Remembering

Preparing the bulletin and worship service for this Sunday, I had a flashback to one of the many firsts of my first year as pastor. Memorial Day weekend snuck up on me. Although I had prepared prayers of gratitude for those who had died serving our country, I neglected to ask about other traditions the congregation valued.

That Sunday morning, as I sought the too-late advice of the volunteer who deftly handles the nitty gritty details of worship, something caught my eye outside. Fluttering. Actually, a flurry of fluttering. Small American flags lined both sides of the sidewalk leading to the church. "Uh-oh," I thought to myself.

Those flags raised the expectation for something that was not going to be happening in worship that day. Like patriotic music. Like red, white and blue sprinkles at coffee hour. Like scriptural assurance that God had a special soft spot for our corner of the world. I quickly moved to the other entrance. More flags. More fluttering. Suddenly, I couldn't remember if there was a flag in our worship space or fathom what I would do with it if there was.

Improvising at the beginning of the service, I was moved to tears when dozens of veterans stood to be recognized - some had served long ago in far-flung places, some had returned from the Middle East just days before. Five years later, that group has dwindled - lost to other battles with cancer, kidney failure, dementia, suicide.

I might quibble about secular holidays creeping into worship, but I hope to never pass up an opportunity to bless the people in front of me. To listen to and honor their stories. To thank them and to give thanks for them.

"Hi, it's me."

Something startling happens when I call my mom's cell phone and she doesn't answer. The voice mail greeting reminds me, in my sister-in-law's familiar voice:

"Ron Gray is not available." 

Tell me about it. From a dripping ceiling in our daughter's room to our congregation's looming capital campaign; from our son's pending high school graduation to farmers preparing their fields for spring planting - I'm acutely aware of my father's absence. Even after a year and a half, the declaration stills jars me.

My parents held on to their first cell phone for years, passing up free upgrades and newer models in favor of one they knew how to use. Once bound by the awkwardness of a party-line shared with neighbors up and down their rural road, mom and dad learned to text. Once cautious about the expense of long distance calling, they learned to call for no reason - unlimited minutes were used to report monarch sightings or a new kitten or the death of a neighbor or a funny story.

I suspect that clunky cell phone, replaced only after my dad's death, sits in a kitchen drawer at the farm. Though its chirping crickets and croaking frog ringtone is now silenced, it still holds little bits and pieces of our lives - texts and pictures and voice mail messages collected and forgotten over many years. That it once had the power to connect me to my dad on the best and worst of days or for no reason at all makes it - for now, for me - too precious to throw away or recycle.

My mom is savvy enough to change the greeting on her new phone - but I hope she won't.

A good mechanic is hard to find.

For years, we've taken our broken-down vehicles to a trusted mechanic in town. Once, after a hose of some importance let loose a spectacular plume of steam and smoke, I pulled over our aging van to give him a call. I described what had happened and asked if I could still drive the five miles to his shop if I stopped now and then to add some water to the radiator. "You will turn a small problem into a very big problem if you do," he warned. "Words to live by," I thought, as the kids and I waited for the tow truck.

In the grubby powder blue lobby of his shop, he stubbed out his cigarettes so I wouldn't breathe the smoke and listened carefully when I imitated the alarming sounds initiated only by a right hand turn at certain speeds. He told the truth when there was nothing to fix. He laughed his head off when, in my desperation to pick up a repaired vehicle, I propelled my son's razor scooter a mile and a half to get there in my work clothes, arriving sweaty and flustered and ridiculous victorious. For years we heeded his advice, nursing a few more miles and a few more years out of the very small fleet of vehicles we've owned over the last decade.

Without explanation or notice, the shop is closed, the parking lot emptied of sagging vehicles, the mechanic gone. I wish we had thanked him more.

Anyone know a good mechanic?

A Dog's Life

Brandy

It is the job of the last one out the door in the morning and the last one up at night to scoot our aging dog, Brandy, from the living room into an area of the house where she can do less damage. Don't ask.

