A eulogy for a very good man

*This is the eulogy I gave at my father's graveside memorial on Friday in Spokane, Washington. -- BM


Growing up, one of the things the family of the Rev. Robert Mims did a lot of was pack
up and leave places. We moved from one neighborhood to another, from one state to another. 

 By the time I was 11 years old, I had been in 13 different schools.

In each move, something would get lost. Toys. Pictures. Maybe a dish, and on one move there was a loss than made my mother cry: during the move from Spokane to Wilbur, a tiny central Washington farming town with an even smaller church, my parents’ large framed wedding photo was lost.

In the past year, my son, Rob, and I moved Mom and Dad from Lilac Plaza Assisted Living to the Cheney Care Center as their health, and dementia, grew worse. Like all the moves before, this mean some things got donated to charities, others were put in storage, and a few treasured items were lovingly safeguard by family
 
At home in Utah, recently, I finally opened boxes I’d brought back. There were Dad’s collection of several worn Bibles, his notes in the margins of passages of scriptures he’d used in sermons. A pressed flower in the pages of one Bible, and in others, handwritten notes and reminders of events and people long since passed.

Then, in a box Mom had treasured, there was a bundle of letters. Love letters, it turned out, from Dad, written while he was traveling as a banjo-playing evangelist throughout the post-WWII Pacific Northwest. They were handwritten pages filled with endearments, dreams and love for the future they would soon begin as a married couple.

Memories. Memories Mom and Dad lost, temporarily I believe, as their worlds shrank both physically and mentally over these past couple years.

As I have prayed about their situation, seeking wisdom for each decision came about their care and well-being, I wondered what happens to those memories, when we … forget.

“Nothing is lost in Me,” was the thought impressed on my mind. Love is not lost, nor are our loved ones. The ripples of blessing we start with each act of compassion are eternal; so are those comforting touches or embraces we give or receive, the wisdom we gain and share, and certainly the faith we live  and sacrifice for.

Mom and Dad didn’t need that wedding photo, as treasured as it was, to remind them of their love, nor their bond as man and wife, father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and co-workers for the Kingdom of God.

You don’t need “stuff” to keep those good things of past. We will always have our yesterdays, even when we forget them in this earthly life.

I know this: even if our memories fade with the weakness of age and loss of cognitive function, on that Last Day, Our Lord will restore those memories to perfection – and that will be a perfection that is no longer distorted by the false concepts of past, present and future we wrestle with now.

In the eternal, uncreated light of our Lord, we will have a God’s eye view. Nothing of love is lost. Nothing committed to Christ is ever gone.

So, I know where Dad is today. And, I believe he knows all about us, here, as we honor his earthly years, and we ourselves glimpse Eternity. I pray for him, and he is praying for us.

And Dad today knows as tangible truth what we believe by faith here: The perfect, infinite love of God includes, sustains and restores His children, as the prayer goes, “both now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

In our sentimental memories -- those photos, videos, letters, old Bibles, the contents of cedar chests and dusty boxes -- we have our yesterdays. But in Christ, we also have our tomorrows.

Divine dichotomy: Of pain, suffering and a benevolent God

This past week has me, again, reflecting on the perceived dichotomy of suffering and a benevolent, loving God.

Particularly, the fundamentalist, evangelical Christian God who rewards the righteous in this life; the God the fringe of the Charismatic Movement — “Positive Confession,” “Name It, Claim It,” etc. — interprets those rewards as health and wealth and little or no suffering.

I understand, and this week even weep with those who have reached their limits of pain vs. faith, because they expected something else of life from what they were taught. Finally, they chose to cauterize the pain by simply declaring there is not, cannot possibly be, a benevolent loving God who cares about each of us, especially his children who obey, sacrifice and try to emulate Christ’s teachings.

For them, it has become a case of psychic, spiritual pain management: If God is benevolent and loving, they finally ask in their suffering, the perceived lack of that divine care amid the crucibles of life is a kind of open-ended pain that can, finally, become unbearable.

A trapped animal will chew off its own paw to be free of pain and hopelessness. A human being can be understood, empathized with, yes, forgiven for lopping off the extremity of faith in his or her most desperate times.

My week is nothing akin to the suffering others have endured, both those who hang on to faith and those who run from it. I have not reached the point of amputating my faith, and in some ways it is even stronger; but that all has come with more depth, and more pain.

