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One morning, God, having just created the world, was walking with man in the garden.  As they walked, they came to an overlook.  There they stopped.  They stood in silence.  It was a glorious view.

After a time, man, interrupting the silence, asked the question that sends a chill up every creator’s spine, “Is this all really needed, or is it just aesthetics?”

God was silent.  He could not even look at man.  He just kept looking out across his creation.  Then he asked, “Is beauty needed?”

Not waiting for an answer, God continued, “Are mountain peaks needed?  Are lakes needed?  Is it necessary that a lake reflect the sky?  Is it needed that skies be blue?  Is it needed that as the sun sets the sky turns multicolor?  Are sandy seashores needed? Are seahorses needed? Are the stripes on the zebra needed? Are flowers needed? I could have plants reproduce without the beauty of a flower if you deem it ‘just aesthetics’. Are the northern lights needed? Are stars needed? Is it really necessary that leaves turn bright yellow, orange, or red, before they fall from the trees? I could have them simply fall without the ‘unneeded’ blaze of glory. Are colors needed? How about a cat’s whiskers? Is it for a need that I create the myriad of forms of snowflakes, a gazillion gazillion each day, most never seen by a single human? Does the elephant need its trunk or the squirrel its tail? Does man need to have eyes of different colors, or hair of different textures, or skins of different shades?”

“Yes, there is much I have created that is unneeded. In fact, it is all unneeded …even you …for I am God. I have created nothing that is needed …as there is nothing I need. In this sense all of creation is, as you might say, ‘just aesthetics’. I would call it beauty. It is what a holy and wise and loving and creative and beautiful and unneeding God creates when He chooses to create.”

Now man was silent.  He was feeling a lot less important   …yet worth so much more.

It was good.

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It wasn’t long and two sad people came slowly walking down that hospital hall. They were “composed”,  although there were plenty of signs of non-composure – swollen eyes, red noses, and wads of tissues at hand.

We hugged.

I asked if there was anything I could do. They said it would be great if I could get one of their vehicles home. They did not want to drive separate. They wanted to be together.

As I drove Lea’s car, I looked around at the changed landscape. It’s interesting how, at a time like this, the world changes before you.  I thought of things I’ve never thought of.

I looked back. There in the backseat, strapped with a seat belt, was an empty car seat. It was too small for Jules. It was Johnny’s.

And it was empty.

I thought of how hard it would be for Lea, Johnny’s mother, to see that empty car seat. I wondered if she would see it empty or would she see it with Johnny strapped in. Either would be hard. Just the simple act of removing the car seat from the car could overwhelm one with what doing so meant.

I thought of Dave and Lea as they drove home without Johnny. I thought of what it would be like to never bring your child inside your home again.

I thought of what it would be like to walk into Johnny’s room – a room they would never see Johnny in again. I thought of the tears that will flow in the days to come in that room.

As I waited at a stop light, a man carrying a model plane crossed in front of me. The plane was bright yellow. Walking next to him was his young son carrying the controls. I thought of Dave going to the park with Johnny to fly a bright yellow plane against the deep blue sky. I thought of how it will never happen.

At Dave and Lea’s, after parking the car, I walked up to the front door to give them the key. The flowers in the pots lining the entry steps were all wilted. They looked to be in mourning.

I saw a hose in the bushes, turned on the water and watered the potted plants. Then I watered the planter box. As I looked around, all the flowers growing on this side of the house were wilted. It was a home in mourning.

Soon my ride showed up to take me back to the hospital and to my car. I got in and glanced back. “Wow,” I said. There were 4 young children strapped in behind me. I couldn’t help but compare the drive to Dave and Lea’s with the ride back. One was with an empty car seat, this one filled with children. I wondered how Dave and Lea would feel.

As we turned into the sun, I saw a front windshield full of little fingerprints. Normally I would wonder why they didn’t clean their windshield more often. Now I didn’t. The windshield wasn’t dirty. It was a display of the presence of children. It was a beautiful sight.

Dave and Lea have a long road ahead of them – first a funeral, but then days and months of mourning. Pray for them. Pray for them as they take out the empty car seat, put away his toys, and take down the crib. Pray for the huge hole they now have in their lives. And pray for them not just now, but in the hard months to come.

And pray for Jules – for the hard lessons of life Dave didn’t want her to have to learn so early in her life.

And give thanks for fingerprints on your windshield.

