“To Be or Not To Be” Has Always Been the Question

May 28, 2013 Leave a comment

It’s been a while since my last post.  I have been away visiting my mom & dad.  My dad is close to death.

 I drove out to see my folks when I heard that my dad was failing fast.  We expect him to leave us soon.

 I spent several days with mom and dad.  I was able to speak and pray with dad.  He is ready to die.

My father believes that God is faithful to His Word and that he will be in the Lord’s presence soon.

 My father is coherent but feeble. An oxygen tank and a pump supply air thru his nose into his lungs and into his blood stream. There will be no more doctor visits for him.

 My dad is a Godly man. He has done the work of the Kingdom of God here on earth: reconciliation, redemption, giving, witnessing, intercession and many other good works.  And he has been married to my mom for almost 64 years!

 Each of us siblings is praying that dad will quietly pass over into the presence of the Lord while he is in his chair or in his bed. I will miss dad. (I am the oldest child.)

 While there I met with my siblings to talk about future things regarding mom.

 “The LORD cares deeply when his loved ones die.”  Psalm 116:15

 A photo of mom & dad & me:

dad & mom & me

 While visiting mom and dad I was able to catch up with my siblings and their kids.  Wow!  The kids have grown! 

 I am not a ‘Facebook’ kind of person so I haven’t seen the latest goings-on with each relative. How much I have missed!

 My sister-in-law is also not a ‘Facebook’ kind of person.  But she and I are into drama.  She invited me  to go over to nearby Liberty U to see my nephew in Hamlet.   Her son had two roles:  Rosencrantz and Laertes.

 The play began outside and then each scene was set in a different location around the Hancock Welcome Center ~ inside and out.   

 As we moved outside to the balcony a glorious panoramic view opened to us:   the sun was behind and below the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance, the horizon gilt with gold and rose.

 The gravedigger scene ~ “Alas, poor Yorick …”~ was hilarious.

 At the play’s end there was a clash of swords. Laertes and the rest didn’t survive the sword fight or the poison. Death was strewn everywhere.

 And then I was reminded of what G. k. Chesterton once said:

 “We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.”

Hamlet tickets

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Flowers of the Field

April 13, 2013 Leave a comment

I went for a mammogram on Good Friday.  This was my first mammogram even though I am about ten years from retirement.  I put off health tests ( I tell myself)  because I am so busy.

 After the images were taken I was told that a radiologist would review my scans and send a report to my doctor. This would take about a week.

 The following week I waited anxiously because of what happened as I left the medical office: 

 I opened the door and walked over to the elevator.  There a few feet away were two women facing each other. One of the women, clutching papers in her hand, turned away when I came out the door.  Waiting for the elevator I could hear the other woman, perhaps her mother, comforting her:  “It will be OK.  You will be alright.” I quickly realized that the woman had received some bad news from the radiologist’s report. She was quietly sobbing.

 A lot of things go through your mind when you are in medical limbo. For me there was fear, then anger and then calm took over as I give the matter back to the Lord.

 The next Friday I came home from work and found the report in my mail box.  I wondered why they sent me the report.  They told me that my doctor would get the first look.

 Well, I was relieved to find that the mammogram was “normal.” The staff wanted to let me know right away. 

 The tentative calm became a sigh of relief and then a prayer for the woman at the elevator:  “Lord, please remove all cancer from this woman’s body. I ask this in the name of Jesus.”

 Maybe five years from now someone will pray for me as I stand by the elevator crying. Life is like that.

 ***

 It was during this time of waiting for the radiologist’s report that I heard the shocking news that a coworker had died overnight. 

 This man was slightly older than me.  He died of a brain aneurism ~ in an instant without any warning.

Something like this gives one pause:  How close to death am I?

 Yet, I do not fear death.  It is a matter of perspective.

 I know that even though the dust I am made of will crumble and return to the earth I will live on within the dancing embrace of the Trinity ~ as a flower of the field that never withers or dies.

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