The Limp

It happens at least once a week that someone will ask me, “are you limping?” And for thirty years or more I’ve been denying it. “Just a lazy gait” I say, and it’s really what I think. But recently I’ve started to feel that arthritic pain in my left hip, that’s surely the one over the years causing folks to wonder about my funky way of walking. Could it be that I am actually limping after all?

Recently I read a blog post on Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog forum that causes me to wonder. Pastor Jeremy Berg reflects on the story of Jacob wrestling with God, and acquiring a limp (Gen 32). he says, “What is the sign that one has been touched and blessed by an encounter with the Living God? They get a big house, much wealth, and an easy, carefree life? Nope! The tell tale sign that someone has brushed up against God’s awesome presence is often this: they walk with a spiritual limp.” He goes on to reflect about a God who invites us to embrace a comfort-crushing brand of faith that leaves us winded and wounded as long-held beliefs and cultural values are at times broadsided by a sermon that reveals the radical and countercultural teachings of Jesus and His Kingdom.”

It’s quite a story we find there. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, which means “One who struggles with God”. That’s quite a name God chooses! Chosen and beloved people shall be those who wrestle with Yahweh. And Jacob, their patron saint, lives forever forward with a limp, as if to always be a visual reminder that a life of engaged faith is vigorous, often uncomfortable and leaves scars.

Isn’t that the way life really is after all? In my case, my guess is that all the years of basketball, of pounding the pavement at Hollywood Park and Loyola Park, left me with some hip trauma that is beginning to talk to me now decades later. And it’s most certainly true that the older we get, the more we limp through life. And that metaphor might follow in terms of our faith journey with God also, even, even at God’s own bidding!

It’s almost as if God says, “I love you, you are mine, I bless you, now let’s have at it! Be honest with me. Engage the struggle of making sense of life. What is it that you want to talk about?”

In this sense, an honest and engaged journey of faith that moves with the journey of life opens up to more of the questions and struggles and mysteries as time passes. Like the Psalms. Where are you, God? Why is this or that happening? I cry out for your presence because my enemies surround me, I lament because injustice prevails. I pray but can’t overcome this addiction. Act, God! Do something!

In Jacob’s own case, he was coming to grips with his deception and thievery way back when with his brother Esau, who’s waiting for a reunion with four hundred friends on the other side of the river. In his brokenness he wrestles with God and lives to tell about it. But he leaves that encounter with a limp. A strange and wonderful blessing.

Jeremy Berg goes on to say, “I want to be a pastor who leads with a limp and I want to lead a community of people who would rather be uncomfortable in the awesome presence of God than comfortable in our own self-made world where Jesus’ meddling presence is kept safely at a distance.”

Any faith journey with the Living God is always both comforting and challenging. We are blessed, but also called always into new ways of being, doing, living. Courage and honesty are essential, and the calendar of best laid plans written in pencil as those plans may well change. To wrestle, to grapple with the Living Presence and often elusive God we know, will leave us limping but also more alive.

This early Wednesday morning my hip is more sore than normal, because I spent the night on a cot up in the prayer room supporting our family promise ministry. And it’s time, I think, to come clean. No more excuses. I think I have a slight limp. There, I said it! And I’m sure the limp will grow until the day when it’s time for a new one.

What I’m hoping too is that as my journey with faith grows old, there will be more of a limp too, leftover from close encounters with my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

Love From Here!

Peter Hawkinson

https://www.christianitytoday.com/scot-mcknight/2021/january/wrestling-with-god-acquiring-limp.html

BELOVED ONES

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are.” (1 John 3:1)

I’ll admit it. I was a challenging child! If my mom were here, she’d second this sentiment. I think about her mostly when the springtime comes, and her birthday a month from now. Alyce grew up in Kansas City, where her father Leonard Larson pastored the first Covenant Church of Kansas City. She came to North Park Junior College as a music student and met my father, who was a seminary student and vocal soloist in need of accompaniment. The rest as they say is history.

On this sunny spring day I’m reflecting on how it was my mom, more than anyone else in my childhood, who helped me understand what it means to be beloved. Two special days from way back when flood my heart today.

The first was a surprise when one third grade mid-morning I was called to the principal’s office (not an uncommon occurrence!) only to see my mom’s smiling face in the doorway. Mrs Stanek, the principal looked much happier than usual as she told me I was in for a surprise field trip with my mom, and off we went. Wanting of course to know what when and where, my mom just said, “Well, let’s go to McDonalds, and I’ll tell you!” Those words I’ll never forget, both the words, and the love attached to them, along with these: And there I found out that we were going downtown to a concert by the Chicago Symphony, a first time affair for me. On the way, mom told me that she loved me, and then told me all the things about me that made me special. I’ll never forget it. Moments like that in this heated up life are rare. And the concert, wow! That day Leonard Bernstein conducted and narrated Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and A Young Person’s guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten. That was the day I fell in love with symphonic music, and the whole day was summed up in mom’s last word as we turned down Spaulding Avenue, “I hope you know how much I love you, Peter.”

The second day, not long after, was another day to skip school, this time a trip to see a psychologist in the Old Orchard medical building. I have wondered if the first day was a caveat for the second. Someday in glory I’ll ask mom that question. I was undergoing testing for ‘hyper-activity”, as I don’t think ADD and ADHD and terms like that as such existed in the early seventies. I remember the day well, and how mom tried to downplay the upcoming meeting when I asked her why we were going to the doctor, and she said, “Well, Peter, you’re special, and we’re going to a doctor who can help us how special you are.” Sounded great to me. I was beloved, you see. I don’t remember a whole lot about the actual time together with the psychologist, which I suppose is a good sign that the event didn’t traumatize me. The main treatment was tough, though — dietary restriction of sugar and no hot dogs. What? No hot dogs? I’m grateful for the ways we have progressed with testing, treatment, and medication.

