Night Song

The mother of a friend died last week. She was my age.  It caused me to think again of what I had written in my book Prayers of an Omega: Facing the Transitions of Aging.

Night Song

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me (Psalm 23:4).

Tonight, Lord, as I sit by the window watching the shadows deepen, I think about death, the passage to another life—eternal life. I too must travel that way. I don’t know when.

Each morning the newspaper brings news of those who died the day before. I check their ages. I pass over those who lived their allotted lifespan and then some.

But I linger over the obituaries of those who died while quite young—a fifteen-year-old in a car accident, a thirty-two-year old with no stated cause of death. But the word is already out that it was a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. And then there’s an infant who died at birth.

The spring of life is no time to die. Then, young people, like plants, rush into leaf and burst into bloom.

Nor is it time to die when you are strong and healthy. Nor when the much-anticipated retirement time arrives, bringing the opportunity to set aside former activities for the challenge of self-determined tasks.

It isn’t even time to die at my age. As long as I’m alive, every tiny cell in my body fights to hold off the invading enemy cells. But people die at every age, and the ranks of my friends are thinning with each year.

When I think about death, I’m like a child at play who doesn’t want to go to bed just yet Playing outside in the empty lot was always most fun at the magic moment just before Mother called us in. We couldn’t tear ourselves away to come in to wash up and go to bed.

I don’t want to die just yet.

I want to hear the Messiah sung against this Christmas.

I want to see my grandson graduate from high school and my granddaughter from middle school.

I want to hold in my arms my new great-grandchild and watch her learn to walk.

Today I laughed at Annette’s jokes until the tears ran. Tomorrow I want to laugh some more.

I want to hold my friend’s hand when she returns from the chemotherapy that doesn’t seem to help.

I want to tell my children again how much I love them. I never do it often enough.

And yet on the other side of the street stands a tree, bent by the wind, scarred by storms, bare of leaves. The city crew marked it with a big orange X, which means it will be cut down. It has finished living. Does it contemplate its dying? Does it fear it?

Am I afraid to die? Shall I be afraid when the time comes? It will come, I know.

At twilight, light loses and darkness wins. Yet night is the promise of day  even as death is the promise of life and love and of the joy of your nearness, heavenly Father. 

I don’t want to go just yet, Lord. But when I hear you calling it’s time to come in, I’ll be ready, for I trust your mercy. Amen.

Running interference when you are old

This is another selection from my book Prayers of an Omega.  At my age it seems as if there is little one can do for children and grandchildren.  But there is!  Join me in running interference for our children.

Running interference when you are old

Pray continually (1 Thess.5:17)

God, coach of my team, tonight I’m running interference. It’s hard work. My feet are tired, my heart is pounding, and my breath comes short. It looks as if the offense is going to get the ball and run with it unless I help stop them. I want the children to win this game.

The children of this world seem much too  young to do battle with what their eager eyes see, their open ears hear, their ready mouths taste, their inexperienced bodies feel, and their vulnerable minds are encouraged to imagine.

The bright promise of instant happiness, overpowering thrills, and quick money dances temptingly before them. The world invites them to become gluttons of its colorful display of experiences. It encourages them to waste their talents on selfish concerns.

Satan’s got the ball and is running to the goal line with it. And he scores far to often. With the young girl who was bored with school and ran away from home. With the young boy who couldn’t resist finding out what it felt like to be really high. With the college student who has decided that making more money than his father did is a significant goal.

And so I intercede for them, Giver of all good gifts. Cleanse their ambitions. Help them to learn to play the game of life well.

Remind them to put on the shoulder pads of faith and love before they leave for school each day. May the hope of salvation be their helmet to protect them in head-on crashes with the enemy.

May they remember their Creator in the days of their youth. May you become their coach and the owner of their team, guiding them through this difficult passage to the end zone. Let them not be afraid of hard work – or failure.

Give me endurance to run interference for them daily. I am older. I am more experienced. I know the wiles of the enemy a little better. I’ve played the game of life much longer. Answer my prayer for these children.

In  your holy name, Lord  Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Saturday is Hymnday

This is another selection from my book Prayers of an Omega: Facing the Transitions of Aging 

Saturday is Hymnday

Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph.5:19-20)

Lord of song, I woke this morning with joy in my heart, for today is Saturday, and Saturday is Hymnday. This is my comfort time, my time to sing my way through the old hymnbook.

I don’t want to forget the old hymns I learned as a child, for then I’d be turning my back on our journey together. I’d forget some of your love toward me.

I need this old hymns like a desert traveler longs for water in a dry and thirsty land. I will need them till I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Lord, you know I don’t like to complain, but I can’t get used to these new praise songs we’ll sing tomorrow in church. I try to clap and sway, but this old body doesn’t work that way. So Saturday I sing the old songs. To myself and to you.

They are a record of my pilgrimage with you these many decades. And this record of your faithfulness slips from me unless I go over it again and again.

“Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life ….” That was the first piece I learned to play on the piano. And when your Word became wonderful to me, I enjoyed the hymn even more.

I liked singing “Shall we gather at the river?” because we actually gathered at the river for a baptismal service. Scores of your children celebrated the decision of young Christians to walk with you. And dozens of unbelievers from the community watched from a distance.  Outdoor baptismal services had something to say for themselves.

Our first choir song at college was “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” From our director I learned to sing with meaning, not just to make sounds.

Each Sunday at the end of the service in the little white church, the congregation sang, “Take thou my hand, O Father, and lead thou me.”  This was more than a token song to end the service. It was a prayer asking you to go with each one of us in that congregation into the struggle of the week. Those were the Depression years. Not all of those people in their much-washed clothing were certain of enough food for the coming week. I never felt ready to leave until we had sung that song, even as today I don’t feel ready for the coming week until I have prayed that song.