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photo – Te | photo

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To S and L – two great friends,

Woke up this morning – clock said 4 A.M. – and found myself thinking of the words you wrote yesterday:

“The tests confirmed cancer…

“Interestingly, gratitude has been growing in me since the possibility of cancer arose. I am thankful for years of health and much more. Perhaps it is a cold wind that makes you appreciate your down jacket.”

I think of the cold wind. I know it.

My mind goes to a jacket, a book jacket – the one I read as I was leaving the Mayo Clinic alone that day having just been told I had Parkinson’s and would probably “die sooner than normal”. My heart was racing as my mind was trying to reprocess all of life.

Before stepping out into the January cold, something caused me to look down at the book I clasped. There, in my hand, were the words: “Future Grace”. I had to smile. God knew the jacket I needed for the cold wind now blowing.

As I walked to my car, snow crunching with each step, the wind was cold but I was not – it was the coat, the Jacket. The cold was all around. The Jacket was all-sufficient. It was all I needed. It was everything I needed. It is everything I will need.

As I sat in my jacket in my cold car – the one I just found out was not going to start, I could only smile. Such was the day.

Such was my initiation into future grace. I was awash in it.

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With my mind racing as I think on these things, I know sleep is over. I decide to just get up and write you.

The clock on the computer says 3 A.M. Hmmm… earlier than I thought. I need to change my bedroom clock …sometime.

What to write? What does one say to friends hit with a cancer diagnosis?

I think of an article I read yesterday. It was about a writer. When asked how one determines what to write about, she replied: write what you know. As I don’t know what to write, it’s all I can do. Here’s what I know:

Nothing’s changed. Cancer cannot shorten life. Your life’s length is the same as it was before the diagnosis. You simply are more aware of that which God has known from your birth: when you will die – the length of our days.

Everything’s changed. You now have a greater awareness that your days really are numbered. So, number them. Be wise. Let life be more precious. Waste less.

Don’t hurt alone. Share your story. To be the body of Christ to each other requires knowing when a member is hurting. Let the body be the body.

Bother God. Pray and seek the prayers of others. Be as one who knocks on God’s door repeatedly. Ask friends and family to do the same. God enjoys opening doors. Make sure you thank him.

Let God bless. Let him bless you. Let him bless others through you in this. And let him decide how and when and where, etc. Let him be the blessings coordinator. And bless him back.

Know it is good. Know that God works all things for good. If God works the cancer for good, is it not good? You can know goodness without knowing why.

Know it is his good pleasure. How can cancer be his good pleasure? He knows. And he can be trusted. I have yet to see him be anything other than who he claims to be. Sometimes you simply need to go with it

See death. Some would say be positive. I say get real. You’re going to die. Get over it. Death is as much a part of life as is life. Figure it out. How do you want to die? Is there life after? Get death together.

To die is gain. To live is Christ. Live Christ. Embrace death. (What could be more positive?)

Know God. Seek to know him more each day. Take one more step up the mountain towards the peak. Be awed.

Know his sovereignty. Know who is God. Know he gives and takes away. Trust his love in the bitterest of pain. Blessed be the Lord.

Put on the jacket. Put on Christ. And let his cold wind blow.

Enjoy the grace.

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Life so young,
Her death came first.
Is one born,
If dead at birth?

Death can’t be,
Where life is not.
Life can’t end,
If not begot.

Ask the mom,
She who carried,
Was there life?
What did you bury?

Ask the dad,
Who carried out,
Casket white,
What it’s about.

This loved life,
In God’s deemed way,
Born in love,
Conception Day.

This child lived,
Mom’s womb was host,
Precious days,
Nine months …almost.

Yes, she lived,
She was alive.
Look the tear,
Her father’s eye.

Yes, she lived,
Her moves mom felt.
Hand on womb,
Dad’s heart would melt.

Yes, she lived,
Her brother knew,
Inside mom,
His sister grew.

Was she real?
Was she alive?
How believe
Abortion lie?

Death can’t be,
If be no life.
But where life,
Death cuts like knife.

Cut it has,
Both wide and deep.
Tears have filled,
Both days and sleep.

Yes, she lived
Before her birth.
She had life,
And she has worth.

_____

Cherish life
Before it’s born
May no child
From life be torn

_____

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Last summer, while John and his family were on sabbatical, I was asked by the church he pastors, to redesign his home study. It is the room he primarily works from, the room where he labors over his studies and his writings. I had heard stories about his study, but had never seen it. The stories are true.

And the study is a story:

This study, which has penned writings now read around the world, is tucked away in an average-sized inner-city home. Other than its color and that it overlooks two interstate highways, there is nothing particularly distinctive about the home.

