It was about this time of year 15 years ago that I was serving in my first year as a chaplain at Andrews Air Force Base. I was a captain and the junior officer on the staff. Normally the team consisted of a Colonel, a Lt. Colonel, two Major, and four captains. But in the spring of that year things were somewhat different. The Lt. Col had just retied. The Senior Major had just gone to Korea to serve as Wing Chaplain having been selected for Lt. Col. The Senior Captain had just left for Europe as he had been selected for Major. The next Captain in line was getting out having been passed over for promotion. The next Captain was... lets just say not yet adjusted to the military. The other Major took over.
Then I get a call, out of the blue, and unexpected. I am wanted in the Wing Commander's office at 3pm. I have no clue why. I get into my service dress and report to be directed to meet with the Vice Wing Commander. It seems our Major had shown up 30 minutes late for a group meeting of all the brass on base that he was supposed to chair, and in civilian clothing and unshaven to boot. As I left the office I found myself in charge of the chapel.
Suddenly the situation was different. And I was visible in a way I had not been before. I had authority and responsibility that would normally not come for ten or more years. Fortunately I had a senior enlisted leader who knew the systems and the regs and kept me out of trouble. But I also had a great boss. Oh, that's right... where was the Colonel in all this? He was in the hospital recovering from guillain-barré syndrome. As soon as he could talk I was consulting with him on what he wanted done. Because I understood that even though I had the authority and responsibility and enough military experience (10 years at this point total with my navy experience) it still wasn't my wing. The Colonel was the Wing Chaplain. This was his team, his vision, his priorities. He had far more experience than I. He knew the base, the leadership, the people, and the whole ball of wax. But even if I had been his Lt. Col it was still his wing.
But that taste of responsibility hooked me into deciding rather than doing one or two tours I would make a career out of the military. It was a long ten years of being a captain and learning and taking orders and taking point while working within the boundaries and vision set by my boss but the day came when I made Major, when I would be leading my own team -- six chaplains to a field hospital in Kandahar. The learning, training, working, and patience had paid off.
And things changed, over night. I had leukemia. I would have to adjust to a new situation that God saw fit to place me into. Fortunately I was directed to and called by a wonderful group of saints at church in San Antonio.
Its easier to be patient when we think the outcome will be what we want. But when that outcome is up in the air, or when the outcome is different from the "time we put in", it can be a difficult adjustment to deal with. I pray that my friend's son has a full recovery from leukemia, Covid-19, and from guillain-barré syndrome. Its been a long road for them already. It will likely be a long road for them yet. And the results are uncertain. I pray for them. I hope for them. But this is an imperfect world and results are never certain. All we can do is the best we can, pray for God's mercy, and remember in the end He's the boss. Its not so much our world, our ways, our desires, but His world. And sometimes we may not understand all His decisions. We might even want to resists His decisions and maybe struggle to trust His decisions just like we do with any other authority in this life that we don't see eye to eye with. Its not easy to be patient when important things are on the line.
These are days that call for patience. We so much want things back to normal. Every day there are always some people somewhere who are begging for more time, begging for things to get back to normal, begging for these days to pass. Today because of Covid-19 there are far more of us feeling this way. Some because they are sick. Some because they are out of work. Some because they are stir crazy from being stuck at home. And there are more people today adjusting to a new normal. There are families who have lost loved ones to this new illness. There are folks who have recovered but with lingering complications. There are folks with sick children and sick spouses, and sick parents who are afraid for them every day. These days are far from normal not matter how much we crave. And it is easy to understand why patience would wear thin.
It took my boss a long time to recover. Six months he was not able to be in the office. Six months I went to his house every day to talk about what was going on and the decisions that needed to be made. I better understand that now that I am myself laid up with a leg that is healing slower than I want it too. And to be honest I don't know what things will look like three months or six months from now. The therapist says it will take time and to be patient. But only time will tell how well it heals. Only time will tell how our society does with this new reality. Only time will tell when things will really start to get "back to normal" and what that normal will look like.
Every day someone somewhere deals with this exact reality. Cancer. Infection. Accident. Divorce. Death. What is new is that so many of us are sharing this reality at the same time, in different degrees, but in a way the same thing. It will take time to know. And what we will learn is up in the air. Its hard to be patient. Its hard to sacrifice for others. But this is our reality in a fallen world. It is something we all share in. Something we can understand better now for others. Before when we hear of tragedy we pray for others and in the back of our mind thank God it is not us, not our child. But today it is all of us, and tomorrow could be any of us. And that changes things. Could it make us more mindful, more understanding, more patient with each other. More willing to sacrifice for one another as today we are perhaps more dependent on one another than ever before.
My boss recovered, mostly, a few side effects. And thanks to his leadership and guidance all those afternoons at his home, the chapel did just fine. He came back and I returned to being the junior Captain as new staff came in. And ten years later I was promoted to Major, given orders to build and lead a team to Kandahar only to have to retire because I was no longer able to deploy. Things didn't work out as planned. But God knew what He was planning and in the end time revealed His plan and it was better than I had planned. Even if things don't work out quite as we want in this life, God has promised something new, something restored, a place and a time where there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more pain... only understanding, love, peace. Perhaps these days serve to teach us just how important these things are. And perhaps these days can teach us the importance of patience.
