Presbyterians in Wonderland

Imagine that your car has been stolen, and you find out who took it--let's say it's someone named X. Then picture the following scenario: You go to the police and make a complaint. The police investigate, and determine that the facts are as you have reported them: your car is no longer at your house, but is at X's house. But, the police say, they cannot charge X with theft. They explain that the title to the car shows that the car belongs to you. Since the title clearly shows that the car is yours, X cannot possibly possess your car. Therefore they cannot charge X with stealing it, since it is not possible for X to acquire possession of something that X cannot possess.

At this point you would certainly think that the police were in collusion with X, or that you had somehow stumbled, like Alice, into Wonderland.

A similar thing has just happened in the PC(USA). The Rev. Janet Edwards, who officiated in 2005 at a marriage ceremony between two women, has been acquitted in ecclesiastical court of performing a marriage between two women. She has been acquitted by the Pittsburgh Permanent Judicial Commission because the Presbyterian constitution defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Therefore, says the PJC, since the constitution says a marriage is only between a man and a woman, Edwards could not possibly have performed a marriage ceremony between two women, and so she cannot be charged with it.

This is the same so-called reasoning that was used earlier this year by the GA PJC to acquit the Rev. Janie Spahr of performing a same-sex marriage ceremony.

Just as in my hypothetical example above, either the PJCs are grasping at any way they can find to get an acquittal, because that's the side they're on, or the PC(USA) has stumbled into some sort of Wonderland.

Justice is no longer obtainable in the PC(USA), it seems.

We must all hope that this sort of reasoning does not spread to the criminal courts, or no law will be enforceable.

______________

Since first writing this post, another analogy has occurred to me. Human trafficking is a problem today, and unfortunately sometimes instances of it are discovered in the United States. The U.S. Constitution prohibits slavery. Suppose it were discovered that some people had been enslaved somewhere in the U.S. When those people were rescued and freed, we would expect that the people who had enslaved them would be charged with a crime. But according to the reasoning used by the PJCs described above, it could be possible for the authorities to say that since slavery is prohibited by our constitution, it is impossible for anyone in the U.S. to enslave anyone else. Therefore no one can be charged with enslaving anyone, because slavery in the U.S. is impossible.

Such an analogy shows how ridiculous and unfair these PJC rulings are.

A Presbymeme

I have been tagged by Viola Larson at Naming His Grace to participate in a "Presbymeme" that she saw on the PCUSA Moderator's blog. So here goes:

What is your favorite faith-based hymn, song or chorus?

I can't name just one. I love hymns by Ralph Vaughan Williams for their beautiful music, and so two that I will always name right away are "Come Down, O Love Divine" (with the wonderful 15th-century words by Bianco da Siena) and "For All the Saints".

There are two aspects of the words of "For All the Saints" that I like. One is the encouragement in the midst of our troubles on earth. It's the same feeling I get from The Lord of the Rings, or The Last Battle:

"And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the air the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong,
Alleluia! Alleluia!"

(A note here: The warfare mentioned is spiritual warfare, and the triumph is triumph of good over evil.)

For this same reason, from modern hymns, I love "In Christ Alone", by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. The last verse sets me tingling:

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me.
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand.
Till he returns, or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand!

The other of the two aspects of "For All the Saints" that I like is what I like the most in my favorite hymns: I love hymns that praise God's majesty and glory, and that envisage the beauty and grandeur of heaven. So the last verse of "For All the Saints" always uplifts me:

"From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Alleluia! Alleluia!"

This is why I also love hymns such as "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name"; here is its last verse:

"O that with yonder sacred throng we at His feet may fall!
We'll join the everlasting song, and crown him Lord of all!
We'll join the everlasting song, and crown him Lord of all!"

I thrill to picture myself one day amid that sacred throng, joining in that everlasting song.

Now on to the rest of the meme.

What was the context, content and/or topic of the last sermon that truly touched, convicted, inspired, challenged, comforted and/or otherwise moved you?

I can't remember; I hear good sermons all the time, but I have also been hearing a variety of preachers at different churches this summer, and it's getting mixed up in my head. But here's something I noted down from a sermon last May by Scott Dudley, our senior pastor. He said that what people long for most is transcendance, community, and significance. (I think he got this from John Stott.) However, people go running after our culture's trinity of pleasure, comfort, and happiness, and what they end up with is fear, envy, and loneliness.

