Sacred Heart

Today the grass was a little more green; the sky seemed a little more blue; the air felt a little more life-giving. I stepped out of my door to greet the day and felt so alive that I couldn’t help a smile on my face. I looked up to Heaven and said “thank you” to the God who made this and every day for me the last fifty-one years.

I had been released from the cardiac center a survivor only twenty hours before.

I survived a major heart attack.

I collapsed at work, took a ride in an ambulance that I thought would be my last, tasted the artificial sweet of nitro under my tongue three times on the way to the ER, wondered how near death was, knew that it wasn’t far, saw the EKG scratching my erratic heart rhythms on the scroll of paper in front of me, heard the hospital calling to “give him another dose” of nitro, could see the hospital just one block away through the window of the ambulance, wondered if I’d make it there alive, saw the driver open the door, rode a bumpy gurney ride out of the daylight and into the blinding florescent lamplight inside, had my clothes and shoes and jewelry ripped from my body, lay naked and helpless while four people pulled me off of the stretcher and onto a table, felt pokes and pricks and prods as the trauma team prepped me for heart surgery, felt sticky cold heart monitor leads attached to my skin.

I was whisked away towards the operating room, saw my Mom and Dad in the hall, thought I’d never see them again, watched the robotic x-ray camera hovering above my rib cage project images of the inside of my heart onto three giant flat screen TV monitors, thought that was pretty cool, heard the Cardiologist crack a joke to his assistants during what seemed to be a delicate moment with my life in his hands, wondered if he was really taking this seriously, cracked a joke back that surprised the team working on me (they thought I was asleep), felt the surgeon’s instrument follow a narrow path through a catheter in my leg all the way to my chest cavity and into my heart (“No. Just processing what you said.” I replied.), marveled that I was awake and watching/feeling the skilled hands and technology at work inside my body (they all laughed), prayed that I would be okay, hoped to see another day, heard the words “it went very well” through my worry, thought about Jesus and what I’d say when I got to meet Him, spent the next thirty hours recovering in the ICU, and then moved to a private room where my every breath was monitored as if it were my last.

Fortunately, none were my last and I was presented back into the world as one who had just dueled with death – and won – this time.

So this new day, today, may seem more beautiful than all the other 18,615 days that went before, but that is how I see it. And that’s how it is for me now.

When my boss came to visit me in the ICU, all the nurses were telling her what a “cool guy” I am. Not that I’d disagree with that sentiment ; ) But they were amazed at my positive get up and go attitude so soon after a major heart attack.

Heck, to be honest with you, I was pretty happy to still be above ground. It didn’t look too good on the ambulance ride over, that’s for sure.

They told me later that typically folks get really depressed after a major life-threatening event like a heart attack. I can understand that.

It’s just the opposite for me during times of great despair. At least it’s different for me now than it was before I was born again. But I had to learn how to trust God. It wasn’t always like that for me and I do understand the other point of view in an intimate way.

When I lost my job four years ago I came unglued at first. But God was right there beside me saying, “This won’t be easy, but I’m with you all the way.” He never abandoned me and He gave me the strength to accomplish what I never could have accomplished by myself.

I have had a few “wake-up calls” since then. This new challenge is just another mile marker on the road to God’s Glory. I actually felt much better emotionally in the days after my heart attack, than I did the day before. It’s a miracle, I know.

Miracles are to be expected!

I have God and all of His angels (the people who wrote, called, visited, cooked, and prayed for me) to thank for my positive attitude. Because they were with me, I was able to see God working in my life. His presence was all around me. And through Him, all things are possible – yes, even miracles.

I have gone through many changes since I became a New Creation. I have been challenged. All of this has been good for me. It has taken me away from the darkness of sinful behavior and put me onto God’s lighted path. The tragedies and hardships and afflictions have without exception been part of the journey to a better place. I have grown for all of it. Each experience with adversity, whether it was a job loss, death of a loved one, an unhealthy relationship, illness, or bad behavior, has helped me to understand that we do not please God when we ignore (or try to justify) our sins. He is pleased when we acknowledge them, when we turn away from them, when we repent. I have been so blessed and it is because I have done the 180.

