We sang Darlene Zschech's "The Potter's Hand" as a family and recorded it on a cell phone video, the videographer gliding in and then gliding out.  It would be fun to record sometime with real microphones and a mixer.  The link is below. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS8_qXJgJdw

Rich 

Then he told a parable to a 2020 audience who trusted in themselves as purveyors of truth—those convinced that they were called to expose false reports and share the real truth about this crisis:

“Three men went to church to pray, two of them truth-tellers (Pharisees) and the other an introspective sort (publican).

The first truth-teller stood and prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank you that you have given me better discernment regarding the news and the times than other people—conspiracy theorists, fear-mongers, and talk show crazies.  I listen to the government, I do what the experts say, and I don’t call main stream media “lame stream media.”  I thank you that, if the virus gets worse or if it goes away, I can still prove that I was right and all other doubters were wrong.  Please bless my truth-telling mission, dear Lord, to win my battles for You.”

The second truth-teller stood and prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank you that you have showed me that I can never trust anything from main stream media.  All of their content is lies, and anyone who believes the mainstream media, the “experts,” and big government is just wrong.  Thank you, God, that you have revealed to me that this crisis is a hoax from the deep state, and thank you that You will show me who the deep state is so that I can expose them.  Thank you that, if the virus explodes, I can blame it on the deep state, but if the virus is contained soon, I can prove that all this stay-at-home stuff was bogus.  Either way, I win and the other clowns lose.  Please bless my truth-telling mission, dear Lord.”

The introspective sort, standing away from the other two, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but closed his eyes and put his hands on his chest, saying, “God, some days I don’t even know what is truth regarding all this news out there.  But I need you.  I confess I have gotten angry at others, I have been confused sometimes over what is truth, and I have lashed out wrongly.  I’m turning back to you, because I know you are truth.  Jesus said “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” I’m running back to You.  Your Kingdom is an unshakeable Kingdom, so I’ll major on the truths of your unshakeable Kingdom.  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 
                                                            Today's Perspective, loosely modeled after Luke 18:11-13

Polarization on this matter is real, even in the Christian community.  I believe God is calling us to focus on “the knowledge of Him (Jesus) who called us by his own glory and goodness.”  His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness!  And how so?  “Through our knowledge of him who called us by His own glory and goodness!”   Let us know, let us listen to know the Lord.  Some of the news is fake, at both ends of the spectrum.  Even the real stuff is scary and fearful, so we will do ourselves and our family a favor to greatly limit the intake of news during this season.   Focus on knowing Jesus.  

Sure, I have opinions.  We all do.  I may be right about some of my opinions, but I may also be wrong about some.  I come to this discussion with a particular bias and perspective that colors my viewpoint and has the capacity to fuzz what should be clear. 

So I’m heading back to the ultimate message of truth.  This is the time before Resurrection Sunday to think about Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.  A sacrificial Lamb died for me and for you.  And then on the third day Jesus rose from the dead.  He is now seated at the right hand of the majesty on High!  We are called to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, here and now.   

Christians, our full focus should be on the Kingdom of God now!  If there is any “deep state” we should consider and study, it is this: “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.”  Psalm 42:7.   

It’s time to say “Father, forgive us.”  We have been focusing on the less-important truths that we will not be able to change anyway.  It is time to again repent and believe the good news of Jesus, the everlasting gospel for all people everywhere!

Rich
 
Also he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'

And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'

​I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."  (Luke 18:12-14) 

My heart is full. I cried more over the Word of God today than I have in a very long time. It was a cathartic, soul-cleansing kind of cry. Psalm 69. Deuteronomy 9 and 10. Luke 8-14. It seemed everywhere I turned in the Word of God a sword cut deep, piercing even to the joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of my heart. In Psalm 69 I thought of the suffering ones in the hospitals, alone and apart from their families: “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.… I am full of heaviness; I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none.” They are alone in their suffering. No visitors allowed.

I thank God for His kindness. If he marked our transgressions who would stand?

I thank God for heroic doctors, nurses, EMS workers, and other public service workers out there helping our friends and neighbors, and all the random strangers in this city. We are palpably needy. Emergency vehicles sound what seems like a perpetual wail of sirens.

I thank God for the good work He is doing in and through our friends Gary and Anne Swartzentruber in Georgia, whose hospital is currently over-run and under-sourced. Gary, a doctor, cares for his patients each day, while Anne, his wife, is organizing a community-wide effort to sew masks.

