IN TE, DOMINE, SPERAVI! "IN YOU, O LORD, HAVE I TAKEN REFUGE!"

Seattle, WA, Tuesday, December 28, 2010. 48 degrees, cloudy with rain showers.

These words from Pralm 31 describe our current condition and status: "In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness.  Incline your ear to me; make haste to deliver me.  Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe, for you are my crag and my stronghold; for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me. Take me out of the net that has been set for me, for you are my tower of strength. Into your hands I commend my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth....I will rejoice and be glad because of your mercy; for you have seen my affliction; you know my distress....Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eye is consumed with sorrow, and also my throat and my belly. For my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails me because of affliction, and my bones are consumed....I have trusted in you, O Lord, I have said, "You are my God. My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my adversary and from those things that afflict me. Make your face to shine upon your servant, and in your loving-kindness save me."

In the ancient liturgy, "Kyrie Eleiison", Lord Have Mercy! is repeated numerous times. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments God is described as the merciful One. Jesus exclaimed: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy!" The theological significance of mercy is powerful. It is best understood when looking at Latin, French or Spanish. The origins of the term come form the Latin word, "misericordia". It is one of the most graphic and powerful images in all of Scripture. Misere, of course, speaks to the depth of suffering, pain and despair that all of us experience in this world. We live in a fallen and imperfect world that brings great affliction and death. Jesus insisted that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Misfortune is not a direct result of sin and rebellion, but it may be a by-product of our choices. I do not know anyone who gets a free pass through life. After over 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have seen great suffering come upon both the righteous and unrighteous. The critical difference, however, is what suffering and affliction do to us. Do we turn away in anger and bitterness from the God of comfort, or do we run into the shelter of God's wings? The final part of "misericordia" is the key. "Corder", means to allign in a row or stack things together. It is where we get the term: "a cord of wood". In a spiritual context, "mercy" is God embracing us as tightly as possible in the midst of our greatest suffering and pain. When we beg, "Lord, have mercy!", we are invoking the eternal God to embrace our lives and misery within the shelter of His wings. We find a shelter in a time of storm, a haven of rest for our anxious fears. One of the greatest privileges any of us has to offer one another is showing mercy. The parable of the Good Samaritan perfectly illustrates the practical commandment to be merciful. As he passed along the road, the Samaritan saw the wounded man and "had mercy upon him." He interrupted his jouney, his schedule, his plans, his comfort zone and he showed mercy. He bandgaged his wounds, put him on his own donkey, took him to the nearest inn, fed and nursed him until his crisis had passed, and then left resources for his ongoing care so he would heal fully. There are times in our lives when we must intentionally choose to be merciful; to embrace someone else in their deep suffering and allow God to use us as an instrument of healing and hope. It is the greatest privilege and the greatest source of joy I know of. Truly, Jesus' words ring as true today as they did so long ago, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."

We are back in Seattle after a wonderful Christmas with most of our family in Kelso, WA. My days are filled with tests, procedures and waiting. I noticed a "cowboy" sitting alone in the waiting area to get a blood test today and I felt led of the Spirit to go over and speak to him. His name is Jim and he is from Devils Lake, North Dakota. He has been treating his cancer for several years in Fargo, ND and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He has come to the same place that I have; the only medical solution is a stem-cell transplant. Ironically, he also has the same mutation in his bone marrow DNA that I have, so he needs a stem-cell donor. His donor is from Germany. I don't exactly know how that all works, but today was his first day in Seattle and he looked like he needed a friend. He was dressed in his true cowboy working clothes, sweat-stained cowboy hat included. No one would sit even remotely near to him. I told him I had been born in Beach, ND, so we have an instant kinship. He is here all alone for the present. His wife will be coming out just before the transplant. I would guess they have a ranch and she is taking care of things back there until she absolutely needs to be in Seattle. I pray that God will put him in my path again. We would love to share God's loving care with him. Pray for Jim and his family.

It's curious how people treat those who appear different from themselves. My daughter, Cleo, and I were having lunch at Jacobi's in Walla Walla a couple of weeks ago. A midddle-aged couple were just finishing their meal a couple of tables to our left. They were facing us and the window behind us and I was sitting, as I always do, with my back to the corner. The woman seemed to be staring at us, in general, and at me, in particular. You can tell when someone keeps looking at you and I began to imagine all kinds of possible reasons for her seemingly rude behavior. One, she is wondering what a cute young thing like Cleo is doing with an obviously "older" man. Two, it's the boss, taking the secretary out to lunch. Three, that man is very sick and could collapse on the spot. I suspected it was #3. I had forgotten my ridiculous-looking coiffure and how pale I look with wrinkles and cancer eyes. For a second, I considered falling off of my chair in some state of mortal paroxysm, just to see her reaction, but I didn't want to ruin Cleo's lunch. I figured it was a good lesson for me to learn. Don't jump to conclusions concerning people's appearance. She and her partner didn't speak a word to each other throughout their time that they were there. Maybe they had just come from the Cancer Center themselves, and they were trying to come to grips with frightening news. I said a silent prayer for them and hope that God will give them grace and peace. As I arrived in the South of France, September, 1971, I needed all of the grace and peace that God could provide.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, --AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE, September, 1971.

