A Friend Died This Week

If I had a list of ten favorite people with whom to have a conversation, John Workman would be near the top of the list. We had many conversations during the years we lived in Little Rock where we became friends with John and Liz, his wife of 64 years .  We talked during Saturday morning bike rides, over lunch downtown, traveling together in Central America, hearty laughter over meals with Liz and John at their home, and much more....  

It's always good to have a conversation with someone who has a great sense of humor besides being a good listener and a person of deep political and spiritual insights, - you get the picture.   

John was a writer and journalist, besides a Methodist minister.  He was the religion editor at the Arkansas Gazette for over a dozen years.   Many readers would pick up their paper on Saturday mornings and go first to John's column.  Most of the articles didn't seem like they were specifically about "religion", but while reading them you might find yourself laughing out loud and afterward you had something to think about and savor --- about enjoying life, about meaning, and about spiritual and moral values. 

He compiled and published several books with collections of those articles plus other essays.  In his last book, "Travels in a Tree House: Essays on Life and Other Joys" - University of Arkansas Press, 2001, he wrote the following in the Foreword:

So many have said it.  Life is a journey.  A voyage. A Venture.  Life --- at times a pleasant stroll, at times a storm-tossed passage, at times perhaps even a pilgrimage.  But always life is journey.  Always life is adventure. 

Whatever words may be employed to characterize its marvel and mystery, life is movement.  From first moment to last breath, to live is to move.  To live is to travel, to saunter, to run. To live is to grow, to change. To live is to know both joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure. To live is to slip -- perhaps even to slide, glide, stumble or be pushed against all resistance -- finally into death itself.  From start to finish, from cradle to grave, to live is to move on. 

We will, John, we will move on, but many will miss you!!

Mennonites We Have Known

One of the great blessings of our lives has been to know and work with Mennonites, first in Vietnam in the 1960s and later in all the countries where we lived and worked in Latin America.   Many of the Mennonites with whom we worked became friends and examples to us, witnesses to living gently on the earth, serving the poor, and, above all, following their conscience as pacifists and peacemakers. 

When we arrived in Saigon in 1966 we were warmly welcomed by a young Mennonite couple by the name of Paul and Doris Longacre.  As I close my eyes now and scan back almost fifty years I see the images of these two humble and dedicated servants of the Lord - Paul as a wise and good humored program director of Vietnam Christian Service (a mentor to me) and Doris as the hostess of the guest house and language center where many of us lived during our fist weeks in Saigon.  

About 8 months ago we got the news from another Mennonite friend, Earl Martin, that Paul has been dealing with lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) for a number of years , and after quite a few hospitalizations, Paul had decided not to go to the hospital again. He is at peace with facing the end of his life and ready, when the time comes, to enter "the land of the living", as Jesus referred to heaven.  

This news prompted a world-wide exchange of emails across the miles and years - dozens of us sharing thoughts and reflections from the transformative experiences that we shared in Vietnam over the ten year period between 1965 to 1975.

Yesterday I was looking on the book shelf for something to read and I came across the book Doris began writing in January 1979 - "Living More with Less" - a compilation of hundreds of stories, anecdotes, advice, and even games submitted by Mennonites from all over the world on the subject of living more simply.  She was unable to finish this book before she died from cancer eleven months later at the age of 39.  Paul and a number of friends took up the challenge of finishing and publishing it the next year.   

I have not looked at this book for 30 years or so but as I paged through it I saw a number of passages we had underlined and highlighted - on justice, ideas for family life, living more simply, breast feeding, and lessons learned from the poor of the world community.  There were so many offerings here - we probably did not read the entire book - but it was the accumulated thrust of the whole that added bits and pieces to a philosophy of life that we have tried to adopt over the years - part of which we can attribute to what we learned from Mennonites. 

   

Doris' first book, the "More with Less Cookbook" still sits on Judy's book shelf in the kitchen... tattered and worn from many years of looking into it for good and creative recipes for preparing nutritious food and ideas on living a healthy life-style.  Certainly there are thousands of such tattered copies of this book in kitchens around the world.

A few days ago we received an email message from Paul in response to our annual letter.  When we got this Judy said, "what a good way to live, and what a good way to die"....

Paul wrote:

Thank you for your New Years Greetings. Greetings and blessings to you. This morning it was one degree below zero when I woke up. I usually take a short walk in mid morning around our house with my rolater and one of our church members or friends to accompany me but today we went to the gym to walk around the track.

I am doing fairly well but my strength is slowly failing. I live on one floor of our house. I have no pain and sleep well. We have a hospice nurse come once a week to check on me. We have a family friend living in our basement apartment and he has begun studying in a Master of Arts program on line for his MA in Public health. I can bang on the floor or yell if I need help when Nancy is not here. 

(Daughters) Cara and Marta and their families visit us occasionally from Pennsylvania. Tonight and most Tuesday evenings we go to Earl and Pat's house about a mile from us to eat dinner with them and several other friends. We rotate the cooking. Other friends from church stop in periodically so I am not bored or have to spend all my time sleeping or reading.

Love and blessings to you.

It is not customary that an intelligent person clothes and cares for one part of the body and leaves the rest naked.  The intelligent person is solicitous for all his members.  Thus, it should be for those who serve the Lord's church and body.  All those born of God are called into one body and are prepared by love to serve their neighbors.

 Menno Simons, 1552 - early reformer and leader of those who became known as Mennonites. 

Stretching

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young.        Mark Twain

Judy gave me a beautiful leather-bound journal for Christmas into which I wrote this first entry: "In the year ahead I will fill these pages with the important stuff of our lives as well as the mundane". 

Before I could start using the new journal I needed to stretch the binding, so  

on the first day of the year I was doing this after my usual stretching routine, and it occurred to me that stretching might be a good metaphor for the new year.

My early morning physical and spiritual practice for many years has been based on guidance from a book by Murrey Fink, titled, "Stretch and Pray". ..  I find that at my age it is good to stretch out the stiffness and aches and pains the first thing in the morning.  It really helps!  Some minutes of physical stretches are then followed by a series of "prayer positions". These are quite easy for almost anyone to do and each position brings to mind thoughts and prayers of gratitude, introspection, gracious forgiveness, petitions and contemplation.  The positions themselves are good for body, mind and spirit.  Did you ever think about what bodily positions Jesus might have used during his prayers? There are several clues in the Gospels.

I have to admit that as this new year begins I find it a stretch to even come up with resolutions and plans - I am in a bit of a state of inertia. This may be caused by a realization of how little I can affect the big issues and problems that confront the world, or even the specific challenges that face some of my family and friends.

As I scanned in my mind what stretching myself might mean this year it came to me that stretching oneself has to involve learning.  Stretching myself means not just doing the same things I always do, many of which I enjoy.  I thought of some possibilities: learn to be a good cook, fix a car, learn conflict management, write short stories, be a better skier?  Most of the things I already do are done on a scale of fair to medium.  And I felt no passion for any of the options that came to me.  Then the image of my guitar came to mind.  Yes, I would like to learn to play the guitar better!  And it is a realistic thing to do.

Strumming the guitar and singing along is something I love to do - though I have been stuck for years with limited capacity - just a few chord progressions that work for many songs.  I have limited ability to play the melody line or use pleasant sounding finger picking to back up singing.

So now I turn my mind to think of stretching myself into areas that keep my mind active, body (and fingers) flexible and young (relatively speaking), and talents used for others and God.  I know before I start that I will not become a good musician, but I do know I will enjoy the effort.

In what areas of life and learning are you stretching yourself this year? 

Blessings to you in 2014!!

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