I have not posted to this site is some time.  But I continue to meditate upon the events of a little over a week ago when a small Christian congregation was forever wounded in a community not very far from me.  This sermon I preached last Sunday in light of recent events but in the greater light of God's Holy Word.

Thank you Father in heaven for Jesus.

TEXT:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope… Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Dear friends in Christ,

Last Sunday as many of us were gathered together in worship a single man entered into a house of Christian worship and left an imprint in our memories that may haunt us for some time.  Our hearts are broken for the people of Sutherland Springs. 

Some fifty people had gathered in their small church to worship and pray

only to have a man enter and kill 27 of them, including an unborn child, and wound 20 others.  Only four escaped physical harm but their hearts are not unscathed.  Indeed the wounds extend beyond this small community. 

Where was God?  This is the question in the minds of some folks.  Why would he let this happen?

Was it a problem with our laws, with our keeping up with people who have indicated they have problems, with our mental health care system? 

What went wrong that this could happen?

But one thing we know.  Shattered are our illusions that evil is far away.   Shattered are our illusions that we are each of us completely safe and secure.  We read about the horrors of history like the holocaust but that is safely far away in distance and time,  Then evil comes knocking at our door and it isn’t just an idea anymore.  People just miles away are right now grieving the murder of their loved ones just a week ago.

We are left with questions.  How could this happen?  How could a human being point a rifle at innocent people in a church of all places and kill them?  How can anyone shoot and kill a child, or a pregnant woman?   That anyone could do this shatters our illusions. 

We wish we could help and change things.  There is no way that this can be undone.  Evil had made itself known at terrible unfathomable cost.  Why?  Scripture gives us one reason.  Sin infests this world and each and every person who inhabits it.  But by the grace of God this would be far more common.  The world is not as God created it to be. 

Last Sunday in Bible class I stressed that a key component to Luther’s theology is that life is not fair because this world has descended into sin.  Things happen to people that should not happen.  Luther wrestled with this because he loved his flock and he saw tragedy strike them for no apparent reason.  It is almost as if life itself rises up and says no, God does not exist or No God does not love you.  Luther says that over and above these “No’s” we experience, we hear God say Yes in His Word. 

This is what St. Paul is doing in his pastoral letter to a church.  Brothers do be uninformed.  We grieve but not as if we have no hope when we lose loved ones.  Jesus is Risen and He has promised that He will come for us.  And will shall rise again.  Paul tells us to encourage one another with these words. 

These are God’s “Yes” that cry out against the “NO” of life in this world. 

Sunday a man took the lives of Christians in prayer.  Some said, see God does not exist or God does God.  Against this NO the Word of God says Yes, God does care.  Jesus already died so that these who lost their lives to evil in this world are already with Him in a place where all things are as they should be. 

Sunday the world said to Christians you are nothing special, you are not safe.  But God says in His Word, Yes you are.  You are redeemed.  You are  loved.  You are adopted children of God.  And when the time comes not matter how it comes, God will bring you home to Himself.

Meanwhile, here we are.  Not quite the same.  A week later we are getting back into our normal routines and somewhat putting out of mind what transpired a week ago today.  We reminding ourselves that it was just one man out some 350 million who live in the nation and that chances of it happening to us are so very slim.  We tell ourselves we can go on and live assuming such things cannot happen to us. 

But… we know it could, unlikely, but possible.  Indeed we know evil is out there.  That’s why we lock our doors at night and why we are thankful for all those who stand to protect and serve, whether they be police and other first responders or those who wear the uniform of military service.  We are thankful for those who heard the call of God through vocation to serve others putting their own lives at risk.

