Spirituality column for Jan 5/6 2024

Let Me Die In Your Arms

 

In the fall of 1979, Becky said "yes" to marrying me but issued two quick conditions. 

 

1. She would not allow her dad to give her away. "I'm not any man's property" she stated. (Instead, our parents stood together to declare their support for our marriage.)
2. She would not promise to "obey" me.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

 

In early January of 1980, we managed to finally get married.

 

I was ordained only a few years later and have since officiated dozens of weddings that included a pageantry of limos, gowns and tuxedos. During these ceremonies, I stood before each couple as they proclaimed poetic promises accompanied by an elegant love song.

 

It's easy to see the exchange of vows as the most beautiful part of the ceremony, but as a chaplain who's been doing this marrying-burying thing for more than 40 years, I can testify that nothing matches the beauty of witnessing the fulfillment of those vows by couples who meant what they said when they promised, "For better or for worse…till death do us part."

 

To this day, I've never heard a love song as beautiful as the serenade given by a 45-year-old cancer patient while I was serving as a chaplain intern at UC Davis Medical Center (1991-92).

 

The solo drew me toward the room where several staff members had gathered outside the door. Inside, lay a jaundiced patient with a liver that was clearly failing. All of his organs were failing. Doctors were measuring his life in days, if not hours.

 

In his bed with him was his wife, Anne of 22 years, all 98 pounds of her. She nuzzled alongside him, stroking his face, as he strummed a John Denver medley.

 

After about 10 minutes, he switched chords and nodded toward his eavesdroppers as if to ready us for his finale.

 

His wife took her cue by sitting up in bed with crossed legs, brushing her hair behind her ears and wiping her tears. Then she stared deeply into his dark eyes as if going toward a preplanned rendezvous with his soul. She clearly knew what was coming. For it was her song, "Annie's Song."

 

"Come let me love you, let me give my life to you," he began with a cracking voice. He stopped for an unwritten rest beat, forced a smile and pushed farther into what seemed a prayer set to music.

 

Let me drown in your laughter / Let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you / Let me always be with you
Come let me love you / Come love me again

 

While a few of the staff members held their professional composure through most of the song, it's a safe bet that our stoicism didn't survive the entreating lyrics, "Let me die in your arms."

 

The physical and spiritual intertwining I witnessed in this couple sharing a hospital bed will always recall for me the scripture from Genesis that says, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…."

 

It's a wonderful moment when couples pledge their togetherness with "until death do us part," but it was a sacred moment to behold this couple turn their "I do" vows into a goal-line declaration of "We did."

 

Brother, that's love. Sister, that's pageantry!

 

Oh, I almost forgot. Forty-four years ago, Becky added one final edit to our ceremony.

 

"We will not be pronounced, "man and wife.'" 

 

"Huh?"

 

"Why should the man be allowed to remain a "man," but the woman must transform into "the wife."

 

"The pastor will pronounce us "husband and wife."

 

"Sure thing," I said. "No problem." Of course, I'd have said anything to marry this girl.

 

Happy anniversary, sweetheart.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

Parts of today's column were excerpted from my book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving." Copies can be ordered on my website at www.thechaplain.net, or by sending $20 to 10566 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602.

 

 

Use this for last weekend in Dec 2023. Dec 30

Actually, I meant to say, last weekend in Dec 2023.  Dec 30

 

 

Public Prayer Journal Shares Private Heartbreak

 

Before my retirement as a healthcare chaplain, I was privileged to hear the prayers of patients who were hurting, sick and discouraged. They were heavenly appeals that I wanted to share with you, but patient privacy prevented that.

 

However, in many cases, patient families recorded their prayers in the public journal of our hospital chapel. The journal was a spiral notebook on the altar where visitors wrote anonymous requests.

 

I recently rediscovered some of those requests that I feel comfortable sharing with you now.

