the Eclectic Soul

Birthing Hope...

Over the last several months, Lisa and I have been on a journey, pursuing embryo adoption. We had been in the process for a standard adoption for almost two years, when we were made aware of the possibility that we could adopt several embryos in hopes that Lisa would be able to carry a child to term. These embryos are not our own, biologically speaking, but have been graciously offered to us by couples who had had successful invitro processes and have grown their families to their desired size. In just a little over an hour, Lisa will undergo a procedure in which two embryos will be implanted in her uterus in hopes that at least one of them will take root (yes we could have twins, pray for us!) Below is what I had written for the front page my church's newsletter for the month of December, and I thought maybe you my faithful reader(s) my appreciate it. So here it is...

I sit at a desk this morning, November 19th, some 950+ miles from my home.  In just two short hours, my wife and I will make our way to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, in hopes that one of the embryos that we have adopted will take root in her womb, and allow my wife the gift of birthing a child into this world.

It seems somewhat fitting to me that this is the context out of which I write this morning for this edition of the Trumpeter.  For the month of December is all about hope isn’t it?

Hope that salvation is coming.

Hope that God will truly fulfill his plan for a broken, twisted and fragmented humanity in Jesus.

Hope that what happened that cold dark evening so long ago, in the little burro of Bethlehem, just may in fact be true.

I thought about Mary and Joseph a lot over the last several days.  Now, let me be clear, I am in no way comparing myself to them; my wife is not carrying in her womb the Son of God.  But I did think about what they must have went through.

Although Lisa and I, like Mary and Joseph, have traveled a great distance, we did it largely in comfort and ease.  To be sure the car was cramped and the two days getting here were long, but at least my wife didn’t have to travel on the back of a donkey, as I slowly lead it along.

While Mary was great with child, my wife is great with the hopes of finally knowing what it is to feel a baby kick within her, perhaps much the same way Mary felt when Jesus leapt inside her when she was greeted by her cousin Elizabeth, who’s womb bore the forerunner of Jesus: John the Baptist.

Lisa and I are in Knoxville out of our own free will; no tyrannical dictator demanded that we come to be counted.  Yet there is a purpose for us, just as there was a purpose for them.

Yet much like Mary and Joseph, hope births within us this morning.  Not just the hope of having a baby, although that is a powerful pull on both of us. But, rather, the hope that we as a people might realize we are part of a magnificent story.  A story in which we, human beings, who are the grand antagonists, destined to have our on way and be our own gods, are pursued by a divine love that is strong enough to demonstrate itself in weakness; to allow love to seep in, instead of cramming it down our throats, demanding that we respond.

Whether Lisa and I are able to have a baby or not, we this day, sit, saturated in the presence of this amazing, strong, powerful, all-consuming love, that demonstrated itself most fully in the frailty of a child, a baby, an embryo infused with divinity and humanity.

So won’t you hope with us this Christmas too?  Hope that this year, we might truly allow ourselves to be embraced by the powerful weakness of this birth of divine love in Jesus.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only, flesh and bone, soul and spirit, that we might have hope.  This is our peace.  Amen.

Thinking of Advent

As we approach Advent I came across this clip again.  As funny as it is I think it's parody hits so close to home.  We often prefer the Jesus we've created in our own minds, giving preferential treatment to the Jesus we most resonate with.

It's amazing how close to home a humorous Hollywood movie clip can hit.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

Well do you? 

In an AP article entitled, Many Think God's Interventions Can Revive the Dying, Lindsey Tanner explores the nebulous and sometimes tenuous landscape of faith and medicine. 

Of course to the post-Enlightenment rational mind miracles are largely disavowed since they cannot be explained scientifically.  Yet there have been plenty of recorded medical miracles that would seem to assert that on specific occasions the science will just not add up.

Part of the challenge is that I think that we often define a miracle much to narrowly.  For many a miracle is a person who lost a limb growing a new one, or someone who had been declared dead in every way suddenly reanimating back to the land of the living.  But how about the single parent who gets up every day and plays both mother and father to three children, works two jobs and volunteers in a variety of civic or religious institutions and manages not to curse God for their life's circumstances.  I think miracles happen every day but we have just become so sedated to life and so consumed with our own ability to do and be.

I remember the day I found out that my 30-year-old brother had died.  I rushed to the hospital praying all the way that perhaps his death was a mistake.  Upon arrival I was taken back to the room where he was laid out.  I remember wanting to beat on his chest and tell him to get up, and then screaming internally to God, "You can do this God!  It's easy for you!  Bring my brother back to life!"

Do I believe that God could have done it?  With all my heart. 

I remember last August when the phone call came that informed me that my best friend died at the ripe old age of 36.  Oh how I anguished and shook my fists at God.  Could God have saved him.  I believe it without a doubt.  It seemed so senseless.  Then a few weeks later his youngest son came down with the same [treatable disease].  It was his father's sickness and eventual death that might have well been the key to saving his son's life.  Could God have saved both of them?  I believe without a doubt!

I think part of our western struggle comes not from a belief in the miraculous but from our sense of entitlement.  After all, we are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, aren't we.  The truth is: we are entitled to nothing.  Life is a gift.  A gift to be used to serve and love our neighbor and the marginalized.  Yet most of our lives are fixated on consumption and self gratification.  Perhaps the reason that we don't see miracles more is that we have forgotten how to live humbly. 

Have you ever wondered why we hear of so many miracles happening in 3rd world countries?  It's hard to be too proud [and I am using the term proud in an negative prideful way] when you are looking up from the bottom.  The poor and the marginalized are hungry, desperate, and willing to risk being misunderstood.  Perhaps that's why the majority of Jesus' miracles were done among the poor, disenfranchised and marginalized of his day.  They we're hungry for something that the rest of the power brokers of Jesus' had largely lost their appetite for awed by the miraculousness of their own ability to self-sooth and self-medicate with wealth, position, and power.

