Lost & Found? podcast #12
“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.” – John Newton
recorded on 08/29/2020
Lost & Found
recorded on 08/29/2020
Meditations 4 Misfits
FredGrewe.com
Monthly Archives: August 2020
The Blessing
Imogene had been a hospice patient for several months and lived with her daughter Bonnie in a very small travel trailer. She slept on a little cot in the midst of a forest of unread paperback books and magazines. Bonnie slept next to her mother on another cot.
Less than five feet tall and weighing less than 80 pounds, Imogene was still a very intimidating personality. She was very precise in what she liked and didn’t and let everyone know it. Normally on my visits, Imogene talked non-stop (with great bravado), recounting familiar stories of her broken marriages, her two children, her years of unfulfilling work, her in-your-face life philosophy, her unrealized dreams, and her indomitable spirit. Her son lived out of the area and out of Imogene’s life, so Bonnie was left to faithfully provide the constant care Imogene now required.
Maybe it was the cramped quarters. Maybe it was the pain of Imogene’s cancer. Or maybe it was just too many years of toiling at tedious, unrewarding work—but in the months I had known Imogene, I had seen how she and Bonnie could get on each other’s nerves.
On one of my visits Bonnie was out running some errands, so I was alone with Imogene. Uncharacteristically, Imogene shared in a vulnerable manner the underside of her life narrative. She told me how as an unmarried teenager, pregnant with Bonnie, she had to drop out of school and was never able to formally complete her education. This was a defining experience in Imogene’s life. Believing she was exceptionally gifted intellectually, but unable to gain the formal recognition, she had to settle for a less-than life. Was this why she occasionally made little digs about Bonnie’s weight?
That’s the backstory.
I honestly don’t know how or why, but on a subsequent visit with these women at the stuffed little travel trailer I was witness to a miracle.
Everything started off as usual. I asked if Imogene was in any pain. “No more than usual,” she said, then added, “But I know I’m getting close to the end…and it’s OK.” The bravado was absent as she began to tenderly recount the same stories I had heard on so many previous meetings. The bitterness and frustration over unfulfilled opportunities was mysteriously gone. I was even more amazed as Imogene began to praise Bonnie, who was sitting next to her. “You know, I love my son…but Bonnie’s the one who really loves me and has come to care for me when I needed her. She’s a great daughter—and I’m so proud of her.”
And then Bonnie chimed in, “Mom, I’m so proud of you. I’m proud of the way you never stopped learning. You couldn’t go back to school, but you never stopped learning…and you’ve taught all of us the importance of education. You didn’t let anything stop you. You got us all through.”
I remained in hushed silence as for more than an hour these two beautiful broken souls spoke words of love and acceptance to each other, expressing deep words of appreciation for what is so special and unique in the other. It was a miracle. When wounded souls bless each other, it always is.
A Macro View
These days, it’s so easy to get “sucked in” by the bad news of the day. One counter measure we can employ to help protect our souls during times like these is to take a more macro view of our lives. The following portion of a prayer by Oscar Romero, a Catholic Bishop in El Salvador who was martyred in 1980, is a great example of considering the longer view.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
May peace surround you, grace guide you, and joy surprise you today as you work to help make our world a better place to live in.
Blessings, Fred
Demons
As I survey my own life, I am aware that much of my ugliest behavior towards others occurred when I was sure I was in the right.
I’ve learned firsthand what demons certainty can make of us.
Heaven and Hell
There’s a tale from the Jewish tradition that speaks of heaven and hell.
One night an old rabbi had a vision of hell. He saw a beautiful banquet table filled with the most sumptuous of foods. But all of the guests were starving … they had no elbows … therefore they couldn’t get the delicious food to their mouths. They tried in vain to eat but were unable. They suffered terribly just looking at all of the delicious food and being unable to enjoy any of it.
The next night the rabbi had a vision of heaven. To his surprise, it was the exact same image … the same sumptuous banquet table and the people with no elbows. But in this image the people were eating and happy and celebrating. The difference? Without elbows, they discovered they could feed each other.
May you discover the joy of feeding others today. Blessings, Fred
The Crying God
A recent conversation. We had a patient on our hospice service who was a beautiful loving elderly man of deep faith. His wife had died the week before, and he was in tormenting pain due to tumors pressing on the nerves around his spine. Bed bound, tortured, and longing for death. One of my chaplain colleagues lamented, “Why won’t God just take him?”