 

As you read these collected prayers, I encourage you to do two things. First, recall similar situations where God answered your prayers and granted his grace. Second, I ask you to offer your own prayer for these writers.

 

Some of the prayers are simple one-liners, like the short prayer of a child asking, "Lord, help me to be a football player." But most are deeply moving entreaties searching for healing, acceptance and understanding.

 

One of the writers was earnestly searching for meaning:

 

"God, or whoever,

 

"I don't know if there is a Creator/God. I only know that my day to leave this life will come. I just hope that the memories of my mother and father will be with me just like my parents were with me the day I was born. If there is a Creator/God, he/she will know that I tried to live my life with a clean heart."

 

Some of the petitioners, like this one, were clearly scared:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"I need your guidance now. I don't have my mom anymore, so my dad and I are lost. My son and his wife have a sick baby girl. I need you to help us. Please hold my family tight. I love you, dear Father.

 

"In the name of the Father and Holy Spirit."

 

Other prayers showed a struggle that no one wants to face:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"Mom's accident crossed your desk and you approved it. Now we have to turn off the ventilator. It's the hardest decision this family has ever made. My sister is hanging on with vain hope. Please help her see the truth and let mom go.

 

"Mom is your child, Lord. I know she has a mansion waiting for her. The rest of us have peace about letting her go. Please pass that peace on to my sister. Time is a factor, Lord. Finances are a factor, too.

 

"The life she's living now isn't life. It isn't fair to mom to have to be like she is. Please help my sister to understand that we are all suffering. Give our family the strength to cross this bridge and give mom a peace that only you can give.
Amen."

 

One writer, likely a caregiver, compared her pain to that of her patients. She expressed the guilt many of us feel when seeing our problems in the light of the tragedy experienced by others:

 

"Dear God,

 

"No one I know is dying or suffering, so I need to stop being a baby about my problems. I should be praying for those who truly need love and support. I'm going through a divorce, and I feel depressed all the time. However, I'm grateful for my health, friends and family.

 

"Please help me overcome this feeling of anguish, loss, anxiety and jealousy. It's not good for my health, and I'm unable to help my patients who truly need it.

"Thanks for listening.

 

"Amen."

 

Finally, the last page of these collected prayers offers a benediction for this column:

 

"To anyone who reads this:

I hope God answers all your prayers in the New Year. The Lord is good!

 

"Amen."

 

----------------------------------

 

If you like healthcare stories, take a look at my first book, "No Small Miracles."  See my website for more details. www.thechaplain.net. Comments are received at 10556 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or by email comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715.

 

UPDATED column for Christmas weekend in Dec 2023 -- NEW COPY

A Christmas Meditation

 

Readers: This column is a Christmas meditation I wrote from the point of view of Jesus' parents, Mary and Joseph. It proved to be a reader favorite when it was published in 2017, so I'm repeating it this year.

 

**********

 

The crowing of the barn rooster stirs the young parents and their newborn son where they sleep amidst steaming piles of hay. The boy awakens, batting the air and fussing for a feeding.

 

Mary pulls Jesus to her breast, allowing him the nourishment he seeks. The moment belongs only to them, so Joseph turns over searching for sleep.

 

Soon, the sun streaks through the barn's crevices, flooding it with light. The glare awakens the questions Mary sought so hard to keep to herself. 

 

"Joseph."

 

He groans.

 

"Joseph."

 

"What is it, Mary?" he asks.

 

"Tell me again what the angels said."

 

Joseph props himself on his elbow. "The angels said, 'Don't be afraid.'"

 

"But Joseph! How can we not be afraid? We're so young. We have nothing."

 

Joseph rubs his eyes, hoping to find the clarity befitting Jesus' stepfather.

 

"I'm not sure," he says. "But maybe miracles come from 'nothing.' After all, God made an entire world from nothing."

 

Mary offers only a respectful nod, causing Joseph to drop his head in his open palms.

