7 Quick Takes Friday #45

See more 7 Quick Takes contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

1. Earlier this week I described the "first" day of this week: Saturday. On Saturday I went to the ball conducted each year at our organization. (You can read about my attire dilemma here: Going to the Ball. The attire decision was not the only dilemma the ball presented. Upon arrival, I learned that I had been seated at one of the VIP tables beside the assistant in the CEO's office with whom I have been warring for the last three weeks: he has retroactively changed per diem on some of my employees after they have returned from expensive travel locations in order to save costs. It is completely illegal, and I have sent them to the legal office, in addition to carrying on some rather vociferous conversations with the assistant by email. Oh, joy! I was going to get to sit beside him for the entire meal. Surprisingly, it worked out okay. I made an effort to put aside differences for the evening -- and so did he. While at the ball, I got an urgent message from our folks in Afghanistan; documents I had sent earlier had not made it through and were needed immediately. So, like Cinderella, I left the ball early, but, at least, I managed to hold onto both shoes until I reached home. En route, I stopped at my office and re-sent the documents. Right before I left, the dancing started. I spent a few minutes dancing with the head of one of our employee committees, another case of putting aside difficulties since this person I had removed from my directorate last spring. (Another, less-demanding, directorate picked up the employee, fortunately.) It was more than just setting aside hostilities; the employee has come to grips with the understanding that the skill set needed for the complex job in my directorate had not yet been acquired and so, finally, had accepted the transfer as a positive, not a negative, action.

2. My experiences at Mass on Sunday were interesting and a little out of the norm. I already blogged about the man in need of a hymnal/missal: It Was a Small Thing, Really. Fr. Ed always asks if we have any visitors, and because our mission is one of those places that tourists love to visit, we almost always do, and they often come from distant states and, quite often, from foreign countries. Sunday was no different. Fr. Ed queried each person who raised his/her hand as to origin, but he missed the man in the pew in front of me. (I usually sit very near the rear of the church, and it was a bit far for Fr. Ed to see.) So, being an inveterate introvert, I hailed the man after Mass and learned that he was from Kalispell, Montana and, of course, knew where Hamilton, Lizzie's birthplace, is located. It was an interesting conversation and became even more interesting when I learned that he might move here. One never knows what is going on in the heads of the people sitting one pew ahead of you!

3. Sunday evening I took off on a crazy flight from West Coast (California) to east Coast (Arlington, Virginia.) A two-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Phoenix) followed by a four-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Philadelphia) followed by a one-hour flight. Finally, I landed. I suppose it is a sign of the times that in Reagan National Airport (ironically so named, considering that Reagan did not want National Airport enlarged and modernized) outside Washington, D.C. there were no working faucets or air dryers in the women's room that turned out to be my unlucky choice the morning of my arrival.

4. On Tuesday, I joined three colleagues in briefing a large group of generals and admirals at the Pentagon. The briefing garnered kudos, perhaps because we had rehearsed the briefing -- twice. The most difficult part of that long morning, for me, was not the briefing itself but rather the constant need to check my urge to cough. I am still trying to get rid of the mold of whatever it was that crawled out of the air conditioning, sneaking past the one or two wispy cilia I still have in my bronchial tubes and taking up residence in my lungs, a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting Padre Julio in San Diego. The room at the Pentagon was small; there were many people; all were silent and listening, except for some occasional tough questioning. Any rustle of paper brought all eyes to the person doing the shuffling, so you can imagine the effect of a cough ricocheting off the front wall and ping-ponging to the back of the room. I devoured three full rolls of Hall's cough drops in an effort to tame my excited cough mechanism.

