A revelation in fire and a small voice.

  Is it the spectacular or is it the common that we find our deepest moments in our faith? Which has greater impact? Was it the words that Christ spoke with compassion or was it the miracles that burst forth from his God/powered interactions with people and situations that truly brought people to belief? Was it not both? At times it was not the spectacular but the quiet and the smallest of moments. At times the gentle words of Jesus nudged people to believe in him and at other times the unbelievable was hardly noticed, much less acknowledged even though the miracle might have echoed as a witness of God’s power in the Son. Sometimes the teaching words of Jesus were mocked and yet a miracle was about to unfold bringing change to the very lives of those standing before Him. Impact and influence even during the ministry of Jesus the Savior seems to be unpredictable. Is it a matter of the hardness of the heart that negates seeing the working of God?  Sometimes God doesn't have to do the mighty to speak, we just have to listen.

     For a week or so, I had been praying to be in the right place at the right time for God's power to be evident. On a cold morning on one of the first few days of November, I had awoken with a start at 4:30 A.M., eyes wide open, with a distinctive earnestness; desiring on this day to be in the right place at the right time for God to use me.

     Just a few hours later, this earlier prayer was even again on my lips, as a cloud of steam appeared on the side of the highway just ahead of me. As I got closer, the car from which the steam was rising up from was now beginning to burn. Bight orange flames were beginning to appear around the bottom of the engine, ugly black smoke began to billow upward. I came to a stop and realized there was a man was still sitting in the car. I jumped out and ran up to the side window and told the man that he needed to exit the car quickly. He stated, "It’s not that bad, it is only a blown head gasket."

   
     "No, no, your car is on fire," I exclaimed. Moving slowly, he hesitantly began to leave the car, but he also wanted to go around to the front and look under the hood. “Sir, we have to get out of here ... we cannot stand around,” I nervously tried with my words and hands to get him to move away from the fiery danger. Finally he listened to my words and we slowly we moved back from this heart pounding scenario. We first stepped back about 20 feet and then further back to about fifty feet away from the ever increasing fire. The flames began to grow ever hotter and higher and soon the car was a large fireball. I hurriedly dialed the fire department and they said they were on their way. The tires began to blow off like bombs and in a few minutes, his wife came driving up. She thanked me and said to me, “My husband has suffered some strokes and moves sorta slow,” before telling her husband to get in her car. Afterwards she slowly moved further down the road. Now the spectacle became a reproduction of a movie set with cars stopping all along the road, sheriff sirens and neck straining drivers coming dangerously close to causing additional accidents as they strained to look at the event in full production.

  
     After a few more minutes the sheriff said to me, "You are free to go" and I shook the old man’s hand. He smiled and said, “Thanks so very much, I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn't come along.” I turned and walked away taking some deep deliberate breaths, which I hadn't noticed I had needed until that moment. I sat for a few minutes in my truck and wondered about God’s powerful hand in this fiery encounter.

     
    At the end of the day as I was falling off to sleep, a simple thought broke through as I thought about the events of the day. A small voice came to me. God impressed this thought upon me, "He was there in the spectacular but he was also with me in the many moments during the day when I did not even sense Him." He was there in my directed words that I spoke to the old man in danger and He was there in the countless other words that I had spoken to different people I encountered throughout this same day. It should not have taken a revelation in a fire for me to understand anew, God's mighty power and His small voice both proclaim His love for those that will listen. After all ... He created the universe and He can move mountains yet He can also speak in the smallest of words directed to a tender heart. I know what happened in the fiery scene earlier in the day but I don’t really know what He did with my words spoken throughout the rest of the day. The crux of the matter remains ... God is God. Whether He moves in the common or the spectacular is not really to be argued but we must delight in the involvement of God in our lives as His children. What a wonderful and humbling reality it is to realize, God is involved in all of the moments of our lives.  He can and will use any of them to deliver His messages. Fiery miraculous spectacles are impressive but the still small voice is just as important because it too, comes from God himself. 

Dear God, help me to always listen, be ready to speak and let my heart be tender to you whether in the small or the spectacular. Help us never to miss the smallest of words from your voice because we are looking for the revelation in fire. Help us to simply seek you, be still and wait for you.  In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.

