Here’s a Doxology Story

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

If I remember right, it was the late summer of 2008, and the folks were in town. That means golf! So Paul, and Brian, and Dad and I found ourselves on the 6th tee of the Bittersweet Golf Course in Gurnee. A rather short but devious par 3, 125 yards, surrounded by water on three sides, with two sand traps guarding the only terra firma portion on the right side. No matter where the pin is, you are best served to look for the middle of the green.

I honestly can’t remember who went first, or how the shot was. What I and we who were there will never forget was Dad’s shot, and what happened afterwards.

Backing up a bit, dad had the habit of breaking into song, and not just any song when he found himself rejoicing in spirit. It was the doxology, and he was bidding, no forcing those who were around him to join him in celebrating the moment. Though this happened in many contexts, it was most prevalent on the golf course. One time while playing with us three sons and saving a par at the “Diablo Grande” (big demon) golf course in Patterson, California, he started blaring it out, and was startled when the foursome on an adjacent green joined in!

But I digress. Back to Bittersweet and the tough par three. Dad’s tee ball was shanked — meaning it missed the club face and hit the hosel — and screamed off straight to the right, headed deep out of bounds, except, except — it boinked the lone power line pole and came back, straight left across the hole in front of us, this time surely headed for the pond, except, except — the ball hit the lone Canadian goose standing at the water’s edge in the backside, sending it into the water, and the ball was left in the green grass, about 20 yards short of the green. Whoa!

It wasn’t a second before he began to sing/shout, looking at each of us until we joined in. Luckily no other golfers were nearby. One lone hiker stopped and looked at us as if to ask if we were okay.

In the years since dad’s death in May of 2011, I have thought about that shot so many times, and this recurring habit of his public shows of affection for God. Did he really believe that God caused that ball to hit that pole, and that goose? Of course not. It must be that he was celebrating life itself, over and over again, especially those moments never to be forgotten. Everyday was a gift, and dad dragged us (sometimes kicking and screaming) into saying so with him.

I honestly don’t remember if he got up and down for what would have been his most miraculous par ever. It was that shot and the celebration after that will always travel with me. It is his happy spirit that I miss everyday.

Three years later mom was in hospice care, and one day our conversation was especially tender, pondering death and looking toward resurrection life. Trying to break the heavy conversation a bit, I asked mom what she thought about her reunion in glory with dad. After thinking a bit, and laughing a bit, she said with a kidding smile, “Well, what I’m most afraid of is that the first thing he’ll do is make me sing the doxology!” We laughed, O we laughed, until she followed up: “But I’m thinking there in that great glorious place I’ll be glad to sing.”

The lingering challenge, of course, in a world of sorrows and pain a plenty, is to ground ourselves and our days in praise and thanks through it all.

Love From Here

Perter Hawkinson

What is Saving Your Life?

Today’s blog post is written by Pastor Jen.

Last week was the annual Midwinter Conference of the Covenant Church, which I spoke about a little during yesterday’s sermon. It’s a big conference, which means big plenary sessions, and this year one of the speakers was Ruth Haley Barton, who led us through a session on sabbath-keeping (one of my favorite topics).

Now, there are many, many blog posts I could happily write about the practice of keeping sabbath, but what struck me about Ruth’s talk wasn’t just the content – it was the way she started it, telling a story about Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor.

Barbara had been invited to preach at a church, and she asked the minister who invited her: “what should I preach about?”

And he said something like this: tell us what is saving your life right now.

I can think of no better reflection point for this, the 512th day of January. A time of the year when the holidays are long gone, spring is still far away, and everything that involves getting up and leaving home feels a little too hard to comprehend.

So what is saving my life right now?

First of all, the sun.

I stood outside in the sun for an hour this afternoon while my dog played with one of her neighborhood buddies, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t help me re-evaluate all of my former funk. Over the last ten or so days of bitter cold, then gray skies, pouring rain, heavy fog and slush and mud, I have sunk deeper and deeper into the winter blues. But even just a taste of sun and mild breezes today reminded me that this won’t last forever. I’ll sit on my porch again in short-sleeves, drinking cold seltzers.

Sometimes that reminder is all I need.

