"Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise." ~ Jeremiah 17:14 For the past week I have spent a lot of time in reflection. Traveling places I have not seen in decades, renewing friendships, and seeing family. There have been moments of great joy. I have also encountered sadness as well. I'm grateful that I have been able to make this journey.
Memories can be many things to us. They can shape our current life situations, as well as, determine how we respond to others. In the final days of Jesus' life, he gathered with his disciples and asked that they simply, "Remember me." Living in the memory of Jesus prepares us to live with memories that can become opportunities for healing. Even as we went through things that have been in storage since my stepmother's death seventeen years ago, there were many moments where the memory of her passing became present, but that time had managed to allow for healing. I was reminded yesterday that time doesn't necessarily heal us, it instead allows for space from the experience. Healing seems to be connected to our history when we are finally able to look at the experience with where we are now. A few weeks ago I was visiting with a friend and I shared of how I was feeling about some of the things that I was afraid of encountering by coming home and working through several things that I needed to add closure to. She reminded me that nothing from the past could harm me because I had already lived through the situations, and "survived." As Christians, we are participating in a memory that goes far, far back to that great moment when God entered into history and shared the human condition through Jesus. Somewhere God intercedes in our memories, and change begins to take place. Our joy and pain seem to connect with a place where they point beyond themselves. The events surrounding this journey this week all seem to remind me our lives can be healed by the memory of the incarnation and the Jesus' words to "Remember me." Suddenly the experience reminds me that we are all part of God's salvation. Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019
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For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. ~ Psalm 100:5 The last few days have been filled with many special moments. I met a cousin for the first time after doing a 23 and Me DNA kit. I saw my stepbrother, James, whom I hadn't seen in forty years. I had lunch with four of my high school teachers who had a direct impact on who I am today. I have walked hills and "hollers" of my childhood, viewed God's beauty of fall in the forest, and listened to the clock tower announce the hour at Indiana University where I attended college over thirty years ago.
As I prepare for bed, reflecting upon all of these moments, I realize that they all happened because my cousin John died and he simply asked that I bring his ashes back to Indiana. What I have discovered is that death seems to have touched my life in an unexpected way. While I have been grieving the loss of John, I have touched on significant relationships through these encounters and discovered that in my brokenness, I am being healed in a very beautiful way. It's as if my relationship with John, which was filled with moments surrounded by unconditional love, have opened a way for me to encounter a greater understanding what unconditional love through loss actually looks like. These encounters have done more than just brought about healing. There has also been a great sense of belonging. It has reminded me of the immense love that exists, and is available to each of us. The reality of experiences like these remind each of us that we can live from a deep belief that we all have love to offer to others, not only here, but even beyond the life that we live. I am reminded that I was loved by God before I breathed my first breath. God will also continue to love me after I have exhausted my final breath as well. Our lifetimes, no matter how long or short, are expressions of the opportunity to receive love, grow in love, and to share love with others. Jesus asks that we, "Remember" him when we encounter the wine and bread in the covenant he made with us. When we die love continues to be active, and from our full communion with God we are present by love to those we leave behind. Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men built. And the Lord said, “Behold, the people are one and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. Come, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off building the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel [that is, Confusion], because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. ~ Genesis 11:1-9 The Tower of Babel. It might as well be called the standards for communication.
Not being able to communicate well is nothing new. Somewhere between the "LOL", "ROFL", "BFF" and whatever abbreviation we happen to create, our ability to communicate clearly has been lost. What used to be as simple as letting our fingers do the walking, and dialing the phone, we now instead allow texting to control our speech. No one seems to talk to each other anymore, and if they do, it seems that there is always some kind of technology attached to it! My grandmother wrote beautiful letters. Her penmanship was artistic, and her words concise. She would call and speak to those she was concerned about, or would go and visit. Thank God for birthdays and holidays, otherwise I'm unsure if I would ever get any real personal mail! The other thing I have noticed is that no one seems to research or check their sources. Someone the other day started the conversation, "I was reading this on the internet and..." Clearly, our need to communicate with one another has always been something that humanity has had to deal with, I guess that some things just never change. Imagine if God only shared with us as we share with one another? What would the world really be like then? Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019 "Come, let us return to the Lord... Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth." ~ Hosea 6:1a, 3 As I prepare to bury my cousin John today, I have been meditating on the story of the prodigal son. It is a story about returning. Today I am reminded of the importance of returning over and over again. Throughout my life there have been times when I have drifted away from God, and I have to return. It's no wonder the two most common words in the Old Testament have to do with God's people "turning away," and "returning to," God.
