Arrivals and Departures

Arrivals and Departures

Our dear fiends Dan and Lisa became grandparents for the first time last night while we slept.  I remember the night Drew, our first grandchild, was born. The deep warmth inside, the sense that all is right in the world, feels like it must burst out in celebration.  There is nothing quite like the arrival of this bundle of love, a grandchild.  We rejoice with them and look forward to watching Dan become putty in his granddaughter Caroline’s tiny hands.

We received a call early this morning as Jan and I sat on our back porch listening to the rain, saying our morning prayers, and reading our daily readings.  While Dan and Lisa’s grandbaby was making her grand entrance last night our friend Mary Rainey made her grand entrance into the presence of Jesus.  We celebrate again, but this celebration is harder because it doesn’t bring deep warmth and a feeling that all is right in the world.  This celebration comes with a deep sense of loss and a world at odds with what is intended.

This juxtaposition of arrival and departure reminds me of a day last summer in the sacred space of my fathers hospital room as he lay just hours away from his long awaited day of glory.  He had suffered a massive heart attack five days earlier, rallied for a couple of days allowing for sweet good byes, last words, and long hugs from those he loved most.  Now he was unconsciousness and lay peacefully in his bed.  The family had gathered in his room and my daughter in law placed her laptop on the table beside him.  It was an unbelievable moment as she played us the ultrasound video, taken that morning, of her new baby five months into its journey to join the family.  The 3-D ultrasound image flickered across the screen and we oohed and aahed at fingers, toes, the beating heart, and then sat in stunned silence as little “Katherine” turned and looked us in the eye.

Some one asked the question, “In the midst of sadness like this, how do you balance remembering the past and looking forward to what is new?”  What a great question.

It will take someone with more wisdom than me to answer that question.  I guess I wonder if balancing is really the issue here.  How can you possibly balance the home going of saints like Mary and Lolo, my Dad? And how can you ever begin to anticipate the joy, the hope, the new life in the Katherines and Carolines given as the Saints fade away. 

Could it be it is not about balance?  How can you possibly balance the life, relationships, and memories of one deeply known and loved with all that will be new?  Maybe it is not an exchange of one for the other but a wholeness encompassing both that somehow, in ways we can never understand, fills us more deeply than we can imagine.  Maybe it is about hope and receiving…the memories and the expectations.

The words to a song come to mind.  Maybe you know the tune and can sing along.  It gives me chills to sing these words.

You give and take away,

You give and take away.

You give and take away,

Blessed be Your name, O Lord.

Blessed be Your Holy Name.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.  Blessed be Your Holy Name!

Why is Sex Fun?

Why is Sex Fun?

It is a beautiful morning as I walk out on the field for my morning constitution.  The early morning fog has almost gone and the sun is just peaking over the trees on the East.  Everything is green from the recent rains and all is at rest.  The summer has been harsh and the green seems to consist only of scrubby weeds pushing through the greening grass.  The wild flowers of spring are long gone and it is too early for fall to paint its bright colors around the borders of the field. 

What does a late summer morning offer to highlight the pervading green, I wondered as I made the bend at the top of the hill and wound my way closer to the trees and over the dew wetted grass?   I will on occasion pick a bouquet for my wife of whatever the field has to offer, but was not expecting today to be very productive.  But then there they were…a clump of white Queen Ann’s lace here, some purple iron weed there, over here some goldenrod, a bush with green berries I cannot name, and an assortment of interesting weeds which bundled together created a most interesting offering for my sweet wife.

This surprise of diverse color hiding in all the green of the open field reminded me of a column by Joe Bayly many years ago titled, Why is Sex Fun?  I borrowed the title once before when I was teaching an adult Sunday school class.  I announced the title for the next week’s class and we had almost twice as many folks as normal show up.  Marketing is everything…

It was kind of a bait and switch, really.  Joe Bayly pointed out the extravagance of a God who though he could have made us see very adequately in black and white chose instead to allow us to see in vivid color and then proceeded to fill creation with unbelievably diverse color in everything from sunrises and sunsets, painted deserts, birds, flowers, fall leaves, tropical fish, and mixed weeds.  He marveled that even in places we may never go or see, God sees fit to outfit in vibrant and diverse colors and interesting shapes and sizes.  Then his punch line, “why is sex fun?”  He observed that God could have made us like amebas that reproduced by simply dividing.  Very effective and can be pretty rapid if you have ever played host to the little parasites…but not much fun.  But He didn’t, He made it fun.

The first commandment was very utilitarian given its time and place at the beginning of creation, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  It is an interesting God, a good God who wraps this first “duty” in the the joy, the mystery, the exhilaration, the intimacy, the deep satisfaction, and yes the FUN of sex.

So…it might seem like a stretch, but to me the surprising discovery this morning of beauty erupting out of the weeds for no reason except to declare the glory of a good God reminded me of that simple question.  Why is sex fun?

Well, I got to go. I’m going to give my wife the flowers…this could be fun.