I thank God for David Wilkerson who, though he is no longer alive, has a prophetic voice that lives on. Someone shared on FB a prophetic message from Mr. Wilkernson: “I see a plague coming on the world, and the bars, churches and government will shut down. The plague will hit New York City and shake it like it has never been shaken. The plague is going to force prayerless believers into radical prayer and into their Bibles, and repentance will be the cry from the man of God in the pulpit. And out of it will come a third Great Awakening that will sweep America and the world.”
-David Wilkerson in 1986 (Can anyone confirm if this is from “Set The Trumpet To Thy Mouth”?)

I thank God for His Kingdom that will never be shaken.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven." Now this, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:25-29)

I thank God for trials and troubles and crazy times that help us to draw near to God, and He to us.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (II Corinthians 4:17-18)

Eternal weight of glory. Ah yes, I knew we were created for something more heavy than temporary amusing fluff, more real than fake news, more deep than these fear-based, mindless conspiracy theories floating, unbidden, all over the web.

I’m in, God. Weigh us down with your glory. Glorify your name in and through your people, who are called by Your name. Put your finger on the places we need to change, and change us, Lord Jesus. Cleanse these jars of clay to be useful for the Master.

​Rich

Quick report on today’s opportunities to deliver Subway/ DD/deli sandwiches, sodas, box of Joe (DD) and box of hot chocolate to the ER workers at Jacobi Medical Center.  Our contact, the director of communications at Jacobi, asked us to meet her at the ambulatory entrance to the trauma center, so we pulled up there and offloaded our food and drinks, enough for about 60 people.  Our friends Stan and Sharon from our church made these cool little cards with verses on one side and “If you need prayer” contact information on the back and we taped the cards on the sandwich wrappers.  Sandy prayed with our hospital friend who received the food with gratefulness.  She said that her father has just been admitted to the hospital this morning, and she talked about the stresses of this time at the hospital.  She also took a small packet of masks that our friend Sharon had sewn and told Sandy that they could definitely use these masks for patients and other people who come to the ER. 

Our friend Brendan got the Subway sandwiches, so it was a neat team effort.  Our daughter Bri was closing down the Eastchester Dunkin’ Donuts this afternoon because the owner (he has seven Dunkin’ Donuts) needs to consolidate his dwindling work force. So the owner told Bri to give the doughnuts and bagels to her parents to give to the hospital.  Sandy returned that afternoon to DD to pick up those items and she spoke with a police officer in line.  She had the opportunity to speak with that police officer and pray with him, and he recommended that she take the free doughnuts to the EMS station.  Sandy thought to herself that this is what she loves to do, pray for people.  J  She took the doughnuts and bagels and headed off to where she thought was the local EMS station, but the GPS took her back to Jacobi.   So there she was at the Jacobi Medical Center.  Sandy sat in the car and prayed about what to do. She saw an ambulance pull up and decided to go up and offer the food to the paramedics.  A male nurse came up behind her from getting out of his car and said “May I help you?”  She said “I just came to encourage you today.”  He lifted his glasses to look at her and told her “I had to step away from the madness for a little while and take a break.”  The man started to cry and Sandy asked if she can pray for him.  She stood there, praying for this big male nurse, with tears running down his cheeks.  The man told her that he and his coworkers had just stepped outside earlier that afternoon and held hands and prayed, because there is so much stress.  Here is this big guy, broken up and crying, telling her “I just had to step away from it for a while.”  

Brianna has two coworkers who have each lost family members to COVID-19 in the past week.  One of her co-workers lost her Grandpa, and they couldn’t even go to visit him while he was in the hospital.  Another of her co-workers lost her Uncle.  The co-worker who lost her Grandpa is now at home, sick. 

Our friend up the block on Corsa Avenue is perhaps a few years older than us, and she has been hospitalized since Friday with COVID-19.  Today they had to put her on the ventilator, which seems kind of like her health is headed in the wrong direction.  Please pray for our friends and neighbors around here, and pray for us.  The “news” out there gets more real when it is the news right here in our community. 

​Rich   

In times like these, remember this.   Jesus loves you.  The shifting sands of State-mandated edicts change with the wind, but know this.  Jesus loves you.  Yes, there are matters of great import facing heads of state all over the world, with vast networks of disinformation, as well as disparate and wild conspiracy theories.   Jesus loves you.  Someone shared with us a 9 minute video of a pastor warning his listeners that God told him to tell other to not take the Coronavirus vaccine, “Because the Coronavirus is in the vaccine.”  I asked her for the pastor’s name, because I would like to call him and tell him what most of the rest of the world knows: “Uh, brother, you may want to rethink your message.  There IS NO VACCINE just yet.  You are getting ahead of yourself.” His theory extended to the “fact” that 200 US Generals decided to start a world-wide revolution after 911.  Apparently, according to this conspiracy-mongering pastor, what we are facing with COVID-19, is the result of 19 years of planning for a revolution by 200 US generals.  Gnostic “secret” teaching is still alive and well in modernity.   