The next thing saving my life right now is reading. I’m knee-deep in a novel by Richard Russo which follows the life of a diner owner in small-town Maine, and it’s tender and beautiful and painful and compelling. But it communicates all those things through the lives of very ordinary people in a very ordinary place, and exactly because of that it keeps reminding me that ordinary is beautiful and powerful.

Getting into the kitchen is also saving my life: getting out of my head and into chopping and mixing and stirring and folding. I tried chocolate granola last night, and tonight I’m baking for the start of Bible Study tomorrow. These aren’t “project bakes” or “showstoppers,” but they’re a way of nourishing myself and those I love. They’re a dance around the kitchen that helps me feel sure of my body when it’s still hard to drown out the diet-talk-blitz of January. They’re a reminder of what is holy and sacramental: God feeding us. Us feeding each other.

So that’s me. Not even to mention the clean sheets I put on my bed today, or the dog snuggling next to me, who saves my life every day.

What is saving your life today?

-Pastor Jen

Roses

“Thanks for Roses by the wayside, thanks for thorns their stems contain.” (Hymnal, 657)

There are two roses remaining on my desk corner in a parched vase. It seems that just overnight they shriveled up. It seems that their beautiful purpose is lost, and they ought to be disposed of. But I’m sitting with them for a bit, looking at them and contemplating the beauty of their expression, even now — at least in their witness to life’s sorrows, sadness, grief and losses.

The old hymn, “Thanks to God for My Redeemer” (Hymnal 657) reinforces this. The late J. Irving Erickson writes that “there are very few songs of Swedish heritage that have been more popular than ‘Tack, O Gud, for vad du (som) varit.’ The lyrics were written by August Ludvig Storm, a Salvation Army officer in 1891. Each line of the four stanzas begins with the word “thanks” and states one thing for which the author expresses gratitude to God. But in the words of Oscar Lovgren, ‘There are no cheap commodities in the thirty-two thanks found in the song.'” Indeed! Storm thanks God for “dark and dreary fall” as well as “pleasant, balmy springtime”; for “pain” as well as ‘pleasure”; for “thorns” that roses bear as well as their lovely flowers. Such is life, no?

Erickson goes on to relay that the context of this hymn is a sudden and severe back ailment that left August painfully and permanently crippled. He must have sat and seen one hard day what I do now, that thorny stems are much easier to notice — they claim my attention — when the flower and fragrance have faded, and the leaves lay limp.

Why does he say “thanks” for thorns, and why should I? It simply can’t be that he couldn’t be thankful for his accident, or that it left him crippled and in constant pain. But what then could the thanks be about? Maybe that somehow the thorns on the stems gave him an image to help him express his pain and sorrow, AND, AND along with that lament a deep abiding sense that his Heavenly Father was with him in his grief and sadness.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 finds Paul writing to his church friends: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” He does not admonish them to be thankful FOR everything, but IN everything find a reason for rejoicing — and that “thanks” need not be any schmaltzy kind of denial of reality, but instead gratitude for the chance to be honest about the circumstances of life at the moment, and through it all God’s presence and promises to hold us.

So, at least for a little while, the roses will remain. And I will seek after a thankful heart, come what may.

Peter Hawkinson

Thanks to God for my Redeemer, thanks for all thou dost provide! Thanks for times now but a memory, thanks for Jesus by my side! Thanks for pleasant balmy springtime, thanks for dark and dreary fall!  Thanks for tears by now forgotten, thanks for peace within my soul!

Thanks for prayers that thou hast answered, thanks for what thou dost deny! Thanks for storms that I have weathered, thanks for all thou dost supply! Thanks for pain and thanks for pleasure, thanks for comfort in despair! Thanks for grace that none can measure, thanks for love beyond compare!

Thanks for Roses by the wayside, thanks for thorns their stems contain! Thanks for home and thanks for fireside, thanks for hope, that sweet refrain! Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow, thanks for heavenly peace with thee! Thanks for hope in the tomorrow, thanks through all eternity!

Words: August Living Storm, 1862-1914, translated by Carl Backstrom, 1901-1984.        Music: J.A. Hultmann, 1861-1942