Alf’s Story: An Advent Meditation

As he aged, his beard, mustache, and hair became so thoroughly white that he could pass for Colonel Sanders of fried chicken fame. He was often reminded of the similarity, and didn’t mind. He relished the air of celebrity it brought him.

Raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran, he had a conversion experience through the Salvation Army. A friend from the army invited him to a service, where he went forward and gave his life to Jesus. Before long, he learned to play the trumpet and joined the band. When he met and married a woman from Highland, Indiana, he became Christian Reformed. He was an inside “outsider,” a partner in a mixed marriage, who felt welcomed and enfolded. Because of this, he patrolled the narthex of the church before and after the service, looking to welcome and enfold others who might have their own refugee story.

My parents, Alf and Marion, lived a full and rich life and had a marriage that navigated several hospitalizations for my mother’s depression. She underwent treatments considered inhumane today, yet came through them well enough to serve as a head nurse, helping others.

She read extensively. When I discovered Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, with its ethereal, ghostly cover on the side table with her other reading material, I knew it couldn’t have come from our church library. I never asked and she never said anything about it. But it seemed to help.

In retirement, they were inseparable, enjoying the grandkids, traveling occasionally, active in their church and with a cherished circle of friends. Life was good. They thought themselves blessed.

On a return home in their car from the neighborhood supermarket, with my father behind the wheel, he had a seizure, and kept driving past their home for two blocks. The car left the road and had a head-on collision with an old and sturdy oak tree. My mother was killed instantly from a broken neck. Seatbelts then, yes, but no air bags. My father was hospitalized and settled into what we assumed was a deep depression over the guilt from being behind the wheel. We didn’t know what caused the seizure—he’d never had one before—and no further tests were given. When his sisters suggested they take a trip to Norway to visit relatives, he came back to life. We thought he was on the road to recovery. Until.

Coming home from a high school football game, seated in the back seat of our minivan, he slumped on the shoulder of our oldest daughter, eyes open, unaware of what had just happened. I witnessed it in the rear-view mirror. This was not depression. This was something new.

The doctors called with a diagnosis at the end of the next week. It was glioblastoma, which was treatable for a time, but not curable. Radiation followed surgery to remove what they could of the tumor.

In-between treatments, Dad had his good days, and any number of days which foreshadowed what was to come. HIs cognitive decline increased, and we had to take him to a senior facility for around-the-clock care.

Once, as our family was about to leave following a pleasant visit, he motioned for me to come close. I stood by him and he motioned to come closer still, within whispering range. As I bent over, he whispered, “Dave, there’s a lot of gambling going on here. You need to take care of it.” I couldn’t imagine what the source of this concern was, yet I was glad to see his sense of moral indignation was alive and well. Dad was known to fire off letters to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, outraged at some indignity or injustice he’d read about. It could be Chicago politics, the latest White Sox trade fiasco, or why the South Side of Chicago never got the press that the North Side did. Since he took the CTA to work each day, he was fond of sending suggestions their way too. Now, the most recent object of his annoyance was, apparently, a casino in the nursing home.

A subsequent visit cleared up the gambling concern. As we walked into Dad’s room and greeted his roommate, we saw his roommate was watching Wheel of Fortune. All was made plain. Each night at the same time, Dad’s room turned into a gambling den, with a giant roulette wheel right there on the wall.

For our three children, our visits were a mixed bag. They were eager to see Grandpa again, yet uncomfortable seeing strangers in various stages of physical decline. As parents, we believed these times of discomfort were teachable moments. But not always. One time we entered to find someone we knew from church pushing a woman around in a wheelchair. Since Jim had only been in the nursing home for a few weeks, we asked him to introduce us to his new friend. Instantly, the woman said, “I don’t know who the hell this guy is, but I wish he’d stop pushing me around in this damn wheelchair!”

Weeks later, in what turned out to be the last visit for us as a family, the kids wanted to surprise Grandpa by bringing our small dog along. He always loved dogs. We told the kids that the home didn’t allow dogs for a few good reasons. Our kids convinced us that bringing our dog was no different than some people having a service dog. We relented, and as we entered the home the dog was safely concealed underneath my large winter coat.

When we came into the room, Grandpa was alert but no longer verbally communicative. Words were beyond his reach. But he still recognized us and smiled. I raised the bed, handed the dog to the kids, who placed the dog on Grandpa’s chest. They then took their grandfather’s arms and with their hands on his stroked the dog slowly, repeatedly. He smiled and they smiled, and with this gift of a warm and wiggly dog came the givers, his smiling, loving grandchildren. With the gift comes the giver. Just the way God works.

Many years earlier, my parents had received a plaster-cast plaque as a wedding gift. It looked like tree bark, with floral strands surrounding Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” In their last home together, as it did in every apartment or house of their lives, it was hung prominently in the kitchen. Probably hung as soon as it was unpacked on moving day.

This plaque proved to be a source of comfort when I came home late from a date or with a less than stellar report card. It was, for my parents, a creed to live by, a statement of confidence in a God who remained faithful, no matter what. But there were times when I’d look at that plaque and review their lives and think, “Really?

Sometimes, the doctrine of divine providence stretches the imagination.

The call came after midnight the night my dad died. On the drive to the nursing home, I thought of his life, and my parents’ life together, awash in memories of how they lived and loved and even found blessing in their struggles.

I pictured the plaque. I wondered about where it ended up, among all the remains of the house when it sold. And I wondered if, at any time during their marriage, with all its ups and downs, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, they second-guessed the message of the plaque. “All things work together for good.” What about the tragic moments of their lives? And what of the tragedies of my life, those of my wife, and children? Does it really work that way?

I have a friend—you do as well if you’re a regular with the RJ—who has written an insightful book on “the stewardship of pain,” a phrase he picked up from Frederick Buechner. His book, through storytelling and reflections by professionals in a variety of healing professions, encourages us to be stewards of our pain on the path to healing and hope.

I still think of that plaque and its verse and curious promise of healing and hope. But I’ve learned to view it like a proof text which is often wrenched from its context. The broader context surrounding it in Romans 8—much too large for a plaque, after all—shines more light. May I even suggest that God himself stewards our pain? Doesn’t send it. But stewards it through the work of his Son.

As is often the case, the paraphrase of Eugene Peterson gives that broader context in The Message:

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger?  The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

So, over the years of joy and sorrow, of gladness and pain, I remember my parents, reflect on my life and the lives of those I love, and the proof text plaque. I recall the times I’ve asked in doubt and in the realities of life, “Really?”

And on a Damascus Road of sorts, seeing beyond the proof text, I’m able to say to myself and anyone who’ll listen, “Yes, really!” Come cancer, depression, or roulette wheels, we are never alone. Emmanuel. God is with us.

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