God says that our bodies are a temple. I have let my temple run-down, become sick, unhealthy, out of shape, and therefore not God pleasing. There’s much to be learned from this experience for me. Like I have chosen to be a better steward with money (and God has certainly rewarded me in many ways for that life change), so too must I become a better keeper of the one life and one body that God has given me.

I don’t know how I’ll do it yet? Yes I do! I will pray.

Prayer has helped me before. It helped me build a new career out of the ashes of my former life. It comforted me in hard times and in lonely times and in times of great fear and anxiety. It helped me overcome the adversary’s hold. Prayer has been the calm in the storm; it has led me to finally do the right thing, when all my life I have been so bad at that. And it will help me rebuild my temple – stronger, healthier, and even more committed to God’s purpose for me.

I have always been a tough customer – one who will not go down without a fight. The heart attack may have knocked me down, but it won’t keep me down. I am determined to get back up. Heck, I was doing laps around the nurses’ station twenty-four hours after my surgery.

I’m confident that all of my brothers and sisters in Christ will stand with me shoulder-to-shoulder to greet every new day with the joy that Jesus Christ has put in all of our hearts.

He’ll put it in your heart too – if you let Him.

To God be the Glory!

“The old ones speak of winter
The young ones praise the sun
And time just slips away

Running into nowhere
Turning like a wheel
And a year becomes a day

Whenever we dream
That’s when we fly
So here is a dream
For just you and I

We’ll find the Sacred Heart
Somewhere bleeding in the night
Look for the light
And find the Sacred Heart…

Oh, sometimes you never fall
And ah – You’re the lucky one
But oh – Sometimes you want it all
You’ve got to reach for the sun

And find the Sacred Heart
Somewhere bleeding in the night
Oh look to the light…

You fight to kill the dragon
And bargain with the beast
And sail into a sight

You’ll run along the rainbow
And never leave the ground
And still you don’t know why

Whenever you dream
You’re holding the key
I opens the door
To let you be free

And find the Sacred Heart
Somewhere bleeding in the night
Run for the light
And you’ll find the Sacred Heart”

Ronnie James Dio

______________________________

The Sacred Heart (also known as Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus’ physical heart as the representation of his divine love for humanity.

Metamorphosis

If being (or becoming) a Christian doesn’t make you different from a non-believer, then you are not a Christian. If you are not shaped, moulded, changed, and directed in every way by the Holy Spirit, then you are not a Christian. At least you are not holding up your end of the deal.

Let me explain to those of you who are dead in your tracks right now, ready to comment about what a narrow-minded, one-sided, holier-than-thou zealot I am.

God‘s grace is a gift for all people. That is a done deal, sealed by the blood and suffering of Jesus Christ. But where most of us fail – I know I did for many years – is by thinking we’ve got all aspects of our eternal salvation covered, when in fact, we do not. If our sin continues, while we boast about our faith, it is an important (and glaring) contradiction to the Word of God. We are the “clanging bell” and not really doing God’s will at all.

I am a Cristian.

I have spoken these words so many times that at one point I almost began to feel like a hypocrite for saying them. That was a joke, for those of you who may have failed to see the humor. I had not entered a church for twenty-six years (from late fall of 1981 until the spring of 2008), during this time I can count on one hand the times I bowed in prayer to the Almighty, but I was calling myself a Christian with beaming confidence that I had it all figured out.

Spoken like a true captive of the world – the prisoner of a scholarly ego built-in a lab at the university. I was a victim of relativism; “God is what I decide He is.” I could justify in my own head that I was a Christian in spite of the fact that I wasn’t exactly doing what God intended for me to do. If I even knew what that was outside of the Ten Commandments. I sure broke enough of those to put God’s patience to the test. Maybe even because I thought I knew what was best for me, did I go my own way and look at God’s will as something I could tamper with – adjust to fit my lifestyle.

