Sunday, October 25, 2009

Reformation Perspective

Two realities grabbed my attention yesterday.
One long-term, much too long and lingering,
came at the bedside of an a Hospice patient
In a Catholic Elder Care Center nearby,
Beside a woman now in the process of dying.
The other, on leaving, was of outside windows
At the same Center, from which before he died
The lonesome husband of the Hospice patient
Used to wave at me on leaving from a visit.

The outside windows seem somehow permanent
While on the inside of the Care Center,
Whether offering Hospice now to the woman
Or Elder Care earlier for her grieving husband,
The focus seems more on meeting temporary needs.
What a parable on life! Brick, mortar, and glass
And the commerce and industry they support
Impress us with their strength and permanence,
While in our humanity we are all only temporary.

I was stunned momentarily by the contrast,
Until realizing in Reformation perspective
That what often seems permanent is not
And what seems only fleeting will endure.
After all, how can fifty or a hundred years,
Even of massive brick, mortar, and glass,
Compare with the gift of eternal life
Both offered by God and already received by
A man now gone and a woman in Hospice?

Oh for wisdom and grace, as in this case,
To use the brick and mortar and glass
To offer faith’s vision to the lonely and dying.
And oh for perspective on driving off
to retain in soul and spirit that same vision.
What we too often see as permanent
is in reality only passing with its use,
while what seems more passing and fragile
carries within it the seeds of eternal life.

JRH
Reformation Sunday
10/25/09