What A Funeral Service Revealed About Mormonism and the Gospel

Corinne's sister, Kathy, was a devout Mormon. We knew she was Mormon, and she knew we were reformed Protestants. Since we never interacted much as family due to distance and brokenness within her family, we never had deep conversations regarding the Mormon aspect of her beliefs. Death, and the remembrance of her life revealed the extent of those beliefs and in Kathy's situation also revealed the conflicts between Mormonism and the Catholicism in which she was raised.

It was a blessing for us and for her surviving family members to attend the Mormon memorial service on Thursday night and the Veterans memorial service and burial on Friday afternoon. In the other times we had with family, the conversations were restorative, supportive and encouraging. We stayed with Marcy and Johnny, her husband, and Karen stayed there too. 

There were many tears shared and also personal testimonies from all the sisters and brothers who attended, and Joanne, who didn't attend, sent a note to Corinne, asking her to share it at both services. Dan traveled to Houston in hopes of seeing Kathy before she died but didn't get there in time and was gone by the time we arrived. The sharing of memories and the tears seemed to me to be redemptive in the lives of Kathy's siblings. It helped Corinne to reconnect with James and Wayne especially because we didn't see them when we went down to visit Kathy in July 2023. Also touching to us was the deep gratitude expressed by Roy's 4 daughters, the youngest of which was 8 when she met Kathy (Kathy and Roy were married for 15 years before Roy died).

I observed a stark contrast between the message provided by the Mormon church on Thursday night and Friday, the heartfelt needs of the grieving family members, and the gospel message that our hope is based on. As Corine and I sorted things out we understood a little better how the Mormon church became appealing to Kathy even after her first husband (who got her into the Mormon church) abandoned her with 6 children. The Catholic church (she attended Catholic High School) never gave Kathy all the answers shew demanded about life and life's purpose and why she needed to follow the Catholic church's teachings. Although Christianity is more credible than other religions (humanism and paganism included), even we reformed Christians live with a bit of wonder and uncertainty about aspects of Christianity that are difficult to grasp, but which we choose to hold onto by faith. As Augustine reminds us, "By faith we believe what we cannot see, and through that faith we see what we believe." For Kathy and many others, to be certain about everything that requires faith you need a system, which is what the Mormon church is. Its a works based, earn your way to heaven system, where if you do enough good things and you do the special things that the Mormon church offers (like sealing your marriage in heaven) you don't need to worry. The good news is that because of the outreach made to Kathy's children by the Mormon church, we are assured they will never become Mormons. The prime example of this is her first born son, James who came to Jesus while serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Kathy requested one song out of the Mormon hymnbook to be sung on Thursday night. I am surprised this song even made it into the Mormon hymnbook, but like most cults they mix the good with the bad. In a service where the Mormon leaders didn't bother to include one scripture passage, the words of this hymn below and the testimonials and tears of those who shared, provided the much needed hope of the gospel. So in Friday's memorial service I read  the words below.

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, bled and died.

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine,
To rescue a soul so rebellious as mine.
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt,
Such mercy, such love, such devotion can I forget?
No, no I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,
Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

To this I added that as the family gathers to mourn the loss of Kathy, and family come in touch with her recent sufferings and our own brokenness, the words of the gospel of Jesus, as expressed in the words of the hymn she selected, have the power to change all that has been bad, to become not true. This was the theme of the sermon Pastor Tim Keller preached at Redeemer Church, PCA in NYC the Sunday following the horrifying September 11, 2001 terrorist attack at the World Trade Center. The message from Keller, that through the power of the gospel all that has been bad becomes become untrue, takes faith to believe and embrace, but gives far greater life than works-based system of Mormonism.

Following my time of sharing many more family members came forward to share tearful testimonies of gratefulness laced with brokenness, through which the gospel could take greater hold in the lives of us who grieved Kathy's passing.

Donald R. Avery

August 11, 1926 - May 10, 2024

We remembered my dad's life and legacy at his memorial service on May 25, 2024, where I shared the following thoughts concerning his life and the positive impact he's had on me.