It’s all about ME! After all, God gives us “free will” doesn’t He? That means He lays down the law, but I can interpret it and subject it to my own needs, wants, and desires any way I see fit. I can sin and sin again and He will forgive me. He’s God, right?

What do you mean no? 

I am a Christian.

“ Why?” would be the logical question, but I did not ever have the good sense to ask, let alone the guts to search for an answer. I was completely swindled by the adversary forever insisting that I stick to my guns and my own convictions. And I was convinced that I could go my own way and still maintain a Christian life in spite of so much evidence to the contrary throughout those passing years and seasons.

I love a good gangster film. I’m not talkin’ about the silly ghetto gangsters you see out there walking around at the mall nowadays, with boxers and butts sticking out of the back of their pants. I’m talkin’ real gangsters, the mob, Chicago style hoods, Al Capone, Bugs Moran (I played ball with his great-grandson growing up in the Windy City). I cannot get enough of legendary screen gangsters like Tony Montana (Al Pacino in Scarface) and Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino in The Godfather); these were two of my favorite on-screen characters of all time who were not played by Clint Eastwood.

In one scene from The Godfather, Don Michael Corleone attends the christening of his niece. The film cuts back-and-fourth from the cathedral’s highly religious setting to mafia hitmen doing the work that Don Corleone had ordered – the assassinations of all of the rival Dons in town. It was a blood bath carried out all the while the real executioner was in church.

Can we go on sinning willfully and still receive the Grace of God?

Martin Luther made it clear that we do not earn our salvation and most Christians correctly believe this, but the book of James certainly connects works to grace. A Luther apologists would probably argue the important points in the Book of James, but most misinterpret what James tells us. They put the cart in the wrong place in relationship to the horse. Works do not earn grace; works are a product of grace. They should be anyway! That you say you are a Christian is not enough unless the works that follow reflect the changes in you:

When the caterpillar is fully grown, it makes a button of silk which it uses to fasten its body to a leaf or a twig. Then the caterpillar’s skin comes off for the final time. Under this old skin is a hard skin called a chrysalis.

Because chrysalides are often showy and are formed in the open, they are the most familiar examples of pupae. Most chrysalides are attached to a surface by a Velcro-like arrangement of a silken pad spun by the caterpillar, usually cemented to the underside of a perch, and the cremaster, a hook-shaped protuberance from the rear of the chrysalis at the tip of the pupalabdomen by which the caterpillar fixes itself to the pad of silk.

Like other types of pupae, the chrysalis stage in most butterflies is one in which there is little movement. However, some butterfly pupae are capable of moving the abdominal segments to produce sounds or to scare away potential predators. Within the chrysalis, growth and differentiation occur. The adult butterfly emerges (ecloses) from this and expands its wings by pumpinghaemolymph into the wing veins. Although this sudden and rapid change from pupa to imago is often called metamorphosis, metamorphosis is really the whole series of changes that an insect undergoes from egg to adult.

Wikipedia

There is a true Christian metamorphosis. Like the butterfly, a Christian emerges free from sin that used to keep him from moving and bonded him to the adversary. I quit drinking alcohol cold turkey twelve years ago, I stopped smoking a pack-and-a-half of cigarettes per day, I severed a very unhealthy and sinful relationship after more than ten years of hiding in the shadows, I finally learned to control my cruel tongue and rarely let it shame me like it used to, I have been humbled in ways that I never thought possible, I have conquered evils I didn’t know were there, and I have done it all because God loves me and Jesus died for me. I’m a changed man because of my faith.

Good works are the product of grace. I would have never traveled that “right road” had I not seen first hand what God can do right here in this world – in spite of this world. I was at the bottom. I was at the end of a rope. I fell into a pit that only God could have pulled me out of a better person. I was in the grasp of demons that I let take hold of my life and control me. But I put my trust in the Lord. And now those demons are gone forever.

I found the narrow way to God and turned away from sin.

If being (or becoming) a Christian doesn’t make you different from a non-believer, than you are not a Christian. If you are not shaped, moulded, changed, and directed in every way by the Holy Spirit, then you are not a Christian. At least you are not holding up your end of the deal.

