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Taking It in Stride

8/28/2013

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When Reese was a little younger than two, she and I got in a car accident on the way to a church event. We rear ended a pickup truck. (I, not Reese, was driving.) We were fine, but my car was not. I was pretty shocked. Reese didn’t seem to be.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t cry during the accident. She didn’t cry when a Circle K attendant held her as I pushed the car out of the road. She didn’t cry as we rode in the back of a police car the rest of the way to a place called Organ Stop Pizza, which in fact did have both pizza and organ music.

In fact, Reese rather enjoyed the ride in the back of the police car. I hope this last detail is not a sign of things to come.

Reese didn’t seem to be in shock either. She was just normal Reese. And I can’t believe this was because she didn’t know that strange things were happening. After all, she has always been a pretty aware little person. By the end of the night, Reese had actually enjoyed one of her most fun-packed and active evenings in quite a while.

I loved her for it (and not just because it helped keep me from feeling even worse than I already did about getting into an accident). I loved her for it because I think it said something good about her. A crisis occurred, and Reese didn’t panic. Instead, she faced it straight on, rolled through it, and kept going forward with a peace and honest joy that would not be overcome, even by Daddy’s bad driving.

Now that she is seven, I hope that this quality of peace is a sign of things to come for her. I hope it is, in essence, the way Reese faces the world as she continues to grow, a world Jesus says is full of “wars and rumors of wars,” both personal and global.

I hope it is a sign of the way she faces the crises of rejected love, of one day losing her parents, of someday saying goodbye to a hope for the future that present reality has torn apart. I hope it reflects the way she looks at herself in the mirror when she falls short in life.

The gospel of John has Jesus saying that he gives his own peace to us. This is the same Jesus who has said he has overcome the world. This is the same Jesus who faced the Mt. Everest of crisis – rejection, betrayal, and execution. This is also the Jesus who rolled through them by the power of resurrection.

This is the Jesus who has given his peace to us, if we will receive it. Amazing stuff, if we dare to take it to heart.

It is pretty well known that the word “crisis,” although we usually consider it synonymous to “big, sudden problem,” is actually related to “decision point.”

A crisis is a moment of decision, a time to show who we really are, how we really act, and the faith by which we really live.  

If you would, please take a few moments. Ask the Lord to be present with you, guiding you during this time. Then imagine one or two of the fundamental issues of your life or of the world around you.

Perhaps what bubbles up is your mortality, your marriage, your family, your office, your school, or your congregation. Or perhaps it has to do with broader issues of war and peace, rich and poor, or environmental misuse and care.

Do a thought experiment with whatever comes to you. Imagine a sudden crisis in the area that you have called to mind. Imagine how you would face the crisis if you were living not out of panic and fear, but out of the peace and Spirit of Jesus. Then ask God to help you live right now so that you are prepared to face the crises to come with that selfsame peace of Christ.

Then act on that prayer. Claim that peace. Live out of it, not just when something goes wrong – not just when the car crashes – but now, today. This peace is yours in Jesus for every day and for every situation.


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Memory Games

8/22/2013

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As a baby Reese would often wake up from a nap groggy and grumpy.

Knowing this, I’d have a plan in my mind before even entering her room. I’d go in planning to play the game we’d made up together.

The game would go like this: I would sit beside her on the floor so we were staring at each other through the slats of her crib. Then Reese would extend her right hand through the bars. As she stuck out her hand, I’d “bite” it and grunt. She’d then pull it back, smile, and giggle.

Even if we hadn’t played the game for weeks she would still remember it when it came time to play it again. Seeing Reese’s memory in action was wonderful, but it was also sobering.

There was and is a lot going on in her head. Her perspectives, her actions, her spirit were even then already being shaped by her memories. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, that is both the best of things and the worst of things. Some memories can lift us up. Others can strike us dead.

I read a few years ago about a Palestinian woman whose family fled their home while she was a child. A few years later they returned and the house had new, Israeli residents. The moment seared itself into her memory.

When she was interviewed, fifty years had passed and the woman still could tour the home in her mind. She could still remember in exquisite detail the house, its contents, and the emotions of her flight from it.

For all of us memory has immense power.

Sometimes I am hopeful of what Reese will remember from her earliest days. Other times I am fearful. Both sensations come from knowing full well that what we remember shapes how we see our God, our neighbors, and ourselves. Memory can either create life or drown it in darkness.

Every Sunday Christians hear the words of Jesus said again: “This bread is my body; broken for you. Eat in remembrance of me. This cup is my blood; shed for you. Drink in remembrance of me.”

What is being remembered? If we are honest (and not sucked in by all the golden, empty crosses) we remember the horror and injustice of Jesus’ execution. We remember that the broken body and shed blood are truly signs of failure, of betrayal, of political and military violence performed by the greatest nations of the day.

But we also know that what is being remembered is more than that.

Paul in 1 Corinthians says that “as often as you eat and drink, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This suggests that what is being remembered is not simply failure, not simply death.

It is also a remembrance of Christ’s ability to return. It is a remembrance of the resurrection and the glory of Jesus. It is remembrance of the ongoing power of Easter.

It is the validation of Christ’s love as the presence of God restoring a cracked and crooked world. It’s a remembering of salvation, of God stepping fully into the bloody dirt of this world and making it new. It is a remembering that becomes celebration because Jesus is no longer in the grave, and he will come again. And his life is shared with even people like us.

I was asked recently how being a Christian, and specifically a pastor, influences the way I look at death with all of its tears and caskets and funerals.

My honest answer has to do with memory. As a Christian, in the face of death I seek to remember the story of Jesus. I seek to remember Christ’s story not just as a history lesson, but as a present-day call to hope. That hope does not mean I try to forget the power of death with its griefs, failures, betrayals, and violence. Remembering the Cross of Jesus will not allow that.

But I also seek to remember resurrection. Remembering the Empty Tomb demands this of me. In essence, when faced with death, I seek to do what I do every time I gather at the Table of Christ. I seek to remember Jesus saying, “This is my body…This is my blood…for you….”

I pray this crucified and risen Jesus will shape Reese’s memory from her first years on. And, I pray that same Jesus will shape your memories too.



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    Author

    Robert here.



    This is something called a Reese Piece. Reese is a nickname for Karyssa, my daughter. 



    Each Reese Piece is a brief exploration of some way I sense God has spoken to me through her.

    God reaches us through the experiences and relationships of daily life. This seems obvious, but I find it’s something which is still easy for me to forget. 


    It is my prayer that “Reese Pieces” will encourage you to look for the ways the Lord is trying to reach you through the life you live each day and the people who populate it.

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