Today I set before you two choices: life and death--which will you choose?

As a result of this, many of his disciples
returned to their former way of life and no longer
accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve:
Do you also want to leave?   --John 6: 66-67

How often does life come down to commitment? One question: are you committed or not? Are you all in or just dabbling?  Are we committed or not?  Or the alternative question might be: What are we committed to?  In the words of the old folk song, “Which side are you on?”

First, I will say that I am –I think—someone with commitment issues.  I am always (and much too easily) tempted to just blow things off; it’s kind of my go to reaction to almost any interruption or snag in my plans.

“Dad, we’re out of dental floss!” 

“Honey, cancel those airline tickets; looks like I’ll be heading to HEB this weekend.”

Thursday evening I was planning to go the hospital and volunteer, but by the time I got home from work, I was tired and looking for any excuse to “have to stay home.” This isn’t something I’m proud of, but it is something I live with. I don’t know how much of it is simple laziness and/or how much is a deep-seated psychological problem with commitment. Regardless, it is not always easy to get myself going. But it is always good for me when I do.

When I got to the hospital, I found that the chaplain had forgotten to leave me a list.  My first thought was that this must be a sign from God: Return thou to thy grilled cheese and Dr. Pepper and regular Thursday evening TV viewing habits.  But, something inside me said: probably not. SO,  I walked over to the business office and asked the cashier, showed her my badge, explained the situation and after a brief wait, she gave me a 6-page list of about 40 names (and room numbers). Of course, I couldn’t do them all, but I could do some. So I sat down and looked the list over to see if there were any names I recognized; people I know, or people I have visited before. Nada.  After whispering a prayer, I crossed myself and headed to the elevator. First stop, 3^rd floor; ICU.

Walking through the ICU, you see faces of exhaustion, fear, confusion, resignation; family and friends standing around the edges of a bed, watching a sleeping body, uncertain what to do. Hungering for a word of reassurance.  And in the beds the almost lifeless look of the sleeping patient with the tubes and cables strapped to them, blinking and flashing monitors hovering close by.  As they awaken you a kind of frightened emptiness fills their eyes; an emptiness that seeks only to be filled with comfort, consolation--hope. I have a lot of respect for ICU nurses.

The first two rooms I visit are empty. The beds have been cleared and remade and they await the next round of fear and hope and help.  But in the third, the patient is turned away from the door with her back to me.  She is motionless. Maybe asleep.  And then I notice a sign on the door asking visitors to speak to a nurse before entering.  Of course, this too could be a sign from God. So, I go find a nurse. Instead of telling me that I need to turn back and go home (that Dr. Pepper is still waiting for me…), she smiles and says: It’s okay. Go on in. 

In my heart I was still thinking: it is possible this woman is asleep.   At this rate I could get through all 40 names in less than an hour. Coming back to her door though, I found the patient had turned over and she was looking straight at me. Entering the room, I introduced myself and that was when I noticed the tube coming out of her throat.  Stopping at her bedside, I put my hands on the rail and spoke her name, intending to ask if there was anything I could do for her. But, before I could finish she had reached up and taken my hand in hers and held it so tight it hurt. Her nails digging into my palm, she clutched my hand and waved it slowly in small circles above her. I stood there, just gazing into her eyes, stunned by their fear, their desperation.  She clung to me and I let myself be clung to –there was nothing else I could give her.  We were like that for several minutes. Just staring at each other, holding onto each other; just being there—together—so that we weren’t alone.  And of course, that was when I knew –this is where I am supposed to be. This is exactly where I am supposed to be. Right here. Right now. With this frightened and lonely person, letting her cling to my hand and not saying a word. I was made for this.

As the intensity of her grasp subsided, I could see a calm fill her eyes and asked if she would like me to say a prayer.  In response, the circling became more intense and her head nodded slightly.  So, I did. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I know I asked the Lord to let His healing and His blessing be ever present through the hands and the words and the touch of the nurses and doctors and all who entered that room. And I asked that the Lord open our hearts to the grace of His love; His will. And then we prayed the Lord’s Prayer together. I saw her lips moving silently softly forming the words.  We were together maybe 20 minutes. I had never met her before, and will probably never see her again; and she never said a word –but she spoke to me like a prophet with her anguished eyes and that desperate grip and those fierce nails.

Too often when life gets hard, or inconvenient, I retreat to safety, sink into the couch of routine: what I know and what makes me feel comfortable.  Too often, I turn away from the challenges and the difficulties; the places where Christ hopes to meet me.  That night I didn’t.  And thanks to that woman, and her wordless message, I hope to change not just my habits, but my heart.  I hope to…

Over the past couple of weeks the Church’s sex abuse scandal has returned to the news.  And now for two Sundays in a row I have waited for the priest to say something about it, and for two Sundays –nothing; instead we have heard bad jokes and spiritual platitudes… I understand that priests are human, and they get anxious and fearful and even lazy at times; much like me.  But, I think when there is a scandal of this magnitude, we --the people in the pews—are in a kind of ICU moment.  We are confused and frightened –like we are awakening from a nightmare—and we need someone to offer us a hand to hold, to offer us a word of comfort, to tell us that they too are confused by it and they too are frightened, but that they aren’t going to avoid it. They aren’t going to go back to their former life and their old ways and pretend like nothing happened.   As Pope Francis made clear, the best way to heal such a wound is not to cover it up but to open our hearts, our lives, our eyes and get it out into the open and let the sunlight and the Lord begin the healing.