"The Lord said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave" (I Kings 19:12 NIV).

Looking out from from a open window at Glen Eyrie.

  I pull up an over-sized chair to sit below the reproduction portrait of a daughter painted by American Master in a true American castle built by 20^th Century Railroad Baron in the foothills of Pike’s Peak, Colorado.  The daughter seems silted and stiff even as the master painter tried every technique to instill life and dimension into the likeness of the privileged descendant of “Manifest Destiny.”  The massive mantelpiece in the same room was gathered up from 16^th century Spain to add authenticity to this frontier mansion seems to dwarf my humble position as a paying guest with its symbolic carvings long since lost in their purposed meanings.  The hundreds of quarter-sawn oak panels lining the over-sized hallways and the stairs wide enough for the Victorian gowned women and their escorts cry out, as if each contained a name determined to be remembered as one of the important guests that have long since passed from their appointed days of entertainment and business with the powerful and wealthy General Palmer at Glen Eyrie.

    Glen Eyrie castle as it is now was built by General Palmer to remember the affections and in memory of his wife who lived many years in Europe for health reasons away from the higher elevations of  Colorado.  It was designed as bit of Europe in the wilds of the Middle West.  Queenie Palmer had fled across the Atlantic to regain her health and the magnificent stone castle built out of love and excess was incredibly functional and magnificent for its time and still is today. Still for all the expense and all the beauty ... life is fleeting, even in a great house in spectacular setting.  In fact, in fitting with the general ironic pattern of massive houses, mansions and even castles … the builder seldom enjoys long life in the created building with its realm of exquisite glass and detail, exceptional quality and design and finished notoriety and attention.

   

    It seems ill health, unintended misfortune, accidents, financial ruin, marital discord and familial problems plague most of these elegant estates. It is as if the over spending, over planning and over sizing allows a vacuum of excess in these gigantic homes leaving too much room for the opposite side of life.  The fulfillment of all the dreams seems to evaporate even as the builders finish with their crafted and skilled labor of excellence.  A certain kind of sadness seems to invade the extra spaces that were left empty to show affluence.  A certain kind of futility seems to settle over the purposed show of greatness in the grand houses and the common traits of the elusiveness of having it all in one’s lifetime overshadow the architect’s carefully chosen classic lines and stately elements designed to impress the world with the created structure.   

    It is remarkable to me, as I ponder life.  There are common threads to our existence on the earth. In the ancient and in the modern, certain themes seem to hold true through time.  Human beings can build massive buildings, exquisite homes and beautiful structures for numerous uses which can be geometrically designed and perfected and ascetically purposed. Some stand throughout time and are timeless and some stand out in time as skeletons and reminders of the elusiveness of wealth, power and prestige without being used for anything except to serve as a design or an architectural example for the following generations.

    All these buildings and homes represent the power, prestige and wealth of the person or of  the age and yet these same structures seem to stand more importantly as examples of the futility of wealth and position to secure anything permanent in their intended purpose and fulfillment.  From the military realm to the political realm, to the countless other realms that occupy our daily living … there are no realms that are completely and timelessly worthy of our trust in the deepest parts of our souls.  None can be completely trusted.  It is only the Lord God and His ways that can be trusted.  So where are you putting your trust?

“Now know I that the LORD saves his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright” 

(Psalm 20:6-8 NIV).

Peace from the Lord.

      “Lord give me peace ... wonderful peace  ... from the Lord, peace for the journey ... peace in the wilderness, Lord take me over, Lord give me peace.”  Over and over this stilted cadence verbally came  forth in hopeful language from the crooked mouth of an aged and bent white haired woman in an unmoving wheel chair. Her chair with wheels seemed made to travel but on the other hand it seemed destined to move very short distances around in this Alzheimer unit.  Her endless sequence about peace was never the same, yet it was ever earnest in its spoken longing coming from this dear child of the Lord.  This is a child of the Lord who desires to leave her disease bound desert like condition and cross over into the fruited land of eternal promise.  