Returning seems to be a life-long struggle. In the story of the prodigal son, I am continually moved by the fact that the father had no requirements of the son when he returned. His love was so total and unconditional that he simply welcomed his son home. Yesterday my sister and I traveled back into the hills and "hollers," of southern Indiana and visited one of our childhood homes. We went up into the Morgan Monroe State Forest, and rediscovered the old logging road that we knew so well as kids. We remembered how different our lives were then, and how those years shaped us. The home we remembered was now overgrown by trees that were not present when we lived there, and the trees that we climbed were like us, "a memory." They say that you can "never go home." For the prodigal son, returning home was all that he thought about doing once he had encountered the lowest moment in his life. Just as we struggle to find the "right way," to return to God, I suddenly realize that returning to God is simply about showing up. My cousin John struggled his entire life to find acceptance. He faced challenges that I never knew existed in his life until I sat next to him as he was dying. He finally found a way to voice what had happened to him, how he felt, and why he did some of the things that he did. The addictions that he was a prisoner to, the times he sat in jail cells and how he had once loved someone, who ultimately broke his heart. Death, for John, was the return of the prodigal son. It was the ultimate "returning," where he was met with unconditional love. As a witness to his final months of life, and the moments where he took his last breathes, I watched and listened to the desire to be home. Today, along with a few family members, will be the completion of his "return." I can remember him laughing just days before he died, "It's never too late, cuz. God is always ready for us to come home." Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. ~ Psalm 131:2 I awoke to the sound of church bells ringing at 6 am this morning. My sister lives just a few blocks from a church that announces it's presence by ringing bells at 6 am, noon and 6 pm. This morning was my first reality of the bells, laying in bed, and listening, as the hammer struck. My mind began to wander, and think of the people who decided to build and house the bells in the church. And then I began to think about the people who chose to schedule the bells to be rung each day at these hours, and began to question whether they were being faithful, or getting even with someone.
I am reminded that the church is to be the apostolic presence among the community, and perhaps, needs to provide a daily reminder to those around that there exists a need to be a way to remind people of God's presence. While the presence of the bells ringing serves as a reminder that there exists this church, I can't help but think of those who don't notice the sound of the bells at all. I remember years ago living just blocks away from a set of train tracks. After months of living next to them, I rarely noticed the trains that would speed through town, often blasting their horns. Only when I would have company over would I be reminded of them when someone would generally ask, "How do you live with that sound all the time?" The bells remind me that the church has become the train of my past. The church has become the bells in the community where I am today. And we have become immune to it's presence. As a pastor I often wonder what it is that I can say, or do, that will become a different sound. With so many competing sound bytes out in the world, how can the church become a defining word that draws people closer to God? My sister shared that when she hears the bells in the morning, she knows that she only has twenty more minutes before she needs to leave her home for the hospital where she works. For her, it has become a source of urgency, and timing. I can remember hearing a sermon years ago that suggested that the church has managed to immunize entire communities with Christianity. I can remember the person saying, "When you immunize someone against something, you give the person just a small dose of the disease. The host then produces antibodies that will protect the person from ever getting the disease completely. Just a small dose of Christianity prevents an outbreak." Funny, in many ways I sense the bells have become simply a booster. Each day God tries to find ways to draw us in. It's not always about bells, earthquakes, fires, and storms. I am reminded that sometimes God comes to us in a still, small voice. In the silence. In our times of joy, as well as, times of great sadness. In the rising of the sun with each new day, and with each morning when our feet touch the floor. With every "I love you," shared, and with every moment when we cry. This morning the bells have done their job. I have been drawn to consider the church, God's presence, and the need for me to hear more. Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019 It's a cold morning, having traded the Gulf Coast of Texas where I live, for the hills of Southern Indiana, where I spent much of my youth wandering hills and hollers. This All Saints Day seems to pull at me differently this year as I am bringing the ashes of my cousin, John D Williams, to be interned among those who have died in my family.
There is something about this day that reminds me that we are all part of something more. Each year on this day, I find that I am focused on the memories of those who have died, who loved me unconditionally, and who now have entrusted me with their stories to tell. With John's death this year, I begin to consider my own mortality even more, since I now the oldest living member of my generation. Even now as I write this, with his box filled with ashes sit only a fee feet from me, I hear him remind me in his deep, raspy tone, "We was the first, cuz." Two years ago as our family gathered together for a wedding, several of my cousins asked me what our great grandmother was "really like?" Their memories of her are quite different than mine. As John D. reminded, being "first" meant she and other members of our family were much younger then. There are decades between the oldest member and youngest of my generation. John D. and I remembered grandparents who were much different. Active with personalities and beliefs that shaped conversations, actions and behaviors. I remember telling them of humor, joined with an amazing faith, love for people, and how sad it was to see my great grandmother change into someone else. How hard it was to mourn them as they each died, some before cousins were even born. All Saints Day is about our spirit. It is the reminder that even in death, we continue to remain. Among the saints in my life are my great grandparents, many whom I knew, grandparents, one parent, a number of friends that have influenced and changed my life. This year I don't just think of John D., but also my Aunt Susie who died just a short time later, and my close friend, Andrea, who died just over a month ago. I think of so many of my hospice patients who are also now gone. I love old photographs, including those that show my grandparents in front of the church that my grandfather pastored for many years. My dad, just a child, along with his brothers. All of these men, now in the golden years of life, remember these photos and the people they knew. To me, these photos are captured moments in time, that give insight into what a saint actually is. Somewhere between the photo and a life encounter, saints are sinners that seem to have found faith. Perhaps a saint was born because they loved others and lived their life helping to make the lives of others better. Today I am more aware of John the Baptist's words to those he met, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." The Kingdom of God surrounds us. I am reminded of the spark of the Divine that continues to exist, even after the ashes of the creation have returned to the earth. As I prepare to intern John D.'s ashes to the earth from which all of us were created, I can't help but wonder how I would like to be remembered. I'm not so sure that I would consider myself a saint, but I do hope that the life that I live, and those that I know, will ultimately make a difference in the lives of others. To me, that is ultimately what a saint is and does. I am thankful for all of those people who have influenced my life, who are in many ways, saints. Today is the realization that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and it is filled with saints. Stay in God's grip! G. Todd Williams (c) 2019 |
AuthorRev. G. Todd Williams is the author of the book, "Remember Me When..." and is a former hospice chaplain and pastor. Archives
February 2024
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