I remember so many times that brothers and sisters in uniform put themselves into harms way to make a difference.  Perhaps because of last Sunday the memory that is most fresh in my mind is in the middle of the hot desert of Iraq in a small trauma center.  The call that casualties were coming had gone forth and we had gathered to wait.  The emergency bay was eerily quiet.  Everyone was already at their station. These men and women knew their jobs.  They stood waiting for the dam to burst, to go from stillness to fervent activity. And then we heard it.  The roar of a  humvee as it came flying in and the doors sprang open and we had our first wounded child.  A very small Iraqi boy with a beanie baby tucked into his shirt, probably placed there by a medic.  And they cut away his clothes and the gaping wound in his side was revealed.  And they went to work and they saved his life.  And I learned later how evil had lifted its head.  How an insurgent had deliberately thrown a grenade into a school to shake off his pursuers.    

I am no longer surprised by what this world throws at us.  But I am thankful for all those who stand to make a difference. 

What can you and I do in such a world to make a difference in such a world?

First, we can make a difference for one another.  We are here today, together.  WE are worshipping.  We are praying because we know God hears us.  There is not any “NO” that can counter God’s “Yes” in Jesus.  When we grieve we can comfort one another.  We grieve when a loved one dies.  We grieve when things like last Sunday happen. But we do not grieve as if there were no hope an no meaning. 

For Jesus is Risen.  Jesus is mighty and victorious.  Events like evil, tragedy and death do not change that.  That is why we encourage one another with the Word of God. 

Jesus is Risen.  Jesus is returning. This sad shadow of a world will not last.  A new heaven and near earth are coming.  Each day that passes it is closer.  Soon we shall be with Him.  Soon all shall be right with the world.  It’s going to happen because Christ has promised so.

Jesus is the only answer to a sinful world fallen into darkness. 

What can you and I do to make a difference in such a world? We can make a difference for others.   Bring the light.  Bright and clear and bold.  Proclaim Christ and Him crucified and risen to redeem the lost sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.  Proclaim the promise of forgiveness.  Proclaim the promise of everlasting life.  Proclaim the promise of a new heaven and near earth. 

Jesus said the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy but He has come that we may have life and have it to the full. 

This is God’s Yes in world that screams NO.  But the world and the devil do not get the last Word.  The last Word is the only Word that matters.  Jesus says come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. 

The Lord is coming.  He will bring Him all those who have died in faith and together those who have died in faith and those who are alive shall experience all the promises of God come true.

In Christ’s name,

Amen.

Change and Presence

The future calls. One thing I learned a very long time ago, was change is a part of being human. Many years ago in a small room I would come to find as a safe comfortable space with a man I looked up to as a mentor; I learned, spoke and breathed philosophy. The stuff of meaning was honey dripping our fingers. I learned how we all exist in relationship with other people and make our lives together and I began to see just how important it is that we human beings have a story to write. We move through time. We have a past, exist in the present, but hear the call of tomorrow. Tomorrow beckons us with it potential creating excitement and it risks and threats creating fear if we let it.
Some things are in our span of control. Some things are shaped by the actions of others. And some are handed to us and change our storyline forever. Some of those things are great and wonderful. And some are not. My cancer is strangely enough... both.

I am blessed in that my form of cancer is controllable, at least with 90+% odds. But the future is now very uncertain and more unpredictable. I must anticipate two ending for my story.; One that is near and more sudden; the other far as hoped for. I am learning to live with uncertainty and that the fact that life is not all that ordered and reasonable in fallen sinful world. Removed from God, to some degree at war with God in rebellion demanding our way and our freedom to be god, how can it be otherwise. God is the source of all life and order. To reject God is to reject life and order. At least that's how I see it.

In the midst of my disorder I find God. I remember the story of the centurion looking at the dead Christ upon the cross and the words of a might Lutheran theologian Dr. Norman Nagel, "Jesus was never more God than when He hung dead on the cross." As the centurion proclaimed, "Surely this man was the Son of God." For myself, Jesus presented the clearest revelation of all that not only was He God in the flesh, but God is a God who suffers with us, cries with us, mourns and wraps His arms around us to be present because sometimes it is presence that we crave.