We used to sing “There shall be showers of blessings” with more gusto than an overflow crowd at a close basketball game.  But we dragged through forty-seven verses of “Just as I am without one plea,” waiting for someone to heed the minister’s earnest call. Sometimes I felt like walking to the altar to make him feel better. But there was another time, another place, when I did come to you without one plea. That song reminds me of that coming and of our beginning life together.

“Great is thy faithfulness” and “How great thou art” bring tears to my eyes whenever I hear them. When it seemed everyone had deserted me, you, Lord, remained close. You gave strength to turn the valley of bitterness into a well of life.

The “thee’s” and “”thou’s” and other old-fashioned words that upset some people don’t bother me because I know you, the Giver of all words.

When I've sung the old hymns once again, my soul is at rest. They place my feet firmly in  your truth. Thank you for songs of faith that speak the language of my soul. Now I’m ready for tomorrow, for the tumbling loud music of today, and for all the rest.

Maybe, just maybe, when this generation is as old as I am, they’ll have their own Saturday, not hymn, but praise chorus day.  I’m betting on it, Lord.

Ninety-something

Here, once again, is something I wrote for my book Prayers of an Omega: Facing the Transitions of Aging.  Last Sunday, together with a large number of family members and friends, we celebrated my ninetieth birthday so publishing  the following  seemed appropriate. I patterned these prayer/poems after the structure used by the psalmist in the Bible. The book was published in 1994 when I was seventy. I still agree with what I wrote then.

Even to  your old age and gray hairs I am he,

I am he who will sustain you.

I  have made you and I will carry you:

I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isa. 46:4)

Lord God Most High, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. I trust you. I have trusted you these many decades since I walked down the aisle of that little country church. I praise you for more than sixty years of faithfulness.

Don’t let me doubt your love, especially as I age. In my silences I hear the lions of the later years growling at my door. They grow bolder, demanding entry.

Hear my prayer, O Lord. For even as I face the new year, I weary of the lions of discouragement and loneliness daring me to quit trusting you.

The way ahead looks uncertain, Lord. The sand is running through an hourglass with a barrel-sized opening.  Stand by me in this coming year. Don’t let me drift through my final days like a toy boat on a fast-flowing river.

Here I am, Lord, more tired at the end of each day. Pudgy again like a kitten. Graying, wrinkled. That snapshot the kids took of me showed I had jowls­--hideous things. And it will get worse. Dewlaps. Underarm-flaps. Flaps everywhere.

Don’t let me get sick. What if I fell down the stairs and broke a leg? Would anyone miss me? I could rot; who would care? This growing old is not for me, yet I can’t bypass it like I can step over a mud puddle.

You’ve been my hope, my salvation , O God, since the youth group sent me on my way with the words, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.”

We began together, Lord.  You said I was your child. I trusted that word. Lord, I return to it again and again.

But when I look around I see older men and women who have subsided into mute, indifferent human beings.  I’m not thinking of those sick with Alzheimer’s or something like that, but those with functioning minds and bodies. They come to church to sit. They go home to sit. They church doesn’t really need them other than to fill pews, to give money, and to bring finger food. Do not cast me away when I am old. Give me again the joy of the Lord.

Though you have made me see my troubles, you will restore my joy.  You have done so in the past. You will do it again. I quiet my soul.  Praise the Lord, amen.

Now I am an Omega

            At various times in life we move to the head of the line because of personal qualifications:  “Johnnie, you are the tallest – you go first.”  “Betty, you’re good a leader – you take charge.”  “Lily, you know how to do this, so show the others.”  

               At other times, we move to the head by default. There's no one else to take on this role.  This September I will be 90 ninety years old – at the head of the Funk branch of the family  by default.  I am the oldest in the Funk clan.

               When my mother died at age nearly 99,  I realized I was now an Omega, approaching the end of the  line.  In my book Prayers of an Omega, I wrote the following to introduce the entire series of prayer-poems about transitions in aging: 

                                                     Now I am an Omega

            God, my everlasting Comforter, we buried Mom today. We laid her in the ground, next to Dad. Now I am Omega, the last in our family.  I’ve moved to the head of the line.

            Now the storms of life can beat directly upon me. No buffer. I used to think of Mother as an umbrella, holding God’s love over us like a shield. She prayed every day for each of us by name—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She used to say that was how she remembered the names.

            Now no one covers all of us with her prayers. I stand alone to pray for my children and myself. And sometimes I forget. My umbrella is gone. And it’s cold and wet in the rain.

            Lord, I’m probably next in line to die.  The generation above me is all gone. Now I have to be strong for the generation below me. I have to be the umbrella.  For my children.  Their children.  And I don’t feel able. I’m not ready to be patient, long-suffering and, and forgiving, as Mother was.

            And I’m afraid of the darkening shadows. Of being an Omega. It was easier being an Alpha, a child, near the beginning.

            Decades ago, driving home late at night we children slumped together in the backseat of the car like four loosely packed sacks of potatoes. Though it was dark and the road was bumpy, we knew we were going to that wonderful place called home. Dad was driving, Mother was watching. We knew we were safe. We would get there.

            Mother and Dad did the best they could to raise us with what understandings of family relationships they had. And daily trusted in God’s grace. They worked out understandings with their own difficult past. And worked hard at bringing us up to become responsible human beings. And kept on praying and loving.

            Now Mother and Dad are both gone. I am an Omega, the last in a series. And I am afraid.

            Yet you, Lord, promise to carry us like a mother eagle that spreads her wings beneath the unsure eaglet testing its flying strength. You promise to bear us should we fall.

            So, Lord, spread your strong arms of love under me and around me and steady my faltering feet. Let me travel hopefully. Carry me, an Omega, by your grace. Lord, I trust you. Amen.