Angels of Mercy

Some people go to work each morning to pursue the sullen craft of bullying others into submission.

Others, less able or interested in making the world revolve around self, simply re-enter their appointed niche each day for un-heroic but faithful service.
Perhaps most find themselves in this latter group.
There may be no trophies at the end of a day and not even a eulogy at the end of a life, but the value of life for some does not lie in fancy trophies or in fine testimonies.

Yet I would give both to those who in times of need have been angels of mercy to me and to so many others among us in this family of mortals for whom sometimes the routine of a hospital becomes more familiar than that of home and job.

As I think back now, I would give both to Mrs. Sobota, LPN, who often functioned as a mother substitute. 

A civilian nurse in an Army hospital, Mrs. Sobota would greet me cheerfully each morning, place a caring cool hand on my forehead, and begin to transfer her jovial mood to me. 
I still remember the tenderness and love with which she held me at those times when I was feverish and anxious and in pain as doctors probed and squeezed and performed their sometimes unwelcome medical services.
To most who knew her, Mrs. Sobota may have seemed a very ordinary human; to me she was an angel of mercy.

And I will always remember Lt. Pat Philips, RN, who would on those nights when sleep would not come take time for a personal chat.

I don’t remember what we talked about.
But I know that her human kindness proved invariably conducive to sleep; and even when it did not, the reassurance blessed me that to a young Army officer I was not merely Pvt. US 56227916 but cared for and cared about as a real person who felt a bit lonely and fearful now and again.

There have been others: in isolation wards, recovery wards, and ambulatory wards: in military, VA, and private hospitals – God’s angels of mercy are needed and found everywhere. 

I’m grateful still for their special touch and spirit, for they were surely as vital to me as all the medicine prescribed to make me well.

Of course, as anyone who’s been hospitalized knows all too well, there’s another kind:  one who makes the rounds, delivers the medicine, jabs in the needle, takes pulse and temperature with icy efficiency and indifference.

They chill the room and leave the patient feeling guilty for being so burdensome.
At best they’re the competent mechanics of medicine; at worst they’re the cruel compounders of human misery.
In either case, they chose the wrong profession.

That may not be fair.

A hospital isn’t exactly a country club.
The pressure is enormous, the human pain and grief everywhere, and the work emotionally and physically exhausting.
In that environment day after day, year after year, many may become rather grim if not calloused human beings who impose on self a degree of insensitivity in order to preserve some inner resources.
Outside of a hospital, one can understand that.
Inside, as a patient, one will never appreciate it.
And that makes the angels of mercy so special.

Most of us will need hospitalization sometime in life.

Nearly all of us will spend our dying hours inside a hospital or hospice room.
At such times, when we confront the fact of our frailty and mortality, when we feel utterly vulnerable and dependent, when we are frightened for ourselves and our dear ones – then the soft touch of a doctor’s or nurse’s hand and an encouraging word minister to us as a balm in Gilead.

Praise God for the gift of caring, of compassion and empathy.

Praise God for the angels of mercy among us.
And though there may be no trophies or eulogies, all of us remember the words of Christ himself:
“Blessed are the merciful.”

“Emergency”

All of us have memories.

Some are so smashingly good, they still have the power to induce goose bumps.

Some are so grindingly painful, they nearly stop the heart.
For very different reasons, it’s good to revisit both kinds now and then.
 

The memory of this “emergency” partakes of a bit of both dimensions.

 
Pain, like an alarm clock inside the stomach, early in the morning. 
Nauseating pain.  Can’t be up.  Call in sick.  Go to Med Center.
Back home again, sleepy from the pills, but the pain still stabbing the insides, somewhere.
Where?
Why?

 Late afternoon now.

        The pain is getting worse.
Back to the Med Center.  This time a referral to own doctor.  Meet him at Emergency in an hour.
We go, vexed more with the inconvenience of it all than worried about some pending doom. 
After all, what could go wrong so suddenly?  It must be some minor thing the doctor will soon be able to fix.

We reach the hospital’s Emergency Department.

By the time we get to the nurse’s desk, my wife needs it to lean on.
She’s “getting sick”; the nurse quickly escorts her away from the desk and into the waiting room, then goes for the barf tray.
It’s too late; Ruth empties her stomach on the waiting room floor.
Now I know why they don’t carpet those floors.

They take her somewhere now. 

I stay in the waiting room, waiting.
Not much happening.
One little boy, looking like a miniature doctor with glasses, tie, and sport jacket, walks around, holding a bandaged hand slightly away from his body.  He makes the rounds, stopping here and there and asking what’s wrong.
I tell him my wife is sick.

During the next few minutes the activity picks up a bit.

