From the Rev

Dear Friends,

                I’m sure by this time everything is ready in your home.  All the gifts have been bought and are beautifully wrapped and tucked under the tree, which is also perfectly decorated with brightly colored ornaments, not one of them out of place. Your whole house is perfectly clean.  All the family members you hoped would be coming have arrived safe and sound and everyone is getting along perfectly. You are the envy of your neighborhood with your perfectly decorated house where twinkling white lights adorn your perfectly landscaped trees and bushes out front.  Everything is perfect. Chestnuts are roasting by the open fire and Jack Frost is nipping at your nose.  Yuletide carols are being sung by the fire……

                Yeah, right!  Okay, let’s stop the music!

                Yes, I’d like to light up my fireplace but it’s going to be 82 degrees on Christmas Day.   We bought a beautiful tree from our youth but now it’s tipping precariously forward.  The house is a mess with half rolls of wrapping paper scattered on the floor.  I found the perfect gift for someone but now I’m not so sure so I’ll probably have to make another trip to the mall.  I wish the whole family was here, but my youngest son  and his wife are in Virginia,  Beth’s parents and siblings are up north and my sisters live near Orlando.  I wanted to put more lights up on the outside of the house this year but time got away from me.

                Well, you get the idea…and I suspect you understand.

                Christmas is coming.  There’s nothing we can do about the calendar.  What we do have control over is how each of us spiritually frames these days ahead, the spiritual attitude we bring.  And it’s a lesson not just for Christmas but for the whole year.  Because life is never perfect, is it?  Life instead is a work in progress.  Some days we burn the Christmas cookies and some days they come out just right.  Sometimes we love the gift of today and sometimes we just want to return it and move on to the next day.  We would be happier people if we accepted this truth and were at peace with life just as it is, even with all its imperfections.  That’s life.

                That first Christmas long ago certainly wasn’t perfect.  A teenage girl named Mary with a very unplanned pregnancy.  An earthly husband named Joseph who puts aside his hurt and embarrassment and stands beside his beloved.  An exhausting eighty mile donkey ride from Nazareth to Bethlehem, arriving only to find every room is booked so the birthing room will have to a stable with animals.  Unkempt, smelly shepherds crashing into the delivery room after the baby is born.  And three uninvited  wise men who show up with gold, frankincense and myrrh instead of something more practical like diapers and food.  Sounds rather imperfect, doesn’t it?

                   As the poet Max Ehrmann wrote in “Desiderata”, “Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive [God] to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”

                   It’s a beautiful world.  It’s a beautiful life.  It’s a beautiful Christmas.  But it’s always imperfect.  Never perfect.  That’s the truth I hope to find gift-wrapped under my tree this year.  Have a Merry…imperfect…Christmas!

 

You are loved,

Wayne

 

Dear Friends,

This coming Sunday in my church we will celebrate All Saints Day, a special Sunday on the first Sunday of November every year when we remember and honor the saints in our church family who have died in the past year, people of all ages who have touched our lives and made a difference.

As I’ve been reading over the list of names to be read this year I reflected on each of their lives and the difference they made in the lives of family and friends. And then I started remembering those close friends I have loved and lost over the years. There is something about having a good, close friend that’s hard to describe. Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed it like this:

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”

So today I would invite you to think about your friends.

You’ve heard me mention before about a group of friends I am blessed with. They are my covenant brothers and we’ve been sharing friendship together for about 30 years now. They are my spiritual mentors in our shared faith, friends I can always count on for advice and support. Although we only meet twice a year I always know when we get together I’ll receive some wise counsel on how to live this life and ministry.

We all need friends like that….dependable, wise, gentle guides who walk with us and remind us, as only a good friend can, that we are better than we might think we are at any given moment. Whenever I spend time with my brothers I always feel better about myself and my life. That’s what good friends do…they give each other confidence and hope.

Everyone needs someone in this life to lean on. It might be a sister or brother who you call faithfully every week…you grew up together and you have history that binds you close together. Maybe it’s an old friend from college with whom you stay in touch…they always make you laugh and help you put things in perspective. Perhaps it’s a former coach or teacher who reminded you that “you can do this!”

You know….a friend. Someone to whom we are bound not by duty or obligation but by a shared desire to be accepted unconditionally; who stays with us not because they have to but because they want to; who embraces us, warts and all; who listens and hears us. There is something spiritually serendipitous about these kinds of friendship. They are gifts. Yes, sometimes we take them for granted. But that’s another thing a good friend offers us: forgiveness.

So today, be a good friend. Reach out to a friend. Pray for your friends, for those friends are truly a gift from God.