 

"You're right to be worried. I'm worried too," he says. "How will I provide for you both?"

 

Mary reaches for Joseph's face, cradling it with a warm hand. "I love you."

 

It's the way she answers most of Joseph's worries.

 

His fingers trace Jesus' hand as a means to answer his own question.

 

"This tiny hand will carry a hammer someday," Joseph says. Then he stretches his own hands wide as if to bracket the sign he envisions. "We will be, 'Joseph and Son, Galilean Carpenter Shop.' "

 

"According to your angelic friends," Mary counters, "Jesus' hands will also carry 'great joy!'"

 

Mary moves Jesus to her other side and invites Joseph closer to share their presence.

 

"Will he change the world?" she asks.

 

"I'm not sure the world is ready for him," Joseph says.

 

"No, it's not, but it will be God's timing. Not ours."

 

Mary counts Jesus' toes aloud, contemplating how to categorize him — man or God — when she dares a deeper question.

 

"What if God should want to take him back?" she asks.

 

At first, Joseph seems unwilling to consider the loss of his firstborn, even if it were somehow God's will. He does his best to deflect his fear through two questions of his own.

 

"There's only one thing that really bothers me, Mary. Who are we? How did we get so lucky?"

 

Mary stares at the thatched roof in contemplative silence. She is absorbing that word 'lucky' when Joseph revises his question.

 

"Or should I ask, 'How did we become burdened?'"

 

"Joe! Watch what you say!"

 

"Honestly, who are we to be trusted with so great a task?" he asks.

 

"We're nobody." She pauses a few moments before adding, "Or, maybe we've been chosen because we are everybody."

 

"That makes no sense," Joe says.

 

"Yes, it does. Everyone will have to decide for themselves what to do with Jesus — just as we did."

 

Joseph remains unimpressed.

 

"I'm not sure I can fully answer your question except to say, mankind is a part of God's plan. I'd even say we are his plan."

 

At that, Joseph shakes his head. "Goodness. Do you suppose God has a plan B?"

 

Mary puts the sleeping Jesus aside and playfully answers Joseph by stuffing his tunic with a handful of straw.

 

"I love you," she says, "but I have one more question."

 

"What?" he asks.

 

"Can we please get some more sleep while we still can?"

 

-------------------------------------------

Email: comment@thechaplain.net. Voicemail (843) 608-9715 Twitter @chaplain Read past columns at www.thechaplain.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use this for First week in Jan 2024

Public Prayer Journal Shares Private Heartbreak

 

Before my retirement as a healthcare chaplain, I was privileged to hear the prayers of patients who were hurting, sick and discouraged. They were heavenly appeals that I wanted to share with you, but patient privacy prevented that.

 

However, in many cases, patient families recorded their prayers in the public journal of our hospital chapel. The journal was a spiral notebook on the altar where visitors wrote anonymous requests.

 

I recently rediscovered some of those requests that I feel comfortable sharing with you now.

 

As you read these collected prayers, I encourage you to do two things. First, recall similar situations where God answered your prayers and granted his grace. Second, I ask you to offer your own prayer for these writers.

 

Some of the prayers are simple one-liners, like the short prayer of a child asking, "Lord, help me to be a football player." But most are deeply moving entreaties searching for healing, acceptance and understanding.

 

One of the writers was earnestly searching for meaning:

 

"God, or whoever,

 

"I don't know if there is a Creator/God. I only know that my day to leave this life will come. I just hope that the memories of my mother and father will be with me just like my parents were with me the day I was born. If there is a Creator/God, he/she will know that I tried to live my life with a clean heart."

 

Some of the petitioners, like this one, were clearly scared:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"I need your guidance now. I don't have my mom anymore, so my dad and I are lost. My son and his wife have a sick baby girl. I need you to help us. Please hold my family tight. I love you, dear Father.

 

"In the name of the Father and Holy Spirit."