If you could have all Presbyterians read just one of your previous posts, what would it be and why?

I would want them to read my post "The Atonement Is Good News." The Atonement is the best news ever, and people need to know about it.

What are three PC(USA) flavored blogs you read on a regular basis?

I'm afraid that I don't read any blogs on a regular basis, but the ones I read the most often are The Berkley Blog, Naming His Grace, and the blog of Mark Roberts.

If the PC(USA) were a movie, what would it be and why?

I guess I can't be specific here, but I'd have to say it would be one of the many World War II movies that focuses on a particular group involved in a particular struggle--but of course they are not the only ones; there are many other struggles going on all over the world at the same time. And the outcome is not yet known at the time the movie is made.

This leads me to end this post by repeating one of the verses from "For All the Saints":

"And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the air the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again, and arms are strong,
Alleluia! Alleluia!"

An Evangelical with a Conscience?

(This post was originally written for Presbyterian Action's General Assembly blog.)

Thursday morning at General Assembly, various elected positions were filled for entities such as the Permanent Judicial Commission and the board of the Presbyterian Foundation. Each position had a nominee proposed by the General Assembly Nominating Committee (GANC).

For some positions, there was also a nominee made from the floor, and for those positions, each nominee (both the floor nominee and the GANC nominee) was presented in a three-minute speech by a person familiar with the candidate.

One person describing a nominee chosen by the GANC said that the nominee liked to describe himself as "an evangelical with a conscience." Undoubtedly this was meant to be seen by the voting audience as a positive quality, but it is in fact a slur, though veiled, against evangelicals.

I am a linguist. Linguists know that some terms in language are "unmarked,” and others are "marked." The unmarked terms, the ones without anything overt added to them, are considered basic and normal and definitional. The marked terms are considered unusual and remarkable.

For example, "president" is an unmarked term, and "lady president" is marked, because the word "lady" has been added to it. Therefore, due to the linguistic structure in "lady president,” it is implied that the normal, basic president is a man, but it is unusual to find a president that is a woman. This is why the women's movement has worked so hard to remove from our language the type of distinction such as "president" versus "lady president.”

Similarly, the term "evangelical" alone is unmarked. Therefore a phrase such as "evangelical with a conscience" is marked, because the phrase "with a conscience" has been added to it. By finding the marked term "evangelical with a conscience" a significant way to describe the candidate, the speaker was implying that the normal, basic, definitional evangelical is one without a conscience, because the unusual type of evangelical is an evangelical with a conscience.

I don't know if many people picked this up or not. Probably the speaker didn't even realize that evangelicals had just been insulted. If so, this may be because the speaker's prejudice against evangelicals is so ingrained that the speaker unconsciously assumed that everyone agrees that there is a lack of conscience in evangelicals.

The conscience that the speaker implied that evangelicals lack is most likely a social-witness conscience. In fact, however, a recent study has shown that evangelical churches give more money and participate in more actual social-witness programs (as opposed to doing social-witness political lobbying) than progressive churches do. The idea of a lack of conscience for evangelicals is not only insulting and prejudiced, it is based on incorrect information. Sadly, this shows up in everyday conversations and news stories all too often, and, as I saw Thursday morning, even in our church assemblies.

How Do We Love Our Neighbor?

(This post was originally written for Presbyterian Action's General Assembly blog.)

Wednesday morning at General Assembly I had the chance to listen to a short talk by the Bible scholar Robert Gagnon, who is the foremost authority on the Bible and homosexuality. He reiterated some important points in the ongoing debate.

Often people will say that since Jesus hung out with prostitutes, who are we to judge anyone? Jesus didn't condemn them, so neither should we. They use this argument by extension to say that Jesus did not condemn homosexual activity.

Dr. Gagnon pointed out, however, that the reason that Jesus hung out with these people was not that sexual sin was so inconsequential; it was rather that their sin was so serious that they needed his personal attention in order to be rescued from it. So he hung out with them, but not merely to say to them, "You're fine just as you are." Instead, he said, "Repent, and sin no more." He said this because he loved them so much. He loved them so much that he wanted them to live, and it was only through their repentance, their turning from sin, that they could find life.