And thanks, brothers (you know who you are), for being my friends.

You are loved,

Wayne

Dear Friends,

So this is what happened to me the other day. I was driving down Mahan Drive and slowed down to make a left-hand turn. A car comes up behind me, speeds up to pass me on my left, swerves to miss an oncoming car and careens across two lanes of traffic, hits the curb and comes to a stop. I pulled over to see if everyone was okay. A woman and her middle school daughter were shook up but seemed to be fine. I was sympathetic for a brief moment…then I saw the cell phones in their hands. I didn’t, but I wanted to say “What were you thinking?!! Were you paying any attention to what you were doing?! Pay attention lady and get off that phone!”

There is phrase for this common form of V.A.D.D (vehicular attention deficit disorder): It’s called “distracted driving” which makes it sound like just a petty annoyance or a harmless habit. However this kind of stupid, dangerous driving is more and more common on our roads today. Have you noticed? Look around you when you’re at a stop light and notice how many drivers are looking down to send or read a text, or have the phone up to their ear blabbing away.

Yes, I too am guilty. Most of us are these days as we drive along. We just can’t seem to let go of our cell phones in the car even for a moment. We drive cars now that contribute to that distraction. My Hyundai Sonata has bluetooth that can send and receive phone calls and texts, although most of the time all I do is yell at my dashboard. This would be funny if it weren’t so deadly.

According to a website that tracks such sobering statistics, I read that in 2013 distracted driving killed 3,154 people in the U.S, and injured another 424,000. At any given moment 660,000 drivers are driving distracted. Five seconds with your head down reading that text or email or Facebook and, at 55 miles per hour, you’ve traveled the length of a football field without paying any attention.

We all love our phones. (In fact, I’m anxiously waiting for my new IPhone 6s Plus!). They are convenient and fun and satisfy our need for stimulation. They connect us instantly and most of us can’t imagine life without them anymore. Yet this addiction to screen time is killing our ability to pay attention. Not just behind the wheel but in the rest of life as well. There was a study back in May of 2015 by the Microsoft Corporation that found that we wired human beings have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. (Who DOES these studies…and WHY??) Anyway, they found that we wired homo sapiens pay attention for just eight seconds on average while our finned friends clock in at nine seconds.

So before you pick up your phone to check your email or send a text or answer a call while flying down the road, imagine this: Your split second addiction to staying connected could kill someone or injure yourself or a loved one or friend for life. It could kill you in a heartbeat. Is it really worth that risk?

So please. When you are behind the wheel just pay attention!

Sorry for the rant but that’s what’s on the rev’s mind today.

You are loved,

Wayne

Dear Friends,

When I was up in Michigan last week I went into a Best Buy store to look for a flat-screen television for my in-laws. It was crowded that day and I was watching this father who had a small child in his shopping cart. Apparently dad was looking for a new computer. The toddler wasn’t getting his dad’s full attention so, in obvious frustration, he reached up and grabbed his dad’s face in both hands, looked him in the eye, and said “Listen to me, daddy!!”

Don’t you feel like doing that sometimes when you realize the person you are talking to really isn’t listening to you? You want to grab their face with both hands, look them in the eye, and say “Hey! Listen to me!”

The problem is that we’re all guilty of being that non-listener. The other day I was halfway in a conversation with a new friend when I found my eyes wandering.

“What’s going on over there?”

“Is there someone else I need to talk to?”

“I wonder what they are talking about over there?”

“ I can’t wait to talk to that other person.”

Whether we’re an extrovert or an introvert we all do it. I can be having a full blown conversation with someone and suddenly realize I have no idea what either of us said for the past few minutes. The thing is, when we aren’t really paying attention when someone is talking, they can tell. And it is so hurtful and diminishing. It’s so subtle, but I think how we respond to individual conversations in a big crowd is sometimes a great indication of whether we are leaning toward selfishness or selflessness. Most of us walk into huge rooms with one agenda…ME.

“Who will notice me?”

“Who said hi to me?”

“Who’s listening to me?”

“Who noticed my tie? My hair? My voice?”

“Who noticed I wasn’t here last week?”

I suppose I understand why it’s hard for us to focus on anyone when we come in pre-loaded with those expectations. I get it. But just imagine what would happen if we flipped the scripts? What if we actually looked people in the eye? Like we cared. What if we listened with our eyes? Nodded. Engaged. Asked questions. What if we came into a room and asked….

“Who can I notice?”

“Who can I say hi to?”

“Who can I listen to?”

“Who’s outfit can I compliment?”