 

Other prayers showed a struggle that no one wants to face:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"Mom's accident crossed your desk and you approved it. Now we have to turn off the ventilator. It's the hardest decision this family has ever made. My sister is hanging on with vain hope. Please help her see the truth and let mom go.

 

"Mom is your child, Lord. I know she has a mansion waiting for her. The rest of us have peace about letting her go. Please pass that peace on to my sister. Time is a factor, Lord. Finances are a factor, too.

 

"The life she's living now isn't life. It isn't fair to mom to have to be like she is. Please help my sister to understand that we are all suffering. Give our family the strength to cross this bridge and give mom a peace that only you can give.
Amen."

 

One writer, likely a caregiver, compared her pain to that of her patients. She expressed the guilt many of us feel when seeing our problems in the light of the tragedy experienced by others:

 

"Dear God,

 

"No one I know is dying or suffering, so I need to stop being a baby about my problems. I should be praying for those who truly need love and support. I'm going through a divorce, and I feel depressed all the time. However, I'm grateful for my health, friends and family.

 

"Please help me overcome this feeling of anguish, loss, anxiety and jealousy. It's not good for my health, and I'm unable to help my patients who truly need it.

"Thanks for listening.

 

"Amen."

 

Finally, the last page of these collected prayers offers a benediction for this column:

 

"To anyone who reads this:

I hope God answers all your prayers in the New Year. The Lord is good!

 

"Amen."

 

----------------------------------

 

If you like healthcare stories, take a look at my first book, "No Small Miracles."  See my website for more details. www.thechaplain.net. Comments are received at 10556 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or by email comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715.

 

Syndicated column for Christmas weekend in Dec 2023

Public Prayer Journal Shares Private Heartbreak

 

Before my retirement as a healthcare chaplain, I was privileged to hear the prayers of patients who were hurting, sick and discouraged. They were heavenly appeals that I wanted to share with you, but patient privacy prevented that.

 

However, in many cases, patient families recorded their prayers in the public journal of our hospital chapel. The journal was a spiral notebook on the altar where visitors wrote anonymous requests.

 

I recently rediscovered some of those requests that I feel comfortable sharing with you now.

 

As you read these collected prayers, I encourage you to do two things. First, recall similar situations where God answered your prayers and granted his grace. Second, I ask you to offer your own prayer for these writers.

 

Some of the prayers are simple one-liners, like the short prayer of a child asking, "Lord, help me to be a football player." But most are deeply moving entreaties searching for healing, acceptance and understanding.

 

One of the writers was earnestly searching for meaning:

 

"God, or whoever,

 

"I don't know if there is a Creator/God. I only know that my day to leave this life will come. I just hope that the memories of my mother and father will be with me just like my parents were with me the day I was born. If there is a Creator/God, he/she will know that I tried to live my life with a clean heart."

 

Some of the petitioners, like this one, were clearly scared:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"I need your guidance now. I don't have my mom anymore, so my dad and I are lost. My son and his wife have a sick baby girl. I need you to help us. Please hold my family tight. I love you, dear Father.

 

"In the name of the Father and Holy Spirit."

 

Other prayers showed a struggle that no one wants to face:

 

"Dear Lord,

 

"Mom's accident crossed your desk and you approved it. Now we have to turn off the ventilator. It's the hardest decision this family has ever made. My sister is hanging on with vain hope. Please help her see the truth and let mom go.

 

"Mom is your child, Lord. I know she has a mansion waiting for her. The rest of us have peace about letting her go. Please pass that peace on to my sister. Time is a factor, Lord. Finances are a factor, too.

 

"The life she's living now isn't life. It isn't fair to mom to have to be like she is. Please help my sister to understand that we are all suffering. Give our family the strength to cross this bridge and give mom a peace that only you can give.
Amen."