Jesus loves you.  I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.  Oh church, put your trust in the Lord. 

As we face the days ahead, let us ask God for the grace to walk in humility.   Psalm 131 has inspired me not to “concern myself with things too great for me.”   I find some items in the news really weird.  Things like “Wait, Russia has 149 million people and only 300 confirmed cases of coronavirus, yet a recent spike in “pneumonia-related deaths”?  Rich, you have enough to deal with in your zip code, your church, and your family.  Pray for Russia, but you are not in a position to expose that disinformation.”  Or things like “Wait, China is where COVID-19 started.  They have 1.4 billion people, and last Wednesday they had “no reported cases that day.”  In all of China, no more COVID-19.  I don’t believe it.”   Pray for China, Rich, but you are not in a position to expose that disinformation.   Jesus said “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”   I should certainly pray for Iran, for Italy, for China, for Russia, for Bangladesh (our friend Bethanie Burkholder posted about Bangladesh), our US leaders, our governor, our mayor, etc.  But there is only so much emotional energy and time that we have in the day, so I cannot concern myself with things too great for me.  

I need to, by God’s grace, calm and quiet my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.   A calm soul can minister out of a loving, humble heart.  Saturday an out-of-state friend called and asked if we could take food to a friend in the Bronx who is recently out of his job and doesn’t have food.  So I took over a bag of food that Sandy prepared, and that new friend joined us for church through Zoom videoconference on Sunday, also inviting his 83 year old friend from Virginia who has been a spiritual father to him.  That was neat.  During our Zoom meeting, a neighbor joined in and participated throughout the video conference.  We have known her for over a year, and this is the first time she attended a Sunday service.  She’s out of work as of last week.  We were able to bring her something last night.  Our church has suspended receiving offerings for the past two weeks, and I asked the congregation to ask God to show them as households how to give to others during these times.  For now, the Believers in Jesus Church offering basket could be the neighbor’s mailbox, the homeless person’s hand, the brother in the church whose job options just changed in the past two weeks, or anyone else who has a need. 

In times like these, remember.  Jesus loves you.  Oh church, put your trust in the Lord.
We have opportunity to rise up and work for the Kingdom, at least as prayer warriors, in times like these!  

Psalm 131… My heart is not proud.  My eyes are not haughty.  I do not concern myself with things to great for me.  I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child.  Oh Israel, put your trust in the Lord.  (Oh church, put your trust in the Lord.)

​Rich 

​Something twists and churns inside me, causing an actual physical reaction to the stories I am hearing.  Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee had been on my to-read list for years, and it is just this year that the tragic stories of the USA subduing the Native American tribes are working their way deep into my soul.  The book chronicles the American take-over of the Native American tribes and their lands, mostly focusing on 19th century treaty-breaking and the associated broken promises, lies, and carnage.  This evil was sometimes overlooked by the Washington-appointed commissioners and army leaders, but often they were the sinister master-minds.   It would not be so tragic if, early on, the manifest destiny believers would have just told the Native Americans outright: “Look, we WILL take all your land, so we are not going to promise you anything.  We will come after you, your wives and children, and your land.  Your best option is to fight us to the death.”  Instead, broken promise after broken promise led to death, destruction, and taking of land.  Tribes all over the Midwest, west, southwest, and northwest faced lies, broken promises, death, destruction, pillaging, and starvation.  It is a historically documented tragedy.  How can people dare to call the USA a “Christian” nation with this awful historical sepsis lingering in our sordid past?    Father, forgive them (us), for I’m afraid they knew what they were doing.  

30-60 minutes at a time is about all I can take from Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, so I switch to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, Book 2, and listen for a while.  This is a kind of memoir/documentary account of communist Russia (USSR) and the prison labor camp atrocities.   Stalinist thugs and self-righteous proletariats come to power after the Bolshevik revolution, basing their “revolution” on the compelling call to depose the Czar and the bourgeoisie so that the peasants and working class can rule “fairly."  The communist/socialist call for equality and unity fuels the revolution, but from 1919 on in Soviet Russia there are thousands and then millions who are arrested and forced into prison labor camps.  Solzhenitsyn estimates that 20 million people died in the prison camps between 1919 and 1960. That in itself is a tragedy.  The unspeakable horrors and deprivation that others faced who did not die are also reported in this book.  For example, a 17 year old girl who happened to ask the wrong question to a prison guard is made to stand outside barefoot in 12” of ice water all night for her “violation.”  This is in sub-zero temps.  She gets sick from this, does not die, but her lungs never fully recover from the forced deprivation.  Or the bedbug tortures.  In some camps, they keep 3’ wide by 7’ long by 4’ deep prison “chambers” infested with thousands of bedbugs.  And those who “deserve” tough treatment are made to go to these bedbug chambers.  The first hour or two they swat at the bedbugs, but eventually they just lie there as the bedbugs do what bedbugs do.  I wonder if Bernie Sanders has ever read this book and considered the negative realities and unintended consequences of forced socialism.  Forced socialism has historically led to communism even if it did not begin with communism; communism has always been propped up by totalitarianism and repression of speech.  Father, forgive them and us, for I’m afraid they (and we) know what they (we) are doing.    

