Somebody’s prayin’

“Preacher,” a church member said to me one Sunday, “I was driving in front of the church this morning, and I saw you standing by yourself up there at the top of the front steps. I knew what you were doing; I knew you were praying. And I just want you to know it made me feel better.”

It somehow makes us feel better knowing somebody’s praying, though I can’t explain exactly why.

I’ve never been much of a country music fan, but I can listen to Ricky Skaggs sing, Somebody’s Prayin,’ over and over.

“Somebody’s prayin’

I can feel it

Somebody’s prayin’ for me.”

It’s comforting knowing somebody’s praying.

Every now and then some dear saint will pull me aside and say, “Pastor, I pray for you every day.”

And I always feel better when I hear that.

I was driving to work this morning (Sunday), and I called Dad, as I do most every day on my way to work. Only this time Mom answered. That’s unusual because it’s been several years since she’s been up early enough to catch my Sunday morning call. I figure she has a right to sleep in a bit; after all, at 93 she’s three birthdays ahead of Dad.

“Let me pray for you, son,” she said after our brief conversation.

It felt good hearing Mom pray for me.

It’s reassuring to know somebody’s praying, even though we may not completely understand why we feel that way, just as we can’t comprehend how our prayers work into God’s will, plan, and purposes for our lives.

The Apostle Paul acknowledged that much. After telling the church in Corinth how he and his team of missionaries had been “crushed and overwhelmed” beyond their ability to endure and how at one point they had even “expected to die,” Paul told the church, “You are helping us by praying for us”(II Corinthians 1:11).

Knowing someone is praying is comforting, even though we can’t explain the dynamics of how it happens.

Sometimes, the awareness that a person of prayer is in fact praying is enough.  My friend didn’t know for whom or for what I was praying that Sunday morning.  Still, it was uplifting for her to see me praying.

But more is involved than simply seeing someone pray. Prayer is a transversal language that speaks to the heart, even when we can’t hear the person’s prayers.

Not long ago, I awoke around 3:30 a.m. with something troubling me. I tossed and turned, stirred and stewed over it. Then I had an image of the Cistercian monks at the Abby of Gethsemani praying. I could see them in their white robes under their black scapulars as they chanted their prayers in the dimly lit monastery at 4 a.m. I thought, “Those holy men are praying right now, at this very moment.”

And for some reason I felt better, even though they weren’t praying for me.

Then again, how do I know they weren’t? How do I know God didn’t take their prayers, pick one, spin it around, and toss it to me personally?

And God could have taken my prayers for my church that day I was praying on the front steps of the church, lifted one from my heart and addressed it to my friend in a personal message of peace for her.

God does work in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, so this side of eternity we’ll have to be content to see through a glass darkly.

The late Baptist evangelist, Vance Havner, tells that his first pastorate was a country church back in the 1920s. Havner described himself as “a pedestrian,” meaning that he walked everywhere. He didn’t own a car and didn’t purchase one until he was 66 years old. “I wanted to think it over,” Havner said.

It so happened that Havner would walk past a grocery store most every day. One day the grocer stopped Havner and said, “Preacher, I want you to know that many a time when things were not going well, I looked out my store window and saw you going by, and it helped. I felt better.”

The grocer didn’t elaborate, but Havner never forgot it.

Just knowing a person of prayer is passing by can help.

How?

As my two-year-old grandson often answers in simplest terms: “Don’t know.”

The Ricky Skaggs song has a couple of lines in there that come about as close as I can get as to why we feel better knowing somebody’s praying.

“Lord, I believe,

Lord, I believe.”

I do.

And I hope you do, too.

Because it’s true.

Somebody’s prayin.’

Bring on those 60 birthday candles

At last, here’s some good news from the wide world of news. This one comes from Stony Brook University and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

Researchers there have concluded that age measurements that have traditionally categorized people as “elderly” or “old” at a certain age (usually 65) are no longer valid and must adjust accordingly.

The study, published in Plos One, maintains that people in their 60s should no longer be considered elderly. Instead they should be categorized as middle-aged.  Age can be measured as time lived, the study reveals, or it can be measured as time yet to live, based on the current human life expectancy.

So there you have it. It’s science; 60 is the new 50, maybe even the new 40.

