Thinking about dying

He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. (Revelation 21:4)

I had a heart attack this past week, as some of you know. I figured that with the cancer and Ella’s ITP, there was some free time, so I grabbed at the chance to use it destructively.

As someone asked once in another context, what brings you to the hospital? Reply: The ambulance. (ba dum dum) I am so funny. I’ll be here all week.

But anyway, I had a 90% blockage in one part of my heart. It may not have killed me, but I think it came close. The doctor went in with a cath and put in a stent. It is to match the one in my esophagus for the esophageal cancer.  Nothing worse than having a mismatched set. The other side of my heart had a 70% blockage, but he thought we could work with it.

While I was in the ambulance, I was thinking about dying. I felt I was in the valley of the shadow of death and I have always wondered what I would do there.

What I did was I praised God and thanked him for my life. I also asked him to spare me because I know Ella needs me. But the funny thing (funny in a relative sense) was that I was not afraid. I have trouble getting over that. It is not that I am such a spiritual giant or anything. But I have a relationship with my Lord.

That relationship is real. I may die – and we all will sooner or later – but even though I die, he is still my Lord. And I really believe he spared me because Ella needs me. My leaving would have been bad for her, so I stay.

That may be baloney, or whatever else, but I believe it. And I also believe that I am ready for Jesus to come and take us. However he comes, whether the believers first or everybody at the same time or what, I am ready. And I tell you too, that it is not a requirement on God’s part that we believe strongly in anyone of the philosophies of his second coming. It doesn’t matter how he comes. The point is, he will come one day and there will be no second chance.

And there is a peace in knowing that you are ready. It is a peace that I have felt so strongly the past few days, one like none I have ever had before. And I have had some interesting encounters with God in my life. This one, however, is different.

The old preachers at the Gospel Meetings (Churches of Christ had Gospel Meetings; Baptists had Revivals) always asked in their tearful invitations at the end of their sermons, “Are ready, brother? Are you ready, sister? Are you ready for Jesus to come again?”

And, at the risk of overextending the whole thing, I am. I also do not believe you can overextend it, actually, now that I think about it. God said so, and I believe it. It is that simple.

And then we go to that place where there is no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. We will be in the presence of God, full of praise and joy. What will we do there? Who cares? I just want to be there.

Join me. Give the Lord your full love and your full devotion. That is all he asks of you. He doesn’t ask great and miraculous things from you. Just that you love him as he loves you.

Do it. And you too will be ready.

daily java

Daily Java:

On the way, Jesus told them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say,
   ‘God will strike the Shepherd,
        and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.” Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same. (Matthew 26:32-35)

Peter was telling the truth. He was ready to die for Jesus. And would do so at that very moment or later or whenever Jesus asked him to.

The problem was, Jesus didn’t ask him to die for him. He asked him to live for him. There is a pile of difference between the two. Dying for Jesus requires a moment’s massive sacrifice, a one-time thing. Living requires a long-term commitment. And that is hard.

It also hurt Peter that Jesus would question his manhood, his commitment, his courage, his very loyalty by saying that he would run away. And Jesus knew this. It surely didn’t take divine knowledge to know it. Peter loved Jesus and would do anything he asked. He viewed himself as strong and courageous, firm to the end, he and Jesus standing side by side fighting for the Kingdom of God.

But these moments, or the ones coming soon, were why Jesus had come in the first place. He had come to sacrifice himself, to die, to be nailed to that cross. And he knew why Peter was so upset.

He didn’t even try to convince Peter any further. He knew that it would do no good and would just precipitate an argument. He just turned and led his disciples to the Mount of Olives for the final earthly act of his life. Peter would find out soon enough, and it would shake him to his very core. It would destroy all the bravado, all the self-image the strong man had built up through the years. He would find out that when it came down to it, he would run. And it was not because he was so stupid, or goofy, or yellow. He ran because he didn’t know what else to do. He was baffled.

The fight came just like he thought. He drew his sword and lopped off the ear of one of the attackers. Jesus looked at him and said, “Stop it. Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” Then he picked up the ear and put it back on the man.

It took all the wind out of Peter’s sails. He stood, stupefied, and looked around. Then he dropped his sword and ran, just like everyone else. Chances are they all were ready to fight. But Jesus didn’t want them to die. He wanted them to live to bring his gospel to the world.

Peter was the one who gave the first recorded gospel sermon in Acts 2. Peter was the one who opened the door for non-Jews to come into the Kingdom when he went and saw Cornelius in Acts 10. Peter was the one who had such a prominent position in the early church. He did not need to die, and Jesus knew it. He needed to live.

When it came time to die, he did it boldly and without visible fear. We don’t know how he died, but church tradition says that he was crucified upside down in Rome. Maybe, maybe not. The Bible does not speak to it.

But I would imagine he always felt he was living on borrowed time all the rest of his life. He should have died on that hill with Jesus. Instead, it was several decades later before he finally did.

We do not know what we will do until it happens. We may be brave, we may not. The only way we know is when we wake up on the other side of eternity and then it will be a little hard to brag about.