A couple walks in.  He’s a skinny guy in a leather jacket, a scrubby beard, and a look as if he hasn’t washed in a while.
He takes a 10-inch knife from a holster in his belt that was hidden by his jacket.
I watch him grab the woman’s hand and make a light cut in the band aid on her finger.
She cringes.
He says loudly: “Nobody said it wasn’t going to hurt.”
She turns away from him.
He’s put his surgeon’s knife back.  He sounds angry now: “You act like you’ve been hit by a grenade or sumpin’.”

A mother comes in with a howling girl of about 12, holding a bloody towel to her mouth.

The mother hops around the screaming girl, shouting that she has to control herself.
She tries to shake her into calmness and says: “You better cooperate or they’ll put you in a straightjacket again just like last time!”

They’re taking my wife’s pulse and blood pressure.

I fill out the usual forms.
Then they put her to bed in a room not far away.
They’ll be doing x-rays and a battery of tests.
It’s going to take a while.

I go back to the waiting room.

An Hispanic couple has come in with a baby, but it seems to be nothing urgent.
The little doctor boy with the sore hand comes back to me.
I find out his name.
Bobby asks me why I have a gray beard; he says his dad’s is dark.
I say, “That’s nice.”

The woman’s finger is examined now.

It looks like an ordinary cut to me.
The man with the knife hovers close, more threatening than concerned, it seems.
They take the woman’s pulse and blood pressure too.

The girl with the bloody mouth is calm now.  Maybe they gave her something – a sedative rather than a straightjacket.

Her mouth injury looks like nothing more serious than a cut lip.
Her mother walks to the payphone and in a hushed, emergency tone talks to someone.

The Hispanic couple is still walking their baby girl.

Everybody is waiting for something, for someone, but the emergency nature of many things tends to dissipate in an emergency waiting room.

I go to see if my wife’s been wheeled back down again.

         I find out they want her to stay.

They need to do more testing, maybe even exploratory surgery to find out the cause of the pain.

         The doctors are obviously concerned.
Now, for the first time, I am too.
Sometimes an emergency turns out to be real.

I walk back to the car.

Must go home to arrange for another baby sitter who can stay late into the night.
I call my college student daughter.
I call our pastor.
Then I drive back to the hospital.
         I feel scared.
I worry what God might have in mind for us.
I pray, but my thoughts won’t focus; not yet.
There’s too much uncertainty now.

Back in the hospital I discover the doctors have decided that exploratory surgery is necessary.  Apparently something is constricting the bowel, but they have no idea what they’ll find; it may or it may not be serious.

Ruth is calm, even serene.
She doesn’t feel the pain now; they’ve taken care of that.
She says she’s ready for whatever may happen.
Both sedation and faith enable her to say that.
But I’m not ready.
And I know that I won’t be until I have to.
Or even then.

I watch her as she’s wheeled to OR.

          Then I’m alone.

Almost time for surgery now.

Our daughter comes, and then our pastor too.
I’m glad to have both there.
Psalm 103 is read, and then we pray together, placing this emergency into God’s caring and healing hands.
But my heart keeps pleading.

The three of us sit in another waiting room now, close to surgery.

It’s past midnight.
I think of the line “take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.”
I try, and discover how hard that is.
I still feel part of the weight myself and can’t let go.
We try to talk a little, make the time pass.
But mostly we wait.
And wonder.
And worry.
And pray, deep inside ourselves.

Waiting for a possible life-or-death verdict is a fearful thing.

Shortly after one o’clock, the doctor comes.

            He has good news: the surgery went well.
Scar tissue had put its squeeze on the bowel; fairly simple to correct.
She should be fine.

Prayers of thanks flow freely on the ride back into the night.

But I remember keenly how frail is our life, how vulnerable to emergencies of every kind.
And remember, too, with profound gratitude, that the Lord is near to all those who call on him, and that he has us not only but the whole world in his hands.

Betrayed

I was ten when I discovered that grownups don’t necessarily mean what they say in church.

It was a Sunday morning.
I was staring through the window at the people passing by.  I knew those people.  Some were out neighbors. One was my best friend.  All were heading for our church, which now was not our church anymore.
Instead, our family and some others were gathered in the town’s tavern for worship.

As I watched the people through the window, I felt deep shame.  I heard some boys chant, “Har, har, har--they go from church to bar.”

I also felt a deep sense of loss.  Sundays would never be the same again.  I felt cut off from the people we belonged to.  Why couldn’t we be together anymore?  How could people who had worshiped together all their lives split apart like this!  All I knew was that something terrible had happened.

I remembered the visits of church members, some of them family friends, and the arguments about baptism and covenant and about big words like regeneration.

I cringed as I remembered the times voices became strident and the words became angry and friends would leave as enemies.
I remembered Dad’s elder meetings that lasted until midnight.
I remembered him writing letters late into the night to theologians like Klaas Schilder.
I had noticed the deepening lines on his forehead and the weary look in his eyes.
But I hadn’t understood his preoccupation and deep anxiety.

It was 1944.  The Nazis had our country, and life wasn’t safe.

