Remembering

A year and a half ago, I got word that my friend Chad Max Miller and his brother Chris had died in a kayak accident.  His death remains a solid reminder of the brevity of life, of the words from James: You are a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes.

I know James' intent was to remind his listeners that life is short, that we can't count on tomorrow.  But I wonder if that mist really vanishes?  That might be one of our greatest fears - the fear of being forgotten, of leaving no legacy. And certainly it's something that those of us left here struggle with; does anyone remember our loved one? Do they still tell the stories?

I remember Chad every day.  In fact, it's still hard to believe he's gone. As I remember him, what sticks out is his character. Well, besides the anecdotes I could tell about funny shared events and good times we had.  I remember how generous he was and how authentic he was.  He didn't do things because they looked good; he did things because they were good.  He was a hard worker because it was right to work hard.  He played hard because it was fun to play hard.  He helped people because they needed help.

It makes me think about my own life and mortality and the legacy I will leave. When I went to my high school reunion, there were all kinds of people I didn't remember and I wondered why they remembered me.  What had I done that merited remembering? 

Sometimes I find that motivating.  But I'm usually just walking, one step at a time, as if life weren't a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Joe

Ten years ago, my friend Joe died.  I had just gotten back in touch with him after having lost contact with him for several years, but I never got to see him before he died.  He and I weren't close friends in high school, though we were good acquaintances, but in college, he was the one guy I could always count on.  Since he was still in Kokomo, he was always home when I was (including when all my friends had returned to school in the fall and I was waiting for NU to start the much-later fall quarter), and we hung out all the time. 

When Joe got back in touch, he told me he had cancer - he couldn't make it to any of the high school 10th reunion activities because his doctor didn't want him being around all of the potential germs and bugs.  I didn't make it either - I was out of town for a wedding that weekend and barely made it in for an informal picnic with some members of the class.  I figured I would just see Joe the next time I was in town.  I didn't expect that "next time" to be for his funeral.

Now here we are, ten years later, and Saturday night I dreamed about Joe.  The dream was rather strange (including a bit where I was running a long distance race that went through a barn filled with angry cows - I turned around and tried to sneak out before the bull saw me), but at the end of the dream I was hanging out with Joe. 

Somehow, I think I realized that I was dreaming, because even though he was right in front of me, I realized that Joe was already dead, and I knew that once I woke up, I wouldn't see him again. It was as though I knew I was going to wake up.  I knew I had to say my goodbyes. We said goodbye, and shortly thereafter, I woke up.

I frequently remember my dreams, but this one seemed really vivid.  And (I should add) though it's said we dream in black and white, I dream in vivid color.  And I can still see it in my mind, a full day later.

Weekend Reflections #1

This was supposed to be Monday Morning reflections, but somehow the computer ate the original. So here it is Tuesday morning, and here are some reflections from the weekend.

Actually they are thoughts from the past couple of weeks.

In just a couple of weeks' time, I have seen a lot. I conducted two funerals (during Vacation Bible School week) and suffered the tragic loss of my friend Chad and celebrated my grandmother's 99 years - a life well-lived.

It can be hard to think about death; our culture does everything we can to avoid even thinking of it, and when I started in ministry, I wondered, "How can anyone (I was mostly thinking of pastors here) deal with death so often and have it not crush them?"

I asked that question to several pastors, none of whom had any answer. Then I asked Eldon Sheffer, who was one of my colleagues at Stonybrook UMC (and is a funeral director), and his answer is something I've carried with me ever since. He told me that this is a precious time, the time when immortality brushes near our mortal lives. We are closer to heaven than any other time in life when we experience someone's death - as they enter eternity.

Though funerals are sad, they offer hope - and in every funeral service I'm a part of, I will always give the hope of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins - that we all have the opportunity to receive God's grace and take our place with Him, a face-to-face place where there is no suffering, no sorrow, no pain, no tears, no disease, a place where death is defeated, once and for all.

So that's the first part of the weekend reflections.

Update to my post about Chad Miller

Chad's body was recovered downstream from where he and his brother died. Their funeral was back in Iowa. Here is the funeral home website with a more complete obituary for Chad.

If you go there, click on the online memorial book to read about someone who really made an impact for Jesus Christ in his short life.

Another Good-Bye

On the very first day of my very first seminary class, I met him. Many of my colleagues had told their various horror stories of seminary Greek - they waited as long as they could to take it, but being a contrarian by nature, I set out to take it first.

I entered the classroom and scanned the scene, and found the seat nearest the back left corner (by the chalkboard). The corner seat was already taken by a blonde guy with as big a head as I have. Maybe even bigger. His name was Chad Max Miller, and we became instant friends.

As Greek class went on, we found out that it was really pretty easy. Bordering on simple, actually. Especially if you had been a foreign language major in college. As Chad and I had both majored in German in college, we found that we were simply tasked with memorizing new word endings and vocabulary. Thus the back corner of this particular Greek class resembled the back of another classroom.