We try our best to do what God wants and we live our lives in as much courage as we can. And we let God take care of the rest. That is all we can do and that is what we trust him to do.

Peter was a great man, no one better, and Jesus knew it. All he needed was a taste of his own mortality. When he got that, he was much the better as an apostle and as an emissary to God.

The same goes for us. Trust and do what you can and let God take care of the end.

daily java

Daily Java:

I have been reduced to skin and bones and have escaped death by the skin of my teeth. (Job 19:20)

I have lost almost 110 pounds in the past four months, and my wife is scared.

It has been from the cancer and related issues, but at the same time, I am having trouble eating. And the more trouble I have eating, the worse the problem seems to get.

Ella says that she sees me dying before my eyes and is frightened.

I understand her problem. But, of course, she does what she has always done when faced with a situation like this: she begins to hector me, to almost nag at me. It is a voice and tone of voice that I dislike intensely. She knows that I do, bu tin situations like this, she almost becomes helpless in the face of how she feels.

She also knowns that it does absolutely no good, yet she cannot seem to leave that approach behind. She really does not know what to do.

She is scared for me, because she says she sees me, her husband, her lover, her friend, her caretaker – dying before her eyes.

And it is true to an extent. I cannot afford to lose much more weight before it begins to harm me. I even wonder if the heart attack last Tuesday was brought on by the stress of all that weight loss. I have read that anorexia brings on heart problems because of the stress, and I am beginning to approach anorexia territory.

It is a bad thing and I do not know what to do. I need to eat and I want to eat. On one hand. On the other, I am absolutely not hungry and have no desire to eat.

I mean, I look at the food, even sometimes lust after it, but after a bite or two, I am absolutely without any desire to eat.

I always admired those people who could do that. You know, just eat a little and then stop. I always wanted to just have a small amount of food and then push their plates away. I always admired that and wished I was like that, too.

It is a real conundrum. I know that the only answer is that I have to start eating or I will die of starvation. But I do not want to eat. And on top of it all, the Ensure drinks that I have had recommended to me by the medical people I talk to are all sweet. They taste either vanilla or chocolate variations and I really do not like them. I get really tired of sweet things and especially here lately. I suppose the lack of eating intensifies stuff and anytime I drink or eat a sewet thing it is like a sugar bomb. I do not like it.

I did discover beef broth today and it was good. But it is mostly meat and salt so I am not sure what its value really is. I do take vitamins in a fairly high quantity so I am not really concerned about that.

But I am concerned, for the first time in my entire life, over getting enough to eat. I am starving to death in a house with enough food to feed several hundred people. And it is all stuff I like: cheese, meat, sauces, lost of bacon. I could eat (and I did six months ago) like a king. But I starve like a pauper.

And I am tired of it. After looking at the pictures at the WinterFest 2013 last Saturday night, I look like a refugee from a middle eastern POW camp, gaunt, thin, haggard. And, of course, my brilliant idea of cutting my hair into a burr was not a ogod one.

I am going to ask the nurses Wednesday about this when I go for my weekly chemo check-up.  I may even ask the pharmacist tomorrow when I go to WalMart. They will probably mention the Ensure and the like and I already know that.

I have to get to the root of the problem.

I suppose that no eating shares a common root with eating too much, but it is the weird side of the equation. I have never had this problem.

I have to figure out how to begin to eat again, how to gain my appetite back, how to gain some weight. It is a very real problem and I have to get a handle on it.

It is not so easy to just sit down and say, “Now, self, we need to eat. So eat this and this and this.”

No. Start that gag reflex (and I never know what’s going to key it off) and I am through immediately. No further desire to eat and I will throw up on the table if I do.

Father God, bless me somehow with the ability to eat. Help me find an appetite. Ella and I are scared and need to find an answer so that I will not die. For myself, I do not mind. I am ready to go be with you and am quite tired. But Ella needs me. Help me, please, Lord. Give me the appetite to gain some of my weight back. Give me your presence and your power and touch me with healing. Help me eat. In Jesus name, the Bread of Life, amen.

daily java

Daily Java:

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage! I am here!” Then he climbed into the boat, and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed, for they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in. (Mark 6:50-52)

It was rough being an apostle. Of course, you had the great points of daily contact with the Master, getting to talk to him and ask him questions one on one, something most of his disciples didn’t have. You got to be there and participate in the miracles he performed. It was a great job on one hand.

On the other hand, it was a hard job. They were constantly having to stretch themselves into what Jesus wanted them to be. and they were conflicted.

They saw him feed 5000 men with just a handful of food, yet they were afraid they would have to do without. They had watched him heal people, yet they were afraid they would be hurt.

And it wasn’t meanness or stupidity on their parts. Mark said that their hearts were too hard to take it in. That didn’t mean that they didn’t want to believe. It meant they just had not been around long enough with this radical preacher and his radical message to truly be able to assimilate it. Their hearts were not flexible enough would be a better translation.

