Rememberings Authored by Abba

Sunday, July 17^{th, 2011} marked the 4^th anniversary since Jonathan, fondly known as Johnny, died. The “momentous” day was marked by a curious blend of “7s” as we increasingly became aware:  He died in the 7^th month, the 17^th day, the year 2007, 7 years following the death of our Mom and most in-our-face was plucking 7 large koi belly up from the pond that very morning.  Never before, nor since, did any fish die in the pond. 

I felt like Moses, noticing a bush that burned but wasn’t consumed, as I collected one 7 after another over the days and months.  I considered the work of Yahweh.  And on the seventh day God ended His work from which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work.  I dwelt in the mutual recognition moments of Moses’ noticing the unconsumed yet burning bush: the Lord seeing Moses turned aside to see, then God called to him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses!  And he said, Here am I.” 

This particular anniversary in 2011 I was so aware Jonathan’s home-going—yet unable to click with some thought of “how can I memorably mark how important Jonathan is to me and this well-marked day when he died.”  Sadly, the day ended sans the honoring I wanted to give it.

Ever hear of Jonathan Veira?  Neither did I.  He’s a professional opera singer of 26 years, loves Jesus, who brings “laughter and joy to the party.”  Knowing nothing of this person, except he made people laugh, we bought tickets for the afternoon concert in the Keswick Conference last Thursday.  This capable 50 year old musician took us on a delightful musical journey down a memory lane of old songs, advertisements, creating joy and fun as we listened and sang together. 

In the last half of his final song, he purposefully walked off the stage, took the shoulder and hand of a downs syndrome young man and directed him back up onto the platform to join him at the microphone.  They resumed the song…together… You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas.  I am strong when I am on your shoulders.  You raise me up to more than I can be --  two voices, one of broken articulation and the other clear and well trained, joyfully joined in praise to Him!  In those moments I saw “Jonathan-Johnny” singing God’s holy song together—one not greater nor lesser than the other.  This “dis”-abled young man’s face raised heavenward with joy and tears, his arm stretched out and upward, singing with his “whole” body “You raise me up…”  We were no longer an audience; we were worshipping before the King of Kings, the great I AM EVERYTHING THAT I MUST BE!  And “the temple” was filled with His Glory!

Only later did I become “conscious” that this singer’s name was “Jonathan.”  For a few moments “Jonathan was whole,” for a few minutes I was the downs syndrome young man being gathered into the arms of my big brother, for a few minutes, I was given an ornament that transformed ashes to beauty, and given a flask of oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for my heavy, burdened spirit.  For a few minutes, the body of Christ (Jonathan Viero) was helping me care for my Jonathan (Edward Midura) and letting me look on with tears of praise and pride that we, God’s holy people, do “get it right,” giving God glory and honor and making Him extremely proud of His kids!  I didn’t need to search for a way to honor Jonathan’s life and the specialness-to-my-heart of our brother-sis relationship.  The kingdom of heaven came to me-- there!  God presented a gift that could have only been scripted by His Finger.  And, once again, “God saw that it was good (fitting, pleasant) and He approved of it.  And, during this Sabbath year, we rest in His Goodness, Delight, and Faithfulness--never-forgetting-one-detail-of-His Will to be accomplished.  How right and good to turn toward the “Presence of God,” to notice Him in the ordinary, and find Him noticing our noticing and then we hear His Voice!

As I am finishing this writing, I’m observing a mum and dad each arm in arm assisting their own teen-age blind, autistic young man back to their car.  Abba, You hand-pick your servants! Fill their hearts and arms to fulfill your work and delight! 

Bethyl Joy

Shearings!

         Caterpillars have their cocoons. Snakes have their moltings. Sheep have their sheerings. It’s been sheering time here in the Lake District. Great masses of wool being rubbed off on fence posts, zoomed off with electric clippers, rolled off in the grass. All that wonderful, warming winter wool worked well for that day and time. Now the baking days require cool waters, deep shade, and thin skin.