One of the readings was Psalm 23, verse 6 of which says "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." My dad lived life believing that promise. He had many struggles but instead of the struggles making him bitter, they made him better because he was able to see them in the light of his personal walk with God and saving faith in Jesus. Through the struggles, he saw and believed God's goodness and mercy to him personally and he lived with the assurance that he would, and now does, dwell in the house of God forever.

Four years ago, he asked me to help him write about his journy from June 1944 when he graduated from High School to when he returned from military service in June 1946. As he explained the story in his book, My Formational Journey, he told of a time while serving in the US Army overseas that he was ridiculed for by some of the men in his unit because he walked with a limp, caused by being mildly afflicted with polio when he was 16 or 17. He went on to explain that he had suffered from such shame about the incident that he contemplated taking his own life. But he prayed to God, came before God needy, and asked God to remove the shame that gripped him. He was instantly freed to live life fully. His remaining time in military service was an adventure!

This incident and his response to God's faithful answer prepared him to deal well with other struggles where he faced disappointment.

• A car crash during his last year of college that shattered one of his legs and broke bones in his face left him in a body cast for 6 months, tended to by his mother, a nurse, in their Buffalo Road home. But during that time, he met our mother through a mutual friend.
• When my brother and I were in high school he was working for a company that was depending on voters to pass a proposed transportation bond that was defeated, causing him to lose his job at a company he had recently joined. But, eight years later after a couple of other jobs, he started his own company at age 60 and worked another 20 years engineering the subdivisions of Chili, Riga and Ogden. My brother and I live in two of those subdivisions.
• Though during his last three years, he was wheelchair bound, but became a beloved resident at the Episcopal Church Home, encouraging the residents and staff there.

For people like my dad, who receive the gospel, it changes everything. It has been said that in Christianity the bad events and circumstances are made no longer true. He was thus able to own Psalm 23:6 for himself.

Two other beautiful characteristics about my dad were:

• He was always more interesed in hearing about you then telling you about himself.
• He never stopped learning. 

These characteristics are on view in this remembrance. When he was 87 years old he had my brother put him on the Amtrak train in Rochester so he could visit me when I was working on  the Hudson River - Tappan Zee bridge replacement in Tarrytown, NY. I picked him up at the train station in Croton-on-Hudson and we went to a few viewing locations where he could see the progress of the bridge construction. He was interested in me and interested in learning what was happening at the bridge. 

My dad was a lifelong blessing to me because he demonstrated how to live life as God intends it to be lived.

  

 

A God Who Redeems - Flower City Work Camp 2024

 

On the final day of work at this site I arrived to find a familiar looking roll of carpet that I had donated several years ago. The carpet had a tortured past. After purchasing for my parent's house, my elderly mother changed her mind and refused to have it installed in her home, so we took it to our home, used a portion of it to replace a worn bedroom carpet, and donated this remnant to Flower City Work Camp which stored it at their Lyell Avenue warehouse for 5 years. It also turned out that the neighbor who purchased my parents house wanted to restore the beautiful wood floors underneath the old carpet. The rejected carpet was redeemed and found its way this woman's home. But the story of the redeemed carpet pales in comparison to the story of the redeemed homeowner who also has had a tortured past. Originally from Haiti, she came to the US with her husband and two children, was abused by her husband, fled the place she was living, came to Rochester to receive help from a woman's shelter before somehow purchasing this home. Even in the purschage of this home, after the sale she had to replace the hot water heater and furnace. She explained to two of us adult leaders that she is learning each day to trust God to provide for her many needs. Her story of brokenness is heartbreaking but the story of her daily walk of faith and hearing of the encouragement and love this team of youth and adults provided over 3 days spent in her attic, kitchen and basement testifies of God's redemptive work in her life, the team members lives, and even a carpet. 