5. Ah, Wednesday! A great day! First, I could sleep in. I had no appointments or meetings in the morning! Yippee! I did have to check out of the hotel at noon, but I could do that in a leisurely manner. Prior to my 1:00 meeting, I was able to accomplish quite a bit of email catch-up and calls that had been put off for days. It seemed like order was returning to my life. And then my life was rolled back 27 years. In 1983, when I first moved to Washington to work at the US Department of State (where I stayed until 1989, when I moved to California), I left the kids with Donnie while I looked for good schools and proper housing, not an easy task in a city about which I knew little. Not wanting to stay alone in an apartment (proving that I am an inveterate introvert), I moved into a large house with four college students, two of whose parents owned the house but were assigned by State Department to South Africa at the time. That made five of us: two guys and three gals. We have remained in touch all these years, but the only I have seen since in person has been K. Lizzie lived with K and her family during her senior year, earning her board and room by babysitting K's kids. (We had moved farther south by then, and Lizzie wanted to graduate from Washington & Lee High School where she had been since freshman year; K lived in the W&L district.) Right after Donnie and kids arrived from Pittsburgh where they had been living (and I with them before my transplantation to DC) D and M married each other, a surprise to the rest of us. Donnie took their wedding pictures, and we reminisced about that. C and S have remained in touch, and S lives in San Diego, so we are state-mates. It was a fun evening, less boisterous than in our early days because we all had to work the next morning and, well, because frankly we are all a bit older. The evening began with Indian food for dinner, blossomed into a round-robin telephone call with S in San Diego, and ended with my spending the night with K before she took me to the airport Thursday morning. (In photo, from left: C, me, M, D, K.)

6. Thursday morning put an adrenaline-and-tears end to the pleasantries of the night before. Shock, really, was the state I began the morning in, and I am still in shock. A good friend and the leader of our Bible Studies program, I learned through an email, had simply not awakened in the morning. His wife has been quite ill, and he has been her caretaker. No one, including the doctors, ever thought that he was ill. Now he is dead, and no one knows why. The funeral will be on Monday. It was a sad, numb day -- all the way home through all my return flights and drives. I still do not know what to make of it. I have now received calls from several people, all of whom are in the same state as I am. Sr. Maria was the one who learned what happened, but even she does not know why, just what. Of course, too, we are all concerned about the sick wife, who is also a friend of ours. Her daughter will be taking care of her; that much is clear since the daughter lives at home with her. One thing gives me consolation. Last year, when he and she celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and, being on a very limited income, had no plans for a party or eating out, let alone traveling anywhere, I learned that their anniversary was on the evening of our Bible Studies class, which my friend was prepared to lead that day. So, without telling him, I ordered Middle Eastern food from the city near where I work (his favorite food and not obtainable in the town where we live) and brought it back, along with a cake, to celebrate the anniversary there. As luck (and mybe more than just luck) would have it, Fr. Ed worked late that day, so he joined us in the celebration. I know that my friends enjoyed the surprise very much. Little did I know that they would not make their 51st! How happy I am that I could make their 50th memorable! I am also more committed than ever to being thankful for every day I have, knowing that none of us know which of our days will be our last, and to making the most of each day for the glory of God because each day that passes is a day we don't get back while the days before us are numbered. That is how my friend lived. He was an example for all who knew him.

7. If Thursday was not enough of a shock, I got a further electrifying input at work today. A number of employees and I are on salary supplements because our pay scale is not in keeping with the average for our field while our jobs are more demanding than most in our field. I learned today that effective immediately all salary supplements would be cut by 2/3. I have a salary that is among the highest in our organization so I cannot complain because I will be in better shape than most, but it will take so belt-tightening to manage expenses -- and the timing is not good since I am still helping Shane and Lemony in the wake of his taking a lower-paying job after being fired because of Nikolina's medical bills: Clan under Siege). I spent part of today giving the bad news to people and the rest of the day getting the paperwork in so that at least they can get the 33% pittance. Well, at least, we all have jobs. Not everyone can say that. While my employees were shocked, they were nonetheless grateful that they are employed. One must look at the bigger picture and, as Pollyanna would say, find something to be glad about. I am not only glad that I have a job but also that I have such terrific employees who also look for the "glad" in their lives.

Hoping that you have a pleasant weekend -- quiet, calm, and no shocks! Be glad!

Tender Mercy

Many, many thanks to all of you who have been praying for Ray and our family, especially those who promised to pray at 6:00 last night as he was taken off life support. There was no way to let you all know that the 6:00 prayers were excess -- but, then, are any prayers really excesss? -- for Ray had already passed away by that time.

At 9:20 a.m., Noelle called me at my office. She told me that the hospital had just called. The doctor relayed the information that Ray's respirator hose had suddenly and unexpectedly torn, and he had died instantly. The doctor added that no one had touched the hose at all, so there was some puzzlement as to how it had happened; this is not something that they routinely worry about or look for.

That event made unnecessary the need to go to the hospital at 6:00, give permission to remove Ray from life support, and watch him die. While Noelle is experiencing much grief from losing Ray, there was wonderment and immense relief in her voice as she told me what happened. She had been very apprehensive about the planned trip to the hospital.

