Burned Memories

My great-grandfather’s house burned down recently. He had a summer camp named Camp Vision on the top of Page Hill in Tamworth during the early decades of the 20th century. My mother used to tell me about it when I was little.

She described the wonderful views of the mountains, the stone porch, the spring house, and even the outhouse!  He had built the house with his own hands, and it reflected his distinctive artistic style. He was a painter and a professor of Art at Plymouth Normal School (now Plymouth State University.)

Even though he died the year before I was born, and the house was sold soon afterwards, the memories of the place are wrapped up with my memories of my mother and grandfather. We used to visit the place on occasion. My mother would walk me around the grounds reciting her childhood memories. She showed me old black and white photographs of the place in its heyday. It seemed like a magical place to me, more like Camelot than Tamworth.

Over the years I have continued to visit the house, even in the decade since my mother’s death. Every few years I would drive up Page Hill Road, park at the bottom of the short driveway and trespass onto someone’s property.

No one was ever there, and the cabin never changed over the years. It always looked as if my great-grandfather had just closed the door and walked away. The new owners had left the place exactly as it was in the 1920’s and 30’s. It was a place frozen in time. 

I took this pilgrimage to Camp Vision in the Spring of 2011, shortly after returning to live in Sandwich. I took it again this summer of 2013, only to find the house in ashes. I later learned that it had burned down in June of 2011, one of the victims of a teenage arsonist who torched several homes in Tamworth that year.

It is hard to describe my feelings. It is a sort of grief. Like I have lost an old friend or a member of the family.  I wonder what will happen to the place now. It has been over two years, and it has not been rebuilt. Will it return completely to the forest now, like the homesteads in Sandwich Notch? Young saplings are already growing from the ashes.

On August 28, I heard Nixon and Saundra Bicknell give a marvelous concert at Surroundings Art Gallery in Center Sandwich. It was the last concert of the summer, so I was already feeling nostalgic. Nixon played “Six Woodland Sketches” by Edward MacDowell on the piano.

One of the sketches was entitled “A Deserted Farm.” As I closed my eyes and listened to that piece, I saw Camp Vision. I realized that houses may burn down, but memories are burned into our hearts forever.

Amber’s Notes

It was my birthday recently, and I received a birthday card from a retired friend in Florida. Ruth used to be a Sunday School teacher in my church years ago. She was cleaning out her house and ran across some notes from a sermon that I preached on June 26, 1988. So she sent them to me with the card.

Actually they were notes that her four-year-old granddaughter Amber wrote. Of course Amber could not write much at that tender age. They were four pages ripped out of a small spiral notebook. Each one was covered in scribbles. Some of it looks vaguely like writing. The first page looks it might depict stick people … sort of.

On the front page Ruth had recorded her granddaughter’s explanation: “I’m writing down everything he says, Nana!” Indeed she did. Of course no one can read it. The actual words I spoke are lost to history, but that is okay. It is not important what I said that morning.

I can hardly remember what I preached on last Sunday, much less twenty-five years ago! One would be hard-pressed to find any parishioner who can remember what I preached further back than last Sunday. Realizing that fact keeps us pastors humble.

It is not about words or even ideas. It is about sensing that something important was happening in church. It was worth Amber writing it down for Nana. In the end, worship services do not translate well into words.

Do not get me wrong. I believe in words. It is what I do. Preachers deal in words. I write sermon manuscripts, which I take into the pulpit.  And I stick pretty close to the text. Afterwards I clean them up and post them on the internet along with videos. I even rework some sermon series into books.

My life as a pastor is filled with words. But in the end ministry is not about words. Words can celebrate God. Words can direct our attention toward God. But words always fall short of the glory of God. They can never capture God.

Words are nothing more than scribbles on paper and vibrations in air. At best words refer to something unwritable and unspeakable. When used well, words can point to the wordless Presence of God.

Amber’s notes are better than words. A four year-old sat next to her Nana in church one Sunday, and God was present. She wrote it all down. We just need to read between the lines. 