For me, that is the real challenge in life –to face it, to open your heart, to open your eyes and to go forth and face the life God gives you, to receive and be nourished by the bread that God gives you to eat each day, and to find in it the Love of God.  Don’t turn away and go back to your former life; that road leads to the couch, and a kind of living death… 

As Peter said when Jesus asked the apostles if they planned to leave Him:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

We are called to be alive; not to be safe, not to be cautious, but to be alive. Yes, life can be hard, the times can be tough.  But a life worth living requires a little effort, and a lot of commitment. Get off the couch and go out into the world and be alive; be a living witness to the love of God.  Don’t hide.  Don’t take the easy way… Don’t play it safe. Each day we have set before us two choices: life and death, blessing and curse…  I say take a risk; make a commitment; choose life. (cf. Deuteronomy 30: 19)

The blessing of vulnerability --further reflections

“Go from your country, your kinsmen

and your father's house to the land
that I will show you... You are to be a blessing.”

–Genesis 12:1-2

What are the Beatitudes but a call for us to leave our place of security and comfort and go to a foreign land –a place of vulnerability, of risk and of blessing.  In Genesis, God calls Abram to leave his homeland, his kinfolk and his father’s house to go forth to a land that God will show him.  In that place and by becoming vulnerable to the curses and blessings of these foreign people, by leaving behind his security and earthly support system and putting his trust wholly in God Abram becomes a blessing. 

“Blessed are you who are poor…”

“Blessed are you who hunger…”

“Blessed are you who mourn…” –cf. Luke 6:20-21 & Mt. 5:3-11

Is this not a call to us to leave behind our homeland of culture and identity, our kinfolk of support and insurance, our father’s house of security and comfort and go to a foreign land that Jesus is showing us: a land of hunger, poverty, mourning, meekness and abuse?  Go not where we are safe and feel secure and accepted, but where we feel some risk of rejection and martyrdom even.  What greater love is there than to give up your life for another? 

But how do we live this out?  What does it mean in our daily life?  For me, there was a wonderful incident the other night that assured me that I had stumbled in the right direction.  I was volunteering at the hospital with the chaplain’s office. The chaplain tapes a list of names to his door for me. It is usually a longish list, but he will highlight the ones that he wants me to visit. Usually I just visit those highlighted names; I tend to be a rule follower. But as I was heading to the elevator I noticed a name --someone I had visited before–not highlighted. And something inside me made me feel that I should visit that patient.

I imagined that I would go up, say hello to him, perhaps offer a prayer and be on my way.  But when I got to his room on the 4^th floor, he was asleep.  So I was about to go back to my assigned list when I noticed a man who looked a little troubled in the room next door. So, I poked my head in and asked if there was anything I could do for him.  He was very hard of hearing, but he was also quite clearly agitated and needed someone (or something).  So I struggled to talk with this elderly man, but I listened as he told me that he was anxious about his daughters and confused about why he was being left at the hospital. After a while I offered to pray.  He didn’t understand at first, but as I began to pray the Our Father, he fell right in with me –as if suddenly something clicked.  A nurse arrived while we were praying and when we finished, she began her business with charts and scans, but she also began to ease his worries by reminding him why he was in the hospital. 

I left and tried the other man again. He was still asleep.  As I turned to leave and go back to my assigned names, another nurse approached me.  He wanted to know if I was the chaplain, because a patient had just died and his family needed someone.  My first reaction was a start of fear. I’m not a chaplain and I wasn’t sure what to do.  But, instead of hiding behind my lack of qualifications. I explained that I was a volunteer, and asked him to show me where the family was.  Standing at the door to the room, I asked God for a blessing and went inside to be with a family in deep and unconsolable mourning.

That was a place and a moment where I felt weak and slightly afraid. I hungered for the security and safety of the “right words,” but I had only my presence and a selection of psalm to offer them. I felt fearfully vulnerable. But, it was the place God lead me. And so I trusted. I trusted that whatever happened –this wasn’t about me. It was about their sorrow and their need to have someone come and pray with them in their time of mourning.  And so I went. And praying with them, sharing psalm 42, listening to their memories and their pain, hearing what a loving father the deceased was, all of it –I believe it was a blessing for them, but I am certain it was a blessing for me.

And it all started with me reading a name on my list that wasn’t selected for me by the chaplain, but (I guess) was by the Holy Spirit.  The first step was leaving the safety and security of the highlighted names, to go somewhere God was leading me.  Then, visiting the man who was almost deaf was a second step. He wasn’t the one I felt an attachment to, and I only stepped into his room because I could see him through the window and saw what looked like fear and confusion on his face –in his eyes. It was uncomfortable and awkward trying to talk with him –but because I tried, because I didn’t just give up and walk away, I was still on the floor when the other man died and because I left his room when the nurse started her work I happened to be walking out the door just as the other nurse came looking for a chaplain. 

And by being vulnerable what did I find?  An opportunity to become a blessing.  And an opportunity to be blessed.  And you know, I think in that moment of blessedness I had a brief glimpse of another foreign land: Heaven. Perhaps what Jesus is telling us in the beatitudes isn’t just that being poor, or meek, or hungry or thirsty or suffering for Christ is good for us; perhaps what He means when He says “blessed are…” is that to offer ourselves in this way is truly blessed; it is a taste of Heaven. 

Think about your own life. When did you feel most blessed? Was it in a moment of earthly success (a 100 on a test, a new job, successfully completing a project or getting an award for some achievement) or was it when you offered yourself completely (in all your brokenness and insufficiency) and found that you were received and you were a blessing to someone who needed you?

To become a blessing is to be doubly blessed.