Entering the Shadowlands

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” -- CS Lewis

I have cancer. 

 

That damn, frightening, life changing word...  Truth can be very real sometimes.

 

 I will have it the rest of my life.  I've had a suspicion for over a month now since my first initial blood work came back.  I am surprised by what I have as are my doctors, because my initial symptoms didn't present.  And initial news is good.  For my type of cancer, there is a very effective life saving treatment with minimal side effects.  I should live a long time.  But the sickness is inside my chromosomes now and will be my traveling companion, my shadow for the rest of my life.

 

Part of the happiness now is the pain to come.  Happiness and pain are a chorus you see, dance partners, two sides of the same precious coin of life.

I am currently a resident in a military hospital doing Clinical Pastoral Education.  It is ironic that this particular unit of CPE is focused on suffering and started off with the movie Shadowlands about CS Lewis and his wife he fell in love with late in his life and how it was to discover she had a serious cancer that would shorten their time together.  Context changes meaning.  One's future story, even if it is only possible, shapes the present.  I find life is richer embracing all possibilities rather than hiding from any. 

 

CPE is a program where a key component is to have personal goals.  I love organization.  So I was challenged, and accepted the challenge, to examine the messingness of life, the uncontrollable, that which appear absurd and unmeaningful, that which unravels everything we try to put together.  That which makes us vulnerable and afraid.  So I made this my goal.  And I learned God may give what you ask for.

It is a paradox.  In so many ways this news, the new truth, the absurd, messy, companion that makes me vulnerable also blesses me.  

One day driving to work on my regular mundane route into San Antonio, not the most beautiful city in the world with flat, and concrete, pavements, and congestion... I noticed at one traffic light a flight of birds dancing off the powerlines. I watched the sun rise and felt blessed and alive.  Walking in McCallister Park I felt more in tune with creation and its Creator than in a long.  I felt as if I had developed a new level of awareness, a special seeing eye, that suddenly should the glorious mystery of life all around me and revel in it.  It was not something to be sought out.  It found.  Little things.  Hearing a little girl laugh in the neighborhood.  Just listening to my own children and the little happy noises they make as they go about living.  The love of my faithful wife.  The taste of good Korean food and tea, the sound of music... all treasures newly appropriated.  

 

If one had a choice of a cheap barrel of $3.00 a bottle wine or the chance for one glass of the most exquisite wine every made since the first day of creation, which would be the most incredible gift?  I know my answer, but I'll leave the question and your answer up to you.

I have for some time felt as if something were coming, almost stalking me.  I've been more conscious of mortality for some reason.  These past few years I have been more conscience that fewer years lay ahead than lay behind.  Erickson would say I am passing through a stage, and perhaps I am.  But labeling and quantifying does not diminish mystery.  One can analyze the greatest musical composition but does that mean one hears it?

I am blessed by God.  I have access to the best health care the world has ever known and it has literally saved my life, most likely (92% probability).  I have friends I love who are far sicker than I and I find myself feeling weak and powerless because want to reach out and given them a "magic pill".  

Its like a Lazarus moment.  Coming out of the tomb, knowing death is ultimately real, knowing others will die, the ones we love, and one day we ourselves.  There is no hiding from it.  No more pushing it away until later.  Death is real, a shadow, a presence.  "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." (ESV Psalm 23)    But there is life.  Eternal.  Blessed.  I find my Lutheran faith and framework holds up in the midst of such realities.  The world is a fallen creation filled with echoes of former glory that cry out in pain and suffering but finding joy in the hope in promise.  Christ is risen!  The greatest exception is not death... but that one day  I shall rise.

 

  

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe...

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.  

John Donne - English Poet

Seasoning

I am growing older.  Last time I had my annual physical readiness review with medical, I told the Doc that I had been diagnosed with OAS and was told it was terminal. He looked up with a serious but puzzled look and said, "I'm not familiar with that".  I shared, "Old Age Syndrome".  His response, "ha, ha" and to go back scribbling notes as he now added an appointment to mental health.  (Just kidding on that last part). 

