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.

Just Photos!

I'm just posting a couple of photos so that I can use one of them as the photo in my profile. This is the way that the Blogger instructions say to do it and I'm not technically sophisticated enough to figure out another way!

This is my granddaughter Elliot (22 months at the time) and me September 9 in a restaurant in Port Angeles, WA. Elliot thought she was tickling my neck, and I was pretending to react in an exaggerated way. Elliot loved it! And so did I.

Whatever--and I mean it

When I wrote my second health update yesterday, I mentioned that I was still "hanging on to that 'whatever.' But it actually took writing it to make it true. In the past 3 days or so, I had gotten caught up in the frustration of feeling that my cardiologist was not taking my symptoms seriously, and I felt cast adrift. I started becoming anxious and focused on my problem.

However, yesterday when I wrote my second update, I remembered my previous experience that I had written about, where I had been utterly trusting God for my health situation. I remembered that I had known that God would be there in whatever the situation was, good or bad. And I realized that at the time I had thought of the situation in a sort of binary way: either the doctors would tell me I was fine, or they would tell me I had some specific problem and would get to work on solving it.

What I hadn't taken into account was a situation where I would still be having troublesome symptoms, but the doctors might seem indifferent. And when this situation came into being, I forgot about trusting God and started getting upset.

But when I wrote the second update yesterday, I remembered my "whatever". And then I remembered that God can handle this situation, too. That doesn't mean, now that I am handing the problem off to him again, that it will instantly be solved. But it does mean that I can fret less and remember who is holding me in his arms.

I saw a series of cartoon drawings yesterday where a bunch of people were carrying crosses, and one of them kept asking God to make it lighter for him to carry, so God kept chopping a bit of the end of this guy's cross off. But eventually they all came to a chasm that they had to cross, and everyone else was able to get across by making their crosses into bridges, but this guy couldn't because his cross was too short now. So maybe there is some way in which an instant solution to my problem would not be helpful to me at this time. Or maybe it will be solved soon. I don't know--but I do know that God is trustworthy.