Congaree National Park - Appreciating and Learning From What's Been Lost

 

Congaree River

   

Wilson Lake (former oxbow)

Floodplain Gut

In September 2023, we visited Congaree National Park located just southeast of Columbia, SC.  Only 27,000 acres, it is dwarf-sized compared to most national parks. It is a remnant (11,000 acres) of diverse, old growth forested floodplain that was preserved through the efforts led by Henry Hampton, a local journalist, and incorporated into the national park system in 1976.  It includes loblolly pine, bald cypress, sweetgum, american beech, swamp chestnut oak, american holly, water tupelo, dwarf palmetto and more.  The tallest loblolly pine is 169 feet tall, and some bald cypress are nearly 500 years old.  We took a ranger-led 2.4 mile hike on the boardwalk loop trail that was so informative.  The guide was a retired South Carolina Department of Natural Resources biologist who knew the park well. If we had more time we'd have taken the Cedar Creek kayaking trip that would have provided a different vantage point for viewing the park.

There were once 35,000,000 acres of forested floodplain that existed in the southeast and Gulf of Mexico before white settlers began arriving here in numbers in the 1700's.  Trees were cut for gain - ships, railroads and buildings, and the lands were drained and converted to pastures, farms and cities.  But something was lost too.  Floodplains provided natural storage for floodwaters.  Floodplain guts (pictured above) are shallow swales that regularly conveyed floodwaters and nutrient rich sediments from rivers that were deposited in the forested floodplains.  Oxbow lakes, like Lake Wilson (pictured above), were formerly meandering rivers that migrated downstream and, often during a flood, cut through the neck of the meander, leaving a a semicircular curved lake that provides habitat for waterfowl and fish.

The natural storage that was once provided by forested floodplains has been replaced with engineered, large-scale flood risk mitigation projects involving river channelization, levees, floodwalls and reservoirs all of which.  Today's floodplain managers and water resources engineers can sometimes use the principles evident in nature within Congaree National Park's floodplains to reduce peak flows and sediment delivery to lakes and streams through projects that increase natural floodplain storage through reconnecting anthropogenically modified streams to their floodplains using channel plugs, bank lowering, floodplain plantings, and spreaders to create features similar to what the guts (also called sloughs) do naturally. 

This quote by William Faulkner beautifully describes a gut.

"The thick black, slow unsigned stream almost without current,

which once each year ceased to flow at all and then reversed - 

spreading, drowning the land and subsiding again, leaving it

still richer...."  William Faulkner

So while much of our old growth forested floodplains have been permanently lost, this wonderous preserve illustrates naturally what floodplain managers and water resources engineers can attempt to recreate in some locations today.  I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to appreciate this pristine forested floodplain and to learn by seeing the principles of how rivers and their floodplains work together in an ecologically beneficial manner.  

My Interest and Water Resources Work on New York's Erie Canal

 

With more than 40 years of experience in New York State’s waterways, Water Principal Ken Avery has a resume that spans projects from river hydraulics to ecosystem restoration, flood risk management, dams and levees. Ken believes that we possess the engineering tools and technology to design, construct, manage and operate our water infrastructure in a more resilient manner to yield greater benefits to the public and the environment, while reducing the risks to life and infrastructure.

Here, he discusses the past, present and future of the historic Erie Canal System, and provides an update on how he and the team at Bergmann, an affiliate of Colliers Engineering & Design, are contributing to important efforts to ensure the viability of the system for New York residents and visitors for years to come.

Tell us about your background and what led you to your interest in the Erie Canal.

My interest in the Erie Canal system spans all aspects of it – its history, the economics and the technical details. I grew up in Rochester and lived in New York State my entire life, including going to college there. I’ve always enjoyed the important role of New York State in American history, as my dad has. And I’m fascinated by how the early canal engineers were able to use the materials and the engineering practices they had, which were nothing compared to what we have to work with today, to build the original canal system. They had timber, quarried rock, cement and wrought iron to build the original Erie Canal and the numerous feeder canals. Peter L. Bernstein’s Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation does a really good job of explaining how they accomplished this feat.