     She could not see nor could she hear but she could see the place she longed to go and she could hear her Savior talking.  She could not go to this place by way of a man-made wheel chair pushed by an aide’s assistance nor could she loose the ties that held her in this endless waiting day after day.  This was a long waiting to cross over to that place of perpetual, eternal peace.  The release she desires will come on the wings of peace, a peace that is deep inside of her.  A peace she speaks of as she lives in this suffering place.  It is a peace that holds even in the silence of the Lord she knows when He does not grant her wishes to journey to His bosom.   Peace, she knows.  The Lord she knows.  Not peace as in the absence of suffering, but peace in suffering.  Not a Lord who takes away suffering but a Lord who suffers with her.  This is what she knows.  Peace from her Lord in spite of age limiting pain and frustration.  This she knows.   

     She now knows no others … not her family, not her friends, not the people who are paid to care when all that is a life and living in normalcy is forgotten.  Forgotten is now her real disease, forgotten are the voices, forgotten are the conversations and forgotten is the person who cannot answer the questions addressed to her.  Maybe it is all the others like me, those in this room, who try to answer about suffering who do not know.  Still we insist on trying.  We try to answer all the questions about her because she cannot speak.  We think someone needs to answer all the questions about why this tragedy of non-living happened to someone that was dearly loved and now only suffers.  Maybe no one has to answer.  Maybe it is the rest of us that do not realize there can be peace in a silent and brutal place.  Maybe we have forgotten the Lord who suffers because we consider and value to know only the God who provides, too much.

            Maybe it is enough to remember what this forgotten woman who cannot move or answer, is truly speaking of.  For what the woman remembers, is what she has; and no dreadful disease even one that abducts hope itself, can possibly take that away.  Peace comes from the Lord who both suffers and provides.  It is peace in the wilderness, peace for the journey and finally peace that will take us over into peace everlasting.  Lord, give us all, that peace. srm

How do you fit the church in a bedroom?

“Your mother is taking her last breaths now.”  These were the words of the hospice nurse as my mother died.

It was a moment that grew in significance as days turned into weeks and the weeks into years.  It was a period of minutes that seem strangely like dream when things go wrong and you are left dumbfounded at the outcome.  It is a place familiar to all of us … a place where we all think we can always just wake up and the outcome will change.  I was trying desperately in some way to force by my will: a waking, a change or even an alternative date for this ending.   It wasn’t that my mother wasn’t ready to die.  She had been saying for days that she “just wanted to be with the Lord.”   It wasn’t that we hadn’t said good bye.  We had told her just the night before that she could go, to which she responded, “Can we all go together?”  It wasn’t that her death was unexpected.  We had been waiting for six months for this leaving by the precious person who that had taught us all what the grace of our heavenly Father looked like in a living way.   

Still there was no human effort that could modify this final earthly separation.  There was no magic trick that any doctor, nurse or family member could possibly offer to limit the pain, soften the blow, strengthen the body or even postpone the hour.  Affection was generous from teenagers to siblings, tears were pouring forth as if they had external storage capacities and touching seemed to speak when language was unknown.  It was like every form of normalcy was laid aside when we entered that room.  For the next hour; senses seemed keener, aching seemed to feel comforting and soft words seemed to speak forth like an eloquent orator with their deep connections.  Communication came from the eyes, a touch, even in the motions we made with our hands and sometimes we even gave them voice.  

In middle of all of this, a voice came forth from a woman I had never met. A hospice nurse had come to the house just a few minutes before the death of my mother.  We just started using the hospice program on that particular day.  My sister had called to speak with this nurse a few minutes before and after being made aware of the symptoms she stated, “I will be right over.”  One of the first things she asked about when she arrived was if my mother was a believer in Jesus Christ.  The answer was to the affirmative and she proceeded to tell our family, that my mother would die in just a short time and her ministry was to come at times like these.  In fact she prayed daily to be present and to be used at times such as this one.  Everyone in the house was summoned to say goodbye to my mother.  She stated, “Your mother has just a few breaths left.”  We all kissed my mother amongst prayers both silent and audible and then this nurse gently said, “Your mother is gone, she has left us.”

