We sang to our father as he lay dying....

We sang to our father as he lay dying. He'd learned he had cancer only weeks before. Before we had time to process the news he'd entered the hospital for the last time. When I flew down he'd already gone into a coma.

He never awoke. But they say even people in comas can hear. So we spoke to him. Mom kissed him at bedtime, the three quick smooches that had been their routine for decades. He kissed her back once when I was there. It was his last conscious action.

And we sang to him. My brothers and I like to sing. If I may say so, we're good at it. Among my earliest memories is singing along with a Disney record we got in a gas station promotion. We sang in the station wagon on our epic western summer trips. Once two of my brothers and I went camping and a biblical thunderstorm blew up. It was so bad the park ranger drove up to rescue us. He found us singing.

Then we sang to Dad in his death bed. I remember singing Summertime, from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and Old Man River. I bet we sang something from Spike Jones, his favorite. We sang Amazing Grace. Nurses and aides sometimes stood outside the room and listened. Whether Dad knew we were doing it is beyond my knowledge. I hope he did. But of course we were singing for ourselves as well, so it does not matter much.

This week we made the pilgrimage to that same hospital, this time for Mom. She got tangled up with her walker and fell, breaking her elbow. Every time I walked in I remembered going for dad. It was a sad, heavy feeling. Seeing mom laying there did not help.

Here's what does help: having brothers to sing with. Having a wife who has known my mom for forty years and knowing they love each other. Having decent, kind adult children who made it their business to visit Mom. Having a church family that checked with me and prayed the whole time. Seeing the look of gratitude on Mom's face every time I walked through the door. I'm nothing special, but in Mom's eyes I am, and that's what mattered in the moment.

My wife and I had gone to high school with one of the nurses. I thought she was pretty cute back in the day. I did not recognize her this week. She still looked good, but I do not remember faces well. She, however, recognized us. And as we left the hospital for the last time before her shift ended she pulled me aside. She told me she was glad Linda and I were still together. Then she said, “One of the aides remembers your family. She said you're the Singing Family.”

I guess we are. 

The Sadness of Being the Church

I recently participated in a process that led to a church leaving our denomination. It makes me deeply sad. And that sadness springs from more than one well.

First the obvious. Every divorce causes pain. Every dissolved relationship makes me ask, “Why didn't I see (x) long ago?” The sadness goes deeper when I both like and love each party. Like and love are not the same things. When I feel both for people who go away it makes it much harder. In this case I came to truly enjoy my brothers and sisters in that church. We spent a lot of tough hours together. We saw God work right before our very eyes together.

Next the less obvious. I pastor in a church that has dwindled to half its size of fifty years ago. We have seen non-denominational big boxes take many who used to worship with us. We have also made decades' worth of decisions that have driven people away. Our national and regional governing bodies have made many changes. Some rejoice in them. Others are aghast. An appreciable number of these have left. It makes good old loyal me feel left behind.

Finally, the biggest reason for my sadness. During this process I witnessed pastors and elders behave in ways that left me open-mouthed. They grandstanded at meetings. They literally yelled at one another. Nobody used the M Word out loud but several made it clear they felt we should be making our departing brothers and sisters pay big Money for the privilege of leaving.

If those departing Christians had any doubt they were making the right choice those meetings erased them faster than a drill instructor wiping the grin off a recruit's face.

Most all the people at those meetings behaved with remarkable maturity and restraint. We even sang hymns together with those we were bidding goodbye. It was just those few who soiled the experience. But boy did they soil it.

Being the church can be extremely difficult. So difficult that in order to heal from this experience I intend to stay away from those denominational meetings for a while.

Please pray for all who try to minister in the name of Jesus. It's a tough job. Somebody's got to do it. In order for me to keep at it I have to walk away from some folks I used to enjoy. And that makes me sadder still.

Coach K and I

For one week in the each of the summers of 1974 and 1975, I played on a basketball team coached by Mike Krzyzewski. I was attending the Bob Knight Basketball School. (Knight wanted it called a school not a camp, because he saw his work as teaching.) Coach K served then as an assistant coach at Indiana. I was one of the least talented boys there; I doubt he knew my name. I knew his—though nobody, not Knight, probably not even himself, could have predicted the heights he would climb.

