Loosening the leash...and other news from Abi....

Well, it has been such a long time since I got any spam, I'm going to try not having to moderate comments again.  We'll see how it goes.

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School ... it has begun, again!  I have one of each of the three schools that are right next to each other -- "School House Row" we call it -- elementary, middle and high school.  Working with the PTSA at the elementary and middle schools always means that August is a crazy month, getting ready for the Back To School madness. 

It is a good thing to engage with the school, and since this will be my last year with a student at the elementary school, I'm finally giving in -- yes, President of the PTSA.  I felt I owed them -- I have had a student at that school for 12 consecutive years, now ... and I've never done much more than join. 

One year, back in 2006, I volunteered to help count & process Scrip on Mondays.  I worked with a lovely woman who became my dear friend ... and she recruited me into leadership when my oldest and her youngest left elementary school for middle school.  I started as the Newsletter Editor, then President for 2 years and Secretary for 2 years.  I'm just being a member there this year, helping mentor the new leadership from the background.

And so now I'm using all the wonderful training the PTA/PTSA provides for its leaders ... and giving back. 

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Back To School stuff went great ... first week of school was exhausting, but great, too.  Then the weekend hit with a vengeance...and I spent 8 1/2 hours of my Saturday in the ER with my 5th grade son ... who went too fast and jumped too high off ramps with his bike (actually, his friend's bike -- his is not good for ramps ... and there was a good reason for that!) ... lost control in the air ... and landed head first on the street.

Not going to go into all the details ... my son and I are both weary of telling the story ... but I will show you what's left of his helmet (a pile of plastic shrapnel was left at the impact spot on the street, but I was too busy with a very injured boy to stop and take a picture of that!) ... and remind you to be sure you and your kids wear your helmets when riding bikes!

My son is the school poster boy for helmet safety for now ... let's hope the lesson is learned this time ... because we don't want to do this again!

This helmet gave its life for my son.  A grateful and exhausted mom says "Thank You!" -- to God for which ever angel it was who dove between my son and the road, to that helmet, and to my son -- for wearing it!

Abi

p.s.  Oh, yeah ... skull in tact, neck not broken (but lots of sore muscles there!), two sets of stitches around his right eye, 5 or 6 patches of road burn on his face, knuckles, shoulder and back ... and one broken bone in his right hand ... called the Boxer's metacarpal.  Arnica Montana and Calendula came to the rescue in a big way and he was back to school on Tuesday, with his cervical collar, splint, sling and, um, striking appearance.  He is making incredible progress ... stitches out Friday, hopefully, and cast on his hand (up to the middle of his forearm) next Tuesday.

Abi ponders Peck, Post #4

Okay ... I finished the book last night.  And got my copies of Peck's People of the Lie in the mail and started the the first few chapters.  It all came flooding back.  The hard work of looking at the truth that we would go to amazing lengths not to see is very difficult.  So much so that an increasing number of people are choosing to take the easy way out.  Laziness rears its ugly head....

I am not going to discuss this book here.  The topic requires much more respect and discernment from those who have read the book in its entirety.  There is much to be misunderstood and I believe that there is no easy way to understand what Peck has labored to share.  You must read it for yourself.  But if you have read it, I will be happy to discuss it with you....you may leave your contact information in the comments here.

I have to say that both of these books are important reads.  For two main reasons:

1. Peck is looking to be the bridge between religion and science ... from the science side as a gifted thinker and physician, and from the religion side as a mystic and seeker who got all the way through the seeking to the finding.  And he did, in fact, find Jesus.  His embrace of Jesus as Messiah was complete.  Now, there will be those who will not agree with some of his theology.  Go and do your own searching before you turn away.  Tolkien's call to "suspend disbelief" in order to understand fully comes to mind here.  The unfortunate rift that was torn in the whole cloth of Truth, in order to take the "mystery" out of science is in need of restoration -- the divorce of the natural from the supernatural -- and Peck was ahead of his time on that front.  I find his books to include more than a pinch of the much needed salt of humility.  He was, indeed, a Cracked Eikon ... and we would do well to heed his example of looking at the Truth head on so that we may learn from our myriad mistakes.
2. What passes for "calling out evil" these days seems quite pathetic to me.  This is probably where I will do the most pondering in subsequent posts -- most likely because it is really a byproduct of sloppy thinking and deficient discernment concerning ethics and morality.  Too often we call "immoral" that which is not aligned with what we think or desire ... and "ethics" is becoming a form of Political Correctness.  If we are to return these important disciplines to their rightful place, we are going to have to spend time thinking deeply on root issues, not sidetracked by circumstances and emotions and talking points.