Maybe I should read Pollyanna's memoir.  My digestive system will thank me. 

Closer to home, this year I have blocked phone numbers from two NYC friends I have known for years.  It has taken a long time for me to come to this decision, but Titus 3:10-11 provide timeless instructions for dealing with divisive people, and that passage provided some of the rationale for blocking those numbers.  I won’t go into the details, because that is personal and private information for me and for them, but in making these decisions I have grappled with I Corinthians 10:12 “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”  Yes, Rich, your warnings have gone unheeded.  Yes, Rich, those two men have been contentious and divisive.  Yes, Rich, you are probably right to block those numbers.  But remember, watch yourself and your doctrine. You have been shown much mercy.  You have been forgiven much, Rich.  As I mull these matters, I say “Father forgive us.  We may not know what we are doing, but we still need forgiveness.” 

The evening of my 45th birthday a few weeks ago brought a wave of gratefulness into my heart as I considered the amazing mercies extended towards me through the grace given by Jesus, the Lord of the universe.  Those sure mercies of God have been extended to me, a sinner.  I have had to confess my own mistreatment of others, I have had to confess my own self-righteousness, my own divisive and contentious spirit, my own tendency to try to be number one.  And our Father in Heaven has graciously extended his hand of mercy, his healing touch of forgiveness.  Father, thank you for forgiving me.  There have been times I did not know what I was doing, and you forgave me when I confessed and repented.  There were times when I absolutely knew that what I was doing was wrong, and you still extended forgiveness to me when I confessed my sins to you and and repented.  Your gifts of repentance and forgiveness are treasures that I never want to lose.  Father, please keep on forgiving me. 

Rich 

I woke up around midnight with over one hour of decent sleep behind me.  Something inside me pulled me out of bed, to the desk to get my laptop, and then down the stairs to the dining room table.  I was going to write a tribute to my Dad—there is no time like the present to gift a tribute to the living.

In this tribute, sometimes I write TO my Dad, and sometimes I write ABOUT my Dad. 

Dad, I'm glad I have you as a father.  You have been a steady force, a caring father, and a wise soldier. 

You see, Dad has been a part of my life for a long time.  I don’t remember in the hospital when I popped out of Mom all tiny, crying, red, and slimy, but Dad could tell you he was there, probably in the room if they allowed that back in 1975.  I don’t remember coming home from the hospital wrapped up in all those blankets, but Dad was driving the car and helped Mom get out and then helped us both inside.  You don’t even have to wonder if Dad helped—helping others has always been what Dad does.   

I don’t remember much about moving to our home at 15700 Huntley Road, in Huntsburg, Ohio.  They tell me I was three years old when we moved.  I remember visiting while the house was under construction.  There was this plank that led from the excavated area around the block foundation to the deck of the house.  Dad was working there, framing the house.   I don’t remember much about the early years in the house, but I do remember walking across unfinished plywood floors after moving in, with Dad doing more work inside the house to get it finished.  He worked a lot.  

Much of the memories of the years before first grade have Mom in them.  Dad was gone to work most of the day Monday through Friday.  He would get up for work before 6:00 a.m., Mom would get up to help him get breakfast and pack his lunch, he would kiss her good-bye, and off to work he’d go.  I remember Mom in the kitchen when Dad would come home around 5:30 to 6:00 p.m.  Dad would smile at her as he’d come in through the garage door in the family room, then he’d come up to the kitchen and hold Mom in a hug as he put down the lunch pail on the countertop. 

After supper Dad would go do chores or work in the shop, or sit on the recliner and read the paper and sometimes fall asleep.  Saturdays he would go to town often to run errands.  If we were lucky enough to go with Dad, he was usually more generous than Mom. J He would buy a Klondike or candy.  Dad was always generous.  I remember going to Disneyland in Florida with our whole family.  Taking a family of five sons with your wife to Disneyland is not cheap, but Dad wanted us to enjoy life.  We went to Sea World and Geauga Lake in Ohio often, especially Sea World.  I look at the cost of tickets to Sea World now and I think “I’ll take the kids to the park to play basketball or play on the playground.”  Dad had this idea that he wanted to treat us kids well.  He always went out of his way to provide for his family.  I think he remembered his growing up years of having very little, and he wanted his sons to have much. 