In this passage, they are in a storm on the Sea of Galilee. They feel like they are about to die. Jesus will be without his apostles, their families will be without the husbands and fathers, they will die. What will they do? Help!!

But Jesus came along walking on the water and stopped the storm. Sounds simple when put like that, but it is what happened. The apostles were amazed, and it says they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. It had been too short a time. They could not understand yet that Jesus said he would take care of them and provide whatever they needed, even shelter from a storm. He had a job for them and was not anywhere near ready to let them go it alone.

It was just too hard for them to take all this phenomena in. Their hearts were not flexible enough to wrap around this. It was just too great for them to understand.

So they flapped along day by day, baffled much of the time, worried that Jesus might be mad at them for not understanding, trying their level best to do so. And really, for the most part, succeeding.

But it didn’t really dawn on them. They could not yet grasp all of these lessons gleaned over three and a half years or so. It took the presence of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to sort it out for them.

Imagine if you were in this same situation. We look at them through the prism of 2000 years of theological study and meditation. They saw it for the first time. What if your failures like this were written up in the Bible for billions of people to read about for thousands of years? It is like that in other areas too.

I remember talking to people who saw their first car when they were teenagers. I also talked to people who marveled at electricity. Most of us can remember when computers came out and they were scary little dudes to most people. They still are and I am pretty good at them, but I do not understand them.

They accepted these things, but just could not understand them.

But they tried. And there was the key. Only one – Judas – didn’t make it through. Which goes to show you that you can sit at the feet of Jesus for three and a half years and still be lost. It never penetrated from acceptance to belief in Judas’ mind and heart. He had his mind other places.

Sooner or later, they understood and then began to take these personal experiences and were able to build others’ faith, too.

But, as I said, it took the Holy Spirit to do it. They could not do it themselves. And neither can you. There is no real understanding of the word of God, written, spoken, indwelling or anything else, without the Holy Spirit to guide you and make your heart soft enough to wrap around his miracles and his power.

That is the only way you will ever learn.

daily java

Daily Java:

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. (1 John 4:18)

I am back! I almost died Tuesday. If I didn’t, then I was awfully close.

We were going for one of our interminable doctor’s visits to Wichita. Not far from home, my chest began to hurt badly. I figured that since I was going to the VA anyway, I would just go ahead and drive there. It was only two hours and if I could keep going, I would be fine.

It got worse, so I stopped in a convenience store in Howard, our county seat, 25 miles from home. I had already popped three nitroglycerines, so I bought 2 aspirins and crunched them. The other day this worked to stave off the pain.

It still got worse. By now Ella was worried and I decided to go into Howard and find the EMT’s and let them take me.

The VA turned me down, even though I have VA access. It seemed they do not have a heart specialist, so they sent me to St Francis, another hospital in Wichita (and probably a better one).

They had done a few things to calm the situation down and I was probably out of immediate danger so that they could operate on Wednesday afternoon.

As it turned out, I had a 90% block and a 70% block in my heart. They installed a stent through a heart cath in the femoral artery into the 90% artery. The operation was a success, except for the fact that all during the surgery it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. And I remember hollering. I usually do not holler, but I suppose the drugs weakened my holler resistance.

After sixteen horrible hours where I had to lie on my back (I am not a back lier (lyer? liar? –I was not lying, although I was lying – interesting) so it went long and slow.  I finally got to get up and came home Thursday.

It made it worse by the fact that Wichita got the most snow it had ever gotten at this time of year, but some great and wonderful new friends came in their four wheel drive Titan and took me home.

I have never been so happy as to see my home, my chair, my bed, Facebook with 8,326 messages telling me to get well. The latter was overwhelming, I don’t mind telling you.

And I am back.

My time here in Longton has been a hard tenure, even though it has only been about four months. It feel like a year or five. I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, lost over 100 pounds in those four months, I have just about lost my booming voice. Ella got ITP, a blood platelet disease. This was in addition to the fact that she never quite got over the move physically.

Quite a lot to give a church with her new minister. Not really a bargain. But they have rallied around us and loved us and helped us and done so much for us. I really do not understand it. And as I told them at one point, I know churches that would have cut a minister loose because it was really an unfair thing to happen to them. But they loved us and helped.

And I love them more than they could possibly know. I would do anything for them and do not mind telling them.

But another thing that came from this weekend. My own response to impending death.

I praised God and was not afraid. That alone amazes me. I always wondered how I would do.

As the apostle Paul mentioned I am not afraid to die. And now I know it. But as he also said, it is better for me to stay here.

But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. (Philippians 1:22-24)

I was ready and I and God knew it. But, on the other hand – and there is always an other hand – Ella needed me. I am her common draft animal and caretaker. She could get along without me, but it would be very difficult. Not to mention the grief that I know I would feel in the same situation of losing a life-long lover.

So I am back. And this I promise. I will be a better minister, a better father, a better son and I will be a better husband to my love (not necessarily in that order). And I will be a better follower of Jesus, my Lord and Savior.

