I woke early this morning having dreamed a dream of Paul Holmer, a Salem boy who became one of the intellectual giants of a generation now past. His mind and heart were in touch with all the great minds and hearts in human history, even while grounded in the simplicity of faith in Christ--a model himself of range in life and thought that humbled me in remembering.
I woke as well to a wonderful email from Paul Swanson, long-time colleague and friend in ministry now teaching in China, ever the "Rabbi" as many of us have come to name him. Though far away he felt near as he told of his students acting out the Christmas story there. Humbled also by the range of his devotion, I was blessed by the news that coming home for a season during the Chinese New Year he will return for yet another term to teach those he feels called by God to serve.
Later this morning we will return to worship at North Park Covenant, my boyhood church, and before that visit another colleague, Dick Swanson, now a hospice patient in the historic home of the Modines and Sonesons, now owned by his daughter Jane Swanson-Nystrom, another valued colleague and friend.
It is all of one fabric for me, a blessed fabric of life still being woven by the Master Weaver, God with us not only at Christmas but forever, surrounding us with his people, continually renewing our spirits, and deigning even to bless and use the fragments of our lives to feed the multitudes.
The day of Christmas is past but its message remains, soon to unfurl again into Epiphany, the season of light. I know God is with us, for once more this morning heaven came down and glory filled my soul. Bless the Lord for the likes of a Paul Holmer and a Paul Swanson and a Dick Swanson, each of whom in their own time and way have brightened and still are brightening the fabric of human life. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Rejoicing This Morning!
We woke this morning at 3:00 a.m. to a phone call from our son Paul announcing that Kristin had just given birth to their fourth child, Carson Gustaf Hawkinson, 7# 9 oz.
How thankful we are to God that everything went well. We now have sixteen grandchildren (and six great-grandchildren with a seventh on the way). And we have crossed a new frontier in that all our present great-grandchildren are older than our latest grandchild.
To put it all in conext, today is the Fourth in Adent, and I will be reading in Salem's second worship service Mary's Magnificat from Luke 1:46-55. Just as God was with her in the birthing of his Son so has he been with us in the birthing of all our children and grandchildren, most recently this morning with Paul and Kristin in their birthing process. Through his Holy Spirit, we have confidence that all Jesus came into this world to accomplish through his birth, life, teachings, death, resuurection, and ascension, is now available to Carson Gustaf from birth.
May we as family, and may the church as Christ's body, take seriously together the nurturing role we have been given to bring all our children and grandchildren to see and accept for themselves "the wonders of his love." God is near, indeed--with us in the flesh--and we are grateful!
How thankful we are to God that everything went well. We now have sixteen grandchildren (and six great-grandchildren with a seventh on the way). And we have crossed a new frontier in that all our present great-grandchildren are older than our latest grandchild.
To put it all in conext, today is the Fourth in Adent, and I will be reading in Salem's second worship service Mary's Magnificat from Luke 1:46-55. Just as God was with her in the birthing of his Son so has he been with us in the birthing of all our children and grandchildren, most recently this morning with Paul and Kristin in their birthing process. Through his Holy Spirit, we have confidence that all Jesus came into this world to accomplish through his birth, life, teachings, death, resuurection, and ascension, is now available to Carson Gustaf from birth.
May we as family, and may the church as Christ's body, take seriously together the nurturing role we have been given to bring all our children and grandchildren to see and accept for themselves "the wonders of his love." God is near, indeed--with us in the flesh--and we are grateful!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Be Still, My Soul
This photo from one of my grandsons in ministry (see December Home Page) keeps speaking to me in Advent, not least when life's darker side seems so predominate. I've never calculated it by percentage, but in morning newspapers--not to mention TV newscasts--bad news headlines surely far outweigh the good. People are hurting, even suffering. A dear friend and fellow member over time at Salem died yesterday, as did a fairly young relative of another colleague and fellow-member out east--the one expected and the other sudden.
To keep score on all that is disjointed in our world--the wars, human trafficing, rising unemployment, tribal and racial tensions, woes in national and international economies to mention but a few--often weighs heavy on one's spirit.
Has there ever been a time when Advent's message is more needed among us? To the psalmist's witness millennia ago that "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him alone comes my salvation" (62:1), we now may add with confidence, "Christ is coming soon!" Why? Simply because, as Scripture declares, he has already come among us in human form to establish his kingdom and is coming soon again to bring it to completion!
We may still, like the psalmist wonder "How long?" But we need not wonder any more whether it is to be, for like him we know that "On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is God" (62:7).
The picture witnesses to my own experience as a believer. For daily and weekly through the gloom of all that is dark in life, light breaks through from the Lord, both fueling hope and deepening my faith. "He is near," as my colleague Mark Pattie reminded us in his sermon last Sunday, and we as Christians are to live our lives in that awareness, looking in every dark cloud for the signs of his appearing.
So sing with the hymn writer, as I am singing early this morning: "Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past; your hope, your confidence let nothing shake--all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below (Hymnal, No. 455).