I wake up every morning and give thanks to the Lord: for one more day, for allowing me to serve Him, for having a purpose greater than self, and for His grace that washes over me and renews me every day. It is for this reason that I strive to do good works. His gift of grace makes me want to be a better man. His grace makes me look back at the “old me” with disgust and loathing.

Am I perfect now that I am a New Creation? Of course not! I am human and subject to judgement in this world and tempted by sin like everyone else. But when the time comes, and God calls me home, I can rest knowing that I finally saw His eternal light back in November 2007 and made a decision to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus towards it, rather than go my own way assuming I was right after all.

God’s grace is a gift for all people, but each of us must open it up and use it in order to reap the reward of salvation. It begins with a simple act of trust – by picking up your cross to follow Jesus. It begins right now, not in the next world. God is building that new era right now – in this life and time. We choose Heaven, or we choose hell. But salvation begins when we repent, when we reject sin, when we make that choice to Accept God’s purpose for our life – to go God’s way. And from that moment, good works will follow too.

Make that choice. The metamorphosis will change you forever. And never forget that eternity begins now for those who believe. Like a beautiful butterfly that once crawled as a caterpillar, the change will be evident. And don’t You know that it’s contagious too.

We are Christians!

Heavenly Pearls

God moves on our lives and it isn’t always comfortable; it isn’t always the way we imagined it to be. Any thoughts about scolding Him for the rocky road, or whining about a dramatic turn of events, might as well be saved, because He won’t have anything to do with it. He is “The Creator” after all, so He will create. That means movement, change, and discipline!

He is our Heavenly Father and not a travel agent, genie in a bottle, or magician to conjure all good things at our beck-and-call, with a happy ending tacked-on for good measure. He will mold, shape, renew, and craft, but a personal valet He is not.

God doesn’t guarantee a pleasant journey. In fact, for many of His children, the road is long and cluttered with potholes.

He intends to test us.

I was listening to Christian radio and caught the tail end of a guy talking about this very subject. His son, who was in his late teens at the time the story took place, was frustrated with God after going through a rough spot in his young life. Angrily he questioned “why, if God is so loving, does He let people go through so much pain and suffering?” He saw no truth to scriptures that claim everything works for the good of God.

Everything?

Dad went into a dresser drawer and pulled out an oyster shell that he had been keeping as a souvenir. When he had found the oyster, it contained a pearl. In the story, the shell, preserved with a clear lacquer finish, revealed a great deal about the process of making the pearl.

Dad explained that pearls don’t just happen. There’s no magic involved with making a pearl. In fact, the opposite is true. A pearl begins as a grain of sand that gets lodged inside of an oyster. The oyster’s defenses do everything nature allows in order to reject the foreign matter, which includes secreting some sort of mucus that actually coats and transforms that grain of sand, over time, into a beautiful pearl.

The process of making a pearl is uncomfortable for an oyster – very uncomfortable. And it certainly takes much time and effort.

Isn’t life like that for us?

I, for one, find life very uncomfortable and complicated, unless I am in the presence of God. In fact, often times I can feel God’s presence because of the difficulties.

I heard the pearl story two more times within just a few days of that radio show, once during a sermon delivered by one of the Pastors at my church. Another on a TV show – and I almost never watch TV.

Do you think God was trying to tell me something?

My dog Spike developed fast-moving pancreas cancer and went into liver failure a week ago. My surprise was only eclipsed by the sorrow of the terrible news. I took a pet that I thought had a simple virus to a doctor who told me a half-hour later that my dear friend Spike was going to die.

Through the tears I felt something come over me like a flow of warm water to calm, comfort, and wash-away the pain. It was Jesus who wrapped His arms around me; He came to me in a time of great sorrow and I felt His presence. He took me to green pastures and led me by still waters right through the valley of the shadow of death. He gave me peace.