And the point of it all, the scripture and my epiphany and all? It’s easy.

When you love God and you know God loves you, there is no need to be afraid. Even though you face death, there is no need to be afraid. Life is not all there is when you are in Jesus and when you have hold of his marvelous grace.

Even though you face death, you can still thank God and praise him. And when you are in him, and you die, it is not punishment you go toward, but reward, standing in the presence of your God, the Lord Almighty.

What a shame to live life so full of fear of death, full of fear of punishment, just full of fear. He is your God and he is greater than any fear you might have.

I will not be afraid. And I will love life and God and Ella and my church and the Church Universal and anybody else I can stick in front of me to acknowledge and love.

Praise his blessed name.

daily java: listening to Jesus

Daily Java:

Then he [Jesus] added, “Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mark 4:24-25)

I am really bad at not listening sometimes. We are in the store and I am looking at something. Ella says she is going and will be in the blahblahblah department. I say fine and continue to look. Then I start to go where she is, but where is it? The blahblahblah department is – what? So in pre-cell phone times, I had to go looking for her. Now I have to call her and she will be three aisles over. It is kind of silly.

I didn’t listen.

You tell the kids what you want them to do and they say yes, all if fine. Then it is not done and sometimes that is a very bad thing.

They didn’t listen.

Someone tells you how to get to their house but you don’t really listen. Someone gives you instructions on how to put something together, but – you get the picture.

We are not able to do many times because we didn’t listen. It is not that we are stupid or bad people. It is just that there are a lot of things going on in our minds. We are thinking about other stuff and sometimes it just gets shuffled around and lost.

However, if it is something vital and we know it, we listen intently and follow the instructions to a T. We want to do it right.

Jesus said the same thing: if you listen, you will learn. And the closer you listen, the attention you pay to it all, the more you will learn. If you listen with half an ear, you will be rewarded with minimal information and will not get the job done.

He said that those who listen will have more understanding. And the closer you listen, the more even then that you will understand.

But how do you listen. Jesus is not talking aloud to us as such today. But he does have all his teaching available to us in his word. When we read it and when we think about it and when we dwell on it, it will penetrate into our hearts and we will have more understanding.

And it is more than just reading. It is the meditation, the prayer for understanding, the dwelling upon it. It is not the memorization of the scriptures. That memorization without meditation is worthless. All you have is raw materials. It would be like buying an entire houseful of furniture and not putting it together. All you have is raw materials. You cannot live in it or sit in it or anything. It is nothing but potential.

Listen to him. As Jesus said in another passage:

Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash. (Matthew 7:24-27).

If you listen to him, he will give you understanding.

i am fast becoming anorexic and i do not know why

I cannot eat for sighing; my groans pour out like water. (Job 3:24)

I am fast becoming anorexic. I have eaten so little that it is amazing I am still alive.

Now anorexic is one word that I never dreamed would be applied to me. It is one of those things that happen to other people. But here I find myself in that situation: if I do not figure out how to start eating again, I will starve to death.

I am not sure why I am in this situation. It isn’t like so many of the web-sites say, a matter of low self-esteem and fear of being fat. I never have liked being fat, but I have also never tried to address it by not eating.

My anorexia stems from the cancer somehow. For a couple of months I could not eat because the cancer was blocking my esophagus and nothing would go through then when it was fixed temporarily with the stent, the heartburn was magnificent and I had trouble there. It kind of evolved into anorexia. I never wanted it.

Oh, sure, it was fun at first seeing the weight go away. I have always wanted to be one of those people who just didn’t eat much. I have always wanted that thin aristocratic look, tall and slim. But, not enough to work toward it. What I wanted was for the food to just not look good after a certain amount of time so I could quit eating.

But whatever the reasons I came into this, I am tired of it and want it to be through so I can eat again. I have lost almost 100 pounds. There are parts of my body that look almost skeletal. I still have enough fat on me that I do not look skeletal all over, but there are visible bones now. When I lie on my side, my rib cage and hip bones are prominent. I have no rear end padding. The toilet seat hurts.

My skin is beginning to hang. My muscles are gone completely, or as near as can be. My legs have no padding at the knees so when I lie on my side, they are bone on bone now. My shoulders are bony. If it were not for the fact that I have shoulders that are wider, I would look horrible.

Dressed I look fine. But people who have only known me for a couple of months are commenting on the fact that I am losing so much weight. They see it in this short a time.

I am tired of losing weight. I sure never thought I would ever say anything like that, for sure. I am at a point now that I could be happy, but as it is I will continue to lose weight and could lose another 30 pounds if I were not careful and cannot get to eating again.

Weird problem for a fat guy, losing too much weight. If I could just eat.

daily java

Daily Java: 

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Several things have happened this past week. Some are things of relief, some are things that I am just glad to get over with.

One thing I was glad to get over with was that my wife finally bought a purse. To a husband, the subject of your wife’s purse is one that is kind of double-sided. She searches and searches, and can never find the right one.

