December 4, 2016
Text: Matthew 3: 1-13
Asking for forgiveness and committing one’s life to God and Finding Peace within ourselves and amongst the people who are walking this Earth with us.
I have been speaking lately to friends who are dealing with tremendous adversity about simply devoting oneself to God, Love and Hope. When we are overwhelmed by life’s suffering and pain and struggles, sometimes all we can do is focus on a few words at a time...God, Love and Hope. The story of John the Baptist calling out in the wilderness speaks to this. He has left his home, he is a wanderer communing with God and he is acting on the divine inspiration he is receiving. He is sustaining himself on locusts and wild honey. His clothing is created by combing the hair of a camel. This represents his great love for God’s natural world...he is living gently on the earth. He is at the same time reaching out courageously with love and compassion to the diverse peoples of the region...people of many different tribes, Jews and Gentiles ...and telling them to come join him in what he perceives as a life giving recommitment to God. He offers them baptism...a ritual of asking for forgiveness for hurtful destructive God-less living and committing their lives anew to God and welcoming the new leadership of Jesus--the coming Messiah. John’s message focuses on God, Love and Hope and Peace.
There have been several very special people in my life over the years who have had trouble receiving this life giving message. Gordon Cosby called it placing yourself in God’s life-giving stream of abundant love....Letting God’s forgiveness, love and hope penetrate the central core of your being. Those of you who are struggling with this, I encourage you daily to visualize being with John in the Wilderness...go for long walks or sit quietly by a window and observe the beauty of the sky....ask John or Jesus to baptize you as often as you need to feel the overwhelming love stream from God...that moves you through the struggle and the pain on towards God’s love and hope.
The scriptures for this second Sunday of Advent ask us to Create God’s Kingdom in our Lives NOW. I want to share with you three stories of people who kept God, Love and Hope ever present in their lives despite very tragic circumstances that caused tremendous suffering. I want to say here God was actually never overtly mentioned....but there was always a sense of the benevolent life-force of the universe with and among us during our time together.
The first story focuses on a dear friend of my husband’s ....Jamie. They had met because of their shared passion for river conservation in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. They started a river conservation organization together that is very active today called the West Virginia River’s Coalition. This was in response to the devastating water contamination of rivers by coal mining operations. Jamie loved canoeing and cross country skiing. He was an extremely positive person who was kind and respectful to everyone he met. One time ten years ago we went skiing with him and we noticed he seemed to be losing the ability to control his skis. That next year we did not get the usual beautifully written holiday note from Jamie and his family. The next time we saw him, he was at the ski hut with his family but unable to walk very well. We found out that he had been diagnosed with ALS. We were devastated. We understood then why we had not heard from them. The news was too difficult to share. Over the next five years we visited with Jamie and his wife and adult son. We always had many wonderful visits and Jamie was always in good spirits and always had a beautiful smile. He experienced tremendous gradual losses...in ability to walk, to drive, difficulty typing, difficulty reading, he needed twenty-four-hour care eventually and a special wheelchair with a mouth stylus to communicate. Jamie was sustained by the tremendous love and devotion of his wife and son and many friends. We had dinner with Jamie and his family three weeks before he passed away ...as we said good-bye we had a feeling it might be the last time we were with Jamie. He blessed each of us with a final beautiful smile. God, Love, Hope until the end.
The second story centers around my old family friends Ann, her husband Tom and special-needs son Paul. My brother and I grew up with the three boys in their family. We did a lot of outings with the Boy Scouts and Paul was always included. Ann and Tom were very loving and at times stressed parents. There were often social issues....awkward moments...But when the other two boys moved out to independence a very special life dynamic developed among Ann, Tom and Paul. Tom was a very accomplished PhD and MD in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He often had to travel internationally to do research, and Ann and Paul went along as well. Over fifteen years ago sadly Ann was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. It broke my heart because I saw how much Ann had worked to make life right for Paul. I did not want to see her stressed and struggling in the later years of her life. Ann and Tom were my inspiration many times when we were overwhelmed with our family life with two traumatized kids adopted from Russia. Many nights when I would feel very disheartened, I would remember Ann, Tom and Paul. The miracle of their story is again God, Love and Hope. Ultimately Tom and Paul lovingly cared for Ann for many years as she slowly lost her ability to think clearly and to talk and became completely dependent on nursing care. They would spend time together listening to her favorite music and going for walks outside. Her physical presence with them was cherished until the end. God, Love, Hope. After she passed away Tom asked Paul to call us with the news. We had a deeply moving conversation with him. A year later a friend of ours died of cancer and again Tom asked Paul to write a condolence letter to the family...it was a touching, beautiful letter. God, Love, Hope.
My final story of God, Love and Hope occurred in the years when I was in my mid-twenties. I was working a nurses aide/technician at the Washington Hospital Center just as patients were being hospitalized in the advanced stages of AIDS. At the time I was trying to decide if I wanted to become a nurse. I had a life-transforming experience with a very special patient in the hospital’s cancer ward. She was an African-American woman in her 60’s and her name was Mollie...The entire time I worked with her she was very ill with advanced stage cancer. I was taught how to care for her...bathe her in bed...change her surgical dressing. At first we did not speak very much. I learned that she had had surgery and they found so much cancer in her abdomen, they simply closed her back up. I remember she had a very long scar. She was very much alone most of the time in her room. But sometimes her adult son who was probably in his 20’s came to sit with her. I remember being told he was released from the jail to be with her...I think he had shackles on his legs. He never spoke and he looked crushed by life. It was very sad. Somehow as the days passed, Mollie let me into her heart and CARED for me!!!! While I cared for her. When I was going off shift, she started saying to me every time...”Keep spreading your sunshine.” One day I went into her room and a young doctor was there. He was told to open her surgical wound right there in her hospital room....I was horrified. I stood with her and held her hand. It was awful.....I was so disturbed and visually shocked that I had to leave the room and in the hallway I fainted. I had to be revived with smelling salts. Much later I went back into her room...Mollie gently asked me if I was okay. I realize now that this beloved women created God’s Kingdom with me...she affirmed my life calling with her loving, faithful, hopeful presence. At the time I was on shaky ground...entering what can be a very intimidating profession. The last time I was with Mollie, I went into her room to visit her because I had been moved to another floor. It was a Friday before my weekend off and she lovingly asked me what my plans were for the weekend. She had never done this before. She also said to me again...”keep spreading your sunshine.” I found out later that she had died the very next day...I think she had known that she was saying good-bye to me for the very last time. Sometimes I think of her son. Was his mother’s death the end of his life as well...his lifeline to God’s grace was no longer physically with him ....or did he get inspired to start over again anew by her eternal spiritual presence with him? God, Love, Hope.