As I gently whispered my last goodbye into Spike’s ear, I felt his life end in my arms and I was broken, beaten, devastated, that I had lost such a good friend so suddenly, so unexpectedly…

But I know that this terrible experience is part of life. Losing a pet is a very sad thing, but losing a loved one, a family member, a friend, is harder still. I have witnessed death a lot in my life. We all have! It never gets any easier. In saying goodbye to Spike, I remembered that this month marks the 30th anniversary of the death of my best childhood friend, John Simon. John took his own life at the age of 19, on my 21st Birthday. And in February I will mourn the second anniversary of the passing of another dear friend of mine, John Rae, who died due to complications from pneumonia in 2010. The list goes on-and-on.

Pearls.

As we move through life, if we listen to God, we can be transformed from grains of sand into beautiful Heavenly Pearls. It’s God’s plan. It’s not always pleasant. And we’ll struggle against it with all our might sometimes, until we realize (hopefully) that The Creator is at work in our lives again. And it will be beautiful; it will be forever.

Goodbye My Friend!

That’s what I think anyway.

Spike is gone and I still cry every time something reminds me of his sweet, sweet smile on my life. He was my angel, after all. And I know you’d laugh if you knew that I burst into tears tonight, fifteen minutes ago, a full week after Spike’s death, when I saw a tumbleweed of his fur roll-out from under my bed.

And I thank God he touched my life.

I remember when
I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
And You raised me up again
My strength is almost gone
How can I carry on
If I can’t find You

But as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
“I’m with you”
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

I lift my eyes unto the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The Maker of Heaven and Earth

And I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

– Casting Crowns

A Glimpse of Home

“Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries, which themselves are one.” – from Homer’s Odessey

In adult Bible study today we discussed “home” and “homesickness” as these terms relate to our perception of, and perhaps position within, our own life and relationship with God. We each were asked to present an example of “home” as we remember it from our childhood. This would turn out to be an exercise that would evidently point each one of us in two opposing directions at the same time.

The first direction would be a look backwards at the beginning of life and a search for union, love, belonging, and home. Perhaps, as the required text put it, “the foundational seed of a possible and ideal paradise.”

The second direction, of course, would be looking forward. Our one memory of “home” would serve each of us as an inner compass or “homing device” always pointing forward.

With this “device” planted within us, “the end is in the beginning, and the beginning points toward the end.” We all yearn for home, as even a child with an abusive or sad childhood longs for some idealized form of “home” or “mother” and wants to somehow return to it.

My mind instantly took me to the dining table on Christmas Eve – December 24th, 1960 something? I don’t know how old I was in the flash of a memory? Probably around eight years of age (that would make it 1968), as my parents had just moved into their “dream house” in Darien, Illinois on Halloween less than two months before. I could see into the living room from my dinner chair, all the presents carefully placed under the large fake green tree with anticipation and love. That’s what I saw anyway.

I knew this wasn’t our old house, mostly because we had a fake white tree over there – with one of those funky spinning color wheels that would turn the tree blue, green, and red about every thirty seconds. I liked the way it turned the walls, ceiling, drapes, carpet, people, dog, furniture, and snow outside the window different colors too.

What did I know? I was just a baby.

OMG! That's the one.

I think we even had one of those aluminum Christmas trees at some point in our old house, but don’t quote me on it. I was either too young back then to recall for sure, or I am drawing a blank now because of the embarrassment over the possibility that we would fall victim to such a pitiful mistake of fashion. “Tree by Reynolds Wrap.” Bleeeech! No wonder we had to move.

The Christmas trees, however, were not why this particular memory came to me so quickly, while I was being pressed to come up with a childhood image of “home” in my Bible study class this morning. No, not even toy race cars, choo choo trains, trikes, bikes, soldiers, cowboy pistols (save the NRA comments please), or favorite games pierced the cobwebs of my aging mind like the vision of that dining table did so effortlessly and with clarity.

Do you remember by your sense of smell? Yeah. Me too!

Every once in a while I get a whiff of that Christmas Eve meal; it takes me right back to the kitchen where my grandmother (mom’s mother) prepared every holiday meal throughout my whole life, until I was in my twenties and she passed away. I never thought I’d miss the commotion and fit my father would throw every time he had to carve the hot turkey. (He still pitches that same fit, but I intervene when I can and carve it myself – no angst, it’s just a hot bird. You dig?)