 There is much evil running rampant all around us.  Until we are willing to look in the mirror and deal with our own evil -- our own laziness -- our own unwillingness to exert ourselves for the best interest of the other ... we will continue to be blinded by the plank in our own eye and so unable to help the other with the speck that is troubling them.

One of the things Peck says is that human evil is basically concerned with taking the wide path, as it were.  When confronted with difficulties (whether relationally or economically or physically or spiritually or intellectually), the choice always exists:  (a) do I take the narrow path of love and discipline -- of my heart and soul and mind and strength -- wherever it leads and do what is right ... or (b) to take the wide path, the easy way, where my problem are not really MY problems that I must wrestle with and allow the Holy Spirit to both convict and instruct and heal -- but someone else's problems that relieve me of responsibility for my actions, or inaction.

Take a minute to read Matthew 7 ... the whole chapter.  If you have time, read the entire Sermon on the Mount.  Make this a regular practice, reading the Sermon on the Mount.  Read it in a different version every day.

In the end Peck says that we cannot deal with human evil "out there" until we deal with the evil in our own hearts ... where we allow the Holy Spirit access to the shadows in order to shine the Light of Truth and dispel the lies than ensnare us.  Only then can we look unblinking at our own laziness and ask for Jesus to disciple us.  To teach us.  To work the hardest of work in our own hearts.

This is another aspect of The Purple Martyrdom ... this work within.

The reason that there are so many monastic traditions that have these three chapters as the foundation of their rule is that they have an understanding of this important personal work that must be embraced and walked every day of their lives.  Every day.  There is no end to this discipleship ... until until we are fully conformed to the image of Jesus. When we are released from this body of death and are clothed in the imperishable, that work will be complete.

Embrace it ... there are those who will journey with you on that narrow path.  There will, no doubt, be many more "Peck Posts" ... stay tuned.  And better yet ... get the book for yourself and follow along!

Be blessed.

Abi ponders M. Scott Peck, MD -- Post #3

Well, one of the interesting things about chronic exhaustion and neurological challenges that I have observed over the past decade is that when I am "supposed" to do something, I mysteriously find the strength to do it.  Totally a God thing, that.  And so yesterday, as I ordered 2 copies of Peck's People of the Lie, I ran across his last book, which was published in 2005, the year he died ... and that was the book I got for my Kindle yesterday -- and read the first half of last night.  I'll be posting about that soon.

In the meantime I have been pondering lots ... and decided to refresh myself as to the particulars about Dr. Peck.

His official website is not very comprehensive.  It is, however, a good place to start, with the following things:

• The Biography link  is a quick look at his life
• The Publication link
• His Archives are located at Fuller Theological Seminary

On the page of his website called "Conversations", I found this (added emphasis mine):

On Psychiatric Illness "Starting with the Road Less Traveled, perhaps the most radical thing that I said in that book that deviated from traditional psychiatry is that I located the source of psychiatric ills in the conscious mind, rather than the unconscious. And that the previous view, the Freudian sort of view, had been that the unconscious was filled with all these bad feelings, and angry thoughts, sexy thoughts, and whatnot. And that was where psychiatric, psychological illness originated. When in fact, the real question is why those things, which were obvious, were in the unconscious, rather than the conscious mind. The answer was that it was a conscious mind that didn’t want to face certain truths, and pushed this stuff into the unconscious. But the problem is with a rejecting consciousness in which we simply don’t like to think about things….Over the years I came to believe, and again I’m leaving out the biological aspects, but that psychological disorders are all disorders of thinking. So narcissists, for instance, cannot or will not think of other people…. What we used to call passive-dependent people don’t think for themselves. Obsessive-compulsives tend to have great difficulty thinking in the big picture. And I would say that if you have a patient or a client who has some real difficulty, psychological difficulty, look for the problem in their thinking. There is some area where they are not thinking correctly. "