One important way that we love our neighbors as Jesus did is by pointing them away from their sin--from what is injurious to them--and towards life. But Dr. Gagnon said that if we don't know what is injurious to them, we can't know how to love them. In fact, we may actually act in a way that is in truth hateful towards them, if we don't know what is injurious to them. So we need to know what the Bible tells us: that sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman is sin, and that sin is injurious to us.

In Ezekiel 13:19b it says "By telling my people lies they wish to hear, you bring death to those who should not die." This is something that we need to remember. Love isn't just saying, "I love you. You're special. You're fine the way you are. Do what feels right to you." People do want to hear that; they don't want to hear that their behavior is wrong. But hearing these "lies they wish to hear," and believing them, brings them death, and they should not die. So telling them lies is not love; it is hate. Instead, love is reaching out and bringing our neighbors back from the brink of the pit.

Dr. Gagnon said that if we speak this truth in order to extend this love, we will doubtless be abused by those who disagree with us. But, as he said, behind us lies the cross; before us is the Lamb who was slain. We must go ahead and bear the abuse for the sake of our neighbors and our Lord.

What Might God Be Doing?

(This post was originally written for Presbyterian Action's General Assembly blog.)

There are a lot of people all over the USA who believe a lot of untrue things about the IRD. Without speculating about who started these rumors or why, I'll just say that the gist of it is that the IRD is supposedly just masquerading as a Christian renewal group, but in reality is a conservative political group whose aim is to silence or sabotage the liberal social witness of the mainline denominations, or, failing that, break up those denominations. Supposedly the IRD has deep pockets and takes orders, according to some of these rumors, from the Bush White House itself.

Of course this is all nonsense, but it's surprising how many people believe these things.

I found this out in person Saturday here at GA when another volunteer and I were manning the Presbyterian Action (IRD) booth in the exhibition hall. A woman started to walk by, and then stopped and said that we had no right to be there. I said that we were Presbyterians, and she said, no, we were not. I replied that I had been a Presbyterian for 34 years, and she still insisted that we were not really Presbyterians. She started to talk about all the evil that she "knew" about that the IRD had done to the PCUSA, and I started to tell her that those things were all myths, but as her voice became more and more raised, I realized that conversation would not be fruitful. So I told her that we would pray for her. She angrily replied that she would pray for us, and then she left.

My fellow volunteer, who had been unware of the anti-IRD rumors, was stunned, as were the people in the neighboring booths, and even I was left a little shaky.

Later that day, walking along the sidewalk outside, I passed the same woman, and we eyed each other uneasily and exchanged wary smiles.

The next day, Sunday, which was yesterday, committee meetings began, and, to my surprise, I discovered that the same woman is a commissioner member of the committee that I am observing. I started wondering if God was placing her deliberately in my path, and began wanting to reach out to her.

That evening, I prayed about the situation, asking God that if he was putting this woman and me together, that he would make it clear, and that he would help me know what to say.

This morning, Monday, I sat in on her committee meeting again. During a break, I was washing my hands in the restroom, when I looked to the right, and there she was, at the very next sink. It could hardly have been more clear that God was putting her and me together! So I said hi, and she said hi too. We ended up telling each other our names and having a conversation right there.

We did not convince each other of anything in that conversation. She still believes that the IRD has no right to be at GA, and that the IRD is harming the PCUSA. But she knows my name, and she knows that I love Jesus. She knows I'm a linguist, not some IRD automaton. I know her name, and that she has been a presbytery moderator. We told each other a little bit about our views. We named each other sisters in Christ. We even hugged. I hope that in her mind, I am not the enemy; she is certainly not the enemy to me.

I saw her again across the balcony this evening at the worship service held across the street in the civic auditorium. I'm interested to see what God is going to do with this. Or maybe I'll never know, but whatever it is, it should be good.

Faithful or true?

(This blog posting was written for Presbyterian Action's General Assembly blog.)

As a member of the Presbyterian Action GA team, I was one of the observers last night (the 21st) in the back of the hall when Bruce Reyes-Chow was elected Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Reyes-Chow has a broad appeal due to his youthfulness and engaging manner. He injected an air of freshness and humor into his remarks. Much of this, in addition to his positions on theology and issues, undoubtedly went into his election. However, as I listened to his 5-minute statement, and to his answers to questions posed by commissioners and advisory delegates, one remark struck me and caused me to ponder its meaning.

Reyes-Chow said he wants the PC(USA) to be a church that "cares more about being faithful than about being right."

