Sunday Morning Meds--from Psalm 4

 

“. . .search your hearts and be silent.”

 Flannery O’Connor, I remember reading, one of the finest and most well-known writers of the 20^th century, was almost totally inconspicuous in her classes at Iowa Writers Workshop. I believe it. Every year I taught, I had a few silent types that knocked my socks off when they handed in an essay.  Teachers love talkers, but classrooms that sound morgue-ish doesn’t necessarily mean that the minds that inhabit it are laid out cold.

 Generalizations are always hazardous, but, historically at least, the annals of the American West are rife with stories about white folks—immigrant farmers, cavalry lieutenants, even French trappers—who grew awfully uncomfortable with the silence Native folks felt imperative before a discussion. Then again, the history of the West wouldn’t be as jaded if white folks had kept their mouths shut a whole lot smore than they did.

 Given our politically-charged media culture’s incessant yapping, it’s probably understandable why some people would opt out and seek the enforced silence of the monastery. Just this week, a good friend told me he’s been spending time with the Benedictines at a monastery not all that far from here. Thomas Merton and Henry Nouwen have wide and devoted readership; it’s difficult to know whether, a couple decades ago, Kathleen Norris’s Cloister Walk begat a phenomenon or merely rode the wave. To many—and to me—silence often looks good, probably because it’s hard to come by.

 I stopped at Mulberry Point all by lonesome on Thursday because I knew that the overview of the Missouri River right there, a magnificent panorama, simply takes your breath away—and the words that come along. Sometimes silence says everything we really need to hear.

 I’ve become familiar with old folks’ homes. My mother was in one for a long time; we visit my wife’s father every Sunday afternoon. I’m sitting in one right now. Silence often pervades those places, no matter how cheerfully they’re decorated. I suppose the silence in those homes doesn’t make life there any more moral or high-toned. 

But here in Psalm 4, it’s a command. In this 12-step therapy regimen David is creating in this psalm, he raises a finger and says, simply, “Listen! Just be quiet.

He means me. Be still, he says. And here I am on this Sunday morning, going on and on. 

Be still, David says.  Just, be still. 

Lord, help me.

 

So many tears

Sometime last week--feels like last year--I came to the point where I'd heard them so often I could narrate MSNBC's story lines before they aired. I could but won't fall into a litany. I don't have to. If you think on your feet at all, you can return quickly--some outrageous utterance by the man who would be king, hurricane coming up on Florida, Kamala trying to woo white men. 

I don't watch TV much, but when you spend your weeks in a hospital, once the  visitors are gone, there's not much to do but find the remote and back peddle through the channels, hoping for the best. Shebang! I stumble on Joe Kinsella (Kevin Costner) just outside of Terrance Mann's (James Earl Jones) apartment. It's Field of Dreams, of course, right there on the untouchable hospital TV, and I'm in. Haven't see it in  years, but for land's sake I'm in Iowa. Wouldn't miss it.

Rolls along nicely--haven't forgotten Kinsella's darlin' little wife, nor the blessed moment when, once again, all those woolen suits steppin' out of the rows like a some ghostly team for a season opener. 

What I'm remembering as we so merrily roll along is that people claimed Field of Dreams was a man's show because it's about fathers and sons, someone said it's about fathers and sons.

And then the last scene comes up, Kinsella/Costner out there on the magical diamond, when one last player walks up--his estranged old man. Takes him and us a while to recognize him, then bang! they talk. Well, even if they don't talk, something big and huge for the heavyweight dreamer happens when they're together. Something's fixed.

My eyes feel like the back rollers on my mother's old washing machine, turning out tears like wash water. I'm bawling like a baby is what I'm saying because the last of my visitors left hours ago, I got no roommate, and who's going to see me anyway?--when just like that, the room lights go on, and in come a couple of sturdy, tattooed nurses for some fool ritual. They could care less that the prof-guy in 504 is a blubbering baby. I repent, but they're thrilled--and so am I. 

I get to feeling that my instant tears are some manifestation of my being alone for so long, and the condition--whatever it is--that makes it impossible for me to move once I sit down. The whole madness colors my days and ruins my nights, so much so a Danny Thomas hospital commercial just wipes me out--you know where that big-chested dad says how there's nothing worse than watching your own little kids suffer?--all I got to do is see the guy.

But it wasn't some baseball dream or some blessed dad praying for a kid with a plague. Last night it was something altogether different. Barb called. Our granddaughter Jocelyn had the baby we've all been looking forward to. "You're a great grandpa," Barbara said. She could just as well as said, "You're king." Wouldn't have come out any different.