Can you explain the different ways the Erie Canal is used today and how it has evolved?

Today, it’s primarily used as a recreational waterway for pleasure boats and the towpath is now the Erie Canal Heritage Trail.  The Erie Canal Heritage Trail has recently been completed and runs parallel to it for most of its length. But in 1825, the canal system started as a four-foot-deep canal, a ditch essentially. In fact, the first 56 miles of it were built without any locks on a very level, flat area between Rome and Syracuse, NY. Over the years, there were some expansions to the canal in the 1850s. It was deepened into seven feet, and that allowed heavier tonnage to be shipped. In 1918, which seems like it should have been at the end of the canal-building era, the railroads had become very powerful so, the thought was that if we increased the tonnage on the canal and used the materials we have today, you could build the gates of the locks with steel, which is a much stronger material than timber. The availability of steel enabled portions of the Mohawk River to be canalized using moveable dams to create navigation pools between locks located on the river’s edge. That expansion was the first to use large steel structures, and we have one of those structures here in downtown Rochester, New York – the Court Street Dam. The idea was that the Barge Canal system could be a competitor to the railroads. And as late as the 1960s, that canal system was shipping a payload of annually. However, the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway system in 1959, allowed ocean-going ships to come into the Great Lakes through the St. Lawrence Seaway project, and that really ended most of the commercial shipping on the canal.

What is the current condition of the canal?

If you go along the West River Wall in Rochester, you’ll see that there are sections called monoliths and these are concrete castings that are maybe 40 feet in length.  You’ll see one monolith that looks to be in good condition. And then the one right next to it has an incredible amount of deterioration. If you look at the concrete, you can tell that it’s not broken through the aggregate, but around the aggregate. That’s an indication of poor quality in concrete construction. The concrete practices and quality control were nowhere near as good as they are today. The other aspect of this is that waterway infrastructure is very expensive to rehabilitate.

The canal also includes 130 miles of raised earthen embankments that during the navigation season impound 12 feet of water above the adjacent lands, some of which are residential. Over the years, in many locations, dense tree vegetation has been allowed to grow on the embankments, impairing their inspection and assessment. Bergmann has assisted the Canal Corporation in developing an inspection and maintenance Guide Book and a Generic Environmental Impact Statement to improve the condition and safety of these earthen embankments and reduce the risks to life and damage to nearby infrastructure.  This program will require many years of persistent inspection, evaluation, prioritization and construction to restore the embankments to a safer and more maintainable condition.

Can you tell us about the Reimagine the Canals Initiative and our involvement?

 Reimagine the Canals was announced in 2019. It’s a sweeping initiative to see how the canal system can be reimaged for the 21^st century. There are five objectives:

• Resilience – Utilize Canal infrastructure to mitigate summer flooding and eliminate ice jams in the Mohawk Valley
• Regeneration – Adaptively reuse infrastructure and surplus land to improve the quality of life in communities bordering the waterway
• Restoration – Manage the waterway to restore the natural environment for people and wildlife, rebalancing a highly compromised ecosystem
• Reuse – Use water no longer needed for large ships to support new uses such as agriculture and recreational fishing, and further bolster water- and trail-based recreation and tourism
• Retrofit – Identify opportunities to drive operational improvement that will reduce ongoing operations and maintenance costs and generate revenue

We’re involved in a number of ways, primarily looking at flood mitigation on the Mohawk River. We also provided a lot of hydraulic evaluations and flood damage evaluations, both in terms of the potential flood damage reduction and in flood insurance premium reductions that could be achieved simply by operating the canal system in a way where the movable dam gates would be opened in advance of a flood event, and to release their impounded water. Another aspect that we helped out with is managing water in the 60-mile pool between Rochester and Lockport to support recreational sport fisheries.

What advice do you have for people looking to get into the waterways field?

If you’re interested in any aspect of water, dive in.  Take on part-time or permanent jobs, take courses in the water field, read the history of great water projects, read technical literature and read water policy. While on this journey, take every opportunity to learn more and soon you’ll find what you’re most passionate and gifted for.