 

One writer, likely a caregiver, compared her pain to that of her patients. She expressed the guilt many of us feel when seeing our problems in the light of the tragedy experienced by others:

 

"Dear God,

 

"No one I know is dying or suffering, so I need to stop being a baby about my problems. I should be praying for those who truly need love and support. I'm going through a divorce, and I feel depressed all the time. However, I'm grateful for my health, friends and family.

 

"Please help me overcome this feeling of anguish, loss, anxiety and jealousy. It's not good for my health, and I'm unable to help my patients who truly need it.

"Thanks for listening.

 

"Amen."

 

Finally, the last page of these collected prayers offers a benediction for this column:

 

"To anyone who reads this:

I hope God answers all your prayers in the New Year. The Lord is good!

 

"Amen."

 

----------------------------------

 

If you like healthcare stories, take a look at my first book, "No Small Miracles."  See my website for more details. www.thechaplain.net. Comments are received at 10556 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or by email comment@thechaplain.net or at (843) 608-9715.

 

Syndicated column for third weekend in Dec 2023

Signs Point to God's Love for Us All

 

Honestly, it seems a bit odd that Advent sermons often begin with a lesson from John the Baptist. I mean, I'm uncomfortable that I share the Baptist name with my predecessor.

 

While J-the-B was Jesus' second cousin, they shared no resemblance in their preaching style. The "Babble-ist" was one wild-eyed, deranged preacher dude. If he were alive today, his caustic style might recommend him for presidential candidacy.

The man didn't make any friends when he referred to the local clergy as "a group of vipers" and dead wood fit to be burned. Of course, he really lost his head when he called King Herod an adulterer – literally head on a platter.

 

But today in the US, we're a little more tolerant of these crazy preacher types. I often see them during visits to San Francisco where scathing prophets wave signs announcing the end of the world.

 

But during one particular Christmas-shopping visit to Union Square in San Francisco, I saw a man holding a sign with a much kinder, gentler Baptist message. "Jesus Christ Loves You."

 

He must have noticed me curiously inching toward him, and he motioned for me to approach. Jose Rodriguez kept a neat beard and held his sign above his short stature on most weekends and holidays:

 

Jose's sign was to the point. Simple. Not preachy.

 

I expected Jose to hand me an advert promoting the time and location of his services.

 

"No," he said, "I'm not a preacher. I don't really know much about the Bible."

 

Nevertheless, Jose found the Bible's most important message, so I asked him what kind of reaction the sign was generating.

 

"Most people show their agreement in some way," he said. "They smile or nod and say, 'That's right.'" But no matter what their response, Jose held his sign in the same unflinching way he had begun in 2000.

I admire Jose's courage, but I also appreciated what his sign did not say.

 

In a time when fundamentalist fanatics picket the funerals of war veterans and thrust placards of dead babies in the faces of confused mothers, I could fill several columns with what Jose's sign DID NOT say.

 

It didn't name conditions such as, "Jesus loves you if . . ."

 

It didn't say "Jesus only loves you when . . ." It didn't say, "My god hates your god."

 

The cynic might have scolded Jose saying that it's easier to hold a placard about Jesus' love than to actually put love into practice. It's the warning James, (Jesus' half-brother) gave against simply telling the hungry, "Be warm and filled," without offering them a cup of soup.

 

While I doubt Jose would argue that point, I do think he was on track to offer love.

 

After all, I don't think it's possible to remind each other too often about God's love for us. For instance, can you tell a child you love him too much? Can you tell your spouse too many times that you cherish her above all?

 

Maybe Jose's message, however many times you see it at football games or on the streets of a major city, is that God's love will always be too big to define or imagine. This was the love that John the Baptist saw in Jesus when he said in Mark 1:7 that he wasn't "worthy to stoop down and untie his (Jesus') sandals."

Maybe it comes down to a variation of what our mothers taught us: If you can't say something nice about God, don't say anything at all.

 

After I got my fill of sourdough and cable cars that day, I entered the subway to take the last train home when I spied a woman holding a hymnal and singing "Silent Night, Holy Night."