Booking It

I just finished writing another book. I have been working on it in my “spare time.” (Ha, ha!) A little bit here, a snippet of time there. It is not a very long book, and it is certainly an inexpensive book.

I wrote another book earlier, published in 2006, entitled “More Than a Purpose.” It was a response to Rick Warren’s bestselling “The Purpose Driven Life.” My book did pretty well for a religious book written by an unknown. It sold a thousand copies in the United States. In 2009 it was translated into Korean and sold two thousand copies in South Korea. Those Koreans have good taste! But now it is out of print.

This new book is different. It is more personal, and it is published as an e-book through Amazon. (Apologies to you bibliophile purists.) Book publishing is not what it used to be. More authors are choosing to publish electronically, bypassing the traditional publishing houses. It is quicker, easier, cheaper, and the author keeps control of the process and the book rights.

The “Fifty Shades of Grey” series by E. L. James is a famous example of an author who took this route. The best-seller lists are now filled with e-books that made it to the top and are making their authors wealthy. Young Adult Romance seems to be particularly popular genre at the moment.

There was a story on CBS News recently about Jack and Jasinda Wilder, an unemployed couple from Detroit with five children, who started writing in their basement in a desperate attempt to make some money. They self-published their romance fiction as e-books and have sold nearly a million copies. One of their steamy novels, “Falling Into You,” hit the number one spot on Amazon.

But my book is not a romance. It is decidedly spiritual. It is entitled “Experiencing God Directly,” subtitled “The Way of Christian Nonduality.” The subtitle will have many people scratching their heads. But I hope if they read it, they will be nodding their heads in agreement.

I don’t expect the book to finance my retirement. In fact, I do not expect it to do as well as my previous book, which piggy-backed on the popularity of the Purpose Driven Life. But that is all right. I started writing this book as a way to personally process the changes that have happened in my own thinking.

This book comes out of my own spiritual awareness of God. I do not know who will buy this book. It has no built-in audience. But I did not write it for anyone else. I wrote it for me, and for those who have experienced, or desire to experience, God directly. Hopefully there are a few in e-book land.

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Anyone interested in the book, can find it on Amazon. Here is the link: Experiencing God Directly

You do not need a Kindle or another e-book reader to get e-books. You can read e-books using the Kindle app that you can download to your computer, laptop, tablet, or iphone. The app is free from Amazon here: Free Reading Apps. 

Consider the Mergansers

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field” and “Look at the birds of the air.” He uses these examples from Nature to make a spiritual point. If he had lived in New Hampshire he might have said “Consider the mergansers.” At least, that is what I heard the Lord say recently.

It was a hot Monday in July – my day off. My wife and I had done some work around the house in the morning. Then she asked what I wanted to do for fun in the afternoon. I said, “Let’s go to the river.” One of my favorite places in the White Mountains is Lower Falls on the Swift River along the Kancamagus Highway.

But July is not the best time to go there. Too many tourists! I like it when there is no one on the rocks but us, but that happens only during the off season. So we went upriver and found a spot with only a few flatlanders. After a little while they left, leaving us to enjoy the river alone. Well, almost alone.

There was a family of mergansers navigating the rapids. I have been to the Swift River many times during my life, but this is the first time I ever saw ducks on this swift moving stretch of the river. It just shows how much rain we have gotten this year! This rocky mountain stream is deep enough this year to attract diving ducks!

The duck clan consisted of a mom and five adolescent offspring.  It was hilarious watching them. They would swim against the current, clambering over the rocks, struggling upstream from pool to pool, until they got to the pool right in front of us.

Then the little ones would hop into the current and slide down the river like they were on a ride at a human water park. We watched them do this over and over again for about twenty minutes. It was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I have spent at the river.

Normally I go to the river to meditate quietly on God and his creation. It soothes my soul. The river speaks with the voice of God to me. This time God gave me a special lesson. It just so happened that the day before I had preached a sermon on The Life of the Spirit.  I had likened being led by the Spirit to riding the current of a river. This is what I said on that Sabbath morning:

“Living in the Spirit is like riding a river. The Spirit is the River of Living Water, and we are invited to jump in. Once we are in the river, we naturally move with the current. Once we are in the Spirit, we move with the Spirit. All we have to do to is not fight against the current, or swim upstream, or climb onto the river bank. All we need to do is stay in the Spirit, and the Spirit does the rest. This is living by grace. This is being led by the Spirit.”