I bawled. Three nurses came by to perform their ritual humiliations, and I could not have cared less. Ducts stayed open to flood. They too were thrilled.

So our daughter's daughter had a daughter. That makes me Great-Grandpa. 

Couldn't be happier.

Where'd I put those Kleenex?

Rehab ward(s)

I honestly don't know when or whether  I shall return to this page, so dutifully fulfilled for so darn long, but I owe long-time readers of this blog some explanation.

For the first time in weeks, I sat down with my laptop and wrote this little story out for some friends who wondered where I went and why I stopped writing.

This, if you missed it elsewhere, is that story.

*

My fingers are more than a little unsure of themselves, but then the computer isn’t responding all that well either, having been on break now for more than a month. I’m using the old Mac instead of the desktop that sits at home, friendless, and me?—I’m exceedingly fidgety, wondering whether the words will be there.

 But I owe a number of you some sort of explanation of my wholesome silence.

 I’ll try not to make it a novel.

Way back in November, 2023, I walked two miles, then sat down for a game of Monopoly with my spouse and my youngest grandson, who’s now a high school freshman, but, back then, was, Trumplike, interested in buying the whole city.

When I sat down on the couch, I told myself the position I took was an odd one for an old man, but I was feeling no pain. That’s when and where it began—an aching in the small of my back. I was only partially aware, back then, that something had shifted.

There were some moments of searing pain, however, enough so that our doctor and others recommended back surgery.

I’m a veteran of back surgery, had one back in 2000, in fact. I wasn’t gleeful about another surgery, but what was going down in my ever more bungled body told me it was time to try. I signed up and in.

Two weeks later my legs and knees broke down.  Hence, the hospital stays—Orange City for a few days, Sioux City’s St. Luke’s for a week, then Orange City again—for the last week.

I probably don’t need to tell you these words are my very first attempt to sit at the keys and compose like the old days. I couldn’t carry it out before and I’m not sure I’m doing it now.

The bottom line is this: I’m sitting in a hospital room telling you that if you’ve missed me here in the last month or so, I’ll likely be back when it doesn’t cost me so much just to move around.

So here lies our immediate future: either we choose to do some more physical rehab in a suitable institution, or, very soon, I return home and we live by some difficult strictures.

Meanwhile, we’re doing okay, but standing in the need prayer.

Thanks to all of you.

Jim

And that's not the whole story. Tonight I'm sitting in Marcus, Iowa, in their old folks home, in a new section dedicated to patients requiring physical rehab. It's not at all cramped here or stodgy, and the nurses are like all the others--really capable of having a good time.

But don't be fooled. I want to go home.

Sunday Morning Meds--from Psalm 4

 

“when you are on your beds, search your hearts. . .”

Although many have found their way to new life by way of faith, although a personal relationship with the Lord is the certifiable method by which thousands of suffering people have found their way out of dependency, I doubt the American Psychiatric Association would endorse the Word of God as a bona fide therapeutic blessing.

Especially this in verse 4 of Psalm 4. Here’s David’s therapy: “Bill (or Clarice or whoever), you need to think long and hard about these issues. When you hit the sack tonight, mull it over, consider the possibilities from every angle. Don’t go to sleep before you’ve covered every inch of ground.”

In our affluent culture, insomnia is a plague. And while, throughout his life, David had loads of reasons not to sleep well, it may well be that life in Israel—where people normally knew their place very well—was simpler. Insomnia may not have been the curse it is today.

Whatever the case, this verse opens the theme which has given Psalm 4 its handle as “the evening hymn.” Really, this odd little Psalm is a how-to on sleep. David doesn’t recommend a glass of red wine, at least not here. He had no access to Nite-all or any of a hundred other over-the-counter remedies.

In fact, he advises the opposite. When you go to bed, consider the state of your soul. Don’t shut those eyes until you judge your motives; assess your course in life, your purposes, the very state of your soul—advice that seems sure to keep anyone awake.

The entire Psalm is a call to holiness, not simply a bromide for insomnia. David’s intent (starting with verse 2) is to startle those “sons of men” who don’t really care about the God he’s come to love and worship. It’s a kind of twelve-step program aimed at dependency—on Jehovah God.

And what David is betting on is the still small voice of conscience. What he’s advising is a personal assessment that can be best accomplished in the silence and privacy of the bedroom, outside the glitter and the glare. In the silence before sleep, he says, think about the dead ends we too often pursue when in the spotlight.