 

I paused, recalling my experience with Jose. His example inspired me to put down my train schedule and join in song. And for a moment our voices managed to flood the station with an echoing chorus that told a busy world of God's never-ending love.

 

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Buy all my books, including my latest book, "Tell It to the Chaplain" on my website or Amazon, or by sending me $20. Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net. Leave recorded comments at (843) 608-9715 or write to 10556 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.

 

Syndicated column for second weekend in Dec 2023

Editors:  I have attached a cartoon drawn by the guest columnist, James Wetzstein.  He has given permission to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note to readers:  I invited James Wetzstein to write a guest column for Advent.  Wetzstein is a cartoonist, PhD candidate, and Lutheran pastor.

 

"Adventing" Through the Days

 

Have you ever noticed how enterprising individuals can turn nearly anything into a marketable advent calendar by dividing the merchandise into 24 discrete pieces?

 

I prefer the traditional choice of chocolate, but now you can find beer, wine and even whiskey advent calendars. Sausage and cheese make for a December-long charcuterie board in 24 bite-size pieces.

 

For kids, there are small toys behind the little cardboard doors.

 

If you want to encourage your young charges toward engineering fields, you might buy the one with 24 science projects that, at the end of it all, yield an actual working radio.

 

Note: Be prepared to answer the question, "Mom. What's a radio?"

 

The point of these advent calendars is that they give us a countdown to Christmas as, each day, we find the next numbered window. Open it to discover a treat inside, and then enjoy that treat anticipating the big day.

 

The counting also brings us an element of certainty. We start at the beginning, and we know when it ends. Christmas is only 24 chocolates from now.

 

The earliest advent wreaths had the same count-down agenda. The story goes that the 19th-century German pastor and advocate for those living in poverty, Johann Hinrich Wichern, created the first wreath to help the children of his community manage their impatience as they waited for Christmas.

 

The original wreath featured four large white candles, one for each Sunday of Advent. He added smaller red candles for each day of the week that allowed for daily tracking.

 

But the wreath's shape — a circle — is significant in its own right.

 

Had Wichern simply been looking for a way to mark the days, a straight line (or rows) of candles would have done the trick. But the wreath opens up an entirely different story. It's a story with an as-yet-undated end.

 

While the Advent season marks the days until Christmas, for many of us, it also  marks a season of raised awareness of the promised return of Jesus Christ at the end of all time and of death's inevitability.

 

Here's the thing: nobody knows when that will be.

 

While each day brings us one day closer, we don't know how many little windows we'll need for that advent calendar.

 

The circle of Wichern's wreath evokes the cyclical nature of time, inviting us to remember that one day follows the next through a cycle of days, months and years. In a productivity culture, this cycle is one of wanting and achieving followed by the need to want and achieve all over again. The cycle seems never to end.

 

Yet we know that the days of achieving will end at some point, and if all we have is achievement, we will have nothing but dust.

 

The Biblical texts read in many churches during Advent offer us a way through this endless cycle of days that will not be satisfied. In these readings, we hear Jesus teaching about the end of all things with images of destruction that seem bent on scaring us to death (Mark 13:24-37).

 

If it is true, as he says, that the most fundamental realities like mountains and the sun's shining are subject to destruction, what is left?

 

What remains is the eternal love of God coming – "adventing" – that is, coming in love for the you that is you.

 

Wichern's advent wreath forms an eternity of shape and it becomes your victory crown. It is the shape of love seeking you.

 

 

 

James Wetzstein serves as pastor for Valparaiso University. He is also a PhD candidate in Liturgical Studies at Notre Dame where he studies the interrelationship between theology and art. He draws a weekly comic strip for churches called "Agnus Day" at www.agnusday.org

 

Send comments to comment@thechaplain.net. Leave recorded comments at (843) 608-9715 or write 10556 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, Calif., 95602.