Chad and I were instant friends, not just because we were good at Greek. We had a lot more in common than that. We played pick-up soccer frequently - besides a couple of people I knew from being in class with, pretty much everyone I knew in seminary was someone I played sports with. Chad was no exception. We could always be found playing soccer together. He used to joke that when we started playing pick-up soccer, he was one of the best players, but by the time we graduated, he was one of the worst. And through that time, he had improved his game a lot! It was just that the level of competition went through the roof during our time there.

Chad was an intense guy. We lifted weights together in the seminary's (sad little) weight room - when the sewer backed up and flooded the (downstairs) weight room with raw sewage, Chad and I brought all the equipment upstairs and washed it thoroughly. We stuck a nametag on the door of the (old) weight room naming it "The Outhouse Basement." But here's a little picture of Chad's character: When the student life people tasked one of their employees to move the equipment back downstairs (and were paying her to do so), she came in and asked for some help doing it (there was no way she could do it on her own). We told her the situation and about the smell in the downstairs room, and the student life people decided not to go through with the move. But the woman who was moving it was unhappy: she was hoping for the extra money... to buy her medication. Chad asked her how much student life was going to pay her, and promptly gave her $40 out of his wallet. That was just Chad for you.

Anyway, I was going to tell you about his intensity, not his generosity. We would push each other hard in the weight room, always with the threat of shame if one of us would back down. It was all about honor and shame in the weight room.

One summer Chad and I worked for "Bob" - who was dismantling his house and reconstructing it. We were mostly in charge of taking the brickwork off, because "Bob" wanted to save the bricks (if he used new bricks, he would have had mismatched brickwork). It was ridiculously slow, but it was fun working with Chad. We started the first day wearing long pants and sleeves and so forth, but by the third day, we were wearing shorts and shoes and nothing else. I ended up so tanned that in my Asbury directory picture that next year, I just looked like a smile.

We would be up on the roof with Sir Mix-a-Lot blaring from the system in Chad's rockin' Hyundai or 80s music playing (he was shocked and awed by the speed at which I was able to identify a Ray Parker Junior song - not Ghostbusters), cracking on "The Colonel" who lived next door, laughing at Bob's son (who got fired that summer, yes, by his dad), and idolizing the "real" construction workers who came in and did the real work.

There are too many awesome stories about that summer to tell, but once Chad left a hammer on top of a ladder, and it fell right on my head. Another time I dumped a whole bunch of brick and mortar chunks off the scaffold on Chad. We were tasked with digging a basement under the house and given a jackhammer for the day: Bob told us we could have a steak dinner if we got down 6'. By the end of the day we'd gotten down 1 1/2 feet. Yeah, he had to get some of the real construction guys to do that job (with a backhoe and a Bobcat).

Like I said, too many stories to tell.

Chad took an unconventional path. He was one guy who I believed when he told me that God had spoken to him verbally. That was part of his conversion story. Chad was baptized on the day he graduated from seminary.Chad's seminary job: bartender at my (hands-down) favorite Lexington restaurant. The others in the restaurant knew him as "the missionary." Which was what he was.

Today I got the news that Chad and his brother, Christopher (who I really only knew from meeting him once - he came out for a visit and played soccer with us. He was really good - oh, and I knew him from his picture on Chad's fridge. I spent a lot of time in Chad's apartment) died in a kayak accident.

His church is honoring him tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

My heart is broken at the loss of a friend. I miss you, Chad. Godspeed. Say Hi to Mike Yaconelli for me. And give Jesus a hug. I'll be along in what - in the face of eternity - will seem like a twinkling.

Angels Among Us

Last night I went to a prayer vigil for Dennis, a local boy who has been given 1-3 weeks to live (due to brain cancer, which he has been fighting for multiple years).

They had a speaker system set up and at one point they played the Alabama song Angels Among Us. At this point I was talking to someone I've met around town, and I told her that my grandmother has been having regular angel visits (my mom initially told me about them, but Grandma confirmed it by telling me about the angel - she told me that he never lets her see his face, and I expect that he will one day...).

Anyway, I was told that Dennis has been seeing angels as well. Furthermore, when he came home from the hospital, a dove showed up by his house and hasn't left. There are various folklore explanations as to why this dove might be there, and it could be that it has lived nearby for years and was never noticed until someone "wanted" to notice it (possibly because they knew of the folklore explanation), but that doesn't explain the angel sighting, or the fact that my mother, who does a lot of hospice chaplain work, has experienced many multiple people who, near death, have seen angels.

When I started in ministry, I asked a colleague, Eldon, who worked with me as visitation pastor (and is also a very good funeral director - I want him to do my funeral) how he gets through funerals. He told me what a precious time it is with a family; that this is the one time in this mortal life that they come closest to the immortal, when the veil is thinnest.

I don't pretend that I "get" it, but that's OK. It still makes sense to me, and I'm OK with the mystery. All I know is that there is more going on than we can see...