In the Land of Jason

           So its “been a minute” since my last posting. Just a few quick updates. I’ve started my pediatric and some of my women’s health practicums. Its been a huge shift and change from last quarter and a blessing that I’m certain I will more fully understand later. I’m getting the hours I need. Regarding my previous prayer requests, I did get my passport quickly. I’m still in the process of appling for the practicum in Guatemala but it looks very likely. Think it’ll be sometime April/May. Please keep it in my prayers.

So hear are some more prayers request…

        1. The people of and the workers in Haiti. Wow, need I saw anything else. www.Lifeline.org

        2. Pat Mahoney, a good friend from college, returned Tuesday to Equitorial Guinea as a Bible Translator. Pray specifically for his safety, readjustment, and that intern he hopes to have can get approved so that he can begin fundraising. www.oldtestamenttranslator.org

        3. My friends, the Toundas, that are raising funds to be linguistic resources in China and a light for The word. Contact me if you want more info or would like to support them. Because the work will be in China details here are intentionally vague.

         4. A guy in the church that has been going through some rough stuff with the mother of his children.

          5. My health-both spiritual and physical. I’m getting over a nasty cold.

       I reviewed my last couple of posting and though it’s a month after Christmas I’m still got some thing’s rolling around my head about it. In the last decade or so lots of reminders of “keeping Christ in Christmas”, “Jesus is the Reason for Season”, and most recently “Its OK to wish me Merry Christmas”. I remember how strongly I felt about that when I was much younger. I wanted it to be a religious holiday again. I wished people to embrace the joy that the coming of the Messiah means to the world. Still do….

        I’m not sure that folks even know what those slogans even mean anymore. Does keeping Christ in Christmas mean no Frosty, Santa, or Rudolph? Does it mean that we go to Christmas evening service? ?Orando hasta medionoche y cantando? “Jesus is the reason” for the season is a vague reminder of the religious origins of the shopping and traveling megaday. How do these phrases make people, both Christians and non-Christians, consider their relationship with God or how they ought to celebrate the holiday? If someone wasn’t a Christian what would these slogans mean to them? What pops into their head when they think about putting more Jesus into the holiday? Maybe images of candles, hymns, liturgy, mangers, sheep, and wisemen might wander across their mental topography. There is so much more to Jesus than just a weird story about a virgin, angels, smelly shepherds, and some Persians.

            We aren’t saved just to keep us out of hell. Children are born not to simply “not die”. Babies are born to live and grow. We do not eat strictly to avoid starvation. We eat for strength to enable us to do what needs to be done. We clean our homes not to avoid dirt but so that there is order and less illness. Mechanics fix cars so that they can get people places not just to undo a broken part. We are saved that we may know and live forever with our Maker. As I grow into whatever it is I’m meant to be, my perspective on what this means changes.

            I keep coming back to feeding sheep (John 21:15ff) , the two greatest commandments (Matt 22:34-40), the definition of true religion (James 1:27), and what God emphasized will be important in the end (Rev 22:3-5) when I think about Christmas. CS Lewis’s “The Great Divorce” is one of my favorite books. The sweetness of the book is how neatly Lewis redefines through allegory how we understand Heaven and Hell, Strength and Weakness, and our connection with man and God.

“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven," and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.”

Looking back on my failure and mistakes I’m generally unblushing unless I come to see as it being due to my weakness in my spiritual strength (ie reliance on God). I don’t blush at how bad my Spanish was when I started or the stupid things I said then accidently. I, however, am shamed when I look back to a few years ago to a failure that I tie directly to my lack, at the time, of a deeper connection. I stood on my own two feet and fell flat because of an unspoken arrogance. Yet even that God has used to make me into a better man. The more we understand of what heaven is truly to be shouldn’t we want our celebration of Christmas to bring a bit more of Him into it.

            I recently took care of young patient (40/50s) dying of an incurable disease. I believe my role as a nurse is to offer support and reassurance; tender care and comfort for the patient, anticipate the families need, that their feelings are “OK”, and what to expect. Its not the first time, I’ve cared for a dying patient or one whose situation was tragic. What made this so different was the spouse’s response to the approaching separation of body and soul. The love was palpable both from him and from many of visitors. He quietly stated his/their faith without attempting to convince, coerce, or reassure me. It was simply true. He offered her gentle touch, memories, and words of comfort. He expressed concern for the both the elder and junior members of their family and sought to offer them strength. Don’t misunderstand me, this wasn’t a stoic strength or a weepy emotional man. He was hurting in a way I can’t comprehend. Yet through this there wasn’t any sense of co-dependency or bland obligation. It was sincere. The final moments came and passed. I wish I could share more but for privacy reasons I have purposefully left much of what he did and spoke unsaid.

           What strikes me now is that I don’t think he every told me that he loved her. He showed it and whispered it to her. He didn’t need to tell me that he was a “real man”; he demonstrated it in how he nurtured and stood both strong and vulnerable for his family. He didn’t tell me that God gave him strength; I heard his prayers and saw the grace drip from him as he reached out to others. It still takes my breath away. To be able to have God show through in such an intense, ludicrously difficult moment is something that seems so far out of my grasp.

           Yet this is what we are called to be. Being a Christian means eating at His table in order to build that kind of strength. You can’t prepare for those moments by strictly studying texts, or by learning the right things to say, or developing enough discipline, or being emotionally in touch. These things may help but our daily practice of allowing God to be our strength and permit His grace to wash over us that we learn to be the terrifingly gentle warriors he has called us to be. I am so terribly humbled.

Is this what the world sees when they see us celebrate Christmas? Do they see strength that the baby was and is? Do they understand that God renewed us for His purposes? Do they see how those that follow Him are part of God’s attempt to offer comfort in this fallen world? Do they see us celebrating Him by being more like Him?

God, forgive us for what we have made Christmas. Forgive me for what I have not become yet but am trying to become. Forgive me for my stubbornness and my unkind words/thoughts. You have given me more than I imagined. My darkest hour has come when I was marching away from you. Help me to share Your intense beauty with the rest of the world. I’m weary. Crush my whining and help learn to roar. I’m so grateful and oddly happy that You allowed me into someone’s broken painful moment that I might see Your presence in such a different light. Please continue to be with the family as they heal and surround them with your toughest warriors. Thank You for Your presence then and now. Guide my studies that I may be able to retain what I need to be the help that my cousins need. You are so much that I am not and I celebrate Your name. You are what the world hurts for. You are the just and loving One. You are so beyond what I have words to describe. I praise You.

                                                                                           Jason