Maybe the Lord sent me those mergansers to let me know that once in a while I get it right. And to let me know that I should have added how much fun the spiritual life is. Consider the mergansers, for of such are the Kingdom of God.

Suffer the Children

“Let the little children come to me, Jesus said, and do not hinder them -- for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Benjamin, Avielle, Allison. God has called them all home."

That is how President Obama closed his remarks to the family of the murdered children in Newtown, Connecticut. He read their names one by one as the evening news flashed photographs of the children. It was too much for me. It made me cry, and it made me angry. I shouted at the television, “What does God have to do with this?!”

I confess to you that I am having a difficult time with this tragedy, even though I knew none of the victims or their families personally. Perhaps it was the proximity of the shooting to Christmas. Perhaps it was the name Noah in the list, which made me think of my little grandson, who is thankfully safe and sound.

It brought back powerful memories of a triple funeral I performed in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1995. Three children of my church there were murdered in much the same fashion. A fourth child – a girl - was saved when her brother jumped in front of her and took multiple bullets. I will never forget the three open caskets in front of my church or having to physically restrain the grieving mother from climbing into the grave at the cemetery.

The Gospel of Matthew records the Epiphany story of “the slaughter of the innocents.” The visit of the Magi to the Christ child in Bethlehem was followed by a killing spree as brutal as that at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Seeking to kill the child Jesus, King Herod ordered his soldiers to murder every child in Bethlehem age two and under. Yet God warned Jesus’ family to escape to Egypt. Why did God warn only that family?

This tragedy in Newtown came on the heels of our church’s five week study of the Jewish Holocaust. There were moving presentations by eyewitnesses to the events. Many of the stories focused on the children saved and the children who were not saved. This had already got me struggling anew with the problem that theologians call theodicy: how can God allow such evil to happen to so many innocent children?

On the Sunday after the shooting I stood in the pulpit and shared my thoughts and feelings. I told the congregation that I did not have the answers. All I knew to do was to pray and grieve. After worship I had a long discussion with a friend who is a student at Fuller Theological Seminary. He had sung “Be Not Afraid” in church that morning; in my living room that afternoon we debated this age-old problem of evil and suffering.

I wish I had pulpit-worthy answers to proclaim that make sense of this terrible event. I wish I understood why these children had to die. I wish I knew why God chose not to intervene. Why did he not jam the killer’s guns, or cause his car to refuse to start, or have a police cruiser drive by the school as the killer arrived that morning? These would be such small things for Omnipotence to arrange, and they would have saved these innocent lives.

I know that pastors are supposed to have the answers. But this pastor has more questions than answers when it comes to the slaughter of innocents. For years I have studied the theological answers to this issue. To be honest, most of them make me cringe. I would never repeat any of them to anyone in grief or pain. It is better just to remain silent and suffer with them. That is the literal meaning of the word compassion.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” is the traditional wording of the verse quoted by the president in his address. My answer to that is “Amen.”

Not Dead Yet

For a week in August I was dying. The doctor solemnly informed my wife and me that he strongly suspected that I had pancreatic cancer. He was ordering a CT scan to confirm his diagnosis. He suggested we get people praying for us and assured us that he would also pray for us.

That was on a Tuesday - my wife’s 60^th birthday - which certainly put a damper on the birthday celebration! Due to insurance and administrative snafus (and my allergy to the injection used for CT scans), it was not until the following Monday that I had the test performed; it was another 24 hours until I heard the results. So we began a week of waiting.

For that week I thought I was dying. It took only a quick internet search to confirm that pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal forms of the disease. Seventy-five percent of those diagnosed with this disease die within a year. 96% are dead in five years. I was probably dead within months.