This comes as particularly good news to me because the door for my entry into the sixth decade of life is only a few months away from opening.  I’ve always agreed with the iconic, baseball legend, Satchel Paige, that “age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

I sprinted past 30, took 40 in stride, winked at 50, and then paused long enough at 55 to scratch my balding head and squint my curious eyes as if I had just read a road sign that warned, “Danger ahead,” and wondered why.

What makes the number 60 appear so ominous? After all, I feel great, exercise daily and am, in my opinion, more on top of my game than ever. I’ve learned from mistakes and moved on.

So, what’s to dread about this particular birthday celebration?

The number of candles on my next birthday cake doesn’t bother me.  The caution light was flashing because I was imagining what people’s perception of my age would be.

“Don’t work out so hard, ol’ man. You’re 60, remember?”

“You probably couldn’t relate to them.  They’re so much younger than you. After all, you’re 60.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll talk louder; I didn’t know you were 60.”

But now, thanks to my friends at Stony Brook University and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, I can say, “Why should I slow down? There’s no ol’ man around here.” And, “Try me. I can probably relate, even though I’m barely middle aged.” And, “You don’t need to talk louder. Didn’t you know 60 is the new 50, maybe even the new 40?”

It even gets better.

Lori and I were shopping the other day, and I spied a display of interesting quotes handsomely mounted. Here’s one I wish I had bought. It’s another Satchel Paige classic: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” I smiled because I don’t think I am even to the new middle age yet.

I like how comedian George Carlin put it,  “I’m 60 years of age. That’s 16 Celsius.”

My birthdate is a matter of fact; how I feel about it is a matter of perspective.

So instead of seeing that number as a sign that I’m over the hill, I’m going to see it as a marker that I’m not even half way up the hill, and God willing that I’m still around then, I’ll embrace that day with both arms and keep climbing.

And blow out the candles.

Keeping losses in perspective

Why did you turn the TV off?  There’s still a few seconds left in the game,” I asked my son, Dave.

“It’s over. I don’t watch the other team celebrate.”

I didn’t argue. I felt the same way.

It’s not fun when your team loses, especially when they get so close to the championship game and an undefeated season.

Losses like that are disappointing. Before drifting off to sleep I thought, “If only they had…”

Then there are other losses, ones that are not just disappointing. These are the ones that are devastating.  

Standing just outside my backdoor a couple of hours before dawn Easter Sunday morning, I thought of the two Marys preparing to visit the tomb of Jesus.  Did they hear leaves rustling in the trees like I did as I stared upward at the stars? Or were their heads bowed in sorrow as they trudged along the path to his grave, unable to hear anything but the echo of his pained cries from the cross? Was the moon shining to light their way? Would the darkness in their souls have snuffed out any light that was there?

Some losses are disappointing; others are devastating.

“We had plans to go to the Fleetwood Mac concert,” my brother, Mark, told me the other day. “We were really pumped to see them. How do you cancel a whole concert?”

He and his wife, Joy, had planned to see the band after she had completed another check-up to make sure she was still cancer free. But the concert was rescheduled when Mick Fleetwood became ill.

“Man, were we disappointed,” he said.

“But something put our disappointment in a whole new perspective,” Mark continued.

Joy has battled breast cancer, the scary triple negative kind that is aggressive. Mark and Joy were happily enjoying their first year of retirement when she was first diagnosed. We’ve prayed with them, as have many of their friends. And God has blessed them. Joy is a survivor.  Since she finished her last treatment in November of 2013, she has been going back to the doctors for follow-up exams every three months, and there is no evidence of the cancer.

But this last exam, the one before the disappointing rescheduling of the Fleetwood Mac concert, had an unexpected twist to it.

Confident that the exam would proceed without incident like the previous ones, they were caught off guard when the doctors called Joy back in.

They needed more pictures.

Now the questions ricocheted in their minds: “Why do they need more pictures? What’s wrong? Is the cancer back? What do we do if it is? What’s the prognosis?”

And the disappointment over the Fleetwood Mac concert? It suddenly meant nothing.

Angelina Jolie went public last year about her decision to have a double mastectomy. She carries the BRCA1 mutation, putting her at high risk for breast caner. Her mother died of breast cancer, as did her aunt only a few weeks before Jolie revealed that she had undergone the double mastectomy.  Recently, she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed as well.