I was scared that more planes would be shot down over our town, that more soldier bodies would have to be buried in our churchyard.
I was scared that someday the Germans would discover out hiding place, shoot the family we were hiding, and then shoot my dad as well.
I was scared that patrols would stop my mom on one of her courier excursions and find  the incriminating material.
I was scared of guns and bombs and enemies.
I was scared of fighting.
I wanted Holland to be free again; I needed a world where people got along, where no one needed to be afraid anymore.

That’s why I had liked my church.  It was a good place to be, especially in wartime.  

In a hostile world, we felt closer to each other there.
We were united, and we were protected by God against a common enemy.
With one voice we would sing Psalm 68: “God shall arise and by His might/put all his enemies to flight,” and that gave us hope.
We would pray for God’s care, and that gave us trust.

But then some of the people in the church started fighting each other.

They didn’t use guns.
They used the Bible for words to shout at each other, to prove right and wrong, to condemn, to call each other nasty names.
They used the Bible as a gun.
And now we couldn’t go to the same church anymore; we didn’t belong together anymore.

My dad said it happened because synod forced everybody to accept a belief about baptism that wasn’t biblical.  But I didn’t understand it.

And I didn’t understand why Christian people threatened by a terrible war were now threatening each other and taking each other to court.
I didn’t understand why as kids we couldn’t spend time with our friends anymore, why my dad’s business lost so many customers, why a lot of people didn’t talk to us anymore.
I didn’t understand how any of this was possible among people who believed in God, who listened to the Ten Commandments every Sunday, who sang the Psalms together, who prayed together for a new heart, who were supposed to love God and each other.

The world became more confusing, more frightening to a ten-year old in the tavern on that Sunday when the war and hate tha had entered the church tore it apart and splintered it to pieces.

He felt betrayed, and for a long time he found it hard to pray.
For a long time church was not God’s house anymore.

Always

We may not always shiver
In the wind-blasts of the night;
We may not always grope our way,
In the absence of sunlight.
We may not always hunger
Through seasons of perpetual blight.
But we shall always wonder
At the absence of His sight.

We may not always groan and sigh,
And shed our solitary tears.
We may not always curse and cry,
But we shall always have our fears.

Our fears stick deep though warmth returns.
Our fears stick deep though light returns.
Our fears stick deep though bread returns.
Our fears stick deep:
Shall He return?

We shall not cease to wonder,
Though we may smile again.
We shall not cease to wonder,
Though we may feel some grace.
But we shall always wonder,
Until we see His face.

Silent Saturday

sleeping
out of the draft
fallen on the lee side of  the grave
the flags are lowered
the sails now slackened
the feet are covered
at last at rest

sleeping
out of the draft
fallen on the lee side of the grave

but unobserved
through granite walls
a genial breeze begins to play
all the trees pick up  their tiny ears
the fog  undulates itself into new shapes
wind, trembling, slowly strolls
across the graveyard
a grave's about to burst
before the rising sun

                                       [tr. from Frisian; Tiny Mulder]

Were You There?

Peter, James, and John were there.

It had been a long day, and it was night now.

Peter yawned, James rubbed his eyes, and John rested against an olive tree.

They fell asleep.

Jesus went off by himself, to pray.

When Jesus knelt and wrestled with God, he was alone.

The Man of Sorrows was alone.

He felt the awful weight of the cup, filled with the gall of the world’s evil.

“Drink ye all of it”: the betrayal, the spit, the blows, the scourge, the lies, the mockery, the thorns, the mob, the thirst, the blood, the nails, the absence of God…

His hands trembled, his voice shook as he pleaded: “Take this cup from me…”

The Son of God wrestled with his Father.

His three disciples slept.

They were the closest of his friends.

They had been with him to the mountain top and had basked in his glory.

But this was the Mount of Olives, shrouded in the darkness of impending doom.

They did not share in the agony of his sorrow.

They slept.

Already forsaken, their Lord cried to the Father:

“O Father, take this cup from me…yet not my will, but yours be done.”

 “Your will be done,” Jesus said, the hardest words he ever spoke.

Because he loved the Father.

Because he loved us.

Holy Week

As disciples of Jesus, we follow him on the highways and byways of his three years of ministry.

Along the way we learn much from the Teacher, this Rabbi in step with the Father.

We marvel at his words and are astonished at his actions.

But we are loath to follow him to the cross.

His torment is too painful, his agony too harrowing.


Yet it is at the cross that we feel closest to our Lord.

It is at the cross that we receive his love in fullest measure.

It is at the cross that we unload our own burden of pain and suffering.

It is at the cross that we are embraced by his compassion.

It is at the cross that we are healed.


Life prepares us for the cross and for the grave.

It does not prepare us for Easter morning.

We have no experience with open graves.

Joy at Easter comes by faith.

Faith in our crucified and risen Lord.


For that faith we pray this week.