Looking for a purse for your wife, or rather standing around while she looks for a purse is horrible. If you try to help, you are reminded that you are not carrying the purse. She is. Which is true. It would be a cold day in South Texas in July that I would carry a purse.

But we looked everywhere. The malls, WalMart, Target, all the discount department stores, street corner vendors, everywhere. And I found out some terrible things.

One was that most purses are ugly, multi-colored things and can be the size of a automobile trunk. Another is that purses are expensive. Some people pay up to four and five hundred dollars for a purse! I was aghast.

Ella looked and looked and finally found what she wanted, but in another couple of years, she will have to do it again. After all, the purse will wear out. And I will again traipse around after her scooter like some big, stupid looking lummox, offering whatever suggestion is demanded of me.

The other was better, if you could say that curing cancer is better than looking for a purse. Next Tuesday I begin my chemo-therapy in Wichita at the VA. It will be a four hour process, but the best thing about it is that it will have begun. Waiting is a terrible thing.

And it is interesting at the number of people in this church who have gone through chemo-therapy. They are eager to help and give me aid and just minister to the minister. For that I am grateful. Longton church has made room in their lives for a physically damaged minister and I am thankful for the gift God has given me.

Some churches would have terminated the relationship because of the time involved. But it seems that Longton has embraced it. Thank you, Lord.

My van had a problem this week but fortunately it is not as bad as I initially thought. And of course, I have lost tons of weight. 60 pounds to be exact. Since I now eat tiny little portions of food, I suppose I will continue, but that is an upside to the downside of the cancer.

And the cancer will not get us down. To paraphrase the three Hebrew men in Daniel 3, God will deliver me. And even if he does not deliver me, I still will not turn from him. He is my God and I will ever serve him.

God continues to bless and watch over us here and we thank him.

God bless you and keep you in his glorious name.

daily java

Daily Java:

I am suffering and in pain. Rescue me, O God, by your saving power. (Psalm 69:29).

I have been in pain for rte past several days. It doesn’t seem to matter how much of my drug supply I take, I am still in pain. Today, I even went so far as to take double my morphine. It dulled it somewhat, but it has not gone away.

The cancer I have is in a place that is hard to control. It is in the esophagus where it meets the stomach. You can feel it in front of your stomach and touch it with your hand.

Sundays when I play my guitar, the guitar lies on it and it hurts.  It just seems to hurt all the time. And it takes my mind from what I want to be thinking about and puts its on the cancer.

It makes me tired in general, and when I finally get enough medicine to take it away a little, it makes me feel drugged and sleepy.

But the pain has surprised me. I read about people in pain and never knew what it would be like in a lifestyle situation. It is hard to overcome. It is constant and always present. You find yourself holding that part of your body with you hand, even though it does no good.

I determined at the beginning that I have the cancer, the cancer does not have me, but it has been harder than I thought.

I pray to God for strength and power, but I do not seem to have any right now. I have been asleep all morning from the morphine and I do not like that.

The hyper weight loss has bothered me a lot. I cannot seem to be able to eat. And the result of the weight loss is strong. When I lie on my side in the bed, I can feel the strong and sharp points  of my ribs and the hard bone of my pelvis. My skin hangs from my bones. I look truly wasted when undressed.

Dressed, of course, I look all right. But clothes do hide a multitude of sins.

And there is the nagging hunger. I thought for a while that it was all my cancer that was hurting. But I have figured that it may be hunger pangs. I am starving and cannot seem to eat. I fear that I will be come anorexic and not be able to eat again as a normal person.

The hair falling out I can deal with. It is, after all, only hair and I will grow back. I have had a burr before and can again with no real problem.

I just do not like being helpless in the face of all this. But I am. And whether I like it or not, it really does not matter, God has allowed me to go through this, and so I do. I just hope I make a better witness at the end than now.

balancing your life

Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. The disciples were indignant when they saw this. “What a waste!” they said. “It could have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, replied, “Why criticize this woman for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. She has poured this perfume on me to prepare my body for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.” (Matthew 26:6-13)

People rarely care about what they talking about when this kind of thing comes up. And almost always, they throw up a seemingly good thing to hide the real objective.

The woman, when it came down to it, wasted the perfume on Jesus. She could have done a lot with it, including selling it and giving the money to the poor.

The disciples, who I would imagine were led by Judas (no evidence to support this, but that was the way he operated), were mad that she had thrown this away on this simple man. They knew – or at least they thought they knew – that Jesus would not care whether or not someone gave him a really big and expensive sacrifice. They could have used a dollar bottle of Suave body lotion for all he cared. And that was true. He didn’t need fancy stuff.

But when someone gave it to him, he took it. The Bible mentions a coat of no seams, a fairly expensive garment, that someone had painstakingly made for Jesus to wear. When they gave it to him, he took it and he wore it, clear up to the end of his life. It probably felt good and he liked it.

It also mentions in several places that some prominent people supported him and his men in their ministry. At one point, they had almost a year’s wages for a working man just sitting there in their treasury. They were not starving.