Old age.  Soon I turn 50.  But like the picture above, it matters in life how you "frame" the experience you are going through (or have or expect to go through).  Of course the picture makes a huge difference too.  How you see that depends on your personality type.  I am very focused on what is real and what is true. There are many types that are much more able to focus on the potential and creativity of the photo.  For example when I edit the photo I look to bring out what I saw.  Others may photoshop it and bring out the "what could have been".  But irregardless circumstances will have limiting factors.  Age is a limiting factor.  But there is a plethora of limiting factors we must deal with.

I was recently selected by the Air Force to apply for a full year of residency for Clinical Pastoral Education.  CPE is an intensive environment for critical examination of one's pastoral skills and interactions with those in need and with those who provide care.  In writing up my application package I began to realize that I have changed a great deal in these past 25 years of my adult life. 

Yep, I am growing older. My run times and recovery times are showing it as well as the wrinkles on my face, the few age spots on my hands, and my increasing population of gray rather than black hair.  But I am also seasoned. All that experience, all the people I have gotten to know, the many different situations I've engaged come together to make these final 20 years or so of my active working adult life to look very much like the picture above.  Full of potential, depth, richness, and possibility.  Yes, I draw nearer to the end with probably fewer days ahead than now lay behind, but they are days that may be richer.  Suddenly a minute, an hour, a day is an extraordinary valuable commodity as it will not come again. 

I'm not sure if I would want to be 20 again with most of my life ahead. 

So I think this time, as I go get my annual physical review I think I can say I'm feeling pretty good about where I am and what the future holds - even if I can't run a seven minute mile again.

Simply Paris

The spring has been busy.  Lot of the normal stuff related to chaplaincy - chapel services, visitation, counseling, and events targeting strengthening resiliency.  Last month was a real treat with the weather and my family was able to enjoy a nice warm week in Paris.  If not for family I probably would never have traveled to Paris. But I found some nice surprises there.  I have admired the grace and simplicity of ancient Greek culture and so enjoyed laying eyes on some ancient Greek sculpture that rests in Paris. 

 There is something about the ancient eternal beauty that communicates through the ages in the marble.  A civilization that laid the foundation for much of western civilization lays in the dust but signs remain of its ancient grandeur.  Signs continue to reside among us not only in marble but in our very values and ways of looking at the world around us and understanding who we are.

Long after the hands that carved these statues, long after people saw the beauty of the world around them and visioned it to recast it into stone, long after the minds that grasped and externalized such truths as "you can't step in the same river twice" have turned to dust - the echoes of truth and what is real remains.

In the white marble carved by ancient hands echoes a reminder, a song, that truth remains - something eternal, something beautiful there is about the world around us.

Notre Dame on the other hand felt dark and cold, hardly the warm welcoming hand of God that I had expected.  Instead it still felt grasped strong in the clutches of old superstition and dogma, a religion of terror and reward based on merit and work rather than of love and mercy.   Outside the cathedral had radiated an inviting pull calling one to come inside.  But so dark, almost oppressive.  The only hint of goodnews in the face of spiritual distress was in the cluster of Easter Lillies still blooming near the altar.

 

In contrast the Pantheon radiated light, but a light of a different kind.  A pro-reason, humanist light.  Monuments to philosophers long and recently dead towered above.  But observing the visitors, I found myself pondering how many can remember even one thing that Voltaire taught, one thing that Rousseau
 believed, or Victor Hugo.  Who can remember without turning to Wikipedia or some such resource?  The influence wanes and turns to dust and all that is left is the marble.