"This is a blessing, Mom," she told. "A real blessing. He did not die by my hand, by my concurrence that he should be unplugged. He just died because his life was over."

Sometimes God's kind mercy is so startling that one cannot even say a normal prayer but just keep repeating over and over in awe and gratitude, "My Lord and my God, THANK YOU!"

Concurrently posted on Clan of Mahlou and Modern Mysticism.

Joy in Despair

For me, in dark moments, moments of grief, I am helped by focusing on moments of joy from the past, knowing that life is a balance of both. As we await the pulling of the plug and the formal end of Ray's life, with the understanding that he really died a week ago and has been artificially kept alive thanks to marvelous modern technology, I think back to something that happened a few years ago and which I describe at the end of my book, Blest Atheist.

Even if there are difficulties ahead, there will be help and protection. There will also be rewards. There always are. With God, the rewards are unanticipated and unusual. The simplest among them are the greatest.

One evening last December, the thought came into my head that I should take my evening walk around the mission grounds early. Normally I walk there around 9:00 p.m., and it was only 6:00 when I felt the push to go outside for my walk.

No, I thought. Why would I want to go now? Even though the eventide falls around 5:30 on December nights in San Ignatio, I still prefer to go later—after dinner and dishes and before retiring for the night. It is a marvelously restful way to end the day. Walking brings out the happy endorphins, and just being at the mission provides great encouragement toward prayer.

No, I’ll go later, I thought and began cleaning the kitchen in preparation for dinner. Then the impulse came again. The “argument” went back and forth a couple of times until I approached Donnie, who usually accompanies me on these walks.

“Donnie, how do you feel about taking our evening walk early tonight?” I asked.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know why,” I answered. “I just feel like we should go early.”

Donnie acquiesced and quickly assembled his pipe tools. (He likes to sit and smoke while I walk.) We opened the door and stepped out under the night sky. And there it was, spread across the heavens: a breathtaking lunar ice halo.

Ice halos are rings of light that surround the sun, moon, or other sources of light, such as street lamps. The ones in the heavens are caused by millions of ice crystals in thin, cold, cirrus clouds floating in the troposphere reflecting and refracting light. This particular ice halo was circumhorizonal, a rare phenomenon for which adequately descriptive words, other than scientific ones, are even rarer. Refracted light from the moon spread in a 360-degree circle all around the sky on the same level as the moon yet at the same time touching the horizon wherever we turned—or so it seemed although in actuality the circle of light was parallel to the horizon and not lying upon it. The halo filled the whole sky, with the full moon in its zenith filtering a stream of light through a gossamer foramen in the firmament onto the mission grounds below.

I could almost hear the proud words, “Look what I did!” The hymn of Isaac Waats came to mind instantly: “The moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.”

On the mission grounds canopied by the horizon-to-horizon crystal glow, I walked, my arms extended. Irrepressible joy spread past my fingertips, riding on the splendor of light toward the horizon.

Then it was gone. Had I come at my usual time, I would have missed it.

These then are the things that have been seen and experienced by the blest atheist. All the events reported herein [in the book] have enriched my life, but the greatest of these was God sharing with me the lunar ice halo: “Look what I have done!” The hound of Heaven had finally caught me and then had shown me what I had been missing: “Look what I have done!” Indeed, I could almost hear those words and a few more: “Look at what I have done—for you, for all people, because I love you whether or not you even believe that I exist.”

All the miracles that God has done in my life and in the lives of others through me have been wondrous, but pulling me outside to view the ice halo stands out above them all as the most affirming act of God’s love. The miracles were about healing and turning bad into good. They have been important, of course. Viewing the ice halo, however, was about relationship: God’s relationship with me, God’s relationship with all of us. When God called me from my house onto the street and into the field at the mission, I understood that I was special—not special out of many, but special among many, special like all people are special to God.