But Jesus didn’t care. When he said that foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head (Luke 9:58), he didn’t mean he was dirt-poor. He meant that he had no attachments to things. He owned no property,  he had no material investments or anything like that. He was removed from the world in that sense.

He was the kind of guy that would accept a custom tailored suit from someone as a gift and a WalMart tie from another. It didn’t matter to him.

However, it did to others. They were trying their best to look holy for the Master and for those who were sitting around. And I would imagine that the conversation was started by a comment from someone, someone else joined in and before long, the woman’s grateful sacrifice looked like a wasteful exploitation of the poor.

Jesus was very quick to step in and tell his disciples, “Shut up.” He said they would always have the poor but they would not always have him. Was it really such a big deal that she gave this to him? In fact, he said, her sacrifice will always be remembered. And what do you know? There it is in Matthew 26 in the Bible for all the world to read and think about.

Jesus says that there comes a point where the poor are not always the focus of every conversation. You are always going to have poor people. If you hamstring your life by trying to keep them from being poor, or impoverish yourself or your soul by doing without things that make you simply happy, then you have hurt yourself.

The poor can be demanding. They are always there, always looking for a handout or help or whatever. Jesus said that sooner or later, you have to go on with your life.

Yes, you want to help the poor. No, you do not want to ignore them. But, on the other hand, you cannot make them the central part of your life or you will go nowhere.

There is a scene in Jesus Christ: Superstar that always stuck with me. Jesus is healing lepers and after a few minutes becomes inundated with lepers. They are everywhere and he has to run from them.

That happens to all of us sooner or later. We begin to realize that in the eternal scheme of things, we will do no good in curing poverty. All we can is what we ourselves can do. We can stand before God and he will know we did what we can.

But immersing ourselves in the poor at the risk of our own lives will be fruitless.

Sometimes you have to buy new clothes, another car, some furniture. When you do you want good stuff so it will not wear out. But when you buy these things (and we are not talking about foolish amounts of money) you are not stealing from the poor. You are just doing something good.

The key is to balance your life and do what you can when you do it.

daily java

Daily Java:

And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. (Matthew 10:30)

Well, it is official. After this second chemo-therapy I am losing my hair.

I took my shower Wednesday night and after drying my hair, the towel was full of free-range follicles. In fact, not only the towel, but also the tub and later, my hair brush.

About a year ago, I began to grow my hair out longer. I have had a burr for a long time, but I thought I would try longer hair. Maybe relive my hippy days when I had a lot of hair. In the interim, I have had two small haircuts to make it grow in the direction I wanted, but it is still basically getting longer and longer. I liked it.

I have always been kind of vain about my hair, I guess. My hair was always thick and full and wavy and dark brown with auburn tints. It would even go into an afro if I really wanted it to. In fact it would do most anything but the beach boy look that I was desperate for back in the 1960’s. It was unique hair and it was always big.

It started thinning a couple of years ago, but never has gone away like my father or my maternal grandfather. I figured it would, but it didn’t. So I sat back in my ease and said “Grow, wave and be long.”

Then the cancer and the chemo-therapy. I have been told that the second one is the one that will kill your hair. And sure enough. Bang. Not a big BANG! mind you, but just a whimper. One minute luxurious tresses, the next a handful of hair.

It is no real problem for me though, much as I may whine. I can get a burr and look like half the guys on the street (more handsome, of course). So in the next week I shall.

And the hair falls. Since my mustache will probably drop hairs too, I am going to end up hairless. A long, thin, skeleton. (BTW, I have lost 85 official pounds since I came here in November).

With the hair gone, and the extreme weight loss, I would imagine my own mother would not recognize me, I look that different.

And every time I look in the mirror, I see a different person than I have ever known, thinner, with cheekbones (I have never had visible cheekbones). My eyes look bigger. It is a bit startling.

I thought of people I have known who have come into contact with the grace of God with such a dynamic power that it changed them completely. They were almost physically unrecognizable afterwards. It was that strong a change. You could see his power on them like you can see the tiredness of the cancer on me. And you could see them grow like you see me lose weight and hair.

But no matter how much weight I lose, or how much hair I lose, or how many wrinkles I have or anything else: God always recognizes me. And he does so to such an extent that he can look at me and say, Hey, Johnny! I think he probably calls me Johnny like all the people I knew before 1974. That was when I came into contact with him.

But at least, I make it easier. He doesn’t have to work nearly as hard to count my hair now.

daily java

Daily Java:

My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite. (Psalm 102:4)

Which makes for a lousy Valentine’s Day. It is the second day after my second chemo-therapy and I feel as if I could sit down in a corner, pull a cover over myself and weep silently.

That, of course, makes it hard to get into the spirit of Valentine’s Day with love and romance and really neat dinners of heart shaped ribeyes you make your wife. I do not feel like eating and in fact, feel that I will throw anything I eat up.

Ella made me my favorite cookies yesterday. White chocolate and macadamia oatmeal cookies. I love them. But I have eaten a half of one. And it went down hard.

