My last stint in the army I served as a chaplain in a Combat Engineer unit.  These were basically Infantry soldiers with specialty skills and equipment needed to quickly cross rivers, make or destroy minefields, build walls/barriers, take down buildings, etc.     We went to the field a lot  since that’s where you learn and train to do this stuff.   And as a Chaplain I had a lot of opportunity to talk with the soldiers about all kinds of things – the field is a great place to get to know people.   These conversations were usually informal, but sometimes they got pretty deep for sure.  Once a soldier asked me if killing was wrong.   For soldiers, that’s a pretty fundamental question!     

A few months later, again in the field (actually at Fort A.P. Hill) I had another informal conversation with a fellow officer.   Although at that time he was married and had a few children, he shared that when he was younger – he was a graduate from The Citadel South Carolina – he said he had a “dark heart”.    And he talked about how it took him a long time to get back to being a normal person.    He said his faith played a key role in this.

Life-questions, life-issues, life-stories.

Have you ever read a book   or seen a movie   heard a song   gone to a concert   etc.   that left you thinking, trying to process that experience?   Maybe that made you feel something different?  

I’ve never really understood the whole “re-reading books” idea.    I mean, you already know the ending – there are no surprises.    Isn’t that part of hearing a story… you don’t know what will happen.    But John Grisham’s book The Testament was different!    I read that first many years ago.  And it had such an impact on me that many years later I read it again.   I wanted to remember again what the book made me feel and think about the first time.   It’s about a lawyer who travels to the deep Amazon to find an American woman who works there.  She comes from a very rich family, and this lawyer was there to inform her that she’d inherited many millions of dollars.   All she had to do was sign the paperwork and it would all be hers.    Well, in this process, she refuses the money, and shares with him why it means nothing to her.  

The book is basically about greed and our reactions to it…. And what life really means.

I remember the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance”.  It came out back in the late ‘90’s I think.    I’d gone to the theater to watch a whole other movie, but either I missed the time, or it was sold out.   So I had to pick another movie.   I remember looking up at the list of movies above the head of the ticket window person.   “Bagger Vance” I  said.   Even though it had already started, it had only been by a few minutes, so it wasn’t too late.   The movie was about a WWI veteran from the south that uses golf as a way to find life again after the war.    Bagger Vance is the “mystical” wise-person who comes into the main characters life at the very rightest time.   The whole movie is a keeper!

And there’s a line there that really struck me:    “Inside each and every one of us is our one true authentic swing… somethin’ we was born with… somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone.  Somethin’ that can’t be taught to you… or learned…   Somethin’ that’s got to be remembered.      Over time the world can rob us of that swing – it gets buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas.    Some folk even forget what their swing was like”

Wow!   “Something that’s got to be remembered.”   It’s there, just forgotten.   That sure made me think!    It made me remember.      Maybe for you it’s a song – a song that makes you remember again.

I remember my daddy woke me up one morning early, like zero-dark-thirty early.   I was nine years old.   This was the Mohammed Ali/Joe Frasier re-match… the “Thrilla in Manilla”!   I know how old I was because I had to look up the fight – October 1^st, 1975.    They were going to broadcast the fight live out of the Philippines, and my father said he wanted to watch the fight… and because he was going to do that, I wanted to watch it with him!     So he woke me up.    I don’t remember anything about the fight… who knows, maybe I fell asleep on the couch.   But I remember I wanted to be there with him as he watched it.  Funny what you remember sometimes.

I remember the last time I spoke with Michael Deets, the day before he died.  He was one of our church members, a young guy – my age.  At the time must I have been 45 or so.   We was ending a losing battle against cancer.    It had taken him pretty fast.    On that last day we talked about life and God and other important things people talk about when you know there’s not a lot of life left.   I think I was the last person to speak with him because his family said after I left, he really didn’t say much at all – he basically fell asleep and didn’t speak after that until he died the next morning.    I remember he said “Happiness is wanting what you have.”   I don’t think he was talking about things.    

I remember visiting the mother of one of our congregation members at the church I’m at now… a woman with a lot of vision!    Sophie was from Liberia.   She’d seen a lot; the blessings of life as well as the tragedies.    And she had a vision to help the children of her home country, a vison of starting a school to help children, many of whom had suffered so much during the long war there.   But Sophie was here when cancer also took her – her in Maryland.    She used to say almost every time I visited her   “God is in control”.   

I remember John Long’s funeral!    He was a long-time member of this congregation.    He died around 92 or 94, something like that.   his funeral was more a celebration than anything else.   He sure loved his music!   He loved his trumpet, and his bands – he played all kinds of music in his life!   So it didn’t seem too out of place to hear New Orleans jazz version of “Oh When The Saints” at his funeral!

At council meetings, sometimes we would begin meetings by checking in.   Instead of going straight to business, we’d sometimes ask each other life-questions; we’d talk about a time we remember God in our lives.  We’d shared before our concerns, and prayed for each other.   This last meeting we shared what we we’re thankful for.      Certainly there’s business to take care of.   But there’s also the business of being human with each other.   

That’s what I think Sunday morning is all about after all.   It’s about the human experience… and us recognizing God’s presence within our human experience; in the stories we remember, and the stories we share and tell, in the songs we sing, in our worship, and just in being together….  In the sacredness of being together… in the sacredness of carrying on…                

When I got here to the congregation I’m at now, about 9 years ago, Dan Deets was the one that would prepare coffee for after church.   Then he started to get more and more ill.   Pretty soon he couldn’t do that anymore.   So his wife took over those coffee duties.    And she did that for a time.   Then another lady took over after that.  and now it’s two women who have taken responsibility for preparing coffee for after church fellowship.     I don’t know who did it before Dan, and I don’t know who will do this after Jan and Janet.   Is it coffee?   Yeah, it’s coffee.    But it’s not just coffee… it’s about the whole community!  

When we share prayers here at church - prayers for the family, when people share stories about their kids, or their jobs, or about life… we all relate.     We relate because we also have our own stories of challenges with our kids and jobs and homes.   And we have our stories of blessings and joys – our academic successes, the weddings, the baptisms.  Eve all experienced our share of all these things.   

In all this we recognize we’re on a path of life.   On a journey of faith lived out with our families and friends, people we know and live, and sometimes people we don’t know well at all.     We’re fed and nourished by these good memories, these present moments of grace.  Sometimes these bring smiles to our faces, they remind s of the fragility of life, or they make us stop and wonder and feel.

In all this we keep travelling.   We look forward, we look ahead.  We know our path keeps going.  As normal we have twists and turns in life.  Some parts are easy straighways.   But in all this we know God is with us.   Often we feel this most through family and friends.    

The thing is, we live this every day – sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees – we’re too close to our lives to see that there really is a mystery there… a divine mystery in this whole “living” thing.       Sometimes I’m struck by what happens at church on Sunday mornings; in the midst of fragile, strong, sensitive, hopeful, anxious, joyful people.

In the midst of our normal, extraordinary, mundane, sacred lives… there’s God!   In the middle of it all!       Sometimes we remember, but  I think mostly we don’t. 

Even so, it’s the right thing to do!   The more, the better.     It’s the right thing to be open to God’s Spirit here among us!