Conscientious Cooperators

by Ian Doescher

Because this is Memorial Day weekend, here's a story about peace. My friend Ken, the pastor of Tualatin Presbyterian Church, passed this story on to me, the story of a man named Desmond Doss. Have you heard of Desmond Doss? He was a Seventh-Day Adventist and an avowed pacifist who, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, joined up with the army because he felt he should serve his country. However, he refused to carry a gun. He was mocked, ridiculed and even threatened by his fellow soldiers, and was brought up on formal charges by an officer. But it was determined that just because he wouldn’t carry a gun didn’t make Desmond unfit for service. Desmond became a medic, a medic who did not carry a gun. And though he himself was peaceful, he saw more than his share of violent action. In a battle in Okinawa, in which American soldiers were trying to take a certain ridge that overlooked the island, the Americans were routed and beat into retreat, but not Desmond. You see, 75 men were already wounded up there, so Desmond stayed and served them. One of the men he treated was the same officer who had brought him up on formal charges.

Desmond’s story is the story of a man who knows in the core of his being what the peace of the Holy Spirit means, a man who lived that peace courageously and boldly, helping people understand what it means to be both a patriot and a pacifist. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first and only conscientious objector to have received that commendation. Desmond says he doesn’t like that term “conscientious objector,” though. He refers to himself as a “conscientious cooperator” -- a term that has been adopted by his denomination, the Seventh-Day Adventists. What a great way for us to envision our lives as Christians, surrounded by the Spirit whom Jesus promised to send to us: you, me, all of us, conscientious cooperators.

Value Every Moment

by Julia Graves

Close your eyes. Now think of someone you care about. What were there wearing? Can you remember the sound of their voice or what they smelled like? What did you talk about? Was your interaction pleasant or stressed filled with condescending remarks? Did you hug them when you parted and say “I Love You”? Did you value their existence?

We live our lives as if they will continue forever. We take relationships for granted. It only takes a moment to change our lives forever. In a moment a car accident, stroke, heart attack, or unexpected death can occur changing or taking the life of a loved one.

Our words and actions can cause an emotional death to an individual. We demean and minimize others in person and behind their backs. At times we behave more like people of darkness rather than of the light.

Life is a gift and every moment is precious. In a moment, it can all change… forever.

What do you value?

Ascension

And if I go,

while you're still here...

Know that I live on,

vibrating to a different measure

--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.

You will not see me,

so you must have faith.

I wait for the time when we can soar together again,

--both aware of each other.

Until then, live your life to its fullest.

And when you need me,

Just whisper my name in your heart,

...I will be there.

"Ascension"

Copyright ©1987, Colleen Corah Hitchcock

All Dressed Up ~

by Kathy Douglass

I walk through a park every morning on my way to work. It gives me a few moments to breathe in some fresh air, smell the lilac blossoms or kick at the leaves, and watch the squirrels skitter up the tree trunks before I hang my coat on my cubicle wall. The park is just across the street from the courthouse, so people-watching is also available, no extra charge, all day long.

A few mornings ago, a scene in the park caught my attention: a young woman, dressed in a white wedding gown, with the veil pulled back over her head, sat alone on a wooden park bench, her eyes pooling with tears as she held a bouquet of red roses limply across her lap.

It’s not unusual to see a bride in the park; weddings take place at the courthouse every day, simple ceremonies, as well as more elaborate rites. It just seemed out of place to see a bride, alone and sad, at 8 o’clock in the morning. Her body language, her expression told me that there was a story unfolding. Her face was downcast, her shoulders were bowed. As I approached and then walked past her, she looked up and off into the distance once or twice as her fingers absently traced the rose petals in her lap.

I walked as far as the crossing signal, then turned and looked back. A few women, braver than I, approached her as she slumped on the bench. I wasn’t close enough to hear their exchange, but as they bent toward her, as they leaned in with expressions of kindness and concern on their faces, I imagined them asking, “are you alright dear?” “Do you need some help?” “Are you waiting for someone?” “Shall we wait with you?”

The young bride slowly shook her head in response, one of the strangers touched her gently on the shoulder, and they walked away.

I’ve wondered since that morning about that scene in the park. That young woman seemed to share her park bench with the pain of disappointment, the fear of humiliation, the ache of wondering and waiting, the anxiousness of uncertainty.

I wonder how often we feel just like her… all dressed up and nowhere to go. Ready to be the bride, but no bridegroom in sight. Weary of waiting. Bracing for disappointment. Turning the page in our own story to find a twist of character or plot or setting that we didn’t want or anticipate.

It can be difficult in those moments to do anything but look off into the distance and absently trace what feels like a limp hold on our hopes.

When we come to these moments, we have to face a truth that is never far off: the way things unfold sometimes is simply not what we had in mind, not how we thought it would look, not what we had hoped for.

Joel 2:21-27

The word of the Lord that came to Joel:

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God;

For he has given the early rain for your vindication,

He has poured down for you abundant rain,

The early and the later rain, as before.

The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

The hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God,

Who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

When I read the prophets, so much of what I read is beyond my understanding. I believe that context matters, and while I am interested in the interpretations of people who are wiser than I am, I just have to keep searching the Scriptures for the same thing I’ve always searched for: a glimpse of God's heart. Just as sheep begin to recognize the voice of their Shepherd, I believe that the Beloved begin to recognize the heart of their Lover.