Yesterday, I called my sister — in a group home in Washington state, crippled by cerebral palsy and intellectually a 5-year-old — to wish her a Happy 65th Birthday. Understand, she is my “big” little sister, being three years older, and a lifetime younger, at the same time.

“Hi Mom!” she said, answering the phone, and my heart sank. My mother, in the end stages of Alzheimer’s, is in a nursing home a few miles away from my sister, no longer able to talk, care for herself or remember any of her children, her husband, brothers, sisters.

Mom would not be calling. Her world has imploded to one of sleep, food, playing with dolls. Her body lives; her spirit has all but departed.

“It’s your brother, sis,” I said. The disappointment in her stuttering voice was tangible, and my eyes welled up.

I tried to keep it upbeat. Sang to her. Happy birthday. I could hear her, in that peculiar moaning stutter of her’s, upset. Mom’s denouement has been particularly hard on her; how do you explain memory loss to a childlike mind that only knows her mother, her bedrock in life, doesn’t know who she is?

Abruptly, she said, “Bye,” and the phone disconnected.

Last night, my Dad called, fear and despair in his raspy, almost 93-year-old voice. “Bob! I can hardly see anything anymore!” His macular degeneration has suddenly accelerated. I promised to call the medical staff for him, something he could have done . . . but in his terror forgot, reaching out to his son for help.

His maddeningly helpless son, 800 miles away. I called, asking for an expedited exam by the eye specialist to determine what, if anything, can be done.

It all felt like a massive, growing mountain before me: The mother who was a constant source of prayerful support and stubborn faith, gone; the father who spent his life preaching the gospel, sacrificing to do so in one tiny parish after another, in the twilight of life without his wife, stroke damage limiting his mobility, and now going blind, fearing the darkness to come; a sister who needed her mother, not her brother, on her special day.

So, I begin to understand how some people of faith can finally stumble under skies that seem to have turned brass to their prayers. And, I find myself amazed, and not a little humbled, and yet remain faithful.

It is the perspective of eternity, of knowing there will be plenty of pain in this life — but we are not alone in it. It is believing that like a morning fog, that pain will, someday soon, give way to immersion in the Love that is beyond this veil of tears.

Angel Vasko wrote about that a few years ago for CBN, after dealing with her mother’s prolonged, painful illness and death. (To read the whole article, visit http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/prayerandcounseling/Vasko_Trust_in_Tragedy.aspx)

“What is the lesson here God?!”  she said.  “Do you want me to know that life is hard and that people suffer and then die!!!? I get it!”

Vast concluded that, “I still have so many questions and I have so much to learn.  But in my heart of hearts, I just want to run into daddy’s arms and have Him hold me.  I want to have a pure heart.  I want to have a simplistic faith again.  Most of all, I want my first love, Christ, to know that I still love Him wholeheartedly."

In our finite existence, happiness and sadness, blessing and loss, joy and pain come, and not always in equal portions. But life is, perhaps thankfully so, brief as it is changing.

On the wild, wonderful, scary ride that life is, it is good to have, as Solomon once wrote, “Eternity in our hearts.”

A walk with my grandson: Of Faith, Love, Integrity . . . ducks, geese and sunlight

My grandson, Gabriel, and I had a nice conversation as we walked along the Jordan River Parkway after I got home from work yesterday afternoon.

A perfect autumn day, the river placid, the soft, golden glow of a retreating sun backlighting the cattails and illuminating the canopies of aspen, willow, cottonwood and oak trees overhead. On the water, geese and ducks foraged and engaged in halfhearted territorial disputes, generally at peace with each other and the season.

In the trees, juniper and sage, Meadowlarks, swallows, mourning doves and the occasional magpie darted through the branches or took short flight as we approached, grandpa and stroller-borne grandchild, in conversation perhaps as nonsensical to each other as human speech is to the river's denizens.

As the miles passed beneath foot and wheel, I told Gabriel how blessed he was, in this age of family unit breakdown and eroding moral and ethical values, to have two parents who loved God, him and each other.

I promised, for as long as I live, to be there for him; to do my best to live Faith, Love and Integrity . . . in prayerful hope that he, too, will embrace those.

I told him I would always pray that he will have the fortitude to live those values, even when the mass of humanity chooses to chase the lies.