What I will never forget is that after the meeting with the doctor mom said to me, “Hey, I could take you back to school, but how about we go and have a fun lunch together!” And off to the Barnum and Bailey restaurant we went, replaced these days by the Pita Inn on Dempster.

A caveat here. I mention the restaurants because they were so special, so rare. It might have been twice a year we went out to eat. With five children in the family, that was never in the budget. So it was special, a rare treat, and when we got there and mom said, “Now Peter, I want you to get WHATEVER you want.” I can still hear her emphasizing WHATEVER. That was an extra special thing. Not surprisingly, I settled on the Francheezie — a Chicago classic all beef hot dog split down the middle, filled with velveeta cheese, wrapped in bacon, and deep-fried. The treatment plan would have to wait! This was a day to celebrate, and I finished with a hot fudge sundae with all the different colors of whipped cream they used to put on top. Again, during that meal, my mom told me again how much she loved me. I can still hear here this very moment, almost with a tear wishing for that time and place again.

But Alas, half a century has passed, and Alyce left us in 2015 after a four year cancer struggle. What remains are those moments, those days when time stood still and she so fervently loved and cared for me (even though I realize now that my “specialness” was often a challenging one! What I take from those encounters is this, that life’s most important, valuable, indeed priceless work is to use the moments of life I have left to bless, to lift up, to love others around me, AND to be intentional in words and actions that reflect the love that God has for each of us, every one of us, just as we are.

These were the days when I “saw” the manner of love God has for me. I’ve never let go of that, and never will. May you know deeply and experience that love that God has for you.

Love from here!

Peter Hawkinson

BELOVED ONES

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are.” (1 John 3:1)

I’ll admit it. I was a challenging child! If my mom were here, she’d second this sentiment. I think about her mostly when the springtime comes, and her birthday a month from now. Alyce grew up in Kansas City, where her father Leonard Larson pastored the first Covenant Church of Kansas City. She came to North Park Junior College as a music student and met my father, who was a seminary student and vocal soloist in need of accompaniment. The rest as they say is history.

On this sunny spring day I’m reflecting on how it was my mom, more than anyone else in my childhood, who helped me understand what it means to be beloved. Two special days from way back when flood my heart today.

The first was a surprise when one third grade mid-morning I was called to the principal’s office (not an uncommon occurrence!) only to see my mom’s smiling face in the doorway. Mrs Stanek, the principal looked much happier than usual as she told me I was in for a surprise field trip with my mom, and off we went. Wanting of course to know what when and where, my mom just said, “Well, let’s go to McDonalds, and I’ll tell you!” Those words I’ll never forget, both the words, and the love attached to them, along with these: And there I found out that we were going downtown to a concert by the Chicago Symphony, a first time affair for me. On the way, mom told me that she loved me, and then told me all the things about me that made me special. I’ll never forget it. Moments like that in this heated up life are rare. And the concert, wow! That day Leonard Bernstein conducted and narrated Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and A Young Person’s guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten. That was the day I fell in love with symphonic music, and the whole day was summed up in mom’s last word as we turned down Spaulding Avenue, “I hope you know how much I love you, Peter.”

The second day, not long after, was another day to skip school, this time a trip to see a psychologist in the Old Orchard medical building. I have wondered if the first day was a caveat for the second. Someday in glory I’ll ask mom that question. I was undergoing testing for ‘hyper-activity”, as I don’t think ADD and ADHD and terms like that as such existed in the early seventies. I remember the day well, and how mom tried to downplay the upcoming meeting when I asked her why we were going to the doctor, and she said, “Well, Peter, you’re special, and we’re going to a doctor who can help us how special you are.” Sounded great to me. I was beloved, you see. I don’t remember a whole lot about the actual time together with the psychologist, which I suppose is a good sign that the event didn’t traumatize me. The main treatment was tough, though — dietary restriction of sugar and no hot dogs. What? No hot dogs? I’m grateful for the ways we have progressed with testing, treatment, and medication.

What I will never forget is that after the meeting with the doctor mom said to me, “Hey, I could take you back to school, but how about we go and have a fun lunch together!” And off to the Barnum and Bailey restaurant we went, replaced these days by the Pita Inn on Dempster.

A caveat here. I mention the restaurants because they were so special, so rare. It might have been twice a year we went out to eat. With five children in the family, that was never in the budget. So it was special, a rare treat, and when we got there and mom said, “Now Peter, I want you to get WHATEVER you want.” I can still hear her emphasizing WHATEVER. That was an extra special thing. Not surprisingly, I settled on the Francheezie — a Chicago classic all beef hot dog split down the middle, filled with velveeta cheese, wrapped in bacon, and deep-fried. The treatment plan would have to wait! This was a day to celebrate, and I finished with a hot fudge sundae with all the different colors of whipped cream they used to put on top. Again, during that meal, my mom told me again how much she loved me. I can still hear here this very moment, almost with a tear wishing for that time and place again.

But Alas, half a century has passed, and Alyce left us in 2015 after a four year cancer struggle. What remains are those moments, those days when time stood still and she so fervently loved and cared for me (even though I realize now that my “specialness” was often a challenging one! What I take from those encounters is this, that life’s most important, valuable, indeed priceless work is to use the moments of life I have left to bless, to lift up, to love others around me, AND to be intentional in words and actions that reflect the love that God has for each of us, every one of us, just as we are.

These were the days when I “saw” the manner of love God has for me. I’ve never let go of that, and never will. May you know deeply and experience that love that God has for you.

Love from here!

Peter Hawkinson