Memories grow fuzzy with the years. Some of the stories I tell may not be exactly true. One thing I do remember with total confidence is a thing Coach K did for me. At the time I would have said “a thing he did TO me”. But I have come to understand that he acted out of kindness.

His preferred method of initiating a conversation with players at the Bob Knight Basketball School was to grab a handful of shirt and yank you toward him. He pulled me close after a game and asked where I went to school. “Bloomington North”, I gulped. We stood less than five miles from it. Big school, he said, lots of good players.

He let go of my shirt and looked me in the eye. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Finally he squinted even tighter (it's hard to see his eyes under any circumstance) and said, “You might want to consider another sport.”

I pulled away as fast as I could and stomped back up the hill to the dorm where the players stayed. I might even have cried a little, I honestly don't recall. I know how mad I was. Over the following weeks I tried to use this affront as motivation. But at some level even my adolescent incarnation had enough self-awareness to know he was right. Ultimately, I needed not another sport, but another calling.

Coach K did not. He had an eerie ability to pierce to the heart of things. When we did what he told us to do on the court we succeeded. He took no guff, had no problem getting in players' faces, demanded that we execute what he taught every second of every practice and game. Yet even then he stood apart from Knight in one crucial way. He had the understanding to know when a player could not handle screaming or mind-games. He knew when to let up. I feel this knowledge was rooted in a genuine concern for the player.

When I saw that winning Olympic coaches do not receive gold medals I felt sad for Coach K. Not sorry—nobody needs to feel sorry for a man with a solid marriage, great family and the string of professional milestones he has accomplished. But the man deserves a medal. Maybe someday I'll see him in Bloomington. If I do, maybe I'll pull him over by the shirt and tell him what I think.

Or maybe I won't.

On leaving home...

When I have moved out of a house I have usually gone from room to room, remembering what happened in each before going out the door the last time. We just left our home of nineteen years on Summit View. But the ending was too chaotic for a trip down memory lane. So I thought I would write about my memories. If you're interested, keep reading.

A friend our daughter brought home once crouched down in our front entry, his legs splayed like a spider's, his face nearly touching the maple flooring we had just installed. “Mr. Riggins!” he said, “this is the most beautiful floor I have ever seen!”

Our wonderful mutt Ella loved the water. She even liked baths. But if you let go of her for one second she would spring out of the guest bathtub and shake soapy water over everything.

When we first moved to Traverse City our daughter Laura was angry and lonely. She longed for the idyllic life she had shared with her Seymour friends. Her mother and I spent hours sitting with her on her bed, trying to console her. She was brave, she forgave us, and she found a way to start a new life. She has done that several times. All of it.

A number of good things happened in Dan's room but honestly, my favorite memory there involved his beloved kitten Lindele. When he first brought her home she would climb all the way up his drapes, then mew in distress at finding herself so far up there. That same Lindele now stalks her temporary domain in the new building at church with her partner in crime, Oreo the Second.

Oreo the First ruled our bedroom. But some of my best memories there came on Christmas Eves. Despite our best intentions Linda and I were never ready for the next morning. So after leading candlelight services I would set up shop, wrapping presents on our bed and watching Christmas music programs. It was an excellent way to decompress from church and to prepare to celebrate with family.

My favorite memory in our bathroom involves my beloved. That's all I'm saying.

Our newly-planted church held one of its first worship services in our living room. We pushed the furniture to the walls and set out folding chairs. Linda and some ladies laid out a feast for afterward. Maybe thirty attended. Soon we could not fit in anybody's living room.

We hosted many a meal in our dining room. I remember doing the “Alphonse, Gastone” (look it up) thing with my dad  before he finally relented to my insistence that he carve a turkey. I did not know at the time I would never share another Thanksgiving with him. But I recall much laughter at those meals, and a lot of story-telling, some of it possibly true.

We shared hours on our sun porch, eating meals and playing table games during the warmer months. Out in the backyard Linda and I once had a bittersweet playtime with Grand-dog Brianna, who had lived with us for a year. Her rightful and loving owner, Dan, would take her back to live with him the next morning. He graciously stepped aside to let us wrestle and tug and hug her. We were so focused on her we did not even notice he was taking pictures of the whole thing. I really can't look at them still. I will never forget my son's compassion.

