Missing and Presumed Dead

What a cold phrase. It seems like one of those military euphemisms designed to cushion reality's blow. Or somehow hide it.
Mickey went fishing Friday. He went by himself, as he so often did. Preachers need time away from people, because our time with people tends to be terribly intense. They found his boat, upside down in the lake. They found his truck parked where he had left it. They spotted his life jacket, floating on the water. It didn't do its job. They haven't found Mickey.
I met him in 1973. His first assignment out of seminary took him to Murray, KY. He was appointed Associate Pastor at First Church. The Senior Pastor was my grandfather. Mickey was news to me. Preachers were like my dad, or my grandfather. Great men, both, they weren't like me. Nor were their generational colleagues. Mickey was. He was young. He was fun. He was corny. He loved the church and God's people. He knew everything that was wrong with the church and how to fix it, if only those older guys (in those days, almost exclusively guys) would just listen or turn him loose. I was almost a teenager when I met Mickey. He made it cool to be part of the church at a time when little about the church seemed cool.
Later, he was the lead pastor in a county where several of us were in our first full-time, on-our- own assignments. He was the gracious, patient, wiser older brother that we all needed. Especially, say, on a night when a young dope forgot to pay his utility bill, or didn't have the money to pay it, and it got very dark after the power got cut off. Mickey and his wife, Marsha, showed up with kerosene lanterns and the cash to turn the power back on. And would never discuss it again after that night; wouldn't even discuss repayment of the cost of the bill.
Mickey was always the same. Nobody ever had a better heart. And he knew how important it was to care about people. In addition to their wonderful twin girls, Mickey and Marsha had a son named Rusty. Rusty had brain tumors that just grew too fast. They had to bury their son. He knew how people could hurt, because he hurt. He believed in the grace of God, because he was sustained by it.
You always felt better after seeing Mickey. I hate like hell that I won't ever see him again. He was a good man. He was a good influence on a kid who would be called to ministry a few years after that first meeting. And he was a minister that I could relate to, could see myself being. I wish I had told him more often how I appreciate him.
God bless Marsha and Megan and Michelle. They are grieving again. That same grace that sustained them when Rusty was sick and died will sustain them now. I just wish they weren't having to rely on it without Mickey's bearhugs to put meat on the bones of God's promises. Mickey was 60. Too young, too young, too young.

Humility Day

A request: if you do not understand the differences between self-confidence and dispassionate assessment on the one hand and arrogance on the other, please don't read this post.
Still here? OK.
I am as good a preacher as anyone in our little club. Sunday in and Sunday out, I do better than all but a select few, and as well as they do. Preaching and leading worship is clearly my best thing, I enjoy it, have enthusiasm and passion for it, and have a better grasp of the scriptures than the vast majority of our appointees. I get the principles of effective communication and am not coordinated enough to work from a manuscript, which benefits me and my congregation.
Still, there are moments when The Boss will very effectively remind me of the source of this gift.
I sucked this morning. Bad. Big, stinky, lousy sucking. I left the church embarrassed at what my people had been subjected to.
This is a good thing. There is nothing that reenergizes the preparation process like one of these days; nothing that guarantees maximum effort in the weeks ahead. Much like Big Papi starting the season 3 for 43, there will be some payback coming. Some lectionary texts are going to get a workout these next few months!

Very Little Time in the Middle Lately

47 years in, I had become persuaded that most of our time is spent somewhere in between the mountaintop experiences and those in the valley of shadows. Not so much lately. Small things don't seem to happen in my current congregation. Just a few weeks ago one of the great disciples in our church seemed clearly to have a heart attack on a Friday morning. After all of the appropriate care and testing was extended, they discovered that she had a massively pinched nerve. No fun, but, blessedly, no heart attack. That led into the time when Joshua (see previous posts) was diagnosed, and during his hospitalization, his dad suffered his second detached retina in a month. As previously shared, Joshua's results were spectacular, and his dad reports vision that is back to the level he had before all of this came about.
Then came Friday night's call. My father was on the phone. He wanted me to go to Jackson with him. It was about 9 pm. Jason had died.
Jason was the second son of my cousin Billy. Billy was about 12 when his dad dropped dead in their front yard from a massive heart attack. He and his two brothers and three sisters lived through pretty much the worst thing that can happen to kids: the death of a parent. Now, in middle age, Billy and his wife, Karen, are living through the nightmare of every parent. Jason was 30, a husband and father, son and friend, and one of those guys who always made everybody in the room happy that they had seen him. Hundred thousand watt smile, life of the party, always a joke or a stunt of some sort in progress.
He was at work. Jason operated the crane at a steel plant in Jackson. It was shift change, and the man he was to relieve saw him come in and climb up. He saw him walking the gangway toward the cab. He never got there. He fell 40 to 45 feet, and did not survive that fall.
Now, a young mother is a widow, her 4 year old autistic son has no father, her 9 year old daughter lost her stepdad, Philip and Lindsay have lost their brother, and Billy and Karen are grieving their boy.
It isn't supposed to go this way.
I'm spending my time participating in the grumbling tradition of our faith. I expect to do a good bit more of it over these next days. At times like this, I want to take my copy of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, hunt Rabbi Kushner down, and whack him over the head with it.
I'm longing for some of those boring days in between the mountaintop and the valley of shadows. They look awfully good right now.

Still Celebrating Easter

This afternoon, in the same hour of the same day that one week ago brought the phone call about Joshua's diagnosis, his mom called to say they were home. Before they were discharged, Dr. Boop (God help him for all the dumb jokes about his name he must have endured) told my friends that while the biopsy report won't be in for another ten days to two weeks, he didn't need to see any paper to know where things are. And where things are is Joshua's tumor was benign, and his surgeon got all of it. Dr. Boop is a world-renowned authority in the diagnosis and removal of childhood brain tumors. People come from all over the world for this good man to take care of their children. We are very, very blessed to have him in Memphis.
I have often enjoyed the sight of Joshua and his brothers, the full regiment of quads, playing, singing, painting or whatever else that four four-year-old boys can think up. I don't think that sight was ever more beautiful than this afternoon. And we now know that we will be watching them throughout their growing up years.
Up from the grave he arose! Alleluia!