Christmas was a special time of year for our family.  Mom loved to decorate for Christmas, and we always enjoyed it.  Dad kind of went over-the-top for Christmas.  He has always been a conscientious person—when he does something, he wants to do it right.  I laugh now, trying to retrospectively analyze Dad’s generous spirit as I think back to those Christmas seasons.  Here you have a man who loves his wife and his sons, and he is generous to a fault.  Do I have enough gifts?  Shall I get something else?  But if I give this son this gift, should I get all the other sons something else?  Dad was not the most efficient planner for Christmas.  He would often go to Mentor, Ohio, to do his shopping just a few days before Christmas, and he would come home with bags of stuff for Mom and his sons.  Each of us boys got a BB Gun at age seven, a .22 rifle at age 13, I think we each got a muzzleloader at age 15, and all the years in between brought coats, shoes, compound bows, fishing gear, tools, games, etc.  Mom would open her gifts to find the latest kitchen gadget, some beautiful item of clothing, or another new kind of perfume. I have this memory of Mom having a long, low dresser filled with dozens of perfumes—that’s probably an exaggeration, but it’s a memory nonetheless.  I have this faint memory of Dad asking me in my late teens one Christmastime “What do you think I should get Mom?”  It was a worthwhile question to ask, because he had given Mom a lot of cool things and poor Dad was probably running out of ideas. 

I don’t remember Dad crying much while I was at home.  The first time I remember seeing tears on Dad’s face was at a Petersheim funeral in Holmes County.  It may have been Rudy Petersheim, and I think I was around eight years old.  There we were standing with others outside at the burial. I had just walked by this casket in the church and saw a lifeless body lying there.  As if that was not unnerving enough, now they were throwing dirt on the casket in the grave.  I glanced up at Dad and saw tears on his face.  This was too much.  Dad is crying?  I stole furtively back to the van and lay down on one of the seats.  My propensity to cry easily did NOT come from Dad’s side of the family.  Blame the Miller genes for that sensitivity.   I’ve cried plenty of times in my day, but I haven’t seen Dad cry much.  

When I was in school, maybe in the first grade, Dad was in a car accident on the way to work.  I think it happened before we went to school.  There was crying in our family then.  Mom cried, I remember that, and I think my brothers may have cried, too.  Dad’s face was one black and blue mess.  A woman had pulled out right in front of him, so he swerved to miss her and hit a tree.  Broke his nose badly.  The pictures would speak a thousand words if I could show you.  But Dad was tough.  The pain of that accident and his subsequent visits to the Doctor didn’t seem to faze him.  

Speaking of crying, though, Dad nearly died from a fall at the jobsite after I had moved to New York and married Sandy.  I should ask Deb, the family historian, which year that was.  I’m thinking it was 2002. Dad had, I think, been walking some walls on a deck of a new house, marking the walls to place joists on for the second floor.  He must have had a dizzy spell or something, and down he went, headfirst onto the plywood deck from 8’ feet up.  We got the call that he was life-flighted by helicopter to Metro Hospital.  I think we were able to get away that day and drive back to Ohio.  There was Dad in a stubble beard, graying now, with a wry smile on his face.  “You shouldn’t have driven all the way back to see me.”   I saw him later that day trying to walk in the hall using a walker, his hospital gown dangerously exposing his body in the back—they don’t make those thingees for full grown, active men.   

Dad recovered from that fall, and we were so grateful.  Sometime within that year Dad and Mom visited us in New York and came to the church small group that Sandy and I were a part of.  I remember it was hosted at Matt and Eleanor’s house that week.  When it came time for sharing, Mom shared with the small group how grateful she was that Dad was alive, and then Dad shared a little, too.  And what do you know, I saw tears again on Dad’s face.  That fall shook us all up.  We were all grateful he survived.  I remember my cousin Parch telling me, “Man, when we heard the news about your Dad’s fall we all were afraid he was going to croak.”   Well, Parch has had to lay his father's body in the grave some years ago and now, this month, his father-in-law has passed away.   As I read the family's tribute to Roman Miller a week or so ago, it was one of the prompts for me write a tribute to my Dad while he can still read it.  We never know how much time we have together.    