In the utility room downstairs Laura sat for hours, whispering gently to our dying cat, Shadow. Shadow came to live with me all the way back in the dorm at IU. I will never forget my daughter's compassion.

How many hours did I spend slogging away on the treadmill downstairs while gasping out questions to Jeopardy answers? But the greatest memory I have of our basement is also one of my favorites of all. My beloved (a fellow IU basketball band alumnus) and I watched the 2011 IU v. Kentucky game together on the couch. We screamed at the refs (and when I say “we” I mean, “we”), we shouted and moaned. When Watford hit The Shot we jumped up and hugged and carried on before calling her parents to share the moment with people we knew would understand.

Of such things are lives made. I am deeply grateful to God for the gift of the years in our house on Summit View.

Dogs and angels

What we learned today.

We learned our dog Keela, whom we adopted in January, loves to swim. She also loves to chase squirrels and birds, but we already knew that. Linda took both our fearsome pit bulls down to the beach. As they reached the shore the leashes got tangled. At that moment a family of ducks filed by. Keela took off. The ducks swam straight out into West Bay. Keela followed them. They flew away. Keela homed in on a nearby swan. Thankfully it did not attack her. (We've seen swans go at dogs and people.) Instead it swam farther away. So did Keela. By this point Linda could barely see her.

We also learned angels exist. A man on a jet ski—with his dog on board—tried to coax Keela back. She ignored him. He drove away. A man with his retriever on a leash approached. He tried to console Linda with the thought that Keela would swim back. At this point Linda believed Keela could never make it all the way to land. The water is still extremely cold.

A man appeared out of nowhere to ask Linda what was wrong. She told him. He returned to his parked van, retrieved a paddle board, and began sprinting toward Keela. He tried to get her up onto the board but she, panicked and what they gently call a “reactive dog” (translation: apt to go ape crazy if people or dogs upset her) would not cooperate. Linda is not sure what he did next. Maybe he grabbed her leash—still attached to her collar. Or maybe he just kind of led her back. But back she came. All the way to Linda.

(A note for those of you familiar with Traverse City. Linda estimates Keela swam about halfway from West End Beach to Clinch Park Marina, and perhaps a quarter mile north out into the Bay. And back.)

The angel put his paddle board back on his van. Linda asked how he could repay her. He said he was glad to help and no payment was necessary.

I guess Keela really is a rescue dog, after all.

Geriatric baptism

Last week we baptized an 88 year-old man. Our Clerk of Session and his deacon wife, also octogenarians, witnessed the sacrament. We performed it during our weekly worship service at a local retirement community. “Jim” (not his real name) had approached me the previous week and said, “I have never been baptized.”

“Would you like to be?” I answered.

He hesitated. He had belonged to the Presbyterian Church all his life without getting baptized. Our denomination is more enamored of rules than the average church; his slipping through that legal crack surprised me. Since we baptize babies his parents would normally have taken care of it. But his father had opposed it. Jim did not say why, but clearly implied` his father did not believe.

But here Jim stood, pondering whether to get baptized. He asked a couple of questions, then said, “I would very much like to be baptized, if you would baptize somebody like me.”

As a matter of fact I can think of few things that honor and delight me more than the chance to baptize somebody like Jim. I have known him for several years. I knew he was thoughtful. I knew he struggled to synthesize his economic conservatism with a big heart for all kinds of people. I knew he carried a heavy burden for something he did in the Navy, but he has never done more than hint at what that was.

We talked about how baptism symbolizes the mercy of God, how our gracious Lord Jesus forgives all who pray for it. I shared my sense of my own sin. Like many aging men, my awareness of my own guilt is growing. All the more do I praise God that I do not have to let that burden of guilt grow until it crushes me. This seemed to matter quite a lot to Jim.

The day arrived. Jim's daughter came. So did his son-in-law. He introduced them with a quivering voice. But when the time came, he steeled himself and stood before a room filled with his generation. I wish I could have bottled the air in there. It was so full of love it would make a healing tonic for many a malady.