In addition to all this, I completely forgot to get her a Valentine card of any kind. She had a beautiful one waiting for me this morning as well as a hand-written love note. From me: zilch.

My mind just isn’t working that well. All I want to do is sleep. In fact, yesterday, I slept probably 20 hours of the day maybe. I have already gotten in two or three hours today.

I always prided myself on being a romantic fellow, but this year I am a bomb.

I mean, she understands it and she understands me. She knows that I am having trouble. She sees it in me, and she hears about it from a lot of other people who have gone through it too.

But still, the reality of it is harder than the account from other people. And I hate it.

I mean, it is not something that will affect the course of our lives together. We have already gone through almost fifty Valentine’s Days anyway. So one bomb is not going to cause us to derail from the train tracks of life. But the problem is that it is this year, and I would like to have it better this year since everything is going so tentatively.

And when it comes down to it, it is conceivable that it could be my last. The whole thing could go wrong and the treatment could fail. As the doctor tells you, you could die from this.

And you could. Cancer is, after all, a terminal disease if not treated. And if it had not been found, I probably would have been gone within a couple of months just from the starvation and inability to get any fluids, even water, down my esophagus. Maybe they could have done intravenous feeding but still.

That sets a totally different picture of Valentine’s Day to me. I do not mind dying. Not really. If I do, I go to be with my God in a place where there is absolutely no pain nor suffering. But if I do that, I leave Ella and she needs me.

Yes, others could do for her what I do, but others could not love her like I do. So she would have the physical love, but she would not have the emotional and caring love that only I could give her.

Ah, well. We leave our lives to God and let him work out what is best for us. He did not send the sickness, the cancer, but he can use it in both our lives to his glory. I would like to see how he will.

For now, I depend on her to know how I feel and count on the fact that she loves me and will continue even though I flop an occasional Valentine’s Day. And I know she will. She loves me, as I love her.

daily java

Daily Java:

You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place — until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

There is a dark place inside me and it called cancer.

It is kind of interesting (in a sense that I would like to be a psychologist studying someone in these circumstances) the way I feel about it.

I decided when I was diagnosed with this esophageal cancer that I refused to let the cancer own me. I told my church and I have told others, especially over Facebook, that I had a peace and a  calm about it that surprised me. I always felt that would happen, but this is the first time that I got the chance to put it to into actual practice.

Yes, I have the cancer. Yes, if the treatment goes wrong I will die. Yes, it is extremely painful. Yes – other stuff. You know what I mean.

So I go on living, ministering, helping, doing all the things I need to do as a gospel preacher and minister of the word. So I kind of bury it underneath all the other emotions and feelings, and I just don’t pay any real attention to it.

Except that I do. Underneath all the regular living stuff, all the ministering and things, there is that dark place. And you can hear the dark place thrum, a soft, low, almost inaudible sound that says: “You have cancer and you are dying.” Soft, yet enormously authoritative.

It is like a constant, low, soft, but very real thrumming noise. It is like when you live near something that runs a machine all the time. After a while you do not really hear it, but every once in a while, it is made apparent. And if you pay attention to it, it will drive you crazy.

And it would not be hard at all for that voice to begin getting louder and more demanding. All of the things I usually think about will be there but the dark place will no longer be on bottom. It will begin to creep closer and closer to the surface. Sooner or later, it becomes one of the dominant themes of my life.

So I cannot let it. And if all I had was my life, I couldn’t deny it. It would be impossible. My life would be my number one priority.

But my life is not my number one priority. That lamp is. God is, and his kingdom and the things of the work he gives me are. And I do his will to the best of my ability. However, I cannot if that dark place becomes dominant.

So what do I do? I decided to let God have control and to remember his grace, not my own death, his number one priority. His presence, his grace, his love is that lamp shining in a dark place. That lamp, when turned on and given free rein in my life will kill that dark place. After all, the darkness of satan cannot live in the light of the wonderful grace of Jesus.

You have one, too, a dark place that threatens to overwhelm you. The key is to allow him to live in you, to shine out that unwelcome darkness.

Try it and see what happens when the light of God destroys the darkness.

daily java

Daily Java:

Your children will commit themselves to you, O Jerusalem, just as a young man commits himself to his bride. Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. (Isaiah 62:5)

When I was 21, it was a very good year, Frank Sinatra sang.

At age 21, I was in the army in Germany. In January, I came home to get married to Ella Lee Mochman. She was 19. We had our honeymoon in the Flagship Hotel in Galveston. It cost me $50, more than I could imagine (it was 1971).

After a week or so in the States, we went back to Darmstadt, Germany, and found an apartment. It was on the third story of a house (common arrangements in Europe) and overlooked a beautiful park attached to a Russian Orthodox church and a Russian University. It had three large windows and three tiny rooms, one of which was a substantial bathroom with an enormous tub. Ella would sit in the one in the main room, a room that was about 12X12 and held a table with a banquette and two chairs, some chests (Germans do not use closets) that held our food and such, and a tiny kitchen that would close up in a cupboard with a small refrigerator underneath.  The bedroom was big enough to hold a longer and narrower than usual bed. However, we were newlyweds and it bothered us none.