When I read this passage from Joel, the glimpse I get of God’s heart is that it understands that we have, at times, felt jilted, disappointed, ashamed. I glimpse a heart that feels the losses we have felt, cares about the moments, the days, the years that seem, on the surface, to have been wasted. I glimpse a heart that knows the pangs we have endured, the hunger, the thirst, the want.

And I glimpse a heart that is set to make things right one day, a heart that will bring plenty where there was want, overflow where there was scarcity, and gladness where there was despair.

I don't know why that young bride was in tears on that park bench. I only know that there was something about the scene that resonated with familiarity. We wait and we wonder. We hope and we hang on. We brace ourselves for a twist in our own story.

God is greater than the reasons we sit alone with tears pooling in our eyes. “He is the Lord our God, who deals wondrously with us”, as He spoke to Joel. He will make us glad, He will. He will come to us now, He will come for us then, just as He promised He would.

We’ll be dressed in white, as a Bride adorned for her Bridegroom, and we will have somewhere to go.

When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels,

All His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown

He will gather, He will gather the gems for His kingdom,

All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning, His brightness adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown. (William O. Cushing)

Swimming in the Sea of Doubt

by Judy Bevilacqua

During the travels of my younger days, I remember the deep respect I practiced (fear would be more accurate) while swimming in the awesome surf near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Then there was the memory of tiptoeing through a minefield of poisonous sea urchins, in order to enjoy the sumptuous blue waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of France. I also remember the colorful stew of sea-life, from lobsters to moray eels, surrounding a dive in the Sea of Cortez in Baja. Most familiar of all, are the many adventures in the chilly purity of the NW’s Puget Sound and traversing Hood Canal. But nothing I experienced has prepared me for swimming in the “Sea of Doubt.” Nothing.

I realized something was happening to me a few years ago. A huge backlog of denial drifted loose from its moorings and set free a raft of “questions without answers.” This was neither a comfortable nor familiar situation for an old evangelically schooled woman. I had acquired no survival skills for this condition of soul. These questions were teeming with dangerous implications. Threats of apostasy and damnation circled menacingly just under the surface. Right on schedule, the guilt to which I am prone, produced a riptide for my unstable emotions. Not safe waters for swimming! I could sink and drown out there.

Reading John 21, in a recent lectionary passage, I was moved by Peter’s leap into the sea to swim to the resurrected Christ, who was calmly preparing breakfast for his band of doubters. I was reminded of Peter’s earlier plunge into deep water as he followed the Savior. Walking those few steps on top of the sea, then….sinking in panic. What was it about Peter that so often got him into deep water with his faith? His impulsiveness has always been endearing to me; testing his own limits and God’s patience - usually at the same time. I have grown to trust Christ more easily in the wake of Peter’s failures, rather than in the light of his displays of faith. His “sink or swim” attitude seems the best training model for swimming through doubt. There’s no way around it. Best to make friends with it. Dive right in.

I remember training for my ocean swim a couple of years ago. I ordered a video that was recommended for endurance swimming. It introduced me the T.I. technique, developed by Terry Laughlin, an American swimming coach. The initials stand for “total immersion,” or what he describes as fish-like swimming. TI approaches swimming as a mindful practice done in the spirit of yoga or tai chi. The aim is to become more self-aware and to feel "one with the water." After my childhood Red Cross training, it felt so counter-intuitive! This method asks you to lower your head in the water, not struggle and strain to stay on “top.” You are encouraged to sink down into the water and relax, to let your hands move like anchors - not paddles. And most helpful of all: to swim more quietly - minimize waves and splash. Recently, this training came back to me, as I considered the spiritual swim with which I am challenged at this season of my life and faith. I am in need of new techniques to help me stay afloat in this sea of doubt. Not with the goal to conquer those doubts, and stay “on top,” or to arrive at any particular destination, but simply to learn to breathe and relax for the long haul – this “crossing over Jordan!”

Since I’ve ceased thrashing about on the surface, gasping for quick answers and easy solutions, the terror has lessened. What was weighing me down, was the exhausting effort it took to manufacture certitude. Like swimming in a wool coat, it just got heavier and heavier. Finally, I just slipped it off and found I wasn’t drowning after all. I could hear the deep silence. Could just “be still and know that (He) is God” - in some completely ambiguous way. These days, I am finding myself able to relax and sink down into my questions and fears. There are plenty of them. I don’t need to tell you what they are. Yours might have different names. These doubts are not the enemies of God that I imagined them to be. They are not the opposite of faith. Just the shadow side, the view from underneath.

I always imagined that real faith would resemble Peter’s on the water, defying the laws of gravity – at least in those brief seconds before he sank. But in the end, those whose faith seems the most real to me, are those who’ve sunk peaceably into the deep, unfathomable waters of God’s great mystery and man’s undeniable humanity - and called it home.

Ah, there’s the tension! This very suspense by which we are somehow held by God - in suspension - (even, at times, suspension of belief), is the same uncertainty by which we “live and move and have our being” in God. To quote Parker Palmer: “I thought God was in the general direction of up. But I’ve learned that God is down and in.” And maybe our own resurrection, like birth or baptism, happens in the deep water - not on, or above, or in spite of it. Perhaps Jesus experienced his own Resurrection in just such a daring and doubt-filled sea.