The article on Peck at Wikipedia has a great deal of good information.  And, as with everything (and I really do mean everything), there will be those who are determined to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  By this I mean that M. Scott Peck was a human.  He was far from perfect.  He was better at understanding and correcting the problems of other people than he was his own.  (Anyone who does not find this to be true of themselves has a problem with self-deception, IMO.)

I find it particularly sad that Dr. Peck, after 43 years of marriage, was surprised to find that his wife had had enough. (She left around January, 2004.)  He was not particularly easy to live with and she came to end of her coping mechanisms.  I wonder, as did he, whether his growing, but not yet "diagnosed" pancreatic and liver duct cancer, and Parkinson's disease, contributed to the demise of their marriage.  I would be willing to bet they did.  No doubt, his last months with his second wife (he and Kathy married sometime in late 2004 and he died on September 25, 2005) were yet another kind of Severe Mercy....

I am grateful for the wisdom God shared with us through this particular cracked Eikon (HT:  Scot McKnight).  Peck knew that he did not know it all.  And he also knew the sometimes terrible price the family of a doctor/prophet/writer pays for the brilliance he exhibited.  There but for the grace of God....

I will be throwing no stones ... but I will be looking to think more clearly.  And for that, I have Dr. Peck to thank.  He has done for psychiatry (in my eyes), what homeopathy did for "modern medicine" -- taken it beyond flat earth thinking.  The mind-body-spirit reality that is humanity parallels the Triune God in that they are all one yet continually interpenetrate each other as they form that one-ness.  When you focus on mind without taking body and spirit into consideration, you will not have the full picture.  Just as if you focus on God the Father without taking Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit into consideration, you won't have the full picture, either. 

The Father, Son and Spirit are ONE -- they cannot be separated and still be perceived properly.  Mind, body and spirit are ONE -- they cannot be separated and still be perceived properly.  And pondering the mysteries involved there needs massive amounts of clear thinking!

I will wait patiently as Father shows me more of his cHesed (which Peck understood -- you can tell by his definition of love -- I wonder if it was part of being partially Jewish?) ... and am confident that I will continue to learn what it means to do the hard work of thinking clearly ... of turning away from the laziness that seeks to skirt the pain and suffering necessary to grow up into the image of Christ Jesus.

Okay ... neurological wiring beginning to overload....

Be blessed, friends.

Abi thinks she might do a series on Peck, Laziness and Thinking....

So, I've really been thinking about that last post ... I mean, I'm waking up thinking about it, even!  And even before I've been able to go back and read the Grace section in Peck's book, I'm pondering the implications of this idea about laziness being the manifestation of Original Sin....and thinking I may have to buy another copy of The People of the Lie (since it was never returned from the last time I loaned it out...maybe I'll buy two -- DONE!).  Peck's work in that book is very important ... and I could see the foundation of that book in Peck's statement about the patients he had the most trouble helping (he was a psychiatrist) were those who were not willing to do the hard work to get well.  That laziness, taken to an extreme, turns evil.  It is not an easy read, but I think it is an important one -- especially for our times.

And then I've been thinking about the opening section on Thinking in Peck's sequel, The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, which is worth the price of the book alone.  The first section of the book is called "Crusade Against Simplism" -- which he summarizes thus: "...I decry the primitive and effortless simplistic thinking that lies at the root of so much individual and societal sickness."

The last two sentences of the opening paragraph on Thinking nails it:  "One of the major dilemmas we face both as individuals and as a society is simplistic thinking--or the failure to think at all.  It isn't just a problem, it is the problem."  BINGO!