Once in the home, to get to the study, one must go up the stairs to a short hallway that has been taken over by the overflow of books from the study. The study is, in reality, just a bedroom, a corner room between the bathroom and another bedroom. The room size is that of a typical old-house bedroom – about 11′ x 14′.

As one enters the room, one does not get far. Right in front of one is a rather large bulky old treadmill – the kind you find abandoned in basement exercise rooms. You can’t miss it in its folded up position as it blocks the view of just about everything else in the room. It sits next to and in front of the desk.

Hanging in front of the desk is a rug, of sorts, strung up as a home-made wire management system. It seems its purpose is to “dress up” the maze of make-do electrical cords and cables hanging off the desk and running across the room in different directions.

While the desk sits pretty much in the middle of the room, there is actually only one way to get to the desk. To do so one must work one’s way around the treadmill. Only John could fit through the narrow opening past the file cabinets and metal shelving going the other way.

The desk is a small non-descript thing in need of refinishing a number of years ago. It is lit with a lamp Salvation Army wouldn’t carry. On the desk, in the center, is spread a faded green towel. It seems John has a condition where his hands easily get cold and thus he uses a towel to keep them off the cooler desk surface.

The desk chair he uses is not a desk chair. It has no moving parts, no castors, no swivel, no tilt, just a seat, a back that is straight, and 4 square metal legs. It looks like something one would find in an army surplus store, rejected for the army mess hall.

The seat is also covered by a faded green towel. Upon lifting the towel, one sees the reason – the upholstery is completely worn through and the deteriorating and yellowing foam cushion is falling apart. Not exactly the plush leather chair one pictures a well-known author writing from.

Lining the room are crude particle board bookshelves built by John himself, which, unlike his writings, are poorly crafted. They are simply boxes stacked on top of each other and go to the ceiling. Every one is full. They look like they could all come falling down if one pulled too hard on a book. The walls, the couple spots one can actually see them, are simply painted and in need of paint. The floor is wood, in need of refinishing, with a worn out carpet remnant under the desk. Overall, it’s not exactly the plush, dark-wood-paneled library one expects of a noted theologian.

When sitting at the desk, to its left and slightly forward of it, is a window. Through it, and especially when the trees are bare, John has a beautiful view of the Minneapolis skyline – a view that has been the catalyst for many a prayer for the city.

Below this window is a curiosity. Squeezed by old filing cabinets of different sizes and colors along with non-matching shelving – these being your basic warehouse gray metal shelves, is a box. The box is made of the same “rich” material as the bookcases – stained particle board. Upon closer inspection, one sees it contains a shelf and a storage compartment. It turns out to be a prayer bench, again designed and built by John himself. It is crude …but beautiful.

As one does a retake of this little corner of this little room, one starts to see what it really is. It’s a prayer closet. While it has no closet “walls”, I don’t think that would hinder it from being such for John. He once told me, “I have a rich imagination.” I have no doubt this is, for him, a closet.

As one looks on this closet, with this crude prayer bench, one can’t help but stop and ponder the prayers that have gone up from these pieces of particle board. My guess is thousands upon thousands of prayers have risen from this humble box, from a man on his knees bent over it as he reads and prays God’s word.

This was our pastor’s study. It is where countless sermons, books, poems, and meditations, were written. If ever a new desk or chair or prayer bench could be justified, it would be for John. He requested none of these. Given the hours he spends in this room, and the thousands of lives his writings and teachings have impacted, who would criticize him if he had a desk chair upholstered in some soft Italian leather? I only know of one person: John. If given the choice, he’d say, “Let’s feed some children instead.”

Why can I say this with such certainty? He’s been my pastor for 16 years. I’ve not just heard him preach, I’ve seen his life – they are the same.

The eloquence? No sermon, no book, no words, speak louder of a man’s satisfaction in God, than did this study.

It was an eloquent study.

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” John Piper

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“N’Orleans” was written at 2 in the morning sitting on a piece of cardboard on a blocked off street in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was 5 days after Katrina. It was 3 hours after driving 26 hours from Minneapolis. The writing is based on the words of Christ – words Christ kept bringing to mind as I drove – words that wouldn’t go away.

photo – NY Times

N’Orleans

I was hungry,
And you waited for the government
To give Me something to eat;

I was thirsty,
And you wrote a brilliant editorial
Complaining that I had nothing to drink;

A stranger,
And you took Me to a stadium
To live like cattle;

Naked,
And you watched while the TV crews
Filmed Me for their “Special”;

I was sick,
And you left Me on the streets
Of N’Orleans to die;

I was in prison,
In My roof;
And you took a picture of my roof,
And showed it on your benefit “for the victims”,
You boasted about the millions you collected
As you watched your sales soar.
…And I waited.