The Lies? That happiness depends on temporal possessions, self-gratification, and lifestyles that worships materialism and greed, rather than seeking eternal values, and the eternal destiny that comes only with trust in the God of Love.

He occasionally responded: Enthusiastic imitations of the ducks in the river, geese honking overhead in their "V" formations, the occasional dog that would pass with its jogging human."Quack," "Honk," Woof." Excited yowls and giggles came with a scurrying squirrel or a bird landing briefly on a nearby branch.

 It was a fine conversation, perfect for our last time together for, probably, quite a while, as he and his mother fly home back East this weekend.

Yes, eloquent, my grandson.

We understood each other, perfectly.

Will meeting E.T. be the end of faith? Depends. How BIG is your God?

I firmly believe in God. I am a Christian, albeit a rational one.

I have faith in Christ, not magic. I am convinced that the Truth has nothing to fear from the truth, in other words.

So, I've never subscribed to the fear some of my coreligionists have that the discovery of intelligent extra-terrestrial life would be the undoing of faith, somehow.

It depends on your "faith," I would argue. How BIG is your God? And does the idea that a finite human mind cannot comprehend the thoughts, means of creation, capacity for Love and Justice of the Infinite One also threaten your belief system?

If so, time to open your eyes and marvel at the cosmos. Time to open your heart, gaze into the eyes of a child, and experience wonder.

That we may not be the center of the Universe, or the only special, beloved creation in it, does not diminish the love for a special creation — whether us, or us and others created in the mystical image of God.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in that conviction.

Read this article, and soar.

http://www.space.com/16285-alien-life-discovery-religion-impact.html

Faith: A choice, a yearning to be more than an evolutionary dead-end

Take an evangelical, fundamentalist preacher's kid and mix him with a liberal arts education. 

Season him with more than a few decades of living, and you either come up with an agnostic, a metaphysical schizophrenic, or a believer, stripped down the basics of his faith.

I confess to, at times, flying like a confused, sometimes angry or at least disheartened moth, too close to the flames of the first two fates. The journey to faith — my own faith, not necessarily that of my parents — has been occasionally exhilarating, often painful, and all too human.

It has been, philosophically, an eclectic odyssey. That likely was inevitable, considering my History and Journalism double major and a minor in Psychology, followed by a career in journalism (a petri dish for cynicism, as professions go).

Ultimately, it is human nature that convinces me my faith — albeit skinned of what I concluded were doctrinal and theological assertions created not by an infinite God, but by finite human minds — makes more sense than pure secular humanism.

I could (but don't worry, I won't) write reams on why I find this so. Let a couple observations suffice:

— The fact that our species has not ceased warring with itself since it began, committing genocide on ever-larger scales, makes me bitterly laugh at the idea we are the pinnacle of sentient evolution on Earth. 

 

We may boast how much more sophisticated and civilized our high-tech, educated society is now compared to our stick-wielding, tree- and cave-dwelling ancient ancestors, but we continue to produce the same rotten fruit.

It's still about territory and resources, and who has the right — or might — to claim them. And since such brutal calculus always makes our "better angels" wince, we still use politics, religion, culture and racism as excuses and justification for dehumanizing and dismissing the Other.

— Yet, we desire to be more. I would argue that we were created for more, but are broken. Despite all the pain and madness humankind inflicts on itself and its planet, goodness persistently bubbles up within individuals, and reform movements. 

Changes for the better, history teaches us, are as finite as our bodies . . . yet we continue to reach down to the fallen with one hand, even as we bludgeon our enemies with the other.

So, faith. Because without it, without the saving grace of our Maker, we will remain stuck, either as an evolutionary dead end, or a creation to be ultimately redeemed, reborn and perfected.

I prefer to believe the latter.

Suicide: The challenge to the faithful, and faithful survivors

It was little more than 10 years ago that I lost my best friend, Ken, to suicide.

It happened one bright spring weekend. The day before, knowing he had been uncharacteristically out of touch, I tried calling him, no answer. I went over an knocked on his door, rang the door bell. Left phone messages. Emails.

He loved action movies. Let's go out and see a flick, I offered. You know. Escape life's stresses and worries for an afternoon. Laugh, like we always did. Talk, sometimes about deep things, other times just memories.

Ken had some great stories. Stories so great, you would wonder if they were apocryphal . . . until you learned from someone else that, "Yes, he did take on four guys in a park and sent them running." Or, "Yes, he did break a sack of cement over the head of an obnoxious boss once."