Dr. Peck went on to say that only twice during his very long career as a lecturer did he give a 1 day seminar on Thinking.  "At the beginning of each (seminar), I pointed out that most people already think they know how to think.  At the conclusion of each, during a feedback session, someone said in sheer exasperation, "The subject is simply too large."  "...most of the participants were so overwhelmed by all that is really involved in thinking that they were either numbed or horrified."  It was no understatement when he continued with:  "Needless to say, these were not among my more popular engagements."   Yeah, no kidding!

I tend to believe that people are much more willing to "talk", whether in person or in virtual venues, than they are to do the hard work involved to think clearly.  They suggest that they are telling you what they think, but I think that they do not really know what they think about anything because they are really too busy telling about what they "feel" or "believe" or "observe" or "read" or "heard", which is usually something else altogether than clear thinking on their part.

Blessings to you ... and may you open your minds to thinking well--it is part of what it means to love God!

Abi is pondering re-reading M. Scott Peck's books....

Update 8/7/11 -- I have, indeed, decided to do some more thinking and blogging about Peck, so stay tuned!

Unfortunately, my brain is a little fragile right now, so reading is pretty much out and light and sound are stressful, so that means REST without any of the things I usually do to relax.  But I am grateful for the field of chiropractic neurology, which is able to help me rehabilitate my brain naturally ... and for getting enough sleep!

Anyway ... in the meantime I have been reorganizing my library / living room area to accommodate the arrival of a three-piece entertainment / storage unit.  And while I was organizing this morning, I ran across Peck's book, The Road Less Travelled -- which I first read over 25 years ago.

Apparently I brought my father's copy home with me (he was at the stage when he was getting rid of books -- even before the Parkinson's diagnosis, he knew he just wasn't able to process information like he had, so reading was just not something that absorbed much of his time), because I like to have a "loaner" copy of books that are important to me.  Anyway, I must have read it again, because I wrote the following note on the inside cover pages on 7/18/06 -- apparently triggered by something I read on page 263 -- in the midst of the amazing section called Grace.  I have largely left it the way it was (with occasional elaboration to bring it current with my thinking today) ... it is not polished writing!   ;^)

The cHesed of God manifests itself in every possible place in order to interact with us to faithfully bring us the love, grace and mercy we need to grow up into the image of Jesus Christ.  It will begin from the "Imago Dei" placed in us at creation and be added to by those in our path who love and nurture us.  It will come to us through the presence of God that holds the universe together through the continual act of being perceived by Jesus -- manifest by the collective unconscious.  When we are able to acknowledge this source and understand and accept God's outrageous offer of covenant adoption, the Holy Spirit is given the invitation to indwell our hearts.  It is then that the link between the wisdom of God that is found in the collective unconscious can (if we will be still and listen) engage with our conscious will to know and be known, seeking the Truth at all costs, always looking to know and align our will with God's will.

The peril, though, comes to us in that the evil one will try to use this same interface (the original hacker) trying to corrupt us with "pirate viruses"!  God's Word is our firewall (current updated thought:  I challenge you to reconsider the thought that this is talking about scripture and, instead, refers to Jesus Christ.  HT:  Wayne Jacobsen).  We must know Jesus as The Truth for our spiritual firewall to be effective!  Firewall software follows rules -- instructions for what to allow through and what to keep out.  [I would add today that God's Love for Eikons is our factory-installed Operating System ... which many have allowed to be replaced with a variety of much less effective OSs.]

The first rule we must set is the one of knowledge.  We must know and acknowledge that we can never know it all -- only God knows all.  So we must be humble and submit all we think and do to the Holy Spirit -- so Sophia can help us see what is good (leading toward holiness / cHesed/community) and that which is evil (leading toward sin / covenant breaking / narcissism:  essentially Peck sees it as laziness, as it is described here.   Key:  It is not what we perceive, but rather what God perceives, that is Truth.  We need to know The Truth -- Jesus, the Sword of the Spirit and our main Offense.  This speaks to the foundation truth that it is all about relationship with Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

The second rule we must set is cHesed.  If we will allow cHesed to be the contextual filter (glasses!) of all we think and do, God's ability to guide us will be greatly enhanced.  (I linked to my distillation of cHesed rather than list it here.)  This speaks to proper attitudes of love, grace and mercy as well as proper actions of submission, service and initiative within all relationships.

