I spent some quality time in a medical waiting room earlier in the week. Routine visit and all is well, at least health-wise. But maybe all is not well in other ways. Placed prominently for all to see was the sign in the photo above:

Please treat our staff with respect.
Your words matter. Your behavior matters.
The safety of our patients and our team matters.
Thank you.

I don’t miss the year-old copies of Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated, and Road & Track that used to be a part of every waiting room, but this was something new and sad to see. I am assuming a reason, an incident or repeated incidents, that prompted the staff at the clinic to place the sign prominently in their waiting room. Unkind words spoken to the staff, the safety of patients and team members threatened. Wait, this is small-town America.

It has been sixty years since we were reminded that the times they are a-changin’. Of course, times are always changing, but maybe particularly so in the past sixty years.  And lest I find myself criticizing what I don’t understand, I should quickly add that I am among those who have gained much from the changes that have been far beyond my command. What a wonderful life! But what gain is there in having to be reminded to behave in the clinic’s waiting room?

Certainly, we can and we should mourn the death of classic liberalism, the decay of civic virtue, the loss of a sense of the common good we have witnessed in our lifetimes. While we might long for a time when treating with respect the staff and patients at a medical clinic went without saying, ours is a time when it must be said. And, yes, that is sad.

Maybe the times have not changed so much, however. Maybe disrespect and threat have always been a human problem.

The archeologists have yet to identify a medical clinic waiting room among their discoveries from Solomon’s Jerusalem. But Solomon’s words from Proverbs 21:21 might fit well in an ancient clinic where incidents of disrespect and threat occurred with growing frequency: Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness and honor. Maybe we’ve always needed a reminder that the pursuit of righteousness and kindness brings a better reward.

I wonder if folks in the waiting room would be less prone to disrespect and threats if they were offered year-old copies of Good Housekeeping, Sports Illustrated, and Road & Track.

It is raining in northeast Indiana as I write. But it wasn’t raining earlier this morning. When I hauled myself out of bed, I looked out the window. Dark clouds. I wondered if it might rain, so I checked one and then the other weather app on my phone. The first app told me not to worry; no drops would fall until around 9:00 a.m. – long after I’d come in from my morning run. The second app told a more foreboding story, however. The clouds were due to burst in exactly 29 minutes, about the time I’d have finished the morning psalms and was ready to hit the pavement. Both apps agreed that the temperature outside was in the mid-40s and that it really felt as if it was in the 30’s. A possibility or rain, chillier than I expected. Maybe a morning to stay in a warm, dry house. Perhaps that was how best to understand the first morning psalm, “Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!” (Psalm 61:4).

Still no rain by the time I came to the closing line of Psalm 62, “You will render to all according to their work.”  App #1 was sticking to its 9:00 a.m. rain prediction and #2 had changed its mind. I still had 45 minutes until it got wet outside. 45 minutes was not long enough for my planned running route, but the loopy nature of our neighborhood (the streets if not always the neighbors) meant that I would be able to find a fairly fast path home should the rain begin to soak to my bones. Besides, what might I be rendered if I neglected the work of a morning run? Out I went.

The rain began around 9:00 a.m. – long after I’d come in from my morning run. Continue reading →

The Second Helvetic Confession is less well-known than the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Heidelberg Catechism, but with its Swiss roots and direct connection to John Calvin through Calvin’s correspondence and friendship with its author Heinrich Bullinger, the Second Helvetic Confession should not be overlooked in its importance to the Reformed faith.

I’ve been thinking about the Second Helvetic this week. Specifically, I have thought about one of the most famous lines from the Confession. In the first chapter, Bullinger asserts that the Scriptures are the true word of God. Nothing in that statement that anyone who claims “sola scriptura” would dispute. But before the chapter ends, he also says, “Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful…”

When we worshiped in Ossian, Indiana, on Sunday, I heard the very Word of God. I heard it again on Monday when I listened to Sunday’s sermon from a pastor who is a close friend but who lives far away. Continue reading →

I’m off to a presbytery meeting today and tomorrow. The expected response to such a statement is an eye roll at best, more likely an “I’m sorry” or “Can’t you say the dog ate your docket?”  In fact, though I have done my share of presbytery meeting eye rolls, we don’t have a dog, and I like presbytery meetings.

For the non-Presbyterians among you, a presbytery is a gathering of the elders (Greek word presbyteros) both teaching (pastors) and ruling (members of the session or elder board of a local congregation) in a geographical region. Think diocese or maybe a really big HOA. In our case it will be the pastors and congregational elders from the fifty-five denominational churches in Indiana, western Ohio, and Michigan (in reality, the lower third of Michigan). We are the Presbytery of the Midwest.

Yes, we have a docket, or agenda. We have committee reports to hear and lots of motions to be moved and approved by the 100+ in attendance. The Moderator will keep things moving and the Stated Clerk will make sure we do things decently and in order. The Assistant Stated Clerk will take minutes to remind us of all we did over the 10-12 hours of our Friday and Saturday meeting. Mostly motions are passed unanimously, but there are sometimes debates, occasional “nays,” and infrequent amendments, friendly or otherwise. Once in a while someone will call out “point of order!” if they think the Moderator or the Clerk are allowing something indecent or out of order. Continue reading →

Iguazu Falls, Photo: Wikicommons

Becky and I are planning to travel to Brazil this fall, and we are very much looking forward to the trip. We will spend about half our time visiting our friends, some of whom we have known for 25 years, in Belo Horizonte and the other half playing tourists, which we have never done in our many trips to Brazil. Specifically, we will be staying near Iguazu Falls (seen in the photo above) in the south of Brazil along the border with Argentina and Paraguay.

In addition to getting various reservations in order, both of us have gotten out our figurative oil cans to lubricate our rusty Brazilian Portuguese before the trip. Old CDs (remember them?) from long ago and some remarkably good You Tube courses that, like You Tube itself, were not around when we first began to learn some basic Portuguese nearly 25 years ago.

The vocabulary lists are like meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. “Oh, yeah,” we say. So many things come back quickly. The grammar is still grammar. I will concentrate on past, present, and future tenses.  The past imperfect subjunctive will have to wait for another trip. Continue reading →