Words of Remembrance Given at My Mother's Funeral Service - August 20, 2022

 

Two weeks ago tomorrow, while peering through the window above our kitchen sink that overlooks our firepit patio, I noticed for the first time this summer a hummingbird. The ruby throated hummingbird made his way from one cluster of flowers to the next, gathering nectar to fuel his activities.  I’ve often thought that a sighting of something unusual in nature to be a harbinger of something that lies ahead. Sometimes those sightings have included dark symbols such as black crows circling overhead that turned out later to be false signs.  Hummingbirds, however, are symbols of lightness and joy.  People who adopt the hummingbird as a totem or symbol are thought to be playful, adaptable, and can combat negativity with ease.  They also serve as good reminders to live life to the fullest and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. 

I visited mother that afternoon and shared every photo I had taken during our recent vacation with Tyler, Jennica and their children.  She savored each one and was enamored with them.  She told me how much she loved these little children and how much she enjoyed the times visiting with them and engaging them in conversation.  She said “I like to ask them questions to find out what they’re thinking about.”  That turned out to be the last time I or anyone would see her before she suffered the debilitating stroke that happened less than 24 hours later.  But what a special last memory that was.

Her last engagement with anyone here on earth was:

• not concerned about things bothering her

• not begging for attention

• not filled with worry; but

• Enjoying and giving thanks for members of her family.

As I started winding back the years of her life that I could recall, it revealed one instance after another of mother putting her family and their interests ahead of her own.  Once Bob and I left the nest, she tended to her own aging parents, and her young grandchildren.  Once her parents had passed, she spent more time with her grandchildren, and with Dad visited church members, friends and family and bringing comfort to those who were suffering.  When those contemporaries had passed on, she focused on her great grandchildren, who are gathered with us today. Holidays and birthday gatherings were always special events that she enjoyed and in her younger years performed much of the cooking for.  Even when she was unable to carry the load of entertaining family she always enjoyed each and every one.  We were all particularly blessed in 2021 to have gathered with mother and dad at our home on both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  All of you here can remember that she treasured even our recent family gatherings.

   

All of these memories beg the questions:

• What made it possible for mother to keep the focus on others?

•       What made it possible for mother to overcome the challenges of depression that she         faced earlier in life?

• What made it possible for her to live a life well-lived?

• Why did I see a hummingbird outside our window and not black crows?

All of the answers to those questions for mother can be summed up in having a vital relationship with God through the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know all of her journey to faith - when it began and when it really took root in her but when I shared with her as an excited young teenager that I received Jesus as my savior and Lord, her response was “How can that happen for me?”  It happened, and not long from then, through the influence of godly pastors, church friends and her husband.  

Dad, the work that God had done in your life some 30 year earlier, and the example of your daily faithfulness to God and your family was probably the greatest consistent positive influence in her life.

Those of us who had the opportunity to visit mother in the Strong Hospice Care unit where she was eventually transferred to, were able to see her when she was in a state of peacefulness, although not fully conscious.  That experience was something unexpectedly rich.  She squeezed Dad’s hand while he held it.  She turned her head when Tim walked from one side of the bed to the other.  I believe she felt Bob’s kiss.  I believe she heard our prayers, our singing of hymns and our assurances she was in good hands.  She had recently been suffering more and more from the effects of dementia which had robbed her of some of the peace that she normally exhibited and that was concerning.  So, during those final visits we shared with her it was almost like God was beginning to roll back the human suffering that came with the dementia, even as her life on earth was diminishing and her eternal life beginning.

I ask that as we continue in conversations with each other today and the following days to share your remembrances of mother with one another and encourage each other in our time of grieving, and I leave you with the image of the hummingbird as an image of her life here on earth.  