I’ve got enough experience with depression to know that this piece of advice may not be the best therapy in all situations. The last thing I’d advise some of those I know and love is to spend more quality time mulling over their spiritual health. In some cases, that’s a recipe for suicide.

All of which doesn’t mean that David’s advice is bogus. Sometimes the therapy suggested here is exactly what our soul’s doctor would order up Himself, were he to fill out a prescription.

Orthodox Christianity has always argued for a death—the death of self—before the advent of the new life. That death doesn’t come without pain and hurt.

Honestly, I don’t think the Lord wants us all sleepless in Seattle or Sioux Center. But he wants us honest about ourselves and our motives.

Fannie Lou Hamer at the '64 Dem Convention

If you watched much of the Democratic National Convention for the last few nights, I'm guessing you heard the name of someone likely referred to as a hero--Fannie Lou Hamer. A year ago, I wouldn't have recognized the name or known anything about the story. That's a shame.  

I put together a piece on her life and her startling impact upon the culture in which we live when Fannie Lou told a story no one heard. You read that right. 

Here's the Fannie Lou Hamer story I wrote then--just six months ago.

*          *          *          *

Seems to me you have to cut LBJ some slack here. The man didn’t ask to be President. Didn’t run for it. Came into it when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963, and he, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who hailed from rural Texas, suddenly became President, leader of a grieving nation split like a muskmelon over civil rights.

You’ve got to cut him some slack because if he’s known for anything today it is signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as expanding the reach of the New Deal by declaring a “War on Poverty.” He was a progressive in every sense, despite the fact that he was raised in rural Texas, where holding such notions was something of a curse. 

While all of that is true, the yarn I’m about to spin makes him seem a skunk, worse, a racist skunk. But he wasn’t.

To say Fannie Lou Hamer came up through the ranks would be an overstatement. Born dirt poor in Mississippi, her daddy a sharecropper, she was picking cotton when she was six. The baby of a family of 20 kids, she quit school when she was 12. Had to, needed elsewhere.

She was 45 years old in 1962, when she attended a workshop in her own rural Mississippi by a group called the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee–or SNCC, whose purpose was to champion human rights for black folks like Fannie Lou Hamer. 

That meeting changed Fannie’s life, and that’s the kind of line people use all the time–“it changed her life.” This time, have no questions. SNCC did change her life. What Fannie Lou Hamer discovered was that people who couldn’t vote didn’t count—didn’t count and therefore weren’t human. 

During the 1964 Democratic Convention, Fannie and her SNCC friends determined to take a place at the convention with the Mississippi Democratic Committee. Let’s be honest. They weren’t at all subtle about it, just barged in and told the all-white delegation that, damnit, they were people too. When the Convention arranged for them to speak, on the docket was a firebrand preacher named Martin Luther King, and a sharecropper’s daughter named Fannie Lou Hamer. 

Now Lyndon Baines Johnson was scared his Southern constituents would bolt if America would hear Fannie’s speech. They weren’t proud of what she’d tell them because her personal story wasn’t at all pretty. One night not long before, Fannie and her friends were pulled from a bus, arrested, and jailed in a small town, then beat-up by the cops who’d arrested them. They’d been assaulted because they were Black–and they wanted to vote. “I’m sick and tired,” she used to say, “of being sick and tired.”

What the President of United States knew is her telling that story in front of the nation would so infuriate his white Southern Democrats that he couldn’t let Fannie speak. He had to keep her still.

Here comes the part that’s forever worth telling. The only way the President of the United States could keep America from hearing Fannie Lou was to call a Presidential news conference. So, he told the networks he had something to say, and they obligingly cut away from Fannie’s appearance on the floor of the convention. LBJ had no news, so he told America on all the networks that it was his nine-month anniversary as President. That was it. That was all he had to say, the most useless Presidential speech in American history.

The result? Fannie Lou Hamer’s story had no nation-wide audience.

The administration of Lyndon B. Johnson passed landmark legislation for justice and equality, but he pushed along a war in Southeast Asia. For a number of reasons, he declined to run in 1968, when the country was even more fractured. It was—1968 I mean– not a particularly forgettable year.

And Fannie Lou? Once the networks discovered they got conned, Fannie Mae Hamer lit up the screen all week long. Throughout the following years, her hard work for voting rights gained her loving attention and an armful of honorary degrees. When she died, she was buried in her own little Ruleville, Mississippi. What’s written on her stone is priceless: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

I was 16 during the summer of 1964, interested enough to watch the Republican Convention when my dad had it on. I never saw the Democrats. Dad couldn’t have imagined watching. MLK he’d heard of, and even SNCC, a bunch that sounded like problems. He was a fine man, a loving Christian, but he honestly thought that whole bunch to be social agitators, socialists even, maybe worse. What I do remember is Barry Goldwater’s speech, especially the line about “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

Truth be told, I ran into Fannie Lou Hamer’s story just a couple of months ago. Took somewhere around sixty years.