I understood this to mean that he hoped Presbyterians would care more about being faithful than about being doctrinally correct--care more about being faithful than about what they are faithful to. Later my husband said that he thought Reyes-Chow meant that he hoped that Presbyterians would care more about being faithful than about being the right one in a dispute--care more about being faithful than about winning an argument.

Let me discuss this second view first.

If Reyes-Chow meant that he hoped that Presbyterians would come to care more about being faithful than about winning arguments, this implies that he believes that now there are at least some Presbyterians who do care more about winning arguments than they care about faithfulness. No matter who he might have in mind, this is a patronizing attitude to take towards any group of people, let alone fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

If this is indeed his meaning, it implies that there are some Presbyterians that he has not gotten to know well enough to understand their motives. It is also disappointing to think that a candidate for Moderator--who now actually is our Moderator--would have such an uncharitable attitude towards any group. One always hopes that anyone would attribute the best possible motive to anyone until there is concrete evidence of a worse motive.

If this was indeed Reyes-Chow's meaning, let us hope that, as he grows into his role as Moderator, he will get to know all groups in the PC(USA) well enough that he will understand their motives and support them as fellow Presbyterians, even if he disagrees with them. I think he has expressed such intentions at least, and, since Reyes-Chow has shown kindness to our family in the past, I do not think that he intends a putdown to anyone. Perhaps the full implication of his words--if this was his meaning--have not occurred to him.

I thought, however, that what Reyes-Chow meant was that he was looking forward to Presbyterians caring more about being faithful than about being right or wrong in their beliefs. And after he said it, it struck me that--if that was his meaning--I didn't know how that could actually be possible in a meaningful way. How can anyone be faithful to anything if they don't know whether or not they're right about it? Or, at least, how can their faithfulness be meaningful in such a situation?

Faithfulness needs to be faithfulness to something. It's wonderful to care about faithfulness. But if we don't know whether or not we're right about what we're faithful to, then no matter how much we care about our faithfulness to it, we may actually be doing harm in the world rather than good, if we are wrong about what we're being faithful to.

For example, white supremacists may be very faithful to their cause. But, as I'm sure Reyes-Chow and most people reading this blog would agree, the white supremacist cause is both wrong and harmful. Faithfulness alone, without being right, is not sufficient.

Rightness, and truth, matter if we want to love the world with God's love, rather than blunder through it willy-nilly, even while being faithful. When we care about being right, we don't care about it for the sake of winning arguments, or for the sake of pride in the correctness of our doctrine, but rather we care about it so that we can serve God in the way that God knows best, to his glory, the furtherance of his reign, and the better love and care of all his people.

It sounds very friendly and inclusive to hope that Presbyterians will care more about being faithful than about being right, but it is actually careless and dismissive. I hope to hear better things in the future from our new Moderator.

A Fun Little Tag

I've been tagged again, by Judy at Stitch Along with Me. This time I need to give answers to a bunch of categories, and they all need to start with the same letter as my first name. So here goes:

What is your name? Debbie
Four letter word: deer
Vehicle: Dodge
TV Show: Dr. Kildare (OK, it's old, but he sure was cute!)
City: Downey (where I grew up)
Boy's Name: David
Girl's Name: Diana
Occupation: developer
Something You Wear: dress
Food: dim sum
Something Found in a Bathroom: dental floss
Reason for Being Late: disaster
Something You Shout: Don't jump!

No to Torture

Because of a comment that was left on my blog recently, I want to make sure that my position is clear to everyone: I am categorically against torture. Moreover, my husband, Jim Berkley, director of Presbyterian Action at IRD, is categorically against torture, and IRD itself is categorically against torture.

Also, here is an example of another IRD staff person stating his position on torture, which is that he is completely against it:

http://www.newsobserver.com/663/story/481121.html

People who say that IRD supports torture have misinterpreted what IRD has written. Sometimes it's just because of their prior assumption that IRD is evil. Other times it's because they misinterpret the facts, which are the following: 1) IRD does not want to join people who blame only the US for torture, since the evidence that the US does indeed engage in officially sanctioned torture is not clear, and 2) IRD wishes that people who are against torture would focus on nations that are truly egregious torturers. The people who misinterpret these facts take them to mean that IRD is for torture. This is logically fallacious thinking. It's analogous to this situation:

Group A: "There's a guy that we know, and we think he killed another guy. Join us in a campaign against him!"
Group B: "We don't know that he killed him, and we think efforts should be focused on known murderers, so we won't join your campaign at the present."
Group A: "From what Group B just said, we can tell that Group B is in favor of murder, and we will now proclaim this to everyone."