On an individual level, I was and am at best only a Good Samaritan, and still God wanted a relationship with me. In so many ways, I was and am but a child who finds the adults who can help a sick child artist, a crying lady, a boy in white, or an orphan dying from brain tumors. Like a child, I have no burning desire for financial gain, material possessions, or fame and power. Those desires were beaten out of me in my youth. Although many of these things have appeared unbidden in my life, my true treasure is the people who have come into my life from all continents of the world. There is where my heart is. I want to “pass on” the good that God has brought into my life by using my linguistic proficiency, cultural acumen, and multi-domain knowledge gained from living in the land of splat! to connect people who need help with people who have the ability to give help, no matter where they live or what language they speak. For what good is money if it cannot be used to help those in need? What good are material things unless they make this world a friendlier place: a blanket to warm a homeless man, food for a hungry family, clothes for those burned out of a home? What good is power if not used to empower the powerless to be free to flourish? What good, too, is dreaming an impossible dream if it does not kindle the dreams of others? What good is reaching an unreachable star if it does not sprinkle light onto a dark existence? What good is happiness if it does not splash joy onto dispirited ground, inspiriting the life within to sprout and reach for the heavens? If, indeed, as I have found, helping those in need, making the world a friendlier place, empowering the powerless, kindling dreams, lighting the dark, and splashing joy across the land is what a Good Samaritan does, then I want to be a Good Samaritan for life. To my delight, God seems willing to use me in that capacity. For certain, God knows my heart and what I treasure.

God has many Good Samaritans. Some, like me, are blessed to help a few wounded souls in intensive ways. Others are blessed to help many people in more extensive, but less intensive, ways. Some God leads with their full knowledge. Others, like me for so many years, God leads through their hearts alone. In return, God gives them a treasure far greater than money, honor, power, or prestige: they know a perfect joy that nothing else can give.

I am sure that others saw the ice halo that night for God encourages all people to step bravely out of the grey boxes in which they are cowering and stride buoyantly forth into a divine world resplendent with color, love, and joy. In our tiny town, though, I was the only one who showed up at the mission to see the splendor on that particular winter evening. Others may have showed up elsewhere for the ice halo could be seen for miles. Perhaps even more were called to behold it but were not listening. Those who did listen experienced an unrelenting tug to come outside and witness an awe-inspiring manifestation of God’s loving caress ephemerally spread against the heavens and permanently imprinted in the mind and on the heart.


Note: Concurrently published on all Mahlou blogs.

Lost from My Prayer List

Two people I had listed on the prayer list for this blog died this past week. That is not surprising because I put on that list those who are the nearest to God, and sometimes they leave this earth even though their loved ones would like them to stay.

Let me tell a little about the two who died. They were quite different. One was a mother of ten, who had spent a number of decades in this world and contributed in many ways, not the least of which was her cancer diary. Her name was Cyndi. The second was a little boy, whose coming was awaited with much anticipation and trepidation for it was already known before his birth that his heart was too slow for this world. His name was Matthew.

A mother of ten children, Cyndi, called her blog, "Faithful Promises." She died with an attitude of gratitude, as they say. Would that we all have such an outlook on life when it shows its worst side! On her blog site, Cyndi wrote, "Although at the moment cancer is taking quite a bit of my time and energy, it is not how I define my life. I truly believe that this is a trial to be faced for gain. God can and will use my illness to His glory. Already He has shown His faithfulness in meeting our needs. I believe that He will continue to do so in a mighty way. I am His vessel. And that, not cancer, is who I am." Quite an example for all of us, don't you think? And certainly a wonderful role model for those ten children she called her own. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Matthew's story makes me think of Dale Evans Rogers' book, Angel Unaware. (If you have not read it, I suggest you do so. It is short, and you will not regret the time.) While his life was much briefer than the little girl, Robin, who was born to Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, little Matthew seems to have made a big impression on those around him. Before his birth, Matthew was found to have a slow heart. After birth, Matthew lived only four days and then followed three siblings who had left this world a few years before his arrival. The faith of this family is truly amazing. Please keep them in your prayers.

Praying for someone who is dying is one of the hardest prayers to make, I have found. For what does one pray? That the person will live? What if the living is worse than the dying? And how does one know which is better? That God's will be done? That is not what we really want, is it? We want God to intervene, fix things, heal the person, and return our pre-illness world to us.

As with anything else, we do not and cannot see the really big picture. We cannot know why God intervenes with miracles in some lives and not in others. I guess it just goes back to having total trust. So, I pray the only thing that I can think to pray. I pray that God treat those I am praying for as His special people, as I know they are, and take care of them in the ways that He knows to be best because God's best is far better than anything we can imagine. And then I wait in confidence for God to answer that prayer.

(P.S. Click here for the story behind the praying hands, along with the story of another person who is in need of prayer.)

