Come, Dear Dove
By Laura-Anne Macmillan
Holy Spirit, Leave me not. Blessed Dove, Am I forgot? My grief consumes me, You who know All that causes pain and woe. Behold my mourning. Come to me, Myself your temple. Help me see That Christ my Savior Died for me, Took my sin, That I might be A reflection of my Savior’s love That I might live with Him above.
© 2020 by Laura-Anne Macmillan
Facing Reality*
By Laura-Anne Macmillan
What kind of a world has God created? What a troubling question. Those who bear antipathy towards the concept of the Living God might even acknowledge with a sardonic smirk that He certainly started out on the right foot. Both man and nature were perfect. Some even ponder that surely one small act of disobedience should not have been enough to ruin everything. And yet, it did.
Now God did not abandon the world, though to many it looks that way. In fact, He chose a special people to communicate both His presence and His will. But these chosen (not choice) people rebelled again and again. The path was now set. This was man. Not just the Israelites but all mankind.
At one time God even repented of having made man. He sent a flood to wipe out his “mistake.” However, after the flood receded it seems God affirmed this repentance again. What kind of a God is this? Did He look down on mankind and just could not bear to eliminate that which He had created out of love? But what was he to do with this contrary, idol-worshipping population?
Some deny God because our world is not a fairyland. If there is a God is this not what the world should be like? Yet here we are, stuck in reality. Plague, Illness, war, starvation, greed, jealousy are all part and parcel with our existence. Where is God? Perhaps right in front of you. This God of love left us to our own devices. Just as the Israelites demanded a king and God complied, so we have said we want our own way. So God has granted us our freedom. A freedom that allows us to align ourselves with God or not. For example, in the context of Greek mythology we are told that the god Eros cast a love spell upon the nymph Sylvia, forcing her to fall in love with a lowly peasant shepherd before her capture by the hunter Orion. Now what was this love worth? It was produced out of the capricious inclinations of deities who had no real concern for anything but their own amusement. Sylvia had no choice. However, the Living God is not capricious. We do have a choice.
And, this choice is made right in the midst of reality. God chose to create reality. There are real choices to be made. Yet has He really left us all alone? Is He no longer involved in human life, a God sitting back, just watching but not really caring? Quite the contrary. God involved himself over and over in the life of the Jews to the point of proclaiming they would in fact bring blessing to all nations. His love was beyond imagination. For in Jesus the Christ He entered directly into history.
Born an infant, Jesus grew up in much the same manner as is common to man. He whose home was heaven in constant communion with the Father, willingly put aside his glory. He lived among us, experienced human existence, yet without sin. Jesus himself stated that “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” Reality? A God filled with so much love, He not only decided not to destroy man but to save him. And, this at the cost of the life of his only begotten son.
Yes, we live in a reality we would not choose, but we have a God who enters into this reality with us. Though Jesus acknowledged that in this world we would know tribulation, He countered with “Be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.” This strange and seemingly contradictory statement was expressed by our Lord before He entered into his final trials. In Gethsemane, He sweat blood, begging the Father not to make Him drink of such a bitter cup. And here the Father enters into the very reality we complain about. God took a terrible chance. For scripture makes it clear that in His humanity Jesus was terrified, and equally as unwilling as we would be to face a brutal and unfair ordeal culminating in death. It is human nature to seek survival and to avoid death. And here we see illustrated the extraordinary lengths to which our God goes to redeem his creation. What does Jesus do? He submits to the Father, perhaps speaking only in a broken whisper, “Thy will be done.” And that is reality. The reality of God with us.
*Sometime after the composing of the above, the world was struck with the deadly virus COVID-19, only emphasizing the need for God with us.
© 2020 by Laura-Anne Macmillan
COVID 411
By Ruth and Raymond Liang
As physicians, one of the most frustrating issues we face in this COVID crisis is how politics is interfering with medical decision making. There is no question that this COVID pandemic is currently one of the most serious problems the world is facing. It is complicated by its being so novel. There are so many unknowns about how it spreads, what the best treatments are, how to prevent getting it, and why some cases are mild or asymptomatic and others life threatening.
As more information becomes available, disease management shifts and recommendations change. These changes must be directed by the people with the most expertise: physicians, researchers, public health officials, and those who have dealt with past medical crises. Decisions must be based on solid evidence, which is why clinical trials are important. They prove that a treatment really works and doesn’t just create a placebo effect.
The current recommendations — wearing a mask, social distancing, hand washing — are so simple that it is hard to believe that they are causing so much division. No one wants to get sick. No one wants to lose a loved one. This illness doesn’t distinguish between political parties, genders, age groups, or geographic regions. Everyone needs to work together for the common good.
We pray for an end to the pandemic, for wisdom to those searching for answers, for healing for those who are sick, and for comfort for those who are mourning. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20, NIV)
© 2020 by Ruth and Raymond Liang
Where We Lived
By Sandra Duguid Gerstman
It was dark It was bleak It was bad news even in Spring Lake during The War My brother aboard a fleet minesweeper in the South Pacific— Black men given all the worst jobs in all the worst places— like poor Whites from the South, “the expendable” Our yards were decked— blue star, a man in the Service, gold star, a man killed. Young, my emotions like bullets, I'd cry or race across the street to escape a flowered wreath on a door Even his coming home on furlough saddened us: silent, he would have to return to where, he exploded thirty years later at a family picnic, he was alien from himself Once, on leave, he created a fishpond back of our house— lined it with red cement, filled it with stripes of goldfish forever darting.
© 2020 by Sandra Duguid Gerstman
Road to Emmaus
By Sandra Duguid Gerstman
There have been crucifixions, too, in our town—innocents gunned down in their doorways or in school halls; or radiation's black outlines, three crosses marked a sister’s chest: no wonder we walk in quiet rage, musing. And who, on this road, will join us, seeming unaware of the worst news in the neighborhood, but spelling out the history of the prophets and a future: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Could our hearts still burn within us? Will we ask the stranger to stay? Break bread? And how will our well-hammered and nailed kitchens and bedrooms appear to us when we understand who he is just as he steals away?
© 2020 by Sandra Duguid Gerstman
