Navigating Hero's Highway

This Memorial Day, as many Americans take to the highways, my heart navigates the "Hero's Highway." It's a highway I knew in 2009 while serving as the chaplain for the Air Force Field Hospital in Balad Iraq.

This "highway" consisted of a hundred yards of concrete from the helicopter-landing pad into our hospital emergency room. We wheeled a lot of heroes down that highway, but today I remember those for whom I conducted memorial services.

We called those sacred soldier ceremonies "patriot details," and they were usually conducted the hour after a soldier died. I officiated my first one on Jan. 10, 2009, for 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Justin Bauer.

In the few minutes after Bauer was pronounced dead from a roadside bomb, our hospital commander ordered "all hands available" to assemble in the emergency room. Thirty minutes later, I stood before a hundred staff members, all soldierly quiet, as if waiting for permission to breathe.

I closed my eyes and silently begged God to help me set aside my nervousness. Words finally choked from my very tight throat.
"Staff Sgt. Justin Bauer was one of us. We didn't know him, but we are less without him today. I believe he knows our presence now as he is now known by God."

As I finished the 15-minute ceremony with scripture and a prayer, my chaplain assistant, Tech. Sgt. David Pastorius from Youngstown, Ohio, barked, "Ah-ten-SHUN!" This cued the color guard to assemble around the body. They unfolded the American flag and snapped its corners tight, levitated it over Bauer and then released it until it draped the body with a red-white-and-blue silhouette.

Taps played from a CD behind the nurses' station, salutes were rendered by armed doctors and hardened veterans as the honor guard rolled the body from the emergency room.

A few minutes later, a Special Forces medic found me outside speaking with the honor guard.

"Hey, Chaplain. One more thing," he said. "Can we toast a fellow soldier?"
From a knapsack, he pulled a six-pack of "Near Beer," a product as close to alcohol as we were permitted. We each took a can and simultaneously popped the lids. The bursting lids reminded me of the synchronized breaking of communion wafers during worship.

"The first sip is for Bauer," he declared.

"Bauer!" we said.

Then the medic coaxed us to raise our cans above our head.
"We spill the beer the way Bauer spilled his blood," he said. The moment had all the liturgical ceremony of a Sunday Mass. We tipped the cans until several ounces muddied the dirt.

Then the medic raised his can again, and said, "To you. You are my brothers."

His words reminded me of a priest raising the wine chalice and quoting Jesus: "This is my blood which was spilled for you."

The medic was right. None of us knew Bauer, so we Googled his name. He was a 2002 graduate of Berthoud High, just north of Denver, Colo. He was a paratrooper, third-generation military and a second-generation firefighter.

Between his two Iraq tours, he married his high school sweetheart, Kari, three months before his death.

In his civilian role as a firefighter, he resuscitated a woman after a car accident. With that kind of heroics, we weren't surprised when the military later awarded him the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Today when people ask me why I volunteered to serve in a combat hospital, I tell them I needed to be an eyewitness to the honor, character and bravery of these soldiers. I needed to say that I traveled Hero's Highway with them and stood on the sacred soil where they died.

Gratefully, more than 97 percent of our soldier-patients went home on a plane much like mine. The other heroes, like Justin Bauer, went home under a flag. Memorial Day is their day. Remember them always.

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Column excerpted from Norris' book "Hero's Highway." Write chaplain Norris at norris@thechaplain.net

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
Third column in May 2017


Column:

DOCTOR CHALLENGES CHAPLAIN'S BELIEF IN SIGNS

"Do you believe in signs?" asked Dr. William Nesbitt, the physician on our hospice team.

It's a question I'm frequently asked, especially from the new-age Californians.

However, the doc isn't new age. He's a 66-year-old Evangelical with a fondness for writing stories he calls "Hospice Goosebumps."

"That depends," I said, reciting my rote theological position. "Do these signs point toward the God we know from scripture or do they serve to assuage our own egos?"

He slapped his forehead to protest my academia and pointed to the chair opposite his. "Give me a minute to read my patient's story. Then you be the judge."

I slumped into the padded chair across from his as he began reading.

Theresa was torn.

Her mother, Jackie, lived in Ohio and was losing her battle with cancer. But here in California, her son was scheduled to graduate from high school. Theresa chaired the graduation committee, and plans for the ceremony were approaching a critical stage.