The Associated Press article quotes Pat Loder of my home state and locale.  Pam went through the mind numbing and soul wrenching agony of losing two small children to a freak accident; something I cannot imagine enduring.  While she clung to the belief that God could heal her children, sadly and tragically both of them ended up succumbing to their injuries.  When asked about her belief in miracles now, Pat says something incredibly insightful. " I have become more of a realist....I know that none of us are immune from anything."  Friends, I don't take that to mean that Pat has lost her faith.  Perhaps through her encountering with an unimaginable suffering she has encountered the One who suffered unimaginably for her and her two beautiful children.

Do I believe in miracles...without question!  In fact I'm praying right now for a young man named Todd.  And, I would ask you to please join me in praying for him.  I've been playing the song "Healer" all afternoon in the background on iTunes.  It is one of the most powerful songs I have heard in a long long time.

Peace,

Eric

I Miss My Friend....

It's been a really difficult couple of weeks.  One year ago this month I lost my best friend to a freak lung fungus he contracted, probably on a camping trip that our families took together a few months before last June.

I've been moody, irritable, and down right melancholy.  I really miss him. He's the kind of guy you could call at any time.  We talked almost daily.  I miss that. 

Friends, could you remember his family in your prayers; his boys Seth and Jared and his wife Siri.  I can't imagine how bad they miss him too. 

Thanks.

Mourning; but not as one who is without hope!

Peace,

E

This Just In....

Some great new about my friend Tom.  Surgery went really well on Monday and, well, I'll let his wife tell you the rest....God is good...

"Hi, we just got the news today that Tom is due to be discharged tomorrow morning. He has been up and walking today with the walker, is off pain meds. and is now watching Tiger ball. We still face a long haul with the take home version of the wound-vac, then physical therapy. Son Craig has been given a long list to prepare the ground floor of the parsonage for his dad's temporary bedroom, and to see where we can borrow a walker for the short term, later we have been told Tom should move to crutches or other walking aids.
Thank you for all your prayers,
Karen"

Thanks my friends for praying!

Peace,

E

Pray for my Friend Tom....

This morning I received word that a friend and fellow colleague had been rushed to the hospital with what was thought to be [and was later confirmed to be] and aneurysm in his femoral artery.  He is in surgery as we speak to bypass the affected area and restore blood flow.  It seems as though everything is going to be ok but it sure was a scare to him and his family.  Tom is an especially fit and young guy in his late forties or early fifties.  No one saw this coming. 

Please pray for his wife Karen and their kids and they await Tom's full recovery.

Thanks friends.

Peace,

E

Fixed Hour Prayer....

For a while now I have used multiple methods to keep my spiritual life alive and flourishing.  Usually it involves spending sometime reading the Scriptures daily and making use of a prayer journal.

Over the last several years I've become increasingly aware of this practice of fixed hour prayer.  Guided by a prayerbook, alone or preferably in community, an individual or group of individuals marks time throughout the day with "fixed" short periods of prayer. 

There are a good number of excellent prayer books out there and my good friend Alan has recommended some helpful ones on his blog.  For me though, I wanted something beefy; something with bulk and muscle.  Over the last year I used the Episcopal two-volume Daily Office, which was pretty good.  This year I made the switch to using the Catholic four-volume Liturgy of the Hours.  Structured by the liturgical seasons the LOH offers both readings form the Scriptures and the early church fathers and mothers all in one portable volume [you only use one at a time].  Sure there are some places where you are asking to pray for the Pope and Bishops, but what I find myself doing, in addition to praying for them, is to pray for my own denominational leaders.

So I've been experimenting with guided prayer at 6 a.m., noon, and 8 p.m. [after my kids go to bed].  Actually, with fixed hour prayer, the ideal is to prayer every 3 hours: 6, 9 [a.m.], noon, 3, 6, 9 [p.m.] and then if you're truly spiritual wake up you wake up in the middle of the night to pray [guess I'm not truly spiritual].

If you haven't tried it let me encourage you to check out some of these really helpful resources.  Since my good friend Alan has already made the effort to compile a fine list, just link to his blog to get started.

Peace,

E

Pray for the Chapman Family....

Friends please pray for the family of Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman.  Apparently their youngest daughter Maria was killed in a freak accident in the driveway.  It seems as though her older brother while driving a SUV didn't see her and accidentally ran her over.  She was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

I can't imagine what the Chapman family is going through.  This is the second accident of a similar nature I've heard of in the last month.  One of my wife's coworkers has a friend who recently had the same thing happen in our area.

This is such a huge tragedy.  Lift them up in your prayers.  For more information you can read the Tennessean newspaper article here.  

 Peace, 

E

More Prayer Needed....

Friends, let me just say that I'm sick of asking for prayer for people I love.   But Jared, my friend Jon's son [yes Jon is the one who recently passed away] is still in the hospital battling a lung infection called Blastomycosis, which is actually a lung fungus.  It is the same thing that Jon had had.

"J" [Jared, I call him J] has been in this medical roller coaster for the last several weeks.  He's on a heavy dose of antibiotics to battle the fungus and is fighting a valiant battle.  The infection is pretty tenacious and seems to have a mind of it's own.  The doctors are convinced he'll win in the end but it's just going to be an uphill battle.  Needless to say it's hard to keep a 9-year-old in the hospital without him getting a little stir crazy!

Pray for Siri [Jon's widow], Seth [their oldest son], and Jared.  They haven't even had a moment to figure out what life will be like without Jon.  They just need a break! They need a miracle!  Please pray for them!

Thanks!

Peace,

E