Tears came into Jim's eyes as I placed the water on his head. We all cried. We sang a hymn, stood around and talked for a while, and departed into a sunny afternoon.

Every now and then I feel blessed to get to do my job.

Yogi

I am a pastor. This Holy Week the world has seen yet another major attack by radical jihadists. Naturally, my thoughts turn to Yogi Ferrell.

Yogi just finished a basketball career that earns him a spot on the Indiana University Mt. Rushmore 2^nd Team*. The IU program lists him at six feet tall. If Yogi is six feet tall I am Ernest Hemingway (though Yogi's biceps together might measure 72 inches.) During his time in Bloomington he got into a couple of common college scrapes. A false ID figured largely in one. Yogi hung in there as teammates quit, got arrested for drunk driving, left early for the NBA. It seems like Yogi has been at IU since I was.

Yogi holds the all-time IU records for games started and assists. Last night Yogi and his teammates lost his final college game. His coach, the estimable Tom Crean, pulled him with half a minute left. Though Yogi did NOT want to leave the court, Crean understood that the fans needed the chance to thank him for all that time and excellence. More importantly, Yogi needed to hear them do so. Even fans of the other three teams playing there joined in the unanimous standing ovation. Crean and Yogi hugged it out. A reporter on the sidelines heard Coach telling Yogi, “Thank you for all you've given us.”

An hour later in the locker room, Yogi sat in front of his locker, still wearing his jersey. “I might wear it to the hotel,” he said. “That's how much I don't want to take it off.”

The kid is 22 years old. He plays basketball. Why do I care so much? I just do. I am a native-born Hoosier. I played basketball at Bloomington North high school. With my wife Linda I played four years in the basketball pep band at IU. We had to wear red turtlenecks with goofy white vests. The last time I had to pull off that white vest I hesitated. I was in a hotel room in Philadelphia, just as Yogi was last night. I looked in the mirror. I cried. I cried like a baby.

Thank you, Yogi. Thank you Isiah, Ray, Landon, Randy, Ted and all the rest who have worn that jersey. Thank you Linda, Mary Sue, Tammy, Steve, Doug and all the rest who wore that stupid white vest. It is a great privilege in a complicated, frightening world to belong to something foolish that matters so much.

* Mt. Rushmore Teams are a recent phenomenon in which people argue endlessly over which four people belong on top. Instead of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and T. Rosie, my IU Mt. Rushmore 1^st team is Calbert Cheney, Scott May, Steve Alford and Don Schlundt. My IU Mt. Rushmore 2^nd team is Yogi, Quinn Buckner, Walt Bellamy and Mike Woodson. If you disagree, understand two things: first, my rankings are limited only to those players who completed their eligibility at IU and second, you're wrong.

A Homeless Super Bowl

I watched the first half of the Super Bowl in my warm home with my arm around my wife's shoulder.

I watched the second half with a bunch of homeless guys.

The church I pastor is taking its turn providing a roof and food for local folks “experiencing homelessness” as the current phrase has it. A couple of them had told our coordinator they would really like to watch the game. He talked to a couple of techies. They set it up on a nice big television in our church nursery. I understand that one of them actually ran the setup from the man cave at his own home. Such is the world in which we now live.

That second half was a fascinating experience. A few observations:

1. I am aging. During the first half my wife and I agreed that the commercials were juvenile, stupid and (to us fifty-somethings) filled with pop cultural references we did not get. During the second half commercials the guys in the room (almost all of them at least ten years younger than I) laughed and poked each other in the shoulder and made comments about the women that I choose not to record in this space. Apparently, Madison Avenue still knows what it's doing.

One exception came when Helen Mirren appeared on screen. Her Budweiser ad against drunk driving sobered up the room. In some cases, literally.

2. Guys experiencing homelessness know football as well as any other cross-section of guys. Most of them kind of knew what they were seeing; a few really understood it. One of them said he had played tight end in high school and he always watched that position. I can report that he did notice when Greg Olson of the Panthers pulled and made a great trap block on a Bronco. “Rick” (not his actual name) sat right in front of me. He and I had an extended discussion of how disciplined a game Peyton Manning was having. He called a couple of plays before the snap based on down, distance and formation. This is something I enjoy doing, and it was fun to watch. I have encountered Rick during our Safe Harbor weeks for a decade. He and I spoke more during the second half than we had in all that time.