But even in this temple to humanism echoes an ancient simple wondrous truth.  God loves His creation.  God loves His children created in His image.  So much that He Himself took on human flesh and lived among us.  His name was Jesus.  And the simple clear truth that echoes across the age is still heard amongst the noise and confusion of the world.  In Christ there is mercy.  In Christ there is forgiveness.  In Christ there is love and eternal life.  Time does not win.  Decay does not win.  Death does not win.  Easter Lillies in the darkness of Notre Dame and an old painting remaining in the Pantheon remind us that He is risen and now reigns and He shall come again.

50 million dead

Estimated 50 million dead children.  39th Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.     Is this really what we want?  Really?

Skyrim - metaphor for life

Dragons are invading the land.  People are dying.  Lives are being consumed.  What to do?


I received Skyrim for Christmas.   While I like fantasy literature, I've never been a big fan of fantasy role playing games, but I like this game because it is so much like life - it is open ended and not scripted; its progress depends on the choices you make.  Skyrim looks to be an interesting gaming experience.

Like life.


This is a game with a major crisis- dragons are invading the land.  And you find yourself in a politically divided environment and are asked to take sides.  You can choose the noble road and make ethical decisions.  You can play as a thief.  You can even play as an assassin and murder. There are skills and talents you are born with, some that you can learn, all that you can develop  but like life you must chose which ones to focus on.  You can play the game and become a great character, a hero, or you can avoid the main quest completely and only play the side line quests.  You can focus on becoming rich and buying lots of houses and you can focus on serving the need of the community by tackling the crisis.

Like life.

When we enter the world of adult life we find ourselves with lots of choices to consider.  We have a life to build, a character to develop.  We are all talented at something, usually more than one something.  Even those of us who have struggled through school, whose life experience as a teen was not that great, who people would describe as not having much going for us, do have something going for us.  Every human being is gifted.  We are not all good at everything, but everyone is good at something.  It may be mostly potential, but it is there.

As we stand on the landscape of our life looking at the world around us waiting to be discovered we realize that in the unknown there is an element of risk and danger.  Will we step forward into the world with courage or will we be timid?  Will we go out looking for the opportunities and the treasures for the world is full of them?  Or will we stick to the well traveled roads and the path of mediocrity?

As we progress through life, it won't take long to realize there are many problems and crises in the world around us that we can become involved in.  In Skyrim you can learn a spell that will heal others.  (And yourself).  It is a valuable lifeskill to learn how to heal from wounds both physical but more often of the heart and soul for life has a way of wounding us, sometimes at our core.  But there are those who develop the skills to reach out and heal the hurting around us both in body and in spirit.  That is a noble life road.

And like the game, you can choose to play as a very noble person, or you can become a very bad person or something in between.  It is one thing to be a thief and make your way sneaking, taking advantage of others, and stealing anything you can.  But in Skyrim, even the noble person can take advantage and pocket a stolen trinket or two when people aren't looking without getting in trouble with authorities.  Like life.  But unlike the game, when you steal or take advantage of another person it is not just an electronic avatar that will respawn fully whole later.  When we take from others we diminish them; we hurt them.  

Will we play the game of life in such a way that we add to life or diminish it?

And what shall we add?  Shall we focus on treasures and houses for one can ignore the greater quest of Skyrim and focus on looting ancient halls and accumulating gold to purchase houses and jewelry and clothing?  In our own lives which will dominate our time and energy, our focus?  Will we focus on personal riches or will we utilize the things of the world as tools to enrich life and not only our own?  Will we own the temporary things of the world and utilize them to enhance lives or will the things of the world own our temporary lives and consume our days upon this world?

And the world we find ourselves spawned into is a world in peril.  It is filled with glories to be discovered but some fairly rough places too.  It is filled with places where people are dangerous.  There are real life monsters waiting to consume other out there.  There are factions trying to buy your allegiance for their own gain.  Will you become a pawn in someone else's game of life or will you think for yourself and make your choices, choose your friends, and  determine your allegiances based on life enhancing values?  Even in my middle years, half-way through my game of life, I find these questions worth pondering and reviewing.  Perhaps I need some course corrections.