I have some memories of Dad on trips that make me feel kind of badly for him.  We drove to South Carolina once a year around Christmas to see Grandpa Schwartz and his family.  This was like a 13-15 hour drive.  Those drives he would park the van in the garage and get it warm and running, then when we were young he would carry us out to the van early in the morning while it was dark to get a good start.  We might pretend to be asleep when we got a little older, just to see if we could trick Dad into carrying us. We would usually stop at Bob Evans or a sit-down breakfast place somewhere in West Virginia in the late morning.   Well, we also drove to Missouri to see Mom’s family about once a year, and those drives were like 14-16 hour drives.  Imagine taking your family twice a year on those long drives, and then all the places in between.

We went on several trips out West, covering more than 6,000 miles and taking more than 3 weeks for each trip.  It seemed like things often went wrong, like the green van going through at least a quart of oil for every tank of gas in the last 3,000 miles, or the tire blowing out on the pop-up camper on some lonely Colorado road.  When Dad would get anxious, we could tell.  He would start burping.  Out would come the Maalox, or maybe he would just pop a few Tums and chew on them.  I feel about 20% responsible for some of his anxiety though, because traveling with my four brothers led to a fair share of brother fights in the van. So there was Dad, driving the van, while we would occasionally get involved in  noisy fights in the back.  One memory stands out when we all knew Dad had reached his limit.  This time he banged hard on the dash up front and yelled.  It caught our attention, and we stopped.  What came next was supposed to be a threat.  “If you don’t settle down and stop fighting, we’re going to have to… to… stop by the road and make pudding!”  There was a short silence after we contemplated that grave threat while staring straight ahead, but then we exchanged wide-eyed, confused glances and burst into loud laughter.  Even Dad smiled after that one.  I think he knew his attempts to generate a bona fide threat had fallen flat.  

So much more could be said about Dad.  How he took us to church every Sunday morning and back to church every Sunday evening that we had a service.  How he took us to church on Wednesday evenings for prayer meetings.  How he would pray for us.  How he would go help brothers in the church work on their houses for weeks at a time, coming home from work, eating supper, then going to work on a house for a man in the church.  We didn’t think it was too funny when the one man in the church bragged about how cheaply he had built his house.  “Yeah, you had our Dad for three months many Saturdays and evenings, donating his labor to build your cheap house.”  Ah well, that was Dad--helping others has always been what Dad does.   

I went to Sharon Mennonite Bible School when I was 19, and encountered this new-fangled (to me) teaching that the fathers ought to get involved in courtship.  So I remember coming home and working with Dad that next summer as a carpenter.  We drove to and from work together.  One night we drove in the lane, and as he parked the van I worked up the nerve to tell Dad I liked a girl.  He listened.  I told him that I think it would be kind of neat if he would call up the girl’s father and tell the father that I was interested in his daughter.  Dad paused.   He looked at me, a little confused, and then said astutely “Uh…I think that’s your job.”  I stammered a bit and nodded my head sheepishly, opened the van door and took the lunch pail in.  That was that.  Well, I did get married to the girl, in case you wonder, but I was the one to speak to Webster Clay about her.   It was probably best that way.
 
When Mom died of cancer in 2005, Dad had a very rough three years until he remarried my stepmother, Ada Mae, in 2008.   He really missed Mom, as we all did.  It was hard in one sense to think of Dad remarrying.  We knew that Mom could never be replaced.  But I am so grateful to God that he gave Dad the opportunity to marry Ada Mae and have companionship with her over these past eleven years.  She has been a gift to our family, and to Dad in particular. 

As the years have passed, it seems to me that each year makes my heart feel a little closer to my father.  I like it that way, the “feeling closer” bit.   Only I wish I had been more intentional about getting closer to Dad when I was younger.  Dad is 69, and I figure if God gives him another 11 years and I get to have coffee with him once a year, that’s only eleven more times to have coffee with him.  That’s too short, you know?  Surely I could do something to spend more time with him?  I don’t see Dad moving to the Bronx, so that’s out.  I don’t see me moving to Huntsburg, Ohio, at this time, so what to do?   One thing I want to do is call him more.  Just talk about life, share updates, and stay connected.  Out here in the Bronx, we have six children to care for ourselves: some are young adults, and some are still children.  The longer I am a parent, the more I honor my father and mother for their parenting of me and my four brothers. 

Dad, I am very, very grateful to God for being so generous in giving you to me as a father.   You know I have not been a perfect son—I know that you have not been a perfect father.   But I have to tell you, your life through the years has taught me more than words can say, and I have always known that you love me.  You have been a steady force in my life.  You have always expressed care and interest in me and in my family.  My children love Grandpa Schwartz.   

I honor you today, Dad.  If there is anything this Thanksgiving season that stands out as a top-tier reason to be thankful, it is that I have you as my Dad.  Thanks for all you have done for me as my father, and for who you are as a courageous man of God. 