Sixty years.

For Pastor Herm -- ii

(continued from yesterday)

It's not particularly easy for us to talk about the "office" of king because something in our histories can't help but paint "kingship" as something somehow evil. The last king to hold any sway over most of us was King George, against whom we fought a war, the War of Independence. I'm sure some bright theologian somewhere has mapped out an understanding of how a pastor fulfils the obligations of kingship, but in the life and ministry of Pastor Herm, I looked to his own words because I knew that Pastor Herm was more capable of drawing us into awe than most preachers, and awe is a prerequisite for beginning to talk about kingship. Awe is where faith begins.

This passage is from a sermon in a series of sermons with the title "Someone's Crying, Lord." This is Pastor Herm.

 I want to finish this morning with a picture from Psalm 56:5: "Oh, God, you keep count of my tossing [and turning], my anguish. You collect all my tears in your bottle--are they not your record?"

That's a picture for taking along this Lent. It's a picture that assumes that there will be tears until kingdom come, but God doesn't just let them evaporate, doesn't just brush them off.

He also doesn't avoid them. He doesn't say, "Don't cry!" as if crying were a sign of weakness. No! God collects tears, and not just to have a collection, but he wants us to know that he remembers every single one!

And do you know what? A good number of the tears in the bottle are his very own! Imagine the size of God's bottle!

  "O Lord God, dry my tears," we say, and He will, but not because it's time--which is to say, His time. Until then, there will be pain and tears, but the Lord will wipe away every tear from their eyes, will pour away His whole bottle and will lead all of his children to springs of living water!

In that short cutting abide lines that are suitably--perfectly--Herm's, and you know it when you feel his absolute thrill at uncovering some aspect of his God's rule in our lives--"imagine the size of God's bottle." 

And a number are his.

That's kingship. 

We will all miss him greatly.  

For Pastor Herm

Just last week, we took a run up to Willmar, Minnesota, for the funeral service of a very dear friend and former pastor, Pastor Herm Van Niejenhuis, who, with his spouse, Dee, retired from the church we attend. He did so almost exactly when we retired and departed for rural Alton. The Van Niejenhuises chose Willmar because Dee grew up there, a place she could, after many years in the ministry, be comfortably surrounded by family. 

Three years ago, after a routine physical, he was told, as was she, that he was carrying pancreatic cancer. It was not a pleasant surprise. Pancreatic cancer takes no prisoners. Suggested time?--a year or so, maybe more.

He fought valiantly and grabbed two whole years more than the doctors guessed. But pancreatic cancer is no joke, and, as promised, it finally took him a couple of weeks ago.

The family asked me to say a few words at the funeral. Herm was my friend.

I told the crowd in the downtown Lutheran church where he'd blessedly drifted off to in those late years, that once upon a time I was taught that the office of pastor carries with it a three-fold obligation: to be a prophet, a priest, and a king--all three offices." 

"Let me tell  you about Pastor Herm," I said, then told three stories. 

The first was from Pastor Herm's farewell party. For a power point presentation, I'd run around town getting a picture of each family waving goodbye to a pastor everyone loved, even though no one ever could have called him conventional. When I got to the Landman family, one of the kids didn't show up outside. "Hannah?" I asked.

"She's not coming," Hannah's mother told me. "She doesn't want Pastor Herm to leave." Back then, Hannah was ten years old.

That's a priestly story, Pastor Herm as warmly pastoral, even to the ten-year-olds, loved by all.

Then prophetic, Pastor Herm as prophet--not particularly difficult either.

At a classis meeting, when a new seminary grad was being quizzed by the old guys, someone determined to make him answer this question. The elderly pastor asked the kid something to the effect of this question: "Draw a line around what you believe to be 'the Christian life." 

Pastor Herm interrupted softly by raising his hand in the company of all those stalwarts. "You don't have to answer that," he told the candidate.

Theologically at least, prophetically, Herm's life had taught him that one cannot draw lines around the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Whatever circle one might create could not, would not define the Almighty. 

My guess is that the meeting had no more vivid theological lessons that what Pastor Herm offered in that single comment.

Tomorrow: the office of king.