The third rule is humble accountability (mutuality in equality) -- to God and others -- for making right choices and accepting responsibility for those choices.  Right choices take effort and foster growth and maturity.  Poor choices tend to stem from laziness and inhibit growth through dependence or independence instead of interdependence in our relationships.  Poor choices bring the opportunity to repent and confess and seek forgiveness and restoration of relationship.

I was struck by Peck's chapter on Entropy and Original Sin, where he defines laziness as "attempting to avoid necessary suffering, or taking the easy way out."  Then Peck identifies laziness as "the force of entropy as it manifests itself in the lives of all of us."  (p. 271) In between these two statements, Peck observes that love is the willingness to extend one's self (to work and be disciplined) -- for personal growth or for the benefit of others.  It takes effort -- energy.  It underscores Peck's famous beginning phrase of this book:  "Life is difficult."

"...non-love is the unwillingness to extend one's self.  Laziness is love's opposite."

As always ... Abi live in a guilt- and shame-free zone ... but pondering is always lovingly encouraged. ;^)

I believe I will have to start with the Grace section ... when my eyes are better.

Be blessed.

Abi throws a wrench in "biblical" perspectives....

It has been a while since I have issued an R2A2 alert ... but I've been processing a significant paradigm shift over the past two years.   Something so foundational that I find many things that I encounter today -- that I would have totally agreed with just a few years ago -- throw a wrench in my spiritual "gears".  And while I am still looking forward to doing some significant blogging this fall, I just had to stop in today.

Marriage in not the foundation of our society.

There.  I said it.

Don't get me wrong ... I think marriage is a fine thing.  I think marriage is the gift of God to help us learn to love and serve one another with integrity and humility and intimacy ... and it is a very important foundation to lay for having children -- which is the gift of God to help us learn how Father loves and puts up with our whining and selfishness in order to show us what it means to lay down our lives for our own precious children.  It is the ideal place for children to grow up with healthy models of loving nurture.

But the thing is this.  All marriages are not created equal.  There are lots of reasons why people get married.  Lots of them are stupid and very short-sighted and selfish.  Lord, have mercy!  Heck, not all marriages result in children!  Marriage is a gift as the proper context for the gift of sexual intimacy.  Celibacy is a gift for those who have passions for service and mission and creativity and community to which they give themselves -- instead of giving themselves to the passions of sexual intimacy that can, well, interfere. There is not enough time today to even go into this one....

I will say this, though:  there is no such thing as a Christian Marriage ... although there is such a thing as a marriage between Christians.  Spend a few minute thinking about that.  And just being Christian doesn't stop people from getting married for stupid, short-sighted and selfish reasons.  Sometimes the assumptions they bring just makes it worse.  :^(

Just having the piece of paper or the ceremony or whatever does not result in the "one flesh" reality that God designed as a shadow of the interpenetrating mutuality-in-equality that is the reality of the Triune Father-Son-Holy Spirit.  The mystery that is marriage can lead us into the mystery of life In Christ.  It is just too bad that it doesn't always make it.  Look at how people make a mess of Ephesians 5 because they don't understand male culture at that time.  Paul was following Jesus and blowing up the men's patriarchal gig big time...but it still too often seems to be all about women's submission and male headship.  Sigh....

No ... intimate, vulnerable, honest, humble, sacrificial, patient, joyous relationship is an ongoing journey in marriage.  It is an investment of "presence" with the beloved ... day in and day out.  For better or worse.  For richer or poorer. In sickness and in health.  To love and to cherish ... until death parts us.  It is an invitation to die to self ... to lay down one's life for the other.  It is where the rubber of cHesed/agape meets the road of life.  A testimony to the reality that agape love is, in the words of J.B. Phillips, "the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen."

...it is an all too rare experience.

Loving your neighbor as yourself ... looking out for one another ... THAT is to be the foundation of our society.

The "idea" of marriage, it seems to me, has for too long been co-opted by religion as a means to control behavior -- to reign in fornication (yes, I said it!) -- without really accomplishing the task of intimate mutuality-in-equality ... because it regularly shows itself up for the sham it too often is.  The Apostle Paul says that it is better to marry than to burn with passion ... and that seems to be giving us grace rather than giving us a directive.