​Rich 

Over the past few years, God has been bringing people, circumstances, and media into my life that remind me that silence and inaction is no longer an option when it comes to abortion.  Back in 2016 I walked into an abortion clinic in North Carolina and decided to leave before I got arrested—that’s a longer story for another time.  Earlier this year Sandy and I joined Stan and Sharon and watched Unplanned, a graphic, moving movie about an abortion clinic manager who left her job and became pro-life.   More recently we have been accepted as a family mentor to a young woman at www.expecthope.org in the Bronx, who is living in their home and planning to carry her child to full term and is due the Spring of 2020.   

Today we attended a LoveLife prayer walk in downtown Manhattan.  It started in a church with worship, prayer, and testimony, and then several hundred of us walked to a Planned Parenthood on Bleecker street to pray and sing.  Three women who had been considering abortions chose life.  We cheered, the whole group.  Much better than a touchdown.

This was end-game warfare.  Armor on.  Swords out.  Battle lines drawn.    

It strikes me that the life of an active disciple of Christ could be divided into three categories: godly life-style choices, intervention rescues, end-game warfare.   Sometimes all three happen simultaneously.

Godly lifestyle choices include simple things like deciding not to eat that extra helping of food, or drink that soda since my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Or maybe I’ll decide to exercise instead of being a couch potato this evening.  Godly lifestyle choices include simple things like teaching children and young people that healthy sexuality before God is found within the boundaries of marriage between a man and woman, for life.  Sexuality is a gift of God, and it is only to be explored and enjoyed in marriage between a man and woman, for life.  That’s sound doctrine that fits into the back-end, day-to-day living of godly lifestyle choices.   Godly lifestyle teaching could provide warnings against illicit drugs, alcoholism, fornication, adultery.  It could celebrate the privilege Christ-followers have to become excellent in gratefulness.  Holy Spirit-inspired gratefulness fuels an attitude of gratitude, which opens doors to amazing opportunities never experienced by grumblers.  How about choosing to tell my wife "I'm sorry," after I respond with frustration to a simple question?   That should be a simple godly choice.

Intervention rescues may be self-sought. Active disciples of Christ can engage with the body of Christ, confess sins, and say “Please pray for me.  I need help.”  These cries for help can range from “I’m feeling depressed” to “I am so angry at my children’s husband I feel like killing him,” and anything in between.   The body of Christ has the privilege to provide intervention—to come to the rescue.   But intervention rescues may also be initiated by people who care so much for others that they enter into messy lives with offers to help, if possible. These intervention rescues can take the form of Christ-followers approaching a brother or sister to offer a loving rebuke, to offer counsel, or to extend a caring warning.  Intervention rescues are needed in the mid-range battles that flare up between the humdrum normalcy of “godly lifestyle choices” and the stress-filled crises of “end-game warfare.”

End-game warfare happens when people have missed the boat in the godly lifestyle choices, wandered on into bad choices and horrible circumstances that warranted intervention, but somehow they have passed intervention and are now in stress-filled crisis situations that are at the end game.  It’s life or death here.  Endgame battles are won by prayer and fasting.  End-game warfare needs faithful, committed, god-fearing believers to stand in the gap for each other, for their neighbors, and for the lost around us all.  It’s one thing to tell a woman not to have an abortion.  Our recognition that this child within the woman has a right to life is, I believe, rooted in the Word of God and reality.  So there is a place for end-game warfare.   But if the woman decides to keep the child, the long haul can look big, cloudy, and scary.   And this end-game warfare will need to introduce prevention in the form of godly lifestyle choices if it is to be sustainable. 

There is also a place for intervention rescues.  If we know of a man or woman, boy or girl who is moving towards a relationship with someone that is clearly not glorifying God, an intervention at this stage could keep that person from entering into end-game warfare and facing the false dichotomy of “Shall I control my own destiny and kill the baby, or shall I keep the baby and ruin my life?”  We should be prepared to enter into and engage in end-game warfare, matters of life and death.  But we need to be at least as prepared to receive for ourselves and, by God’s grace, provide for others intervention rescues.

That leads me back to godly lifestyle choices.  I am glad that 300 churches in NYC participated in 40 days for life.  I’m glad we had a chance to prayer walk and participate in that end-game warfare.  But Oh Lord Jesus, wake us up to the need to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  Wake us up to the need for fathers and mothers to teach and model that sex is a beautiful gift of God to be enjoyed within marriage between one man and one woman, for life.   And Lord, enlarge the territory and impact of your church in New York City to show children, youth, and adults that fornication and adultery are always wrong.  We need Jesus, Lord.  We are called by your name.  We humble ourselves and pray, and seek your face.  We need your grace and power to help us to turn from our sin.  Please forgive us of our sins, and come and heal our land.  Heal our families, Father.  Heal our churches, Lord.  Teach us to teach your body how to live godly in Christ Jesus. 

