This past weekend was filled with wonderful fall weather.  The skies were blue with a few puffy clouds floating by and temperatures near 60 degrees.  A good guess might be that Saturday and Sunday were the last such days until spring. Maybe so or maybe not. In any event, several of our neighbors took advantage of the fair weather to put up Christmas lights and other seasonal decorations – an inflatable Grinch and Christmas tree among them.

Sunday was November 5. There’s something not quite right about Christmas decorations up before Veterans Day.

This is not going to be some tired rehash about putting Christ back in Christmas or the commercialization of the sacred.  Those battles, even if they were worth fighting, are long since lost. Continue reading →

The Saturday Evening Post, March 15, 1958

I had my annual wellness exam this week and all is well. Everything in the blood tests is where it is supposed to be, and my blood pressure is good. The nurse practitioner listened to my heart and had me take some deep breaths in and push some deep breaths out. She tested my reflexes and they reflexed just fine.I was also asked if I had fallen recently, felt down or depressed, and if I can use a telephone by myself. Apparently I answered the questions correctly. I seem to be healthy. My current plans are to go return to the doctor’s office in a year.

With no symptoms to show or test results to raise concerns, the NP asked, “How are you feeling?” several times. “I’m feeling fine,” I assured her. What I didn’t say because I’ve worn the line out, is “Yes, but I was feeling fine, not a symptom in the world, when I was diagnosed with some serious cancer 21 years ago.”

I guess health, in a way, is in the eye of the beholder – or in the “feeling fine” of the patient. I’m glad to be healthy, to be feeling fine (and I really do). Even so, though I’ve quit using my tired line, there’s always that “Yes, but” hiding in the corner.

Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I get to bore you with my health issues, however. My exam has me thinking about the church and its health and those are the observations I wish to share. Continue reading →

From a long time ago

Becky and I were with friends not long ago and one of them, a retired teacher, talked about how much she loved her students and thrilled at their learning, but how she had grown so weary of “teaching to the test” and the seemingly endless stream of forms and reports demanding time she might otherwise have invested in actual teaching. She is glad to be retired. Our friend’s disillusionment with the state of her profession is something we’ve heard dozens of times from other teachers.  We also hear it from doctors and nurses tired of the practice of medicine dictated by the demands of the insurance company rather than the needs of the patient, and, yes, from pastors who feel as if they are spending more time worrying about balancing the church budget or answering critical emails than preaching the word or praying with the people.

I don’t know if this sense of dissonance between dreams once dreamed and reality now lived is more than it was in the past, but we don’t live in the past; we live in a present marked by much disharmony – dreams dashed by disillusionment.

A few thoughts: Continue reading →

On a morning walk in the neighborhood

Becky and I left the west coast nearly 33 years ago, but like others from the west, we retain much of the west coast snobbery about beauty in the natural world. Our version of the beauty of the earth tends toward the crashing waves of the Pacific, the granite ridges and the soaring sequoia of the Sierra Nevada, and the snow-clad peaks of the Cascade Range.

Our oldest daughter, an artist and a Midwesterner far longer than we have been Midwesterners, is helping us shed some of our scenic snootiness. One of the themes of her art is what she calls the “unexpected beauty” in this flat middle part of the country.

I’ve tried to keep my eyes open for unexpected beauty as summer has given way to fall.  It is there. The leaves have begun to turn color with splashes of red, orange, and yellow all around.  Harvest has come to the cornfields and most now lie fallow waiting for winter snow and spring planting. Continue reading →

We made our first visit to Indiana’s one and only National Park earlier this week. It was a crisp and clear fall day and Indiana Dunes National Park on the south shore of Lake Michigan was at its best.  Our family from Memphis was visiting and the nearby Michigan branch joined us. It was a great outing.  We parked at the West Beach parking lot and made our way over the dunes to the beach. The views were spectacular.  Looking northwest from the dunes, the Chicago skyline was visible on the far horizon.  You can just see the Windy City in the iPhone photo I took.

Chicago has its problems, but none of them were visible 40 miles across the lake from West Beach.  Just the distant skyline.

Looking out over the lake to Chicago made me think of the image in the Book of Hebrews about the great and faithful cloud of witnesses and their desire for “a better country, a heavenly one,” and how God “has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16) The writer goes on to implore his readers to “seek the city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14) Continue reading →