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have decided, on faith, without any facts to back up this faith, that IRD is evil. And so whenever they read or hear about anything that IRD says or does, they do so through an IRD-is-evil filter, and they interpret what they read or hear accordingly. It thus becomes extremely difficult for IRD to do anything at all that is not interpreted as more evidence of evil. For example, my husband once wrote to Steven Martin, who has made an anti-IRD film. His note to Martin was polite and kind, and Martin acknowledged that it was when he wrote about it in a comment on the Talk2Action website. The politeness and kindness was, to Martin, evidence that Jim was similar to Osama bin Laden. So, Jim was condemned ahead of time. There was no manner in which Jim could have written to Martin that would not have been taken as evidence of evil. IRD has been pre-judged (what stands at the root of the meaning of prejudice) as evil.

It is a sad state of affairs to see people who consider themselves to be open, liberal, and broadminded, fallen into prejudice, suspicion, and poor reasoning, and it is more than sad when this leads them to do injury to others.

I can't imagine

For years, I have been praying the Lord's prayer in my own words. I don't think that Jesus meant it to be something that we learn by rote and then recite to God; I think he meant it as a template for the things that we should pray about. When I restate it in my own words, I really think about what I'm saying to God when I pray it.

I have learned a lot in the process of doing this, and one of the things I've learned just came to me the other night. It was when I was asking God for his kingdom to come soon, and for his will to be done here on earth, perfectly and all the time, just the way it is in heaven. I do long for that, because I think it will be the most wonderful thing imaginable to have everything happen all the time only in accordance with God's will.

But then a little stray (and very immature) thought of my own wandered in, and I thought, "What if, when God's will is the only thing that is ever done, I don't ever get to sit on my comfy chair and do my favorite puzzles any more?"

First the part of me that thinks I have everything all analyzed responded back to myself that, whatever I can and can't do then won't matter, because it will be so glorious to do God's will, and everything will be on such a different plane, that I won't think about comfy chairs and puzzles and things like that.

But then I remembered (or perhaps God reminded me of) something else. I have a relative who is an alcoholic. She has been sober for a few years now. But before that, she has told me, she was reluctant to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, partly because she thought that life would be too boring without drinking. What she couldn't imagine, until she became sober, was how much more fun, fulfilling, and interesting her life was without alcohol. She just didn't know how to picture it, but once she got there, she loved it. She would never go back to her old life. She is so happy being sober! Her life is so much better now!

I think it will be like that when God's kingdom comes. We just don't know how to imagine what it will be like, and sometimes, with our small imaginations, we fear that it might be boring or that we might not get to do the things we like to do best, because, perhaps, like my favorite puzzles, they're not centered around serving others, or worshipping, or so on. But what we can't picture is how much more fun and fulfilling and interesting our lives will be once we experience the fullness of God's kingdom, whenever that will be, at our death, or when he comes again. We won't want to go back to our old lives. It will be so much better!

Actually, already I can't wait. I'm so excited to be where glorious and perfect worship is taking place; it must be magnificent. And to catch a glimpse of God himself! One day....

A Gracious Response in the Midst of Controversy

My husband, Jim Berkley, heads up Presbyterian Action, a division of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD). Jim's goal in his work is to bring the PC(USA) back to Biblical faithfulness as he understands it, and to influence the social witness of the PC(USA) so that it is not merely a reflection of certain secular political ideologies, but instead represents the membership of the entire PC(USA) and reflects the whole biblical witness.

I have probably stated the above somewhat poorly, so please do not take it as definitive.

Unfortunately, the IRD has become the bête noire of many progressives (progressives are those with a theologically liberal point of view). For some reason, these particular progressives (not just Presbyterians, but from many denominations) have decided that the IRD is not what it says it is. Instead, they claim that it is only masquerading as a theological organization, and is instead a rightwing secular political organization, deeply funded by rightwing politics, and led by Catholics, that aims at destroying mainline denominations. In their view, my husband and his coworkers do not care at all about faith.