I finally got to New York City and met up with my sister Patsy and her husband Paul, and his city relations. I had a couple of days to spare before meeting up with all the rest of the American students bound for the Institute of American Universities in Aix-en-Provence. We used the time to good purpose and then it was time to meet at a hotel in Manhatten and take buses to JFK. We had a chartered flight directly to Marseille, France so we could skip the nightmare of Paris. We were given the address of our host family and directions on how to get to their home. Somehow, I got all my stuff to Fernand and Yvette's apartment building. This was to be my new home for the next 9 months. Fernand was a teacher in a Lycee and Yvette was a gypsy, literally. She was a descendant of some Gypsy tribe and lived a very unique lifestyle. She was small and cute and Bohemian to the core. One of her favorite past times was to sunbath with little or no clothing on the deck just off of the dining room. She had a live-in boyfriend, who rented one of the bedrooms. Two Hungarian girls rented another bedroom and I rented the third. Fernand slept in his study and Yvette slept on the couch. We lived on the 6th floor, no elevator, of course. You could only store a couple of things in the refrigerator and everyone was allocated one day a week to take a shower, please don't use too much hot water.

The first couple of days at the Institute were orientation and placement testing. Out of 200 students, 16 of us qualified for the "Honours Program". Only 4 of us would last beyond the first week of intensive French Education Boot Camp. We were being whipped into linguistic shape to directly enroll in the Universite Aix/Marseille, Faculte de Lettres, along with 20,000 French students. I was the only male in the Gang of Four. Betsy was the weakest student, but she was from Iowa, and so had an inferiority complex that drove her to overachieve and live up to her Country Club origins. Cindy was from Kalamazoo University in Michigan and was a complete free spirit. Her first goal was to put her current American boyfriend on the back burner and find a French guy to live with, and so learn everything about life in France. Regina, like her name implies, was the daughter of an American Ambasssador who had grown up in foreign countries most of her life and was truly aristocratic. She could speak French better than most French people and was a prodigy, academically. I could hold my own with all of them except Regina. We made a covenant to never speak a word of English with one another and so began our Boot Camp from Hell. I don't know about the rest of them, but I had to spend 16-20 hours a day attending classes and studying. It was brutal. French pedagogical practices are very simple. You motivate students through intimidation and public humiliation. Professors were extremely skilled at reducing students to shredded bloody pulp. You would do any amount of preparation and work to avoid being the object of a Professor's scorn and public ridicule. During those 6 weeks, I saw more tears and trauma than I had in 14 years in American educational institutions. One day, Betsy literally broke down sobbing during a feeble attempt at Explication de Texte. The Professor just sat there smoking his pipe, waiting for her to stop her hystrionics. She finally stopped crying and he simply said:'Continuez". Somehow she stumbled her way through the presentation and he bluntly commented that she had done better after her emotional outburst.

I had met two French guys during those first 6 weeks. One of them had a cousin coming to visit from Barcelona, Spain. I got to meet him and found out that he wasn't Spanish, entirely, but Catalonian. Specifically, he was a descendant of Viking invaders of Southern Spain centuries ago and had blond hair and blue eyes as genetic evidence. His family and clan were among the people who fought against Generalissimo Franco in the Civil War of the 1930s. He hated everything to do with Franco and his policies. He was a deeply spiritual and religious man who belonged to an outlawed Catholic Sect that met and worshipped in secret in their native, Catalonian, language. My Gang of Four would have a week break between Boot Camp and the beginning of the Academic year, so we arranged to take the bus to Barcelona and visit my new friend and his family. Little did I know how dangerous that trip could have been.

In 1971, Franco exercised total dictatorial power in Spain, enforced by his ubiquitous secret and public police force. As we walked around the streets of Barcelona, my friend warned me not to use any French words like "politique", which would arouse suspicion if overheard. You could almost feel the fear people felt when out in public, or in a crowd. We were caught on the edge of a riot one night and had to run as fast as we could to a safe house until the risk of being arrested had subsided. They worshipped in a hidden and secret chapel on the second floor of an ordinary looking apartment building. We met wonderful friends, young and old who treated us with true Christian Fellowship. I learned another chapter in the European History saga that we never bothered to consider when studying 20th century history. As is turned out, Franco's own son, who would succeed him following his death, had been educated in the modern world and chose to lead Spain into a democratic path. Without civil war or bloodshed, the dream of a free and just nation came about within 10 years of our visit. I only thank God that we were protected during our sojourn in that time and place. We returned to France and enrolled in the French University, eager to expand our knowledge of French culture and life. I found Christian Fellowship visiting various churches in the city, but I missed Kriss profoundly, and being out of communication with her was difficult. It would be a good test of the authenticity of our relationship and I wrote daily in a diary of my hopes and trust in God.