May 2012

I remember going to church with Mom shortly after Dad had been moved to a nursing facility. During the service, as in most churches, a list of people needing prayer was read.

My eyes closed, I listened to the names. Not that I expected Dad’s name to be read, but he was very much in my thoughts. Only when all the names had been read did it dawn on me: He was missing from the list. Missing here in the church where he’d worshipped for more than 50 years. “Amen,” we said. I looked questioningly at Mom.

Years ago at Pentecost our preacher was trying to get us excited about the holiday. “It’s one of the most important holidays in the Christian calendar,” he exclaimed. “It’s the birthday of the church. We should get dressed up like we do at Easter and do special things. We should have special food for Pentecost ...”

At that point a member of the choir leaned over to me and whispered, “Tongue?”

Saturday morning the messages came in: “Urgent prayers,” “Pray now!,” “Need your prayers.” Email messages and posts on Facebook alerted me that Logan Eliasen, the 20-year-old son of one of our Guideposts writers, Shawnelle Eliasen, was stuck in an Iowa cave. By then he’d been trapped for a dozen hours.

Be outrageous. Pray outrageous.

That was the thought that went through my head last week at a 30th anniversary celebration for the relief organization AmeriCares. The founder, Bob Macauley, died not long ago, but the one time I met him I remember thinking he was the most outrageously generous person I’d ever known. A true beggar for the poor, he learned from the best.

I was struck by an anecdote in William Barry’s new book Praying the Truth. He was giving a talk on prayer once and afterward one of his listeners (a professor, no less) said, “You know, I would like to have a closer relationship with God, but I’m afraid if I get close, God will ask me to do something that’s too hard and I won’t be able to do it.”

Dear Timothy,
We can’t wait for your graduation from college this weekend. We’re thrilled. You’ll be so busy that day you won’t notice the graying dad muttering prayers of thanks into his program, saying amen, amen, amen.  

You’ll have to indulge me a little because sitting in my folding chair, I probably won’t be seeing you as you look now, the handsome, tall, clear-eyed history major. I’ll be seeing a picture of you in my head at about age five. (See below.)

Of all the seven sins, envy is the worst. I usually think of myself as the luckiest guy on Earth, richly blessed. That’s a good prayerful place to be.

Then I’ll read about some twentysomething billionaire or, worse yet, the fiftysomething first-time author with sterling reviews and bestselling numbers. Green with envy, I shout, “Why not me?”

Here’s the rule for this blog: If you think something, say it to God. So the shout turns into a prayer: God, why don’t you make me rich and famous like that guy?

I was rushing out of the office to get a late lunch when the elevator stopped at the law firm on the sixteenth floor and ten men dressed in dark suits squeezed on. “I guess you all had to leave at the same time,” I said.

“We’ve got to get back to our offices,” said the fellow with the yarmulke standing next to me.

“You don’t work here?” I asked.