To keep score on all that is disjointed in our world--the wars, human trafficing, rising unemployment, tribal and racial tensions, woes in national and international economies to mention but a few--often weighs heavy on one's spirit.
Has there ever been a time when Advent's message is more needed among us? To the psalmist's witness millennia ago that "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him alone comes my salvation" (62:1), we now may add with confidence, "Christ is coming soon!" Why? Simply because, as Scripture declares, he has already come among us in human form to establish his kingdom and is coming soon again to bring it to completion!
We may still, like the psalmist wonder "How long?" But we need not wonder any more whether it is to be, for like him we know that "On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is God" (62:7).
The picture witnesses to my own experience as a believer. For daily and weekly through the gloom of all that is dark in life, light breaks through from the Lord, both fueling hope and deepening my faith. "He is near," as my colleague Mark Pattie reminded us in his sermon last Sunday, and we as Christians are to live our lives in that awareness, looking in every dark cloud for the signs of his appearing.
So sing with the hymn writer, as I am singing early this morning: "Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past; your hope, your confidence let nothing shake--all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below (Hymnal, No. 455).
Friday, December 11, 2009
Valkommen!
It is an early Friday morning, before dawn. But preparations have long been in the making. A Swedish pancake breakfast table has been set for ministerial colleagues in a small group to which we belong. The broader setting is in early Advent on the way to yet another Christmas season.
But there is more than meets the eye. The table and buffet are long-time treasures in our home and hearts--handcrafted in cherry wood by a nephew of Hannah Lund, from whom we bought them when newly married. Hannah was breaking up home on Bernard Street in Chicago after her husband Nils died. The Lunds were our neighbors when I was yet a boy, he the dean of our seminary, his family by his first wife woven into the fabric of ours through shared faith and shared disciplines
Things old and new also grace the setting. An antique hanging lamp above is a treasure we found in a shop near Paxton, Illinois, our first full-time pastorate. The silverware is also second-hand, though the plates are new. The clock on the buffet was purchased on my way to a Central Comference Annual Meeting in the UP years ago. The painting is an original by Lydia Pohl, an old Covenant friend who was at retirement the art supervisor for the Chicago public schools. The brass lamp was converted from kerosene use years ago, and other decorations--including Christmas ornaments hanging in the bay windows, have been gathered over time. Alyce is, of course, the one in our home who brings it all together, ever the gracious hostess ready to serve our guests with genuine warmth, careful preparations, and wonderful food.
The Lunds will be there--Vern and Elaine (no relation to Nils W). So will Craig Nelson and Marjorie Bradley, glad companions these days following the passing of their spouses. Bill and Judy Solie will also be coming to join us. Paul Swanson, known since Minnehaha days as Rabbi, though absent in person will surely also be present in spirit, all the way from China where he is now teaching for a season.
Thus in Advent, awaiting Christmas, will we delight in memory, the joys of fellowship and conversation, care for one another, and glad anticipation of all that is yet to come from all that has already been.
May God himself, the Triune One, in whom everything past continues to merge with everything present and propel us toward everything yet to come be blessed and praised. And may the table inhabited this morning with our colleagues and friends renew our hope in the One who has come among us and is coming yet again to renew the earth.
But there is more than meets the eye. The table and buffet are long-time treasures in our home and hearts--handcrafted in cherry wood by a nephew of Hannah Lund, from whom we bought them when newly married. Hannah was breaking up home on Bernard Street in Chicago after her husband Nils died. The Lunds were our neighbors when I was yet a boy, he the dean of our seminary, his family by his first wife woven into the fabric of ours through shared faith and shared disciplines
Things old and new also grace the setting. An antique hanging lamp above is a treasure we found in a shop near Paxton, Illinois, our first full-time pastorate. The silverware is also second-hand, though the plates are new. The clock on the buffet was purchased on my way to a Central Comference Annual Meeting in the UP years ago. The painting is an original by Lydia Pohl, an old Covenant friend who was at retirement the art supervisor for the Chicago public schools. The brass lamp was converted from kerosene use years ago, and other decorations--including Christmas ornaments hanging in the bay windows, have been gathered over time. Alyce is, of course, the one in our home who brings it all together, ever the gracious hostess ready to serve our guests with genuine warmth, careful preparations, and wonderful food.
The Lunds will be there--Vern and Elaine (no relation to Nils W). So will Craig Nelson and Marjorie Bradley, glad companions these days following the passing of their spouses. Bill and Judy Solie will also be coming to join us. Paul Swanson, known since Minnehaha days as Rabbi, though absent in person will surely also be present in spirit, all the way from China where he is now teaching for a season.
Thus in Advent, awaiting Christmas, will we delight in memory, the joys of fellowship and conversation, care for one another, and glad anticipation of all that is yet to come from all that has already been.
May God himself, the Triune One, in whom everything past continues to merge with everything present and propel us toward everything yet to come be blessed and praised. And may the table inhabited this morning with our colleagues and friends renew our hope in the One who has come among us and is coming yet again to renew the earth.
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