You do know, don’t you?
You’re not doing this to N’Orleans;
You’re doing this to Me.

JC

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When I arrived, I was immediately invited over to Sasha’s. He lives in a dorm room with his wife, Lena, and their one year old daughter, Katya. In this small room is all their earthly possessions. They have no kitchen. They cook with a single electric burner and an electric tea pot. They have no running water. For water they must go to the not-maintained bathroom they share with dozens of others who live on their floor. This is their home.

For my coming, in typical Russian hospitality, they prepared the best meal they could afford. For them it was a type of vegetable soup. It was, basically, hot water with a few traces of finely cut carrots at the very bottom. It was all they could afford. It was all they had. But I had not come for the food. I had come to spend time with them. It was a time to catch up with what had happened in each of our lives since we had last seen each other. It was a time of deepening friendships. It was a rich time …as we sat on those unpadded wooden crates around a makeshift “dining” table sipping on the limited soup and eventually pretending we were full.

At one point in the conversation I found out Sasha was going out in a couple days to the potato fields to dig potatoes. I thought back on the day during my previous time in Irkutsk when I was at their home and Sasha came with a bag of potatoes. He had just bought them. His wife, Lena, was very excited. Now they had potatoes. She exclaimed, “Potatoes for breakfast! Potatoes for lunch! Potatoes for dinner!” She was not apologetic about it. She was sincerely happy. It would be what they would be living on. It was, for them, life.

Now it was time to dig the potatoes Sasha had planted last spring. He was offering anyone who would come and help with the digging a bag of potatoes. While I was hoping to start a Bible study with Sasha, and others, I instead found myself telling Sasha I would come and help him dig potatoes. It just seemed to be that which God was saying to do. It seemed more important than even a Bible study.

Sasha had graduated a couple years before from the University in aeronautical engineering and was now an engineer at the large military plane factory. He made about $100 a month. With this he must support his family.

The plane factory rents fields outside the city for its’ employees to raise potatoes for food. When it is time to dig the potatoes, the plant closes for the day and rents dozens of buses to bus its’ employees out to the potato fields. The buses were leaving at 8AM on Friday morning. Sasha said to meet him at his dorm room at 7:30.

I lived on the opposite end of the city from Sasha. It takes about an hour and a half to get to Sasha’s, taking various buses from where I lived. The first bus in the morning started around 6 AM (bus “schedules” are not exactly exact in Russia).

On Friday I got up early. It was cold and windy and dark. I dressed as warmly as I could. I walked in the dark to the bus stop and caught the first bus. It was still dark when I arrived at Sasha’s. He was surprised both by the fact that I had actually come and that I was on time. He gave me a bucket and we headed out to catch the buses that were heading out to the potato fields.

Ceseg also joined us. Ceseg is Buryat. The Buriyat people are closely related to the Mongolian peoples. The Buryats are Buddhist by tradition. They were also severely treated under the communists with many of their temples destroyed. In missiological terms, the Buryats are considered an unreached people group.

Ceseg had just graduated from the University in architecture and had not yet found a job, had no place to live (her family lives in a region to the east of Irkutsk called Buryatia), and had little money for food. She was willing to help Sasha dig potatoes all day to take him up on his offer of a bag of potatoes as payment.

I wasn’t sure where the plane factory came up with the buses, but most of them looked like they wouldn’t, couldn’t, or shouldn’t run. By the time we loaded our bus, it was standing room only. As we waited for the bus to leave, I looked around. I was standing on an old bus which by all appearances was filled not with aeronautical engineers, but with peasants wearing potato digging clothes, colored plastic buckets on their laps or on the floor next to them, and all holding assorted rigged-up digging tools.

It was an hour long standing bus ride out into the country. The hills of Irkutsk were almost more than the buses loaded with people could manage. There were times, as we were ascending a hill, that one wondered if the bus would even make it. It always did.

At one point during the trip, I leaned to Sasha’s ear and asked him if the military plane factory had ever had an American join it in digging potatoes before. He just smiled and shook his head. While on the bus we only whispered English to each other. It was not that there were a lot of military secrets out in the potato fields, but there was no point in making a scene. I was trying to just be another Russian peasant going out to dig potatoes.