What sort of character will we become?  Have we become?  What course do we choose now?  


Will we dive into the deepest challenges of life where the greatest risk is, the greatest effort required, but where we are called to become the noble hero?  Or will we stick to the side games - the safe areas - but the mediocre parts.


But finally we realize too that a video game is unlike life in that in the game every person who plays can become "the hero", the savior of the world.  In Skyrim an ordinary person happens to be born with a talent that in the midst of this crisis can lead him or her to become such a savior.  


Some people are a bit more gifted in some areas than others.  Sometimes you see someone who is a master, who naturally gifted has developed that gift to extraordinary levels.  Most people are on similar skill levels to others.  And life situations impact our choices, the scope of our ability to make impact.  Some people find themselves due to forces beyond their control (and sometimes due to constructing a path) at the center of influence points in life and able to rise to positions of great influence. The story of President Obama is such an example.  Or Hillary Clinton or George Bush.  


Almost everyone will never be president.  But I believe that there are many people out there who are gifted and if given the opportunities could have been as good as or indeed better in their service than those who have come before.  We are limited to the choices the game of life hands us, but looking at great people we realize that there is an element for shaping our own path and destiny.  When we strike out with purpose, courage, and informed decisions we can shape our own destiny.  

And just maybe you will find yourself in a place where for another person, another group, who knows maybe a nation - you could be a hero for a danger has arisen for which you are gifted.  But to become the hero, to help others, will entail personal sacrifice, a choice to develop your character and your skills to tackle the problem, a choice to devote yourself to the service of others.  

The world is full of problems.  If we look we find that we have talents inside us waiting to be developed and applied to help make life better for ourselves and those we live with. 


But we don't have to be president to have a profound influence for the good or for the evil on the world around us.  Especially in our zone of play.  What we do, who we are, how we interact with others - it shapes not only our life but the lives of others.  




How shall we play? Will we play small or large?  Will we spectate?  Or will we take the risk, dedicate the effort, and for someone become the hero?

As the Iraqi war comes to an end I hope we are coming closer to a dream fulfilled and that is to walk through the streets of my previous deployed location safely with my Iraqi friends to enjoy some local food and cha.  It has been a while since I was in the desert and this has been a long conflict.  So much has been accomplished but the Iraqi people still have a long road ahead.  I have lots of feelings and opinions as I read the commentaries, the speeches, listen to the increasing chorus of criticism directed toward the military in some circles concerning the tactical engagement of the war.  But number one in my thoughts and concerns are my Iraqi friends.  I pray for them that they keep growing and know peace, prosperity, and justice.  My Iraqi friends were somewhat different from me in culture and some beliefs.  But they were also very similar.  They loved their country.  They loved their families.  They, like the rest of us, wanted to live life at peace and to have good things for the ones they love.  They had put on the uniform of military service to help secure that.  I haven't had any contact with them over the years since I left Iraq, but they are still in my prayers.  I may never go back to Iraq, but for a period of time I lived there, made friendships there, and like hundreds of thousands of others, contributed a bit to the future of a people and a nation.  I may never go back, but Iraq will remain part of who I am and I will remember and pray for my friends.

Remembering.

An entire generation moved to commitment, valor, sacrifice, triumph, and victory.  Our nation was changed.  Our world was changed.

December 7, 1941.  Pearl Harbor day.  A day worthy of remembrance.  

A generation worthy of emulating.

Sept 11, 2001.

A day of of hatred.  A day of tragedy.  A day evil struck.

A day worthy of remembrance.  Again our nation was changed.  Again our world has changed.

Will we be a generation worth remembering, worthy of emulation?  

Are we committed to valor, sacrifice, triumph, and victory?

Will we remember and be moved? 