            Who is this woman and how did she know the exact moments when life would depart from my mother’s body?  Her gentle words carried our family through a difficult moment with a graceful manner with a heavenly intervention, but how did she arrive at just this moment?  Why did her factual words seem strangely soothing?  She came with an official title but what united us was something else.  It was more than one person.  It was as if the thousands of people that my mother knew, loved and blessed were with us at the moment of her leaving us.  They were there along with our family she held so dear, the nurse who had just entered our lives and our Lord, the Christ we all knew and my mother going to meet. Somehow the living Christ and His living body, the church had all come into this small bedroom, summoned at a particular moment by His guiding Spirit with the tender care of a Heavenly Father who truly loves His children.   One child of His was carried home while a roomful of His other children were comforted.  Still, I cannot, no matter how I try, describe how it is possible to fit the church of the living Christ into a bedroom. srm 2006 & 2013

Something in the Western Sky

Close your eyes quickly and laugh with the wind.

    On one of the last nights that Michele spent at her Mother’s cabin at Lake Cochrane, there was an incredible sunset filled with unbelievable intensity on the horizon above the waters. The sky was flaunting incredible dark violet clouds while weaving rose threads of contrasting color midst the illuminated orange infused yellow horizon.  Earlier as we had prayed at the church and as we left, a double rainbow stretched across the sky over the Antelope Hills.  Between the rainbow and the sunset, this evening seemed like a sign from the Creator of color and light … that life would go on for the one that we all loved.  On this night … this wife, this daughter, this sister, this mother and this cousin whom we all loved so dearly, again showed us the true meaning of the words: grace, faith and courage. She bravely spoke of days ahead of her … even as quiet tears appeared a time or two, as she held to the assurances of her hope filled faith. A faith so alive with nuances and vibrancy, that it somehow dimmed the vivid colors in the sunset in the Western sky above the lake.  

     I took a picture of that sunset as I came down the stairs to the cabin on the steep bank through the trees. I had the camera in my pocket to show Michele the earlier picture of the rainbow over the church.  Actually it was a double rainbow and when she saw it, she said, “I’ll take it as a sign.” A sign of promise, we all thought, as we silently prayed to our Savior, that things would change in this daunting battle with the word Leukemia that had long since become fight for life itself, to our dear Michele. We spoke of the times ahead … of travel, treatments, tests, blood counts, family, a wedding and many other things. She did not have any great reserves of physical strength at this point and I’m sure the thought of the long journey back to the medical world of trials and medicines must have seemed to her, like a journey to the sun. She was so thankful to be in the house overlooking the lake spending time with her Mother. As she glanced from time to time at the one man she had loved all of her life … her “Donald,” she was expressing hope as much to help him and herself;  as she was about to again put her very life in the hands of her doctors and her Savior.

     Michele always had this uncanny gift of feeling and sensing the needs of others above her own. Her love for her husband, her family and everyone else was so free of the typical human hindrances, that I sometimes feel that it truly came from her God as a special lifelong Spirit generated gift. Her love for fine things and how to value all things might have been part of that same gifting as well. Whether it was relationships, friendships or tangible items like porcelain or art … it was always the same. Michele saw the deeper, the finer, the important and the lasting: as the facets she would value, retain and cherish.

     Of course, we all felt Michele’s life was mostly unfinished in our eyes and this still aches deep in our hearts. Still, there were far more colors of love, faith and courage applied and painted into our lives from her years with us, then can be ever be seen in any sunset. Brilliant memories of actions, thoughts and words will that will ever be part of us and in what we carry away from her life to ours.  Michele expressed to more than one person, “I cannot lose; whether I go to be with Jesus or live to be with the ones I love here.”  We lost her, but she won … something more and above all life, here on earth. 

     It wasn't until I looked at this photograph long after I took it … that I saw the small light filled opening in the glorious sunset painted by the greatest and eternal Creator Artist of all time everlasting. I now realized … we never see completely or really understand what our lives are totally about while we are living in them.  “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, and flames of fire his servants” (Psalm 104:2-4).

    Long ago, Michele wrote the phrase, I used as a beginning heading to this little story.  I thought I knew what it meant then, so I saved it in a book of thoughts.  I know now … there might be a deeper meaning in those simple words as well. There was a great joy in Michele’s heart, as her eyes closed and the wind carried her into the presence of her Lord forever.   srm 2013