Dan's Thoughts

Trish #48 - October 25, 2004

The doctors decided not to release Trish from the hospital Saturday evening. The wound from her arteriogram was not doing as well as they had expected. So Sunday I prepared to attend our farewell service at The Valley Cathedral, thinking that Trish would not be able to attend. Nonetheless, I put her clothes in the car and gave our son-in-law my cell phone and a set of keys. When I came out of the 7:45 service, my car was gone. I soon discovered that Trish had called Austin to tell him that the doctors had released her.

She got to the church in time to enjoy most of the service. And what a service it was! It was everything Trish and I could have hoped for. The worship was celebratory, the reminiscing was appropriate and uplifting. We all just had a good time together. Afterward, Trish and I greeted the hundreds of people who waited in line for two hours to speak to us. Then we went home, exhausted and happy.

The New Testament reading for Sunday was II Timothy 4 .."I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, etc..." In that passage, Paul was saying goodbye to his son in the gospel. He was relinquishing his years and responsibility to those whom God had appointed to lead the church after Paul's departure. Surely Paul was thinking things like, "if only I had a bit more time. The people are not quite ready. I'm not sure ..." I know that he was thinking that because I know how leaders think! But our Lord is always responsible for His own church. There always comes a time when he asks us to release His church back to him. Of course, that moment of relinquishment will come for each of us at death. Most of us also get to practice for that final relinquishment by surrendering various roles and responsibilities throughout life. We are rarely prepared for such moments. When our children marry and leave home, we are never quite ready to admit that the time has come to let go. In church work too, leaders are never quite ready to surrender leadership when their season is over. It is difficult to let go, (though not nearly as difficult as holding onto authority and power when our season has ended.) So an important part of leadership is knowing when the time has come to trust God and the other leaders He has chosen and to just let go.

At any rate, I really enjoyed the services Sunday at The Valley Cathedral. I saw the strength and health of church. I have no doubt today that the leaders and the people will remain united as they begin to discern together the will of God for their future.

In the receiving line after service, I heard story after story of salvations, healing and tender moments in which individuals had experienced some pastoral moment of grace with me. I enjoyed hearing them, of course. For most of these ten years, I have thought my work was to solve problems and to "deliver the goods" at the level of competence and performance that people expect from a pastor. But in that receiving line though, I heard none of that. No one commended me for any of the important things I did! What I heard was stories about hospital visits in which I had done nothing but sit and feel incompetent. I heard about offhand remarks I had made that changed lives but which I have forgotten. I heard about things I said or did that I didn't really think about as being important at all. This is the essence of pastoring though: the fallible human beings who are called of God and ordained by His church to help connect other hurting fallible people to the living God have no idea how to do that work. Most of the ways we try to do it don't work and are never remembered. When it happens that we do get used to connect others to the Lord it is because God chooses to peek through the cracks in our facade, pour grace through our own wounds. I have learned here that we can only comfort others with the comfort by which we ourselves have been comforted.

Sunday the church presented Trish and I with two paintings. Both are works by an American Indian artist. One is of Christ, depicted as a Native American, holding out bread and wine in a gesture of welcome and invitation. The other is also of Christ and His apostles, also depicted as Natives, each clothed in dress typical of tribes from the various regions of our country. These paintings so wonderfully capture the essence of what we have wanted to do here in Phoenix and also capture the essence of how God uses brokenness. After all, our Native people specialize in working with brokenness. They have their broken land, broken treaties and a broken social order that our country forced upon them. They have had to swallow a bitter pill for a long time. But our Native believers are not bitter people -- they turn their brokenness into sources of great wisdom and healing and they have taught me so much about God and His work.

Yesterday, as an elderly Navajo lady hugged me, I thought of the Christmas gathering for Native believers in which she sang "Angels from the realms of glory spread your wings o're all the earth." I didn't understand a word she sang and yet I understood it all. I knew that the woman that was singing really believed in angels and the event she was recalling in song was one she could easily envision. As she sang, I was able to see what she saw. Native believers like her cured me of my secularism and my cynicism. They taught me to see the world through a different pair of glasses.

Lolomah and Y' te!

Well, enough preaching. Trish will see a couple of doctors this week -- her neurosurgeon and her neuropsychologist. (One for the software and one for the hardware!) Saturday, Lord willing, we will begin our journey to Tennessee.

I cannot thank the people of the Valley Cathedral enough for the gracious way that they have blessed my decision. I can now return to Nashville with the blessing of the people I have served for these many years! It helps me to have a deep sense of fulfillment and peace that I have done what the Lord brought me here to do. I came with great plans to transform the city. I really didn't get do that. God did use the city to transform me, however, and I am grateful for that.

I feel something like Jacob; I have wrestled all night. In the chaos of the struggle, my leg got broken. So I limp a little now. But it has been worth it because I have seen the Lord. Early this Summer, while in Mexico, I heard him call my name. I heard him say that I was going to go home now. At the time, I had no idea how that could possibly happen. Now, this coming Saturday, I will begin driving to Nashville.

I am going to Nashville because God and I have an appointment there. But I will never forget the canyons and the mountains of the West. Nor will I forget its people. The desert is a harsh teacher. But it is an effective one. So tonight, I don't regret a mile of the journey.

God's peace to you all,

Dan