Amazingly, the people who propound this theory of a supposed IRD conspiracy do not have any facts to support it. (The closest they get to facts is that there are Catholics on the board of IRD. The board meets once or twice a year. By the way, the objection of these progressives to Catholics is quite unecumenical of them.) Nevertheless, these anti-IRD progressives have been able to convince all sorts of well-known people, such as Bill Moyers, or John Thomas (the head of the United Church of Christ), that their theory is true.

Now, I do not take offense at people differing from me theologically. Of course I would love it if everyone agreed with me! But realistically I know that there won't be complete theological agreement among Christians this side of heaven. So I'm not upset that many progressives deplore the goals that the IRD works for. However, it does upset me for some people to state as fact things that they do not know to be true. For example, they state publicly that my husband, or others of his colleagues, spend their time figuring out how to destroy churches, or that they get secret orders from Bush's White House. But when I have communicated with many of the progressives who promote these ideas, to try to persuade them to look at facts instead of conspiracy theories, they have ridiculed me (for example, John Dorhauer of Talk2Action tells me that he responds with any random thing that he thinks will make me angry) and refused to listen seriously to anything I might have to say.

That's why I was so happy that, yesterday, I had a really great e-mail conversation with a progressive acquaintance about this topic. He had been commenting on the blog Shuck and Jive, which is currently hyping the anti-IRD dogma. He had mentioned my husband, and I had told him how we had understood what he said. He hadn't meant what we thought, and we both discussed how written communication can sometimes go awry. He ended up, on his own initiative, writing a blog posting in which he said he would no longer discuss IRD, and apologized for any personal offense he might have caused.

This was a truly gracious and generous Christian reaction to what is going on, and I wish that all progressives would be as reasonable as he is about the IRD situation. (I am also sure that there are areas in which evangelicals need to take a closer look at their public reactions to situations.) I am looking forward to my husband's seeing it when he returns from a mountain conference where he is presently.

Thanks to my progressive friend and brother in Christ!

Manning the Gate of the Soviet Embassy

I have been asked to explain item #3 in the list of 6 quirky items about myself that I posted on my blog last night, so here it is.

In 1970-71 I spent my college junior year in France, and for spring vacation, I took a tour, designed for American students living in Europe, of Prague, Moscow, Leningrad (now back to its original name of St. Petersburg), and Warsaw. It was thrilling because very few Americans at that time had ever been to these cities, and I was stunned with the beauty and charm of Prague, which few living Americans had as yet discovered (now it is overrun with Americans.)

Anyway, after our 3 days there, at the airport for our flight to Moscow, I discovered that all my money and papers were missing; I had apparently been pickpocketed. The tour guide gave me some money, and then everyone flew off and left me there. They did at least leave me in the hands of a couple of Czech college guys who had been our official escorts (in those days in those countries, Western tourists didn't go anywhere on their own.)

I was allowed to stay in the same hotel with a group of Swedish students who were on a tour, and then the Czech boys helped me go around to the Czech police, the American embassy, and the Soviet embassy, in order to get a new Czech exit visa, a new passport, and a new Soviet entry visa. The American passport was the hardest, that is, they were the least willing to give me new papers, because I had no proof of who I was, but I think I must have looked pretty harmless, because they finally relented. (It was cool having a passport issued in Prague; I was sorry when I had to surrender it when it expired and I needed a new one.)

It took 3 days to get everything, and in the interim I went places with the Swedes, or the Czech guys, and was mildly romanced by the Swedish tour leader's very handsome son, so all in all it was kind of fun, and I fell head over heels in love with Prague. One day one of the Czech boys and I stood talking on the Charles bridge for an hour or two, and no one ever passed by. Now the Charles Bridge is filled with tourists and hawkers selling trinkets.

Finally all I needed was the Soviet visa, and at the Soviet embassy they said that they were waiting for a telegram to arrive saying that it was OK. It was getting late in the day, and they were going to lock their gate. So they suggested that I walk down to the end of the driveway where the locked gate was (the embassy was like a mansion in estate-like grounds), so that I could let the car in that was bringing the telegram.

So there I stood, a 20-year-old American girl, with the power to give access to the Soviet Embassy to anyone I wanted to! It was a funny feeling. Of course I didn't let anyone in who didn't belong there, and I got my visa, and then that evening I flew off to Moscow on a plane full of Russians, and another part of the adventure began (it started with an official in the Moscow airport saying to me, "What are you doing coming into Russia ALONE?")