But I digress....

* * * * * * *

Considering the scriptures to be jewels of principles to be mined for whatever our issue-of-the-moment is ... well that is, in my wee purple opinion, abuse.  The rash of "bibilical" ... you fill in the blank ... is a symptom of the still-raging epidemic of Pharisee-ism that Jesus and Paul began stamping out -- and there's still plenty of fires burning.  Why is that?  Well, whatever you feed, grows.  And there are way too many folks feeding those Pharisee fires ... logs of guilt and shame and expectation and authority and self-righteousness and condemnation and performance and competition ... you get the idea.  Straining on gnats and swallowing camels, and all....

I know what I'm talking about ... I am a Recovering Pharisee.  Lord, have mercy....

* * * * * * *

Read the scriptures ... please!  Read them as entire books ... please!  Read them with your cHesed glasses on ... please!  Read them in the cultural context of those who first heard them (yes, this will take a lot of work to bridge the historical and cultural distance ... but I have reinforcements coming!), with all the assumptions that go with it!  Let Jesus blow your mind as he blows your Western presuppositions up ... just as he and Paul blew up the presuppositions of those who lived in the Mediterranean area almost 2,000 years ago.

But please, please, please don't read them looking for a way to put God's stamp of approval on your method of doing whatever it is that you're doing.  Let God bless what you're offering up to him without presuming that your experience is to be the model for everyone else -- God consistently has completely different stuff being blessed in lots of other folk's experiences.  If you hang around long enough with your cHesed glasses on ... you'll find you're constantly seeing things that you just didn't see before.  And if you cast each new "vision" in concrete ... well ... where are the seeds of change going to grow?

Okay ... finished stirring the pot for today.

Be blessed, friends.

Abi Ponders the Circle of Life....

Quite a lot has happened since last I posted....

I am a great-aunt for the 10th time -- and little Wesley Carter Ahlberg and his parents are doing great.  It was good to see them in their fun home in San Diego.  Before long Jeff will have a harness made for Nukie, their enormous white Alaskan Malamut, and baby Wesley will be ready to learn mushing (on wheels, of course -- no snow in SD).   :^)   Even though it was technically "against the 2 weeks of rest" rule, they braved the trip to Fullerton what was a very eventful weekend.

I have a new niece-in-law!  Steve and Merrilee Sandy's wedding was lovely ... even if we didn't get that their little ring bearer was dressed up as Frodo with Steve's ring on a chain around his neck -- and walked down the aisle to the Hobbit's melody from LOTR....  The rehearsal dinner and reception was lots of fun and Alexander had a grand time soaking up as much hang time with his cousins as possible.

But the most ... well, I don't have the proper word to describe it ... profound will have to work ... the most profound experience of this past month has been experiencing the passing of my father, Gene S. Carter, on Wednesday, June 22, 2011.
 
All the family was already planning to be in town for the wedding on Saturday, June 25th, so it made sense to plan for his memorial service for Sunday afternoon, June 26th.  On the one hand it was the right thing to do so quickly and efficiently.  On the other hand, it was a whirlwind of a weekend!  I know that there were those who would have wanted to attend but just didn't get the word in time.  That's just the way it goes, eh?

The experience was much like a wedding, in fact -- you are aware of lots of people around, but you don't seem to be able to get to talk with everyone and the memories are a little fuzzy.  But the service itself was just about perfect.  My sister, Becky, had apparently been working on it for about 5 weeks.  It showed.

Dad loved to sing ... and we did a lot of singing.  But the best singing was the Men's Ensemble -- two of Dad's favorites directed by Becky and sung by his only son, two of his many "honorary sons", three sons-in-law and five grandsons.  Dad would have said "that was just marvelous" ... and he would have been right.  My firstborn doesn't do a lot of singing, but he has a lovely bass and it was a very moving experience for him to be able to participate.