Her fourteen year-old joints complain when she reluctantly makes the move from one rug to another. She's become less active with age and snoozes away much of the day.

Except sometimes she doesn't.

When we visit the family farm in Iowa, Brandy behaves very differently - full of curiosity and energy. She chases every cat, rolls enthusiastically in every foul-smelling patch of grass, barks at every passing car, samples every dead thing she discovers, barely pausing from her hopeful explorations. When the last one up tries to scoot her indoors for safe-keeping overnight, she runs the other way. We call her "feral" - once domesticated, now untamed, unresponsive, uncooperative.

Actually, in those surroundings, Brandy isn't wild - she is fully alive, enjoying every moment as only a dog can. I wonder if we should leave her there at the farm to live out the rest of her days on high alert, happily chasing cats from the front porch. Because the difference is so startling - after the long ride home, she quickly reverts back to her more familiar sleepy, creaky, leaky self.

I'd like to be more like the feral Brandy.

• What is the human equivalent of being so fully alive? So alert?
• Do we get trapped in patterns and surroundings and brokenness that have us snoozing our way through life? 
• What brings out the very best in us and how can we be that best more often?

These fleeting weeks of waiting and expectation before Christmas call us to wakefulness, to curiosity, to hope, to new life. We are on high alert, not just for the coming of the Christ child and his promised return, but to his daily comings and goings in our ordinary lives. Peace to you on the sleepiest of days and on those in which you are most fully awake.

Dear Dad,

Remember that day you got your arm pinned between the spout of the feeder wagon and the silo? I had gone to the barn to clean the hog floors and you promised to yell when you needed my help with something. I had barely thrown a few forkfuls of dirty hay out the door when I heard you calling my name. So soon? I ran up to the silos to find you hopelessly stuck. 

"Pull the tractor ahead without letting it roll backward," you instructed – something I had never done successfully. Not once. Was I 10? 12? I had to stand on the clutch with both feet to put that stubborn Oliver tractor into gear – which meant I didn’t have a foot to put on the brake to stop a backward roll. And one hand for the throttle on the steering column? I can still see it in my mind. Certainly I was going to make a mistake and take off your arm – wouldn’t you rather I went to get someone else? My mom, my older brother, a neighbor, anyone? 

“You can do it,” you coached me. I revved the throttle and popped the clutch – the tractor practically leaped forward, freeing your arm. And then… back to the barn to clean the hog floors.

You are a great dad, a good coach and I love you. Lynn

Dear Dad,

Today I was thinking about the overflow room at church where we helped to fold and stuff the bulletins when it was your turn to usher. On those Sundays, being allowed to ring the church bell by pulling on the big rope in the closet – what a thrill! Sitting in the back or in the balcony when farm chores made us late for church –how embarrassing! You taught us to say “amen” in our heads whenever Pastor Mentick took a breath during his long, dull (for me) sermons. Eventually, he would say “ amen” out loud at the same time I said it silently and we would be free at last – the rest of the service was an easy downhill slide from there. 

The habit of showing up at church week after week whether we wanted to or not sustained me through some hard times when God seemed distant or absent. Your leadership and your faith have been so important to the mission of that church – thank you for that. What an example you and mom set for all of us. I hope that your faith and our deep love for your will carry you through this time until you rest fully in God's waiting arms. 

Love, Lynn

Dear Dad,

I was in second grade when you took me to the bank to get a checking account so I could pay for my own piano lessons out of my allowance. It was always fun and a little awesome to watch you doing business with the bankers and tellers. Was there a serious one with glasses named MaryLou? I didn’t really understand how farming worked – sometimes taking out loans, sometimes buying things for next year at this year’s prices, the big checks we would bring home from Dubuque after riding up with Grandpa Gray and a load of cattle, your “bookwork” laid out on the table for weeks before going to see your tax person, listening to Max Armstrong on WGN doing the farm market reports, your distinctive handwriting on the checks. You’re so smart. I hope you’re enjoying the boys today. 

Love, Lynn