Not Burdensome

I’m going through a period of grief that is common to many. Two of my grandchildren are leaving home on long term missions across the sea. They go into precarious situations which, while it makes us nervous, only makes them excited. We’ve been warned against mentioning over the Internet their names or the countries they’re going to. One will be gone three years, the other two.

We’ve enjoyed having them close during their university years, sharing meals and conversations, doing art projects together, and then seeing them graduate. We’ve watched them turn into young adults, responsible people, ready to follow their dreams. But why do they have to follow them so far away?

This is a common grief. Children grow up and leave home. Parents, at least some of them, grieve as they let them go. We did this to our parents. But being common doesn’t make the sadness any less real.

As I’ve been writing poetry through the Bible, I thought about my grandkids this week. I was working my way through 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John and I came across this passage: “This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). Here’s the poem:

 

Not Burdensome

Weightless, in fact.
Under the yoke of God,
there by our choice,
we float on his will
toward a destination
of his choosing.

-Give away all you own. Feed the poor.
   Ok.
-Leave your father and mother and come.
Follow me to the ends of the earth.
   I’m on the way.
-Set your grandchildren free to grab hold
of the dreams I put in their hearts. Let go.
   Yes, Lord.
-Give up your life for mine.
   Here. Take it.

Not burdensome.
Not burdensome at all.

Arthur Roberts died last week

Arthur Roberts died last week. It was not unexpected; he was 93 and under hospice care. But the sense of grief and loss surprises me. There’s an empty space where once a tree stood tall.

The city of Newberg is building a new swimming pool complex. The work has begun. But when I drove by the lot a few weeks ago, the grove of trees by the old pool was gone. An empty lot of stumps, dirt and machinery mock the space they once occupied. I guess it had to happen, but the fact of it devastates.

The land itself has been devastated.

Somehow this is not an apt metaphor for Arthur’s death.

He was a tree in a mountain forest, the largest one around. He seemed to tower over all of us. He was loved. Frightening sometimes, but loved. I certainly loved him.

The tree is down and it leaves an empty space in the forest. But the tree had been extending its life for decades. Younger trees in all stages of development surround the place where he once towered. They grow and some may one day be as tall as the old one. Gradually they will fill in the space he left with branches, leaves, fruit—ongoing life.

And the fallen trunk itself keeps on giving. Death unto life.

Memories rise up. My fear of this philosophy professor as a college freshman. My surprise when I went in for an appointment and instead of a professor discovered a pastor.

I recall his ongoing interest in me as I grew up and into ministry, marriage, began a family, left for missionary service in Bolivia. Arthur and Fern always treated us as family, believed in us, encouraged us.

Our children’s first Bibles are inscribed, “To David…To Kristin…with love from Arthur and Fern.”

A circular wooden clock, crafted by Arthur, hangs in our living room. A Cherokee talking stick (that I actually used in my classes) lays in the bookcase.

He invited me to write the foreword to his poetry book about heaven, Prayers at Twilight. As I re-read these now, they take on an added poignancy. He now knows the answers to the questions the poems ask.

Several days before his death, we visited Arthur down in his room in the Friendsview health center. Terri and John were there, have been continually with him and Fern since he went into hospice care. His eyes were closed and he seemed to drift in and out of sleep. But he opened them from time to time, acknowledged us.

I reminded him of some advice he gave me years ago. I was thinking of going into a program of doctoral studies. He told me, “Forget all that academic stuff, Nancy. Write poetry.” He smiled as I reminded him, eyes still closed. I prayed for him before we left, and he whispered, “Amen.”

The last word he spoke to me. “Amen.” So be it. A life well lived, a rich legacy left behind. The Spirit blows through the forest.

Keeping watch...with Jesus

On Sunday in unprogrammed worship, the gathering word was from Matthew 26:36-39.

“Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’”

As I sat there in the community of silence, I pictured Jesus agonizing in prayer, with his disciples nearby, supporting him (or not). The darkness of the garden matches his shadowed spirit. Sorrowful. Full of sorrow.

What I brought to my meditation that morning was a preoccupation with death. We just lost Hal’s 95 year old mother two weeks back, and then a few days ago we received news of the death of a close friend our own age, Dwaine Williams.

We had expected the one death and were privileged to be at her side when Mom gently stopped breathing and went home. We cried but we also experienced relief that the suffering was over. We felt joy in the sense of her home-coming. In a few weeks, family will gather from different parts of the country to share memories and honor her life.

But with Dwaine, it feels totally different, and our grief has a strange tenor. I’m having to intentionally affirm my faith in God’s loving sovereignty as a way of combating a sense of tragedy. And I struggle with knowing how to respond to Becky, Dwaine’s wife and my dear friend of many years.

So sitting in the silence of unprogrammed worship, seeing Jesus at prayer in the dark garden, my vision shifted to Jesus at the right hand of the Father, still praying, interceding for his people. I saw his eyes going throughout the earth, seeing deeply into the pain and struggles of all of us, and holding that pain tenderly in prayer.

And I heard him say to me, “Stay here nearby. Keep watch with me.” An invitation to co-labor with him in intercession. Even when I don’t know how to pray. Even when all I can do is hold the pain and lift it up to the One who does know how to pray.

This is Holy Week. This is the week we remember Gethsemane and Calvary. Dwaine’s memorial service is on Good Friday. That seems appropriate. And we know that Resurrection Day is coming.

The darkness of the garden will continue in the weeks ahead, but we do not grieve as those without hope. I’m comforted to know that I can keep watch with Jesus, join in his intercession for those who will experience pain in the weeks and months ahead. I will undoubtedly need help to stay awake, but my intention is to sit still, watch and pray. With Jesus.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.