My response: “Is that what you think? That God kills people? Because if we say God comes to take him, then God must also come and take the children from the pediatric cancer wards and the infants from their mother’s arms in the NICU.”
My chaplain friend hedged her bet and suggested, “Well, what I mean is that God calls us home.”
“Then don’t answer the phone!” was my irreverent reply.
I know what she was trying to convey. I’ve read all of the same theological arguments. “We use words like omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and sovereignty like we know what they mean” ( Christian Wiman).
“So what do you think?” she curtly shot back.
“I think when we die, God cries. I think God cries over the missed opportunities we had to give and receive love because we were too afraid—afraid we were not worthy of love. I think God cries over the cruelty we unleash on each other out of the fear of not having enough. I think God cries over our not knowing how God aches for communion with us.”
My friend turned away exasperated by me and my questions. I think that’s a result of my spending too much time with Death—he’s taught me to be wary of any god who stands by unmoved when we need Her most.
Dallas Willard says, “The acid test for any theology is this: is the God presented one that can be loved heart, soul, mind and strength?”
What’s Your Net Worth?
As I was sitting with Frank at the Memory Care Facility waiting for my laptop to boot up so I could get an electronic signature from a facility care giver to prove to my boss and the Medicare folks that I really was sitting next to Frank at said Memory Care Facility, I received an ominous message from the Universe on the screen: “FATAL ERROR—YOUR LAPTOP WILL NOT COME OUT OF HIBERNATION.”
On one level those words meant another ten minutes in the discomforting Memory Care Facility (after a manual shutdown of the damn laptop) waiting for the re-boot so I could obtain the coveted signature proving I really was with Frank.
On another, I wondered if this was some sort of divine commentary on my situation as I was with a terminal patient whose memory was certainly in permanent hibernation.
Regardless of the message’s intent, I simply sat with this hard-of-hearing, severely demented, and uncommunicative little man with the wavy white hair in a wheelchair. As I sat, I really started to look at him. To truly see him.
Underneath the bright green and yellow Oregon Ducks sweatshirt covered with crumbs from the morning’s breakfast and the matching green and yellow Ducks hat, sat a peaceful little man clutching a soft pillow to his face. Frank had been a devout Baptist for most of his life, serving as an elder and deacon for more than 50 years.
While Frank’s heart beat just fine, his memories and his soul had vanished nearly seven years before. As a result, this little man with the wavy white hair has little value in our culture. Oh, his biological organism is safe and well cared for, but for the most part Frank’s just put off to the side, out of sight, in a memory care unit with many other breathing, vacant bodies.
So, as I was sitting with Frank, silently praying for him as the laptop sorted through its millions of codes to restart, I heard a deep male voice (emanating from the little boom box in the common room) begin to sing, “Jesus loves the little children…”
I recognized the song—and as I sat praying for Frank I was serenaded by the words,
Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter’s day.
And everybody’s beautiful in their own way.
Under God’s heaven, the world’s gonna find the way.
I began to wonder if in some crazy way Frank’s dementia was a gift? Did it protect him from the suffering so many of the folks I visit endure?
In our materialized, capitalist culture we have turned human beings into commodities. A person has value and worth so long as they can produce and purchase. We esteem people based on their ability to make money, spend money, or both. For example, a person can be a big jerk, but if they make or spend a ton of money we give them great respect, honor, and attention. On the other hand, someone who can do neither we ignore. Consider the plight of the homeless, the disabled, those on welfare, or the financially destitute dying—we make them invisible.
Many of the folks I visit who realize they are no longer productive and useful suffer terribly— feeling as though they are leeches to their family and friends. Did Frank’s dementia shield him from this existential and societal pain?
I left these thoughts that had sidetracked me once again from my assigned task and began praying for Frank. Lately, when I’ve been with uncommunicative folks warehoused out of sight from our highly productive world, I have taken to praying the last Beatitude taught by Jesus. A reading of the text from Matthew 5.11–12 I particularly feel a closeness to what it says:
Blessed are you when your life is sucked out, you’re dislocated, and classified as a waste of time for my sake… Rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in the Heavens. It is a sign of the prophets to intensely feel the disunity around them.
Seems Jesus values a human being’s net worth differently than we do. I wonder who’s right?