Tareq Died Today

To protect the privacy of the individual involved and that of his family, I will use an alias--Tareq--to share with you a remarkable story.

Tareq was one of my employees, and it came as no surprise that he died. For more than three years, he battled tumors and heart disease and rarely missed a day of work. What was a surprise was that Tareq managed to spend three years with us that he supposedly did not have. More than that, Tareq was a reminder to all of us of God's love and power.

I came to know Tareq right after I had taken up the position as his boss's boss's boss. I suppose, given the managerial distance between us, I should not have come to know him at all. However, early on, Tareq had a problem, a serious one. An immigrant to the USA from Iraq, he had family members back home, ones who had not wanted to leave Iraq. Among them was a son. Somehow, members of the insurgency learned that Tareq was working with an organization in support of the US government and targeted his son. (Of course, just being Christian in northern Iraq has, even before the war, been enough to put one in danger.) In the case of Tareq's son, first threatening messages were left. Then, another relative was killed, a case of mistaken identify. Tareq's son went into hiding, pretty much in the same area where Saddam Hussein was able to go undiscovered for weeks. Tareq went to his supervisor for help; the situation was overwhelming for that supervisor, and he sent Tareq to his supervisor. In this manner, Tareq was passed upward until he rather quickly landed in my office in pretty desperate shape. Rather than send him to my supervisor, the "proper" thing to do, I helped him call the Washington office of our senator, which I considered the proper thing to do. It would be much faster, and the worst that could happen to me would be a reprimand for working out of channels. In the interim, we just might be able to save Tareq's son--and we did. The senator leapt into action, contacting the US Embassy in Iraq, which was able to ferret Tareq's son out of the country (one of those exciting adventures that does not get reported and should not, for the safety of all involved, be reported in any more detail than I have provided here).

And so, I knew Tareq, and Tareq knew me. In fact, after that he felt bonded to me in some way, as to a protector, both because of my assistance with his son's rescue and also because I extended his contract a couple of months past the surgery period so that he could continue to get medical benefits. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that he would want to say good-bye to me. He had worked every day throughout his period of chemotherapy for cancer, but once the tumors were shrunk, he was cleared for a long-needed quadruple by-pass.

On the morning before his surgery, Tareq cleaned out his office. He did not plan to return to work, the doctors having given him only a 3% chance of survival, the cancer and heart trouble being a deadly combination. He said an emotional good-bye to his colleagues, then headed for my office. I was out of the office. He left a note. I found the note and went to his office. He was gone, saying good-bye to other colleagues. I left a note. And so it went all morning until he had to leave without saying-good-bye.

The last thing he sent from his computer was an e-mail note to me, thanking me for my support and asking me to pray for him. Now, I had a dilemma. I work in an organization where not only is separation of church and state expected, it is required, and as the senior leader in my division, it is up to me to enforce it (along a myriad other rules). Was the prayer of one person enough? I asked myself. Well, yeah, probably it was, but I wanted more for Tareq. I wanted the prayers of his colleagues. And so, using careful wording to avoid raising many objections, I forwarded Tareq's note to the 400 employees who work for me with a request from me: "If you have a belief system that will allow you to honor Tareq's request, please do so."

Well, many people (actually, most people) responded to that request. We had Christians of several denominations, Jews of various persuasions, and Sunni & Shia Muslims all praying together, often in the same office. Even Buddhists joined in. They prayed, as well, in their churches, synagogues, and mosques and relayed that information to Tareq. We also sent flowers and cards to Tareq. All this cheered him up during his recovery. It was the prayers, though, that were special. They not only bonded all of us to Tareq but also bonded all of us to each other. My organization went from a place where religion had been sidelined to a place where one could feel the spirituality of those working there as soon as one walked through a door.

Three weeks later, I happened to be in the office area where Tareq used to work -- and there sat Tareq. "What are you doing here?" I asked in surprise.

"I beat the odds," he grinned, "and the doctors are still in shock!"

Those extra three years that we have had Tareq with us have continually reminded us of the power of prayer, of God's love, and of how God's people can work together, regardless of religion, for the good of each other and for the glory of God. Since that time, God has always come to work with me and with most of my employees. Not that God was not that before, but now we allow ourselves to speak of God, turn problems over to God, and deliberately include God in our work life. As a result, our organization has gone from being a business-as-usual, impersonal, unemotional set of offices to an involved, gentle, loving, happy, huge family of God where coming to work is something to look forward to every day.