Theresa thought about it a few days. She couldn't bear to be absent from her mom. Her mom wasn't just her mother; she was her best friend. They had a special connection that was hard to explain.

Theresa picked up the phone to call her mom to say that she was dropping everything to come to see her one last time.

"Don't you dare," Jackie told Theresa, "You need to be there for your son. It would break my heart if you let him down."

Then Jackie added a cryptic promise. "I'll be at his graduation."

"But Mom, you're way too sick to travel." Theresa said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Dad says you're not likely to be alive on that day."

"I'll be there," Jackie insisted. "Just look for the rainbow. I love you both so much. Don't worry." With that, Jackie hung up.

Theresa found her mom's promise confusing, but wrote it off to Jackie's ever-increasing doses of pain medication.

However, Theresa understood the rainbow reference. Her mom had been obsessed with rainbows ever since her trip to Hawaii. She used them to decorate rooms and even hung one from her car's mirror.

Theresa promised herself that she'd call her mom again later, maybe between pain dosages when she might speak with more clarity.

Two days later at exactly 7:50 p.m., Theresa felt her mom die. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew.

The phone rang an hour later and Theresa skipped the formality of a hello.

"Dad – Mom's gone, isn't she?"

"Yes, how did you know?" he answered, not entirely surprised.

"I don't know, but I felt something an hour ago."

Between the sobs, Theresa promised her dad that she'd take the soonest flight after tomorrow's ceremony.

The following day, as Theresa applied her makeup for the ceremony, she remembered what her mom had said about the rainbow. Impossible, she thought. It rarely rains in California in June. The forecast was predictably clear, with no hint of rainbows.

Graduation went off as smoothly as she'd planned except for one thing – a rare meteorological occurrence called a "sun dog."

These phenomena occur when ice crystals in the upper atmosphere refract a spot of sunlight into … a rainbow fragment. My friends in the US Air Force weather squadron tell me the event is technically a halo and not a rainbow, but they can be every bit as colorful.

Grandma kept her word.

Nesbit looked up from his text.

"So, was that a sign, chaplain?"

I didn't answer. I was too choked up.

"Ha!" Nesbitt concluded, "Maybe that's a sign that neither the chaplain nor the doctor knows everything."

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
mother's day column


Column:

The Motherly Qualities of God

Do mothers really know everything? There was a time when my kids thought so; they just weren't sure how she knew.

My wife tried to tell them that mothers see all because they have eyes in the back of their head. However, one day my preschool son, Michael, conducted his own investigation.

Becky and Michael were on the floor playing with trains when she felt his little hands pulling her hair back off her neck.

"Michael! What are you doing back there?"

"I'm looking for the eyes in the back of your head," he said.

Michael was sure Becky saw everything, but he wasn't sure how.

My oldest daughter, always the more religious child, suspected my wife's omniscience was more spiritual. One day when Sara was about four years old, she decided to cut her own hair.

My wife discovered this horror from the strands of hair on her shoulder and asked "Sara! Did you cut your hair?"

Sara's eyes flushed with tears, perplexed at how Becky so quickly knew what she knew.

"How did you know? Did God tell you?" Sara blurted with sobbing gulps of air.

"Mothers know everything," my wife reasserted.

Sara's childish suspicion highlights a deeper truth. While mothers aren't gods, there are some ways in which God can be like a caring mother.

For instance, scripture compares God to a mother who would not forget the child from her womb suckling at her breast (Is. 49:15). Similarly, he has given birth to Israel (Deut. 32:18). These motherly metaphors aren't meant to give God a gender, but rather to help us comprehend the complex aspects of his nature.

Theologians often describe God's three essential characteristics as the "Three O's." The first "0," as my daughter discovered, is omniscience. Like my wife, God knows all of his children. He knows each of us from the inside out, and he knows everything there is to know.

God is also omnipresent. Like a good mother, God has to be everywhere. Mothers go to soccer practice, daycare, and the doctor as well as a thousand other places. God goes to all those places too, but he attends simultaneously.

Mothers can do a lot, but only God can pull off the third "O." God is omnipotent, all-powerful, able to do all. This one prompts a lot of questions from people who ask, "If God is all powerful, why doesn't he stop wars and famine?"