Change: Re-formation

There is always change.  My recent trip to the European mainland to Wittenberg Germany on the anniversary of the Reformation was quite remarkable and moving.  Perhaps this trip combined with other recent events such as my mother passing away, had me thinking about the power of change and resilience which is the ability to bounce back and keeping moving onward in the midst of challenge.

One of the many things I admire about the Reformer Martin Luther was his resilience.  Early in the Reformation he didn't have much to hang his hat on for the sake of his personal security.  Indeed, his own core beliefs were changing so fast that I suspect one reason he was such a prolific writer was it helped him to make sense of them and keep them centered on the truth of Scripture.  He had powerful enemies in the Pope and other leaders of the Roman Catholic church whose main approach to dealing with his challenge being to call for his life.  Marriage brought a great many other changes to Luther and when his daughter died it broke his heart.  But he remained unwavering through his life to what was right and good and to living.


There is always change.  The ancient pre-Socratic philosophy Heraclitus in discussing the relationship of permanence (which we all crave) and change suggested we "cannot step in the same river twice".  Time flows.  The world changes.  We change.  


As we grow older there is much change we cannot control but there is also much that we can influence.  For example as our bodies grow older what that means can be heavily influenced by choices in diet and exercise.  Our minds as well.  We can sit and just let how we approach life be largely out of years of habit.  Or we can from time to time engage why we are doing what we are doing and what we hold dear and reassess our values, beliefs, and goals to see if perhaps they are in need of a re-formation.

Some of us resist changing our beliefs because it sounds too much like the radical liberal clarion call that traditional values are enslaving and change that abandons the past is necessarily liberating and progress.  But as Luther showed us, sometimes reaching back to the foundation can help us get our life (and sometimes our society) back on a better course.


There are some changes that change us.  They come unexpectedly. We fall in love.  We loose a loved one.  We are diagnosed with an illness.  We are attacked by an enemy.  Our situation alters in a substantial way.  

Such change, when associated with loss or threat, can illicit some powerful negative emotions.  It is telling that of the four major emotions (mad, sad, scared, glad) three of them are negative.  Change can make us fearful, sad and depressed, and even angry.  Emotions can be powerful motivators in our lives for actions which bring on further change, not all of them good.  I believe it wise when we become conscious of a major change in our lives that find us with these powerful emotions, that such is a time at the beginning of our response to not just put our feelings into it, but to think about our feelings, to think about our new situation, and to think about where we want the situation to go.


I find in these situations reaching back to my core - to my foundational beliefs - helps me to sustain what is important and vital in the midst of changes. 


It can be easy to drift from our core beliefs and identity as strange as that might sound.  By Ortega Gassett tells us, "I am myself and my circumstances."  Circumstances go a long way in making up the stuff of our lives and when we have lived in a set of circumstances long enough, perhaps some aspects of who we are have not been utilized or were set aside for a time and now out of habit they have grown rather dusty.  


I will confess that in Wittenberg I began to think of how my Lutheran core beliefs had grown just a bit dusty in my almost 7 years as a military chaplain.  While it is a good thing that I've added many new tools to my "toolbox" to care for folks and I work in a wonderful diverse environment, it was good to be reminded of the hope that is found at the heart of the Reformation and that this hope is central to my life:  Salvation by faith alone, as declared in Scripture alone, received as a free gift of grace alone, because of what Christ alone has done in his death and resurrection.  I had began to think of myself as an "Air Force Chaplain" which I am and hopefully will remain for I love this job.  But I am reminded that I am also a Lutheran pastor and my job is not just a job - it is a calling.  When you are not all that special and you are surrounded by some very talented and dedicated folks it is easy to forget that one is called to a special task, not because of being better or superior.  But God gives us all a vocation because He creates us all with unique gifts and talents and calls us to place those in service to one another and just to ourselves.  



These past few weeks have been time of reflection, re-formation.  Touching my roots.  Thinking of my present.  Preparing for my future.  Taking stock.  Being thankful for what remains and aware that all things change and some of them should be relished while they are present.