I grieved. I woke up in the middle of the night and wept for the grandchildren I would never see grow up. I cried alone in the dark. I hugged Jude and we cried together. I grieved for her loss; I grieved for our children’s loss. I remembered what it was like to lose my father to cancer when he was 64 years old.

I planned everything I needed to do to get my financial affairs in order. I talked to our son, the banker, about annuities for Jude. I did not want to make any definite decisions until the test confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis, but I was pretty certain I was as good as dead.

When the results came in, the doctor phoned immediately. My CT scan was clear. Except for a few minor issues (such as kidneys full of stones) I was healthy. At hearing the news my wife immediately fell to her knees in thanksgiving to God. Then she got on the phone to share the good news with our prayer partners.

I was relieved, but strangely I had no strong emotional response to the news. As I write this article three weeks (and one gallbladder surgery) later, I still remain stoic concerning my newfound longevity. 

Of course I am glad I am not dying of cancer. I hope to live many more years. In fact the forty pounds I have lost to this mysterious ailment (probably gall bladder disease) will likely increase my chances of living longer. My cholesterol levels have never been better!

I now view that week of dying as a gift from God. It is one thing to intellectually know one is mortal. It is another thing to emotionally experience imminent mortality … and live to tell the story. I received the gift of dying before I died. I had a near death experience, but without the bright light and angels.

My brief experiment in dying has helped me appreciate the emotional depths of those who are diagnosed with life-threatening illness. It has put things in clearer perspective in my life. It has helped Jude and I to cherish each day as a gift from God, to value our family, our friends, our community, and our church. Dying has helped me live.

Christ Alone

My life begins and ends with Christ. This is the only way I can describe my spiritual journey. Christ is the only reality of which I am certain. Christ alone is the Rock upon which I stand. He is my door into the transcendent reality that is God.

When theodicy causes me to doubt God, Christ is real. When the Scriptures seem unbelievable, self-contradictory and in places immoral, the figure of Jesus shines from them like a beacon. When the Church and church people betray Christian values, Christ never fails.

In my intellectual life I am continually reexamining my beliefs. Socrates said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” If that is true, then the old Athenian would consider my life very worthwhile. I question everything all the time. I am a Christian skeptic.

I accept nothing on blind faith. On Easter evening I would have lined up behind doubting Thomas to touch the wounds of Christ. Even then I would have thought Thomas too quick to believe his own senses! Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of this day by teaching them to question everything. He would have welcomed me as a co-conspirator. I never stop questioning.

Sometimes I wish I were not so distrustful of Christianity. How much easier my life would be as a pastor if I could just accept Church teachings on faith! How nice it must be to never question one’s religious beliefs or assumptions! I envy believers who never doubt and are absolutely certain of everything Christian. I am not one of them. I am certain of nothing … but Christ.

Time and again, when I come to the end of a rigorous bout of spiritual self-examination, Christ remains true. This Christ is not just a subjective Savior apprehended by personal faith; I am talking about the historical Jesus. When I ruthlessly examine the Scriptures with the most critical eye, I repeatedly come to the conclusion that Jesus is the real thing.

In particular Jesus’ resurrection is irrefutable. I have studied all the arguments of the atheists and radical Biblical scholars. When all the arguments have been examined carefully, it is clear that as far as we can know anything about the past through historical science, then we can know this: Jesus’ tomb was empty that Sunday morning. As improbable as it seems, the most reasonable explanation for the empty tomb is that Christ had risen from the dead.

If you doubt this is true, then I suggest you do your own investigation. Please do not take my word for it; I wouldn’t if I were you. Examine all the possibilities; look at all the evidence. Leave nothing out. As part of your search you might want to read a book that recently finished entitled “Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics” by William Lane Craig, Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology. He does a very thorough job of exploring all the relevant issues.

If this is true – if Jesus truly rose from the grave - that changes everything. It changes the philosophical arguments for the existence of God. It changes the historical arguments for Jesus’ miracles. It changes our understanding of death. It changes our hopes and dreams. It changes our lives. It changes my life – over and over again.