For the first time in 30 years I sheared my beard. I guess this shearing thing is contagious. Not since the Air Force have I voluntarily de-bearded myself. Feels naked, it does. I want to slap a pair of underwear on my chin. I wander about with my hand creeping north to shield my face from others’ view. Anybody have a spare burka?

   
Failing that, it’s best perhaps to molt into a new acceptance of a new season in my life.   Time to shear off old vanities, snip off fears of a “weak chin,” peel away pride in a multi-color, designer beard—like this fanciful sheep.  

Change does bear getting used to.     In six weeks or so we’ll be in China.   I’m readying myself for this change.  This ol’ caterpillar’s getting ready to fly.  

What season is it in which you find yourself?   What personal exodus is causing you to shed an old skin, an old self?   From what Egypt are you being sheared?  
 God’s shears aren’t sadistic.   He wants his children free of dead, wooly weights that don’t fit our current season.   He wants us to get over ourselves; catch up with His purposes; and get on with the good works He’s appointed for each of us to do.   Welcome to shearing season!

Scattered

               A finale on my mom’s death 20 years ago that I mentioned in the last entry.   I brought her ashes home to California and we scattered them in Death Valley, on Independence Day.   We climbed Dante’s Peak overlooking Bad Water (the lowest point in the USA), Funeral Ridge, and Starvation Gulch—and let her go in 130 degrees of heat.   The blast furnace from below on the desert floor disappeared mom.   I didn’t just want to think her grief.  I wanted to feel it.   And so I did, so we did, Bethyl and I together.

 Did you know your body amounts to about 20 handfuls of ash and dust?  When we let go of dust, we then have empty hands to receive eternity.

Suicide

            Twenty years ago today my 68 year old mother committed suicide.   It was a hot, lonely day for her, not unlike many others in her muggy retirement park.    She sat in her tin trailer, cooking away in a slow simmer of solitude.   First one prescription pill and then another, forgetting to remember the count.   Forgetter pills.   She forgot, all right.  Her brain forgot her pain and her heart forgot to beat.   She wasn’t found for three days. 

               Like little lamb Bertie described in my last entry, she couldn’t hold on.   She was blind to hope that she could recover from her prescription drug abuse; deaf to God’s loving voice.   As for me, I too was blind and deaf in different ways.  I lived in California; she in Florida—physically and symbolically.   I didn’t have eyes to see or ears to hear how far gone she was.  

Now all that’s left is empathy and grief.  Empathy for the old who have no one to care; empathy with God’s father heart when no one sees or hears Him knocking at our doors with love, hope; grief for how Death has such free rein amongst us.   Such empathy and grief fuel my furnace for mission.

               Somehow I’m put in mind of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, The Eagle, with it’s focus on sunny solitude, lonely lands, and sudden falls:

He clasps the crag with crooked hands

 Close to the sun in lonely lands,

 Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

 

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,

  He watches from his mountain walls,

  And like a thunderbolt he falls.

                                          --Vance

The Lamb Died

               We learned a few days ago that Bartie, the lamb we described in our last posting, died.  I called the shepherd and found that in spite of injections, salve, bottle feeding, the lamb just couldn’t make it.   So what is there to learn from this experience?  In two words, empathy and grief.   Empathy with the Father’s heart when we will not turn aside to see, stop to listen, respond with obedience.   Grief for sickness, dying, death.    The Devil’s job is to lie, steal, kill.   He’s at work, and generally does a hell of a job.   As long as we live on this occupied planet by this evil ruler, with his tight knit mafia, we need to cultivate empathy and grief as essential life skills. 

If you don’t have little blind sheep around to teach you this, try swans looking into their own reflections.

  Or perhaps regular people bridging rivers over rocky ground. 

Opportunities to learn empathy and grief are all around you. Look, listen, learn—without judgment, knee-jerk reactions, blinding assumptions.   I hope to see you.