3. Late in the fourth quarter but before the Broncos had the game sewn up, the room suddenly emptied. Intent on the screen, I did not notice them leaving. When yet another inane commercial came on I asked the two guys remaining where everybody had gone. “Cigarette break,” one of them said. Oh. Ten minutes later, every chair again had an occupant.

Every now and then I need to be reminded that I am more like other people than I sometimes think. I cannot remember enjoying a Super Bowl more.

The Rock or the Hard Place?

(Disclaimer: I write this as a private citizen. In this piece I do not speak for or to the church I pastor. But I do write as a Christian. In fact, that is part of the point.)

How in the world has it come to this? How, nine months out, does it appear we will have to vote for a serial shader of every law and ethical principle or an uncouth bully? The pundits write about an angry electorate. I am angry—angry that we cannot do better.

I tell people to consume news from a variety of sources, then to think about what they find. So I checked into the Rush Limbaugh show the other day. It felt like I had gone through a wormhole into some twisted parallel universe. The host and callers lit into Megyn Kelly for being so mean to Donald Trump. How dare she? After all, he had done nothing worse than accuse her of asking him actual questions because she was menstruating, then call her a third-rate journalist. It was all her fault.

The same sterling character has claimed to be a Presbyterian but cannot accurately quote even one Bible verse. You know the rest of it. For the record, I do believe this is a free country. Trump gets to say whatever he wants within certain broad limits. But I don't have to like it, much less vote for the buffoon.

Thank God (and I mean that literally) I also do not have to vote for Hillary Clinton. I have good friends who have earnestly explained why they support her. But as they talk all I can hear is, “At least she's not a G-D Republican!” No honest person can claim she is honest. Her every syllable and gesture is calculated. What does she actually believe/support/work to achieve? The record makes it crystal clear that her one guiding principle is self-empowerment and enrichment.

Of course, this does not exactly make her a unique politician. And in this free country she has the right to calibrate her every move. But the fact that millions are prepared to go along with the charade is every bit as mystifying to me as thumping for Trump.

I get the anger. I do. On the right people are angry because they see a government actively working to undermine cherished cultural and, yes, spiritual traditions. They see their own leaders as two-faced panderers. On the left people are angry because they see an unholy alliance between the super-rich and politicians. They see profound injustice being done.

Here's the thing: both sides are right.

But Trump or Clinton? Now that makes me angry.

Lies, Damn Lies and Social Media

I recently read of a mother who told her kids to stay off social media because people's posts are 100% lies. “It's not their real lives,” she stated. “It's their pretend, ideal lives.”

I grant the partial truth of this. Yet on balance, Facebook and Twitter have been a blessing for me.

Okay, when I log on I expect that I will have interest in very little I see. I don't care what you had for supper at that restaurant. I don't care for your cute puppy memes. I don't care about most of the people tagged in your posts because I don't know them. I don't care about your politics. (Though I will admit to making the occasional political tweet.) The only Facebook character I regularly read is Maxine, the crotchety old lady. The only tweet I never miss is my daily dose of Calvin and Hobbes.

Yes, I hit “j” quickly and repeatedly. Yes, I understand that much of what people—including me—post proclaims only the better parts of our lives.

But unless you and I are close already, or unless you approach me in my role as pastor, I do not really need to know about your low moments. It's not that I don't care, it's that I already see enough pain in myself and others. I turn to social media in part to get away from that.

Social media have been largely responsible for renewing relationships I have allowed to languish. They have connected me with the people in the church I serve. They have enabled my extended family to communicate better than we ever managed before.

The trick is to manage our use of social media. For me, this has meant learning not to take the bait when somebody tries to start an argument, and trying to limit my own posts to those that I would want to read were I in others' shoes.

I don't know about you, but I like to laugh. I like to think my friends are happy. I like to catch up with college buddies, my mother-in-law, young adults with families who once upon a time were in youth groups I led. Social media help me do all these, and more.

I am grateful.