* * * * * * *

The mystery of blending loss and gain, grief and joy, tears and laughter, holding on and letting go is beyond profound.  The slowly spreading awareness of the loss of Dad's presence is deeply profound for me.  I can only imagine how it is for my Mom -- his beloved wife and companion and partner in ministry for 64 years.

For each of us who loved Gene Carter there is a deep sense of gratitude to God -- for Dad's life, his ministry, his generosity, his servant-leadership, his wonderful preaching, his effective way of teaching in so many different venues (church, college, Lions, camp, business, community, relationally).  He was a fiercely loyal man -- a trusted and valued friend and ally who seemed to be able to move heaven and earth with a phone call ... and a force to be reckoned with for those who harmed or hampered those he loved.  Sometimes he could have used a little tempering of that ferociousness....

Dad had a few "wishes" about his death:  to precede his wife and children, to not linger -- especially not to prolong his death with heroic measures (he was ready to meet Jesus), and to be clear-minded and "present" until the end.  Well, he got two out of three ... because the Parkinson's disease that impaired the use of his muscles took his ability to be "present" with those he loved long before his strong, healthy body wore out.

When I saw him last summer, communication was so challenging for him.  Some good moments in the midst of significant disorientation.  It was frustrating beyond measure for this dynamic communicator to be excluded from life in such a cruel way.  In one of those few clear moments, we had a great talk.  We shared our gratitude for having been able to work together at University Christian Church, Long Beach First Christian Church, but especially in the Degree Completion Program at the college; for sharing the joy of preaching and teaching -- and especially of interim ministry at the Wananalua Congregational Church in Hana on Maui; and most of all for the blessing of working together on his book -- and finishing it just in time to distribute it to his children and grandchildren at the family reunion honoring their 60th Anniversary. 

He had a blast with his book -- sending it to all his siblings and nieces and nephews and friends from churches and work places and Lions.  He took one last trip to his hometown of Springfield, IL for the Carter Thanksgiving Reunion and had a great time.  His last time of speaking in public came during a luncheon in his honor in December of 2007.  As a result of reading his book, the president at HIU realized that Dad's influence at the college/university over the previous 35 years had been profound -- and he resolved that Dad would be honored at the mid-year commencement with the Founder's Award -- HIU's highest honor.  While he declined to say anything upon receiving the award, he did say a few words of thanks to those at the luncheon.  He rose to the occasion and left us laughing and wiping our eyes.  He was diagnosed with Parkinson's the following spring...but he had already tied up all the loose ends of his life. 

The mystery of the Severe Mercy (what C. S. Lewis called the death of the wife of a friend:  as severe as death; as merciful as love) engulfed my Dad -- and those who loved him -- in the four years that followed his diagnosis.  As severe as the decline into isolation (unable to converse freely) but as merciful as the love of Mom and family and friends -- as his Savior -- surrounding him all the way to the end.

He looked at me on one "good" day last July -- what turned out to be the last time I saw him -- and said: "I'm ready to go."  I said: "I know you are, Dad."  It would be 11 more months before his name was called....  It was a great encouragement when Mom told me that Dad frequently browsed through his book this last year.

I believe that Dad was "present" down the stretch at the end of his Race.  He came out of the fog of disorientation and realized it was time to go on to the next stage in his journey.  In those last two weeks, as he closed his eyes and seemed oblivious to his surroundings (seemed is an important word here) and his family, I felt like his spirit was growing stronger as his body grew weaker.  He was completely calm -- no agitation or restlessness.  He was moving deeper into the mystery of the Dance -- the interpenetrating reality of Life In God.  He was living less and less in Chronos and more and more in Kairos time.

I do not understand the mysteries of loss and grief ... but I am beginning to sense -- at least for me -- that it contains a wee bit of "green" longing ... for Dad has moved from faith to sight.  For those of us who are already in Christ but not yet present with Christ, our lives are profoundly changed by Dad's absence.  After a while I know my mourning will be turned into dancing ... because I know I will meet Dad in the great Dance -- in a very already-but-not-yet way.

I am confident that I will be pondering this for some time to come ... and that I will be forever grateful to be The Youngest of the Youngest.

Be blessed.