Fell Falls with Blind Bartie

               I had a lovely experience two days ago.   I was fell walking up high over Dungeon Ghyll.   I was coming up from the falls and toward home past Stykle Tarn.  Off the beaten track, round a bend, and low and behold, something I’d not experienced God-smacked me in the chops.   There was a lamb lying smack in front of me.   She didn’t move.   I looked into her eyes and they were blind, not seeing; eyes totally scaled over.   She looked frail; didn’t bleat.   I stopped, sat down next to her, reached out.   Scratched behind her ears.  She moved her head toward my hand.  I poured water from my bottle into my cupped hand.  She lapped a little feebly as I continued to pour.  I looked around, no ewe; abandoned.

 I picked her up and carried her about five miles back home to Grasmere.  Coming down from the hill fells in the rain was slippery over the rocks.   Together we fell and recovered a dozen times or so in the bracken, over rocks.   Reminded me of old Chinese saying, "Fall down seven times; get up eight times."    I talked to her, “well that was a bumpy one, huh?”  The lamb had settled down after awhile and didn’t seem to mind. 

I called Bethyl from the top of the fell, setting up a meeting plan. Just before she checked with David, the shepherd who lives above us, our friend of three decades, Michele O'Donnel, visiting us with her daughter, said "let me pray before you talk to David." She prayed for wisdom for us, even if the wisdom given by David wasn't what we decided upon. Our steps were covered in prayer all the way.  All our paths converged.  We put Blind Bartamay (as I had started to call her) in the backseat with Bethyl while I drove Bartie home.  Eventually, we found her shepherd farmer.

 The farmer, Erick, said she had a case of “staut”, from eating some plant that causes a neurological disorder leading to death unless short-circuited.   He said he’d bottle feed her, give her some medicine, and she’d be fine in a couple of weeks.   A happy ending for Bartie… and me.  

 Once upon a time another Shepherd found a little blind lamb.    He was on his own track, minding his Father’s business; but He stopped to look and see.  Saw me.  Sat down.   Gave me Living Water.   Picked me up.  Shouldered my burden.   Took me to safety.  

Today He honored me with faintly walking in His footsteps, getting a sense of His journey.  He helped me jolt downwards thru mud, off cliffs to bogs, lowering my pride.   He set me to thinking about how real and repeated is the fall.   All good object lessons from the master Teacher, who arranges parables for you and me--life lessons--so we might be prepared to live well in the days in front of us.

       

Sea to Sea to See

Our last two days were spent on the first two days of the 192 mile coast to coast walk.  This walk is across the north of England--from St Bees on the Irish Sea to Robin Hood Bay on the North Sea.  I'm doing it in bits, a couple of days here and there.  Bethyl drove and dropped me off. In order to let me go she needed to drive me over to the sea and drop me off, not be driven and have me just walk off. Her focus on actively separating helped me as I look back on it. My grandfather summarized succinctly when he said there were 3 things in life: holding on, letting go, and knowing when to do which. The catch in my own throat and heart were the same as in hers. The Red Sea didn’t part, just my wife and I. Even so, the aliveness in our spirits were signs of life.

I found myself grateful for smallnesses: the power bar and apple in my pocket; the clean water in my bottle; the sun’s warmth mingling with salty breeze in my face.

The pulp of life is in the little stuff.    It's the heart of the matter.    On this topic, check this link for a cool heart-check:  Click here: Stethoscope. 

In this sea-2-sea walk God is training me to see Him in the details of life. I still tend to look for the grand event while he slips in the back door. But more often I am catching him out of the corner of my eye, smiling to myself, and saying, “hi there, Jesus; thanks for dropping by; thanks for walking with me these 18 miles today from St Bees to the far side of Ennerdale Waters; thank you for walking with me the next day for another 14 miles.  The 3 mph God and his disciple.”

The lakes, fells, rivers, sweeping pastures—all showed God’s glory on tour: “Madam Day holds class every morning; Professor Night lectures each evening. Their words aren’t heard; their voices aren’t recorded. But their silence fills the earth. Unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.” Ps 19:2.