We then attended a beach baptism at Plumb Beach in Brooklyn, NY.  35 degrees Fahrenheit in the air, 54 degrees Fahrenheit in the water.  We Christians are a kind of weird bunch. We go to the beach in 35 degree weather as a group and dunk one of our friends in the 54 degree water.  He comes up sputtering and cold.  We all laugh and clap and pray for him, celebrating God's goodness.  We then stand around in the sand and talk, laugh, drink Dunkin' hot chocolate, and eat munchkins.  Reality is stranger than fiction.  You can't make this kind of stuff up. 

From there we went on to visit friends in South Brooklyn. These friends have spent the better part of twenty years praying for and intentionally reaching out to Turkish Muslims, in order to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to them.  They gave us a tour of a building that was recently purchased that will be converted into a coffee house.   Coffee and the gospel.  Sounds really awesome. 

We arrived home.  A mother and her three daughters dropped by to play games at our house for three hours.   It was a good, full day.  

I'm tired.   But it's a good tired.   

Three funerals in two weeks was death overload.  I told Sandy last Saturday that I’m rethinking our current strategy of attending the funerals of our friends’ parents who die.   A lot of our friends are in their thirties, forties, and fifties.  That makes their parents, well, nearing the end of the race.  So it began three weeks ago when the father of our good friend Glenn Beiler died suddenly.  We knew him, and of course we have been good friends with Glenn & Angela Beiler for a long time.  They are real people—close friends.   We should go down to the viewing to show support.  Yeah, let’s do it.  So we joined up with a carload of friends and traveled down to Paradise, PA, for the viewing, ate dinner with friends afterwards, and came back.  Nine hours out of our day, some money spent, but what is time and money when you have such good friends to support?  

A day after that, our friend Brendan Weaver’s mother had a stroke, and died the following Tuesday.  Brendan and Heidi and their family have joined us here at Believers in Jesus Church, so it was fitting for us to travel to his mother’s funeral in Shippensburg, PA, on Saturday, November 2, 2019, with Stan & Sharon.  We are glad we could see some of their world, meet more of their friends and family, and show support to them during this difficult season.  Thirteen hours out of our day, some money spent, but what is time and money when you have such good friends to support?

The Friday before that funeral, Rose Hostetler, the mother of my sister-in-law Renita Rhodes, died. It had been a long, difficult struggle with cancer, and some time back Sandy and I told each other that if Rose dies, we want to go to the funeral in Ohio to support Rick & Renita.  Besides, Sandy had lived in the same area as Rose and Richard and attended the same church for years.  We knew her.  So we left at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning and attended the funeral on Tuesday.  Hearing Renita and Ravonne give reflections, listening to the sermon from Pastor Perry, watching the burial with the dirt filling the grave, the reality and intensity of death pounded in on every side.  Jesus help us, and please help our friends and family as they deal with the loss of a dear wife, mother, and grandmother.  Forty-three hours out of our week, some money spent, but what is time and money when you have such good family members and friends to support?

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.  I Corinthians 15:26.  I was at a service a few weeks back when the preacher said that the last enemy that was destroyed was death.   It was said in the context that God wants everyone everywhere to be healed, and death has been destroyed everywhere.  He was a great preacher.  I haven’t sat under such fiery Pentecostal yelling for a good while.  But he messed up the verb tenses when he spoke about death being destroyed.  Death has not yet been destroyed, at least not physical death.  In heaven there “will be no more dying.”  Uh, but we are not yet in heaven, and there is death and dying all around us.   Brendan’s father had a moving tribute to his wife.  At one point he said “I hear people saying that they don’t think we have a soul.  Well, we ARE a soul, and this death that happened to my wife was just her body.  Her soul lives on in eternity.”   It will be a glorious day when death is destroyed.   

I think of Hebrews 2:  “You have put all things in subjection under his feet.  For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.  But we see Jesus.”

Now we do not yet see all things put under him.   That’s true.  There is still death.  We see Jesus, yes, but there is still this enemy of death.  When I am around caskets and see the bodies and faces of people whose spirits have departed, something dissonant rattles in my bones.   Ears ring after an explosion, right?  Skin starts to itch when you hear someone talk of bedbugs.  Similarly, my body and soul take a figurative step back and down when I come face-to-face with death.

But then something else rises up within me.  

There is hope beyond the grave.  The comforter has come, and even in the mourning He brings comfort. 
Eternal life is real.   I will stand on the powerful truth that all of the promises of God are yes, and amen.  

​And I’m hoping to take a bit of a break from funerals for a while.