The patient’s health had not been good for a long time, and now it seemed as if all the different concerns had conspired against him.  To treat one issue was to aggravate another. The physician was so attentive to the needs of the patient and caring for his wife.  But the weight of disease had become too much for the fragile life to bear.

Being present at the time of death is both an obligation and a privilege of the pastor’s calling.

When the patient died, it was more than a professional disappointment for the physician. Her sorrow seemed genuine, and you could see the compassion in her eyes as she turned to the wife.  Unfortunately, she did say something self-justifying about having done all she could and how sick he was when he was admitted to the hospital, but mostly she was trying to convey comfort to the just-now widow.  She did not use the word, however.  She did not say “died” or “death.”

“Mary, Bob is dead,” I said, simply because Mary was not able to understand the kind but veiled words the good doctor was using.  And then grief flooded that small room in the ICU. Continue reading →

with inflection points

“Our nations and our world stand at a genuine inflection point in history,” President Biden said during his recent trip to Europe as he addressed a group gathered to talk about a global technology initiative.

Genuine or not, I am tired of inflection points.

For the past couple of years everyone has been talking about inflection points, and I think we need to quit using the term, whatever it means.

What is an inflection point? The website mathworld, one of my favorites, describes it as “a point on a curve at which the sign of the curvature (i.e., the concavity) changes. Inflection points may be stationary points, but are not local maxima or local minima.” The site goes on to say, “the first derivative test can sometimes distinguish inflection points from extrema for differentiable functions f(x). The second derivative test is also useful. A necessary condition for x to be an inflection point is f^(”)(x)=0. A sufficient condition requires f^(”)(x+epsilon) and f^(”)(x-epsilon) to have opposite signs in the neighborhood of x .”

I may have missed that in the calculus class I did not take. Continue reading →

I am preaching in Auburn on Sunday – a late notice line-up change due to a positive Covid test for the planned preacher.  Without a lot of time to think about it, I have decided to wade into the waters of current events and cultural change.  Specifically, my preaching text will be 2 Timothy 2:14-3:9 wherein Paul admonishes his young protégé Timothy to avoid irreverent babble and ruinous arguments about the issues of the day.  But he also tells Timothy to be clear about what Scripture teaches in hope that the babblers and the arguers might repent of their erroneous beliefs and so escape the snare of the devil.

We are to avoid the babblers and the arguers, but say enough that the truth might be heard.  Maybe easier said than done.  The issue that comes to mind is abortion and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking down Roe v Wade.  You may have heard of it. We’ll see how the sermon goes.  If you are not in Auburn on Sunday, you will be able to find the recording of the service here. Continue reading →

It happens most often when you are driving a rental car.  You pull into the gas station and suddenly you remember that you don’t know which side the fuel filler door is on.  If you guess left, it’s probably on the right and if you guess right, it’s probably on the left.  And then there’s the issue of whether there’s an inside-the-car latch to open the fuel door.  Back to left side or right side.  A quick Google search suggests a lot of heated debate over the issue.  What issue do we not debate heatedly these days?  My preference is left simply because that is what I am used to.  Creature of habit and all that.

The other day a friend and I were in a car that neither or us owned and we needed to fill the tank.  I was driving and said something about wondering on which side of the car the fuel filler door might be.  My friend leaned over, looked at the dash, and said, “Right.”

“How did you know that?” I asked.

“See that little arrow pointing right,” he said. Continue reading →

Rule 39: There is no such thing as a coincidence. — Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS

I have enjoyed my share of NCIS episodes.  Week after week I’ve seen Gibbs and his intrepid team solve the most perplexing crimes.  Who am I, then, to argue with Gibbs?  But I am pretty sure there is such a thing as a coincidence and that we’d do well to quit trying to find the connections between all the things that happen to us and around us.

Late last year Becky and I received a “Save the Date” card from an engaged couple.  We’ve saved the date because even though it has been several years since we’ve seen the groom’s parents and longer still since we’ve been around the groom, the parents are dear friends, and we have nothing but happy memories of the groom when he was growing up in the church where I was pastor. Plus, the bride, who the groom met in college, is from a small town in western Ohio only a couple of hours away. Not a long drive at all.  We’re saving the date.

Earlier this year I became chair of a committee in our Presbytery and have begun working with my colleagues on the committee.  It is a great group of pastors and elders, and I like them all very much.  Just last week I drove a couple of hours to a small town in western Ohio to meet with a pastor who is a key member of the committee and whose friendship I am enjoying. Continue reading →