If I'm feeling like a wisecracker, I say, "I don't know. Chaplains are in sales, not service."

But seriously, I appreciate the truth spelled out by one of my theology professors who added a fourth "O" to the list.

My prof liked to say, "God is omni-competant." That is, God is sufficiently competent to work things out in the end."

On this Mother's Day weekend, I'm proud to tell you that the mother of my children exhibits many of these qualities.

Of course, I haven't always been happy about it. Years ago, my newly-wed wife came home from work to find the flowers I'd left for her on our dining table.

Displaying the omniscience of the Lord, she moved the flowers, knowing I must be hiding something.

"Norris! What have you done to our table?"

I had to confess that I'd been experimenting with a phosphorus campfire lighter when it burned through the Formica.

Fortunately, like the Lord, she forgave too. The flowers helped of course, but true forgiveness came five years later on Mother's day when I bought the oak table she'd always wanted.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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Larger file as per your request

Several editors requested a larger file


Norris Burkes
Syndicated Columnist, Speaker & Author
www.thechaplain.net
Spirituality in Everyday Life~
Home office: 916-714-0357
Cell ph: 916-813-8941

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
first column for may 2017, pics attached


Column:

Editors,
I've attached a picture to go with this story about my mobile home park. Use it if you like, but I think a better picture might be a google earth picture if you can use it. My park is at 7401 French Rd Sacramento CA 95828.

Adventurous spirit -- Don't Leave Home without it

In 1992, I dragged my family from our California-dreamin' home to Houston, Texas, where I accepted my first job as a hospital chaplain. Within a few short months, changes were afoot when the Baptist denomination asked us to represent them in active military chaplaincy.

In the early interviews, my wife was asked, "Becky, are you willing to follow your husband anywhere the Air Force assigns you?"

Without missing a beat, my wife said, "Well, I followed him to Texas didn't I?"

I'm fortunate enough to be married to a woman who follows me, even when we downsized into a dilapidated mobile home two years ago. Since I first wrote about our move to the rougher side of town, many readers continue to ask what it's been like.

Well, just beyond our park security gates sit commercial neighbors like the Siemen's Rail Technology plant, an adult continuation school and convenience stores. Not far away are the payday loan stores. The saving grace in the community comes from the winery conveniently available to the communicants of the nearby Catholic Church.

Yet honestly, nothing about our last two years has been difficult, unless you count how our shower sinks a few inches every time I load it with my 185-pound self – so low, it feels like I'll fall through into the crawlspace.

Sure, we lock the door when we hear the Sacramento police helicopter broadcasting their be-on-the-lookout warnings. Then there is the occasional boom that sounds much like a shotgun, but I'm still hoping it's just leftover fireworks from the thunderous Chinese New Year celebrations.

Our neighbors are real people--working folks--and very friendly. We talk about gardens, dogs, the weather and, as you might expect, we complain about the park management.
When I ask myself how it is that Becky and I have been so resilient in our moves, I think it's because we didn't short ourselves of those things that make our house into our home—besides our beds, art, favorite chairs, family photos, golf clubs and holiday decorations.
While we couldn't bring everything, there were some things we never left home without. More than furniture and mementos, we brought a sense of ourselves to every home we've had. We brought our adventurous spirit, our consciousness of togetherness and an understanding of what is essential in life. We brought our faith and our family.
Maybe that's what Proverbs 24:3-4 is referring to when it says, "By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches."
More changes are in the works as we join the check-of-the-month club with pensions from the school district and the military. On July 6, we shed this prefab shell of a home and make the move to Belgium for the summer. We'll put a few treasures in storage, but we will carry most of what we need in suitcases or backpacks.

By November we'll be back to California for the holidays. Then, it's off to South America for a while to help our daughter's charity that provides children's libraries to rural Honduras (see Chispaproject.org). Then maybe a two-year move to Ecuador. Not sure of it all yet. Life is an adventure.

But no matter where I go, I'll promise you I'll keep writing this column as long as my editors allow me to do so. But mostly, I'm hoping Becky will still be following me.

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Read Norris' past columns at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at comment@thechaplain.net or P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759. Twitter @chaplain or call (843) 608-9715

 

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