He loved practical jokes. Me, too. We victimized each other from time to time, and he always bellowed that deep laugh of his, and grinned widely . . . even as his eyes told you, "You're next, bud."

He was a big man. Big tall, 6-foot-4, and big physically, a man mountain. When he laughed, people noticed.

But there was no answer from Ken that March day in 2003. Finally, the fire department arrived. They found him in his bedroom, dead, from a massive overdose of over-the-counter sleeping medications.

He had gone to several stores to get enough; the empty bags and cartons and receipts were nearby.
In the days and weeks that followed his funeral, we learned of his dark, abusive side. It was a hidden horror his family had endured.

Those times came in cycles, at first rare, but as his mental state deteriorated, more frequent. I remain convinced to this day, that he finally decided to end it, at least in part to protect his family -- before one of his black moods ended in bloodshed.

Nothing, of course, is ever so clearly defined. Some suicides are plain acts of selfishness, a desire to punish from the grave. Others come at the precipice of hopelessness, grief. Yet others are unexplainable, brought on by psychotic breaks with reality, desperation to end the hell of perception when reality flees and gives way to madness. And some are all these things, and more.

In my current role as a public safety reporter, hardly a week goes by where there is not a murder-suicide. The most recent was an elderly couple. She was in terminal, failing and painful health; he wanted her pain to end, and his own.

That almost seems understandable. My own parents, one in the late stages of Alzheimer's, the other enduring painful arthritis and failing eyesight, might be such a couple but for their enduring love for each other and trust in God. Faith sustains them, helps them endure, and trust that their time will come when it supposed to -- by His hand, not their own.

To this day, I am convinced Ken could have been helped. But in the sad equation of his life, he refused to do the therapy, take the drugs, and he had lost faith. Perhaps he was not capable, at that point, of reaching out for help. I don't know; and I will not judge.

But I still miss my friend.

This year, suicide also touched the life of internationally known pastor Rick Warren, of the Saddleback Church and "Purpose Driven Life" fame. His youngest son took his own life.
How this man of faith, along with his remaining family are dealing with this at Thanksgiving time is poignant, and faith- and life-affirming. In a piece requested by Time Magazine, we wrote in part:

"This year became the worst year of my life when my youngest son, who’d struggled since childhood with mental illness, took his own life. How am I supposed be thankful this Thanksgiving? When your heart’s been ripped apart, you feel numb, not grateful.

"And yet the Bible tells us "Give thanks IN all circumstances . . . ." The key is the word “in.” God doesn’t expect me to be thankful FOR all circumstances, but IN all circumstances."

Warren goes on with this list what he is thankful for this season. Here are some of them:

I’m thankful that, even though I don’t have all the answers, God does. In tragedy we seek explanations, but explanations never comfort. It is God’s presence that eases our pain.
 
I’m thankful for the hope of heaven. I won’t have to live with pain forever. In heaven, there are no broken relationships, broken minds, broken bodies, broken dreams, or broken promises.
 
I’m thankful for my church family.  ... in our darkest hour as a family, they gave all that love back in a split-second, the moment Kay and I returned to speak after a 16-week grief sabbatical.  We can handle anything with prayers and support like that.

I’m thankful that God can bring good even out of the bad in my life, when I give him the pieces. It’s his specialty. God loves to turn crucifixions into resurrections, and then benefit the whole world. God never wastes a hurt if we give it to him."

To read Pastor Warren's article in full, click on this link.

Believe or not believe: It's important to know what you really embrace, or reject

Believe, or not believe.

Your choice, and I'm certainly not going to judge anyone's choice. It's highly personal, and your value as a living, breathing, sentient being does not change, regardless. 

That said, this video simply shares the unadorned, basic Christian message -- without the politics, without the holier-than-thou attitude, and without compromise.

Not everyone can accept it. Even those who do accept it too often add other agendas, political, social, ethnic, etc. agendas they wield like clubs against others.

Secular activists browbeat believers, Some believers demonize skeptics. It makes me think of errant believers and Christianphobes alike being condemned, some day, to writing on a galaxy-sized blackboard, for eternity, John 11:35, "Jesus wept."

As much as "accepting" Christ, living a life afterward that honors his love, sacrifice and embrace of all of us "sinners" is the point, at least for this cynical preacher's kid who has seen way too much judgment and far too little grace and humility.