“Who wasn’t’ here tonight?”

What would happen if we did that? I’ll tell you what would happen. We would be love. We would change someone’s life. And I’m not saying that to be dramatic. It’s true. If people walked away from talking to you feeling more loved than they did right before they talked to you, you would be a world changer.

Want to change the world? Well, here’s a great place to start. Next time you talk to someone in a room full of people, look at them and actually listen. It’s not flashy and you won’t get a trophy or gold star, but you very well could be that little nudge that someone has been waiting for. You could change the world.

So change someonemin your world today.

You are loved,

Wayne

PS: Confession: I suspect my dear wife will hang this “From the Rev” on the refrigerator door as a subtle reminder to ‘practice what you preach.’

Dear Friends,

Beth and I are heading up to Michigan tomorrow to celebrate hand honor her parents 90th Birthday’s. 90th!!

The amount of history and change they have witnessed during this time is mind-boggling to me. Nine decades of history:

• In the 20’s…the Stock Market crash
• In the 30’s…the Great Depression
• In the 40’s…World War II
• In the 50’s…Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus
• In the 60’s…First man on the moon
• In the 70’s…US President Nixon resigns
• In the 80’s…Berlin Wall falls
• In the 90’s…the Columbine Massacre
• In the 00’s…9/11
• In the 10’s…Japan earthquake and tsunami

Major events all of them. But even more significantly, across those decades a young couple named Al and Millie grew up, fell in love, got married, worked hard and raised six children. Each new year brought laughter and tears, joys and sorrows. And 90 years later family and friends gather together to celebrate two remarkable people who have touched so many lives.

One of the greatest blessings I gained through my marriage to Beth is that I inherited Al and Millie as my father and mother in law.

There is a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson called “Success” where he identifies several items which he contributes to having lead a successful life. At the end he states:

“To know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

My life has breathed easier because of you, Mom and Dad Ferk. Thank you! Happy Birthday!

I came across an article a few days ago entitled “How to Stay Young.” I’m not sure who the author is. It has often, wrongfully, been attributed to George Carlin. As I read through the list I thought of Mom and Dad.

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.
2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person , who is with us our entire lives, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don’t take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

May you have many breathless moments!

You are loved,
Wayne

Dear Friends,
Fourteen years ago this coming Friday. Where were you? Many will ask that question and we will remember like it was yesterday where we were, what we were doing, and the emotions we felt when we first got the news on September 11, 2001. We remember it personally: “I was going to work and it came on the radio.” “My wife called me and told me to turn on the television.” “Everyone’s cell phone started ringing in my office.” “My daughter was on a business trip and I just needed to hear her voice and know she was okay.”

We remember it collectively, together. Common memories like this are rare and happen only once in a generation, if at all: The attack on Pearl Harbor. The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was struck down. When the Challenger exploded. Some common memories are joyous: When the war finally ended. When we saw the first man land on the moon.

In the act of remembering we make choices about how those memories are understood and then shape us. We make choices about what we will hold on to from the past and what we will let go of. So, fourteen years later, what will we remember? What do we want to hold on to and never, ever forget and what do we want to let go of and leave behind?

I want to remember the unity we felt as a nation. In the days following 9/11 I felt more American than I ever have. Not in some triumphant way, but in sympathy and love. Why does it take a crisis like 9/11 to create such an atmosphere of mutual care and dependence on one another? Do you remember how everyone wanted to help in some way? Do you remember the millions who gave blood and donated supplies? Do you remember the thousands of first responders who came from all over the country to assist in the rescue effort? Do you remember how churches were packed with people praying? Do you remember the stories that made us cheer and weep of firefighters rushing into the burning towers to save as many as they could? “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Let us remember those things.

But there are some things I want to forget. I want to forget how afraid we were…and still are. A pervasive collective fear that can bring out the worst of human behavior; fear based on suspicion which still drives some Americans to stereotype, malign, even attack Muslims or anyone who doesn’t look or pray or act like “us”. I want to forget the ugly side of religion which appeared on 9/11…a fundamentalist brand of religion which insists upon a very narrow and cruel image of God. Let us forget those things.

On a bright and beautiful blue sky, some 5,110 days ago, 9/11 happened. Do you remember? What will we finally learn from it? Has it changed us for the better or for the worst? I don’t think we can fully answer those questions yet. But this we can do: remember and forget. Let us remember and honor the dead and the lost and the real heroes of that horrible day and how united we were. Let us forget the ways 9/11 has made us a more frightened people.

Memories can save us and memories can condemn us. The choice is ours.

You are loved,

Wayne