Jolie reflected on one positive from the experience: “The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity. You know what you live for and what matters. It is polarizing, and it is peaceful.”

The first pictures had not been clear enough, the doctors told Mark and Joy. And thankfully, further investigation showed no evidence of cancer.

I pulled my bathrobe tighter around my shoulders as the chill of the early morning air reminded me that I was no longer with the two Marys on their walk to the tomb.  Peering toward the field below my backyard, the darkness seemed heavier as a cloud obscured the moon’s light. The wind picked up, and I tightened the sash of my robe.

Then, dead silence, when just a few hundred feet from where I was standing, a songbird prophesying that morning’s light would come, interrupted the still of the night.  He sang all stanzas to his revelry, and was still merrily chirping away when I left him for the warmth of a second cup of coffee.

The disappointing game had faded long ago, somewhere on the road with the two Marys.

Now I was anxious for sunrise as I hurried along my way to celebrate an empty tomb.

Holy Hilarity

Hearing laughter from one of the rooms where a Bible study class was meeting Sunday morning, I cracked opened the door and teased, “What’s this, laughter in church?”

They answered with more laughter.

And why not laugh in church? There certainly is a time for being quiet and even for sadness. As the author of Ecclesiastes wrote, “There is an appointed time for everything…” including, “a time to cry and a time to laugh.”

Early this morning, on this Monday of what the church calls Holy or Passion Week, I stepped outside into the darkness, looked to the stars and pondered what Jesus endured on the way to his ignominious death. I am at a loss, unable to grasp the depth of his pain. It’s unpleasant to think of it. I still can’t bear to watch certain scenes of Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of Christ.

But then as I think about what Christ went through, sadness gives way to gratitude, and gratitude to joy.

My furrowed brow relaxes as I softly smile.

Even during the somberness that characterizes much of this week in the liturgical cycle of the church, Christians still have cause for joy, for we have Easter always in our hearts, even as we gaze toward it on the horizon, waiting for its celebration.

It’s the anticipation of joy that helps us endure the losses of this life.  Indeed the Scripture says Jesus endured the cross, “because of the joy awaiting him”(Hebrews 12:2).

On Easter Sunday, sadness turns to joy, tears of shame to tears of praise, and mourning into dancing.

I’m planning to begin that day by laughing.

I decided to do that when I read about an Early Church tradition. Following the thrill of the resurrection on Sunday, the early saints gathered together on Monday to feast, sing, and dance.  One author commented on this practice: “With Eastertide began the ‘laughing of the redeemed and the dancing of the liberated.’”

Some believe this tradition was inspired by a famous Easter midnight sermon of John Chrysostom (c.349-407), Archbishop of Constantinople. In that message, he described a vision he had of Christ confronting the devil. To Chrysostom’s amazement, Christ laughed at the devil.

It makes sense: Satan thought he had won on Friday, but God had the last laugh on Sunday. It was God’s cosmic joke on Satan.

And so the tradition began and was carried down through the years. Priests would join with people in telling their best jokes for one another. Laughter prevailed.

St. Francis of Assisi advised, “Leave sadness to the devil. The devil has reason to be sad.”

Martin Luther penned, “God is not a God of sadness, but the devil is. Christ is a God of joy. It is pleasing to…God whenever you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”

And Michelangelo admonished his fellow artists: “Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures of…Christ upon the cross, Christ dying, Christ hanging dead? Why do you stop there as if the curtain closed upon that horror? Keep the curtain open, and with the cross in the foreground, let us see beyond it to the Easter dawn with its beams streaming upon the risen Christ…”

John Wesley wrote, “Sour godliness is the devil’s religion.”

The bottom line is, Satan can’t stand laughter when it comes as a result of a relationship with the risen Christ.  So believers have reason to rejoice everyday of the year. Because of Christ’s resurrection we have the assurance of being more than conquerors (Romans 8:37), joint heirs with him (Romans 8:17), the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8), redeemed (Isaiah 43:1), and children of God (John 1:12). And that’s just a start.

Think about that. Then walk outside, look to the heavens, think of your destiny with the King of kings and Lord of lords, and let loose with some holy hilarity.