Miracles: They start by recognizing the miracle that is Life -- and the Lifegiver's love for us

My daughter, Brenda, is in the hospital for at least a couple days. Started having contractions one week into her third trimester. Naturally, docs in Baltimore want to prevent a premature birth, especially this early. 

She is holding it together, but a father can hear the worry in his little girl's voice.

 My son-in-law is the same steady, encouraging and loving man in a crisis as I have come to know in less trying times. And, our shared faith binds us together.

For Barbara and I, this is a deja vu moment. Thirty-eight years ago, my son was born at about 6 1/2 months. Three weeks in infant intensive care and the docs then refusing to say more than "we will do what we can." He made it and has thrived.

Docs then told us the "miracle" word was not to be dismissed, and God knows we prayed for one.
So many years later, the science of prenatal care has advanced far . . . but the outcome, as always, remains outside our hands.

In other words, friends, we find ourselves once more praying. We welcome your prayers as well, whatever form they may take.

I am reminded of the 139th Psalm, David's to the wonder of God and life, and the assurance that whatever we face, He is with us and cares for us:

"Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. 

 I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation! 

 "You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. 


" Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day." (Psalm 139:13-16, Message)

Beauty and imitation: Real world unrivaled when God's 'special effects' are displayed

One of the reasons I enjoyed the movie "Avatar" so much was the stunning special effects, the beauty of the exotic, extraterrestrial jungles, floating mountains, plants, animals, etc., created for the backgrounds.
The same appreciation was evident in the "Lord of the Rings" movies in the mammoth sculptures on the rivers, mountain fortresses and especially the abodes of the Elves with their surreal light and detail.
All fiction, those things.
But, to me, they pale next to the reality of breathtaking beauty in our "real" world. I was reminded of that when I stumbled upon this website, featuring the photo above -- and more than 20 others.
Stunning scenes, all the more so because they are places we can visit, touch, see, experience and . . . wonder.
So, take a look, and then, I dare you, go back to your daily tasks without a lingering sense of the inexpressible beauty of our planet, and gratitude to its Maker.

The heart of the matter: Year out from surgery, a new valve -- and a grateful Heart

I had a milestone today. My year out from aortic valve replacement surgery, I met with the surgeon who sliced, cracked, scooped out the old, about-to-fail valve and sewed in a new cyborgian metal, plastic and bovine model this time last year.

If all is well, one more battery of tests in August and then, hopefully, just an annual thing.

I've had so many EKGs and echocardiograms and blood draws (and the occasional cable up the femoral artery) this year I could put the sensors on myself; I can recognize the various chambers of my ticker when looking at the monitors.

I deal with this rather well, when I approach it with a journalist's curiosity, and intellectual awe at what medical science can do today. Kind of like being immersed in a Discovery Channel documentary.

It's when I get a glimpse of this ordeal through the eyes of loved ones that the appreciation also becomes emotional, even spiritual.

Perhaps, a lot spiritual, as in gratitude broadcast out to the cosmos and the Spirit of Love I know as God.

A through-the-eyes of others moment caught me by surprise on Sunday. Barbara and I took a walk on a glorious spring afternoon, finding a park bench to just sit and hold hands. The sunshine warmed our faces, the breeze caressed us and brought the scent of cherry blossoms. Time stopped.

She leaned over, put her head on my chest and hugged me, holding on for several minutes.

"What?" I said, with my usual sensitivity to the import of the moment (not).

She looked up at me, a tear spilling from her eye. "Just listening to your h-h-heart," she said.

"Does it sound weird? Is it clicking?" I joked. (That's how I handle those moments in life when things get too . . . serious. And often, when I handle it this way, it comes across as inappropriate. But  I am what I am; flawed in character, as well as in the cardiac realm.)

Live with it; I do. Thank God.

"No. It sounds ... like your heart," she finally answered, and began to sob softly.

So, I just shut up. And held her.

I was humbled in a way the word "humble" falls far short of expressing.

When you feel Love like that, sometimes you just shut your mouth, and hold on tighter.

Christ is risen -- then, and now

He is risen.

Faith tells me it was true more than 2,000 years ago. 

The joy that fills me at my deepest, undefinable being,

that place where intellect and spirit merge

 in a secret place of innocence and peace,

 convinces me it is true today.

Happy Easter.