But I do miss it! I missed it when the table popped into my head again this morning. I miss the smell of it.

Mom was at one end of a seemingly endless red tablecloth; red linen napkins, our best silver and china, and crystal wine goblets provided a forest of shiny things reflecting the lit candles in the center of the table, semi-blocking a view of my dad way down at the other end. The food my grandmother, Helmi, had been preparing for days was strategically set all around steaming in pretty serving dishes and I know for a fact that I just wanted to get past grace and the obligatory Christmas Eve toast fast, so that I could dig in – to the gifts.

Grandpa (my dad’s dad) always had the honor of giving that toast. I don’t know why? Maybe it was some ancient patriarchal custom, or maybe that he wanted to get it over with too, so that we could get to the vittles? Whatever the reason, he was selected year-in-and-year-out to say a few words of wisdom.

I’m fuzzy over his exact words, as “some” years have since gone under the memory bridge, but with lifted wine glass he would make a similar – no exactly the same – offering every year:

“Another year has come and gone, let’s be thankful we are all sitting around this table once again.”

I wanted so badly to wolf-down my food and then rip-open the gifts. Grrrrr! It was the longest meal of the year for me.

My grandmother, the chef, died in 1989. My grandfather shortly thereafter. The details are not important. She broke a hip in 1988, spent a whole year recovering. A few days after she finally made it home from the nursing center, she broke the other hip and did not recover from the pneumonia that developed. Near the end, grandpa George had Alzheimer’s and a pretty bad case of Emphysema (from smoking two packs of filterless Camels since he was a young boy).

They left this world pretty close together. Apparently he missed her cooking? I know the feeling.

You know, up until the last time they were together, they would address one another as “Mrs. Kaal” and “Mr. Chochola.” I don’t believe we have anywhere close to that degree of respect and decorum left in this world right now. Seems some of that died with them too?

The Christmas Eve dinner table guests left one-by-one until it didn’t really look like Christmas Eve to me any more. For a long time I pretended to not care that holidays felt so different, so empty, or that I had to work. That was actually a relief. I stood tough as cousins moved away and started families of their own. My dad’s family was never very close and when grandpa was gone, so too was the force that brought that side of the family together.

On mom’s side there wasn’t anyone but mom and my grandmother to begin with. They barely escaped Estonia through Nazi Germany during World War II and came to America just the two of them. My grandfather on my mom’s side had died when she was a small child and everyone else, except for a few friends, didn’t make it out.

That old memory I’ve been keeping tucked-away and out of sight really blew my mind this morning. From out of nowhere, there I was, eight years old again. It really bore a striking resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci‘s The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L’Ultima Cena). It also reminded me of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that I celebrate with my church family. And that really made me smile.

For many years I have had this horrible empty feeling like the past is gone and I cannot get it back. I’d miss those days when I could see, touch, and smell the sensations of family – of the union, love, belonging, and home.

That’s what the Holy Spirit has given back to me through my church family. Folks probably wonder why I always sit up front. But I like to watch every part of every service (especially the Lord’s Supper) from a front row seat, simply because I don’t want to miss anything. I take it all in with delight like I’m eight years old again and really cannot get over how moved I am to watch the faces coming forward. God feeding His people and I want to be right there to see it all unfold. Is that a bad thing?

Suddenly I am at the table once again – a foretaste of things to come. In many ways that’s what the Christmas Eve dinner table was so many years ago. I know it now. It was a foretaste of the Lord’s Table with grandpa George and grandma Helmi, with my church family, and with all of God’s children.

It’s a beautiful thought isn’t it? It’ll be a beautiful reality when our “two great mysteries, which themselves are one” come together with God at His table. I know “Mrs. Kaal”  wiil be there – probably cooking if she has any say in the matter. And “Mr. Chochola” will most certainly greet us with a toast.

Until that day, may we all maintain the seed that points to an eternal paradise in our hearts and in our memories.

Amen!