We had a red Volkswagen Beetle with a sunroof and traveled everywhere we could when I time off. It was fun and set us as a couple. Nothing makes your marriage more independent than being 5500 miles from your in-laws.

We saw castles and museums, walked n beautiful woods, ate what to us was exotic food (bratwurst mit brochen or sausage in a hard roll, french fries in a cone served with mayonnaise or tartar sauce, pastries of indescribable taste), and just about went broke. My paycheck was messed up twice and if we had not some extra from wedding presents, savings and the like, we would have been in trouble.

When I got out of the army, I went back to my old job of coin collection for Southwestern Bell Telephone, taking money out of pay phones. This was a job that was great, as you went everywhere. After all, in 1971, literally everyone had a pay phone in their store, bar, nightclub office building, etc.

Ella and I both grew our hair. Hers was in a gypsy shag cut that was beautiful. But then, I liked her a lot. Mine was the standard long hair with muttonchop sideburns and a long mustache. She had a 1968 Ford Galaxie 500. We loved just hanging around together.

We had a great time, living in a quadruplex apartment in Houston that was owned by an old family friend of Ella’s. Ella went back to work near the end of the year and went back to her old job at Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Corp in downtown Houston, just around the corner from the SWBT main skyscraper.

I had a massive wreck in October which should have killed me but barely scratched me when I flipped my step van end over end on the Gulf Freeway south of Houston.

We had our first Christmas together. We went shopping at Almeda Mall. We separated to buy each other’s gifts. I paid for them at the store which would hold them for me. She was miffed that I bought nothing. I had the day after Thanksgiving off although she didn’t. I went and retrieved them, had them wrapped and set them on an endtable in the living room (we had no tree up yet). When she came home it was a shock.

I loved her and she loved me and we, in many ways, remain on that honey moon that began when I was 21.

daily java

Daily Java:

These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death. (James 1:14-16)

There is cancer in my body, death growing in a body that I fully believed was dedicated to the cause of life.

Of course, simply because you have given yourself to God as his servant does not guarantee good health, no matter what tele-evangelists will try to tell you. God does not necessarily have a miracle waiting for you. Sometimes he has pain waiting for you.

Job, a good man in anybody’s book, had pain waiting for him, even though he was a life-long servant of God. God even bragged on his faithfulness and bragged on the fact that no matter what the devil would do to him, he would remain one.

It was an unfair contest that, if we did not have the book of Job would have really shown nothing. Sure, God showed the devil the truth, but the devil didn’t care. God could have shown him the truth every hour on the hour and he still would have no cared. Job got nothing out of it because God didn’t even tell Job why.

But Job remained.

Why do I have cancer. I have come to a church that is a good one and I truly believe that I will make a mark here, do something great for God and his kingdom. But here I sit, sick and in pain and tired beyond measure.

There are two others in the church here and another in like circumstances that are suffering for something like my cancer.

It does not matter what we do nor who spiritual we are, we are stuck in this present world and as such, are subject to pain and suffering just like all the heathen.

But I still wonder. I can kind of understand someone who had not given his life to the Lord maybe getting sick, although I suppose that sound self-serving. I guess I figured that if I gave my life to the Lord and did all within my power to be an effective minister, I would be fine.

But I am not. And not only am I not fine, my wife is suffering from two different problems, one of which could be life-threatening.

It is enough to make a man jump up on a box and start hollering at God. Why? What is the point? What is the purpose?

Of course, again in the book of Job, a guy did just that and God told him to be quiet. So he did and God was in control again of his life. Of course, God was always in control of his life, Job just figured that he could help. And he couldn’t. Not only could he not help, he was helpless in the face of it all. All he could do was stand and choose either life or death.

He chose life and in so doing gave us an example far greater than anything he could have done otherwise.

So what do I do. I sit here in pain, discomfort, depression to a point (although not as bad as I thought) and I decide to serve him anyway.

Puny little thing, my decision. Big fat deal, the devil says. He probably would consider me a masochistic little twerp, allowing a sadistic God to put me through all this and serving him anyway.

But, of course, I look at it differently. By my refusal to give in, I magnify God anyway in my life. Like the three Hebrew men in Daniel 3 said when they were about to be killed, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up. (Daniel 3:16-17)

It is an attitude that says, So what?! Even if I die I will die serving and praising God. Will I like it? No, only an idiot would like it. The apostles rejoiced in Acts 5 that they were counted worthy to suffer because of his name. But you know, they surely didn’t like it.

Even Job said that same basic thing: God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him. (Job 13:14-16). Even if he kills me, even if I die of this cancer, I will still praise.

I can always leave that attitude. And I plan to. I believe what the scripture above says. When we start questioning God and decide it isn’t worth it, it becomes sin and it gives birth to death.

I want to give birth to life. And will with my dying breath.