As we neared the potato fields, the roads looked less and less like actual roads. In the end it was simply a deeply rutted dirt track in a field. When the buses reached the limit of what they could traverse, they stopped and let us out. Before us were the potato fields.

Sasha’s plot of potatoes were with hundreds of others covering the hills. Except for where some potato plots had already been dug, the fields were mostly still all green. There had not yet been a frost and the potato plants had not yet turned brown. The people were spreading out across the hills to their plots. Ceseg and I followed Sasha to his.

Sasha’s plot was 6 potato rows wide and stretched up the hill beyond where we could see. I hadn’t asked many questions about this thing I had volunteered for and thus did not really know what I had gotten myself into. I did not know how many potatoes he had to dig or how many of them we were going to dig today (all of them).

To dig potatoes, there are two critical things one needs: a flat fork to dig with and large sacks to put the potatoes in. Sasha had neither. He could not find a fork to borrow, so he borrowed a dull and previously misused spade. He found some sacks to borrow, but they were in bad need of repair. He had spent the previous night trying to sew the holes shut in them. We started digging with the only previously misused spade we had.

How we worked with just one spade was this – while one dug up the potato hills, the other two, on their knees, dug through the dirt with their hands to find the potatoes. Each potato, no matter how small, was precious. It was food. It was life. Hitting and cutting an unseen potato with the spade was like a knife to the stomach. It would mean the potato would spoil. It was one less potato. It was one less meal. It was life shortened.

Sasha and I took turns digging with the spade. We worked back and forth across the 6 rows and gradually up the hill. We would collect the potatoes first in buckets and then, when full, would dump them into the large sacks. It was a system most of the others around us were also using.

As I dug with my hands through the dirt for the potatoes on this wind-blown hill, 3000 miles from Moscow, in Siberia, I thought of what I had been doing just a few days earlier. I had been designing exclusive homes and executive offices for clients in various locations across America. Today, I was on my hands and knees digging potatoes in Siberia. I thought, “What a life!” There is nothing I would rather be doing with my life. To be able to both design projects and dig potatoes on opposite sides of the earth in the course of just a few days is awesome.

Why, when not designing, would I want to sit on a beach working on my tan when I could be digging life-giving potatoes with friends in Siberia?

We worked very steadily. We needed to get all the potatoes dug, bagged, and loaded on the trucks before the end of the day. The work was back-breaking.

At times we would stand up to stretch and straighten our backs. It was amazing looking out across the landscape. One could see for miles. It was beautiful.

The landscape was of hills covered by various crops with stands of birch trees mixed in. The various crops were of various harvest colors. Some fields were green, some were golden, and some were earth colored, as they had already been plowed for spring. Amongst these rich colored fields were the white barked birch trees. Many of the birch trees were in their autumn splendor of yellows and golds.

The sky was filled with white puffy clouds moving swiftly across the blue sky. As their shadows moved across the landscape, the colors of the landscape were in constant change. Where the sun shown, the colors were vibrant. In the cloud shadows the colors became muted. It was glorious.

The hills we were on were covered with people, all digging their potatoes. As the day went on, the color of the hills gradually turned from the green of the potato plants to the brown of the freshly dug earth. With the hundreds of plots being dug at once, the pattern the plots made on the hills were ever changing. As the potatoes were dug, hundreds of bags of potatoes began to appear spread out across the potato plots.

We continued digging our way up the hill, only stopping briefly for some lunch and warm tea (thermos). The wind was cold. It was one of those cold winds where you find your nose running even though you don’t have a cold.

At last we finished. I stood up and thought of how bad I was probably going to ache tomorrow based on how much I was already aching today. But, it really didn’t matter. We had dug all the potatoes. They were all bagged.

Sasha got one of the large flat bed trucks to come over to our plot and we loaded the sacks onto the truck. Some of the sacks required two of us to lift them onto the truck bed. Sasha made arrangements with the driver where to bring his potatoes, and when he should meet him there.

With the potatoes dug, bagged, and loaded, Sasha started doing some figuring. He was very excited with the amount of potatoes he got from his plot. He figured how much money he had “made” by not having to buy potatoes.

But most exciting to him, as he calculated the potato harvest, was when he realized he had enough potatoes to feed his family for the entire coming year.

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May you be so blessed this year. May your table overflow with an abundance of potatoes this Thanksgiving. And may you truly give thanks.

Pray that Sasha and Ceseg, their families and friends, would have both the food that comes in the form of potatoes and the food that comes in the form of Life.

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