The postscript to this episode is that as soon as I realized my predicament, I sent off a postcard to my parents telling them that I was in Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) with no money or papers. Then three days later I sent them another postcard saying I was fine and was rejoining my tour group. But that postcard was delayed for two weeks, and so they spent two weeks worried about their daughter, lost behind the Iron Curtain. Now that I'm a mother, I know how awful that must have been!

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Viola Larson at Naming His Grace. Apparently a tag is kind of like the game of tag, and now I'm It. I have to do what the tag is about (if I want to.) I'm supposed to tell 6 quirky or unimportant things about me, so here goes, in no particular order.

1. My favorite food is cereal.

2. I always know how many days old I am. This is a result of my liking to play with numbers in my head, whenever I'm not doing anything else.

3. In 1971, fully in the midst of the Cold War, I once (as a 20-year-old American college girl) manned the gate of the Soviet Embassy in Prague, allowing vehicles in and out. This was behind the Iron Curtain.

4. Several times, to accompany the church choir I sing in, I have played a percussion instrument called a VibraSlap.

5. In college I studied Mandarin Chinese for two years. I took Sanskrit, too.

6. I know all 50 states in alphabetical order. Also backwards alphabetical order. Also their capitals.

That's it! This is trivia. Now I think I will tag Judy Shaw at Stitch Along with Me.

Health Update--Mystery Solved!

It's been a while since I wrote about this and much has happened. As I said in my last health update, which is now several months ago, I had been continuing to get very out of breath after doing just about anything. This included things like walking up stairs, but also things like loading clothes in the washing machine, turning the wheel of the car, etc. Early last fall, the cardiologists looked over my test results again and said it wasn't my heart, and that my pacemaker was just fine, so they sent me over to pulmonology across the lobby.

It took a while to get in to see the pulmonologist, but once I started with him, he put me through a bunch of tests, one even necessitating being checked into the hospital. Everything revealed that my lungs were just fine, too. Finally, last Monday, the pulmonologist discovered that when I was exercising, my heart rate never increased. So he walked me then and there back across the lobby to cardiology, and had them adjust my pacemaker settings. Bam! I was immediately better. I could walk fast, go up stairs, do whatever, without getting out of breath and turning all white like I had the past several months. My colleagues at work noticed it right away later that day.

We are very happy that, aside from discovering that there is yet another function that my heart is unable to perform on its own (speeding up), I don't have some awful disease (cancer, etc., is eliminated). We wish the cardiologists had thoguht of this several months ago, but at least I'm back to normal!

Thanks are due to God that I have no dread disease, that there are such things as pacemakers (which keep me and many others alive), and for making the pulmonologist smart enough to ferret this out!

Loss and Love

Our dog, Hana, died right after Christmas. She had been part of our family for almost 13 years, ever since she was a year old. This photo, taken by my daughter Mary, shows her with Mary a few days before her death.

I have found that I have been grieving quite a bit, almost as much as if she had been a human family member. She was a good companion over the years, especially when my husband was gone on the many trips he must take for his work.

One night when I was praying, I thanked God for giving me Hana in my life. She had brought me much love and friendship. I feel sure that God has made dogs (and cats) especially for people, to give them love and many other benefits. But while I was thinking about it, I asked God why dogs' lives are so short. Why do we have them to love and cherish, only to lose them a relatively few short years later?

It seemed to me that an answer came while I was praying. I'm not sure if it was God speaking to me, or directing my thoughts, or if it was just something that I thought of. But this is a possibility that occurred to me.

Perhaps the reason we love our animal friends, and then lose them after their short lifespan, is so that we can better understand what God feels about us. It is very painful to me that I now have just an urn of ashes instead of my dear dog Hana. I don't want to be separated from her forever. And, similarly, God doesn't want to be separated from us forever. I feel grief at my loss of Hana, yet my grief is only a small likeness of the grief that God feels at the possibility of losing us. That's why he sent Jesus--who is really himself--to die instead of us, so that we wouldn't die and be lost to him, if only we will respond to that loving sacrifice.

I wouldn't die for Hana. I don't love her that much. Yet God died for me. His love and grief over losing me is so much greater than the love and grief that I feel about losing Hana. What I feel now, hard as it is, is only a shadow and an echo of the love that God feels for me.