Understanding The Dobbs Supreme Court Decision

 

This is a day for freedom loving and Christian people to be thankful for the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case. There's so much in and behind this very clear ruling:

1. There's no implicit right in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights to end unborn life.
2. Therefore, the individual States get to decide how to address the issue of abortion.
3. There is a peaceful process in place to amend the US Constitution to include a right to abortion if those who support abortion wish to do so.
4. This decision overturns the legally convoluted and flawed Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.  The majority could have upheld Dobbs on a 6-3 vote, adding Chief Justice Roberts to the majority, but decided to go all the way and overturn Roe v. Wade. 
5. Unlike the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision that helped lead us into The Civil War, this decision, like Brown v. Board of Education, promotes liberty and life to a maligned and underserved class of people.  
6. It matters greatly who you vote for as President of the United States.  Donald Trump, by relying on The Federalist Society to advise him on selecting justices to serve on our federal courts, assured our nation that we would have originalists making important decisions.
7. The culture, with the help of science, has become increasingly pro-life, and this decision, rather than breaking new ground in our culture, affirms a gradual change in our culture that favors liberty and more protections for the unborn. 

To Christians and freedom-loving people of all political affiliations, can we use this opportunity to offer a better story to our friends, co-workers and neighbors?  There are many good articles already posted at www.thegospelcoalition.org and there will be many more on this subject, but the post by Winfree Brisley here www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/remember-overturned-roe/   focuses on giving thanks and allowing a true story to take place in our minds. We have the opportunity each day to tell that better story. 

The Inspiration of C. S. Lewis - The Inner Ring

 Speaking to college students in this address, Lewis provides advice and warning to young men concerning a temptation specific to the world, after a brief mention of the devil and the flesh. Although he does not refer to a specific scripture,1 John 2:15-17 aligns with his message.  He summarizes an exchange between two soldiers and their commanding officer from Tolstoy's War and Peace before launching into a discussion of the phenomenon of an "inner ring".  In that conversation, the two junior officers, instead of following the official system of conversation that would have respected the commanding general, followed their own system, and essentially ignored the general who had to wait for the junior officers to complete their conversation before he could speak. 

Have you ever noticed yourself being left out of conversations?  Do you know what it feels like to be excluded?  Who hasn't?  Lewis's address has a message for everyone because everyone has at one time or another, felt they've been left out of some inner ring.   He notes that these inner rings are constructed by "unwritten systems", and that the deep desire to be a part of an inner ring (and the terror of being excluded) can be a strong driver.  We hope to profit from inclusion in the inner ring "...power, money, liberty to break the rules, avoidance of routine duties, evasion of discipline."

His advice is brilliant and true:

1. Recognize that the desire and ambition to be part of an inner ring is a danger for two reasons:
• It can cause us to do some very bad things.
• Being governed by that urge for the inner ring is like attempting to fill a sieve with water - it is something that is impossible to do.    
2. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider to the inner circle, you'll remain outside the inner circle.
3. You can break that desire by becoming a "sound craftsman" in the work you do, which is the longer lasting goal of any profession.
4. Finding other people who like one another and enjoy meeting to do things they like to do is something that no inner ringer can ever have - friendship. 

Lewis's wisdom on this subject seems so timeless, and so true to human nature, it can be helpful to all of us at many points in our lives.  As I wind down my "official" duties as a full-time employee, my influence and power in the company has diminished and I am no longer in the official or unofficial inner ring.  In these times, I am finding joy in continuing to grow as a skilled craftsman and finding friends who have similar desires to help others that I have.  

You can read the entire essay here: the-inner-ring-by-c-s-lewis.pdf (wordpress.com) 

The Inspiration of C.S. Lewis: Learning in War-Time

People one generation younger than mine remark that C.S. Lewis was writing to their generation. Lewis wrote this essay during my father's generation, yet I am soaking up Learning in War-Time some 80 years later as if it was written last week.  There's something timeless about this Lewis address to students because I am reading this in an age of increased turmoil and totalitarianism in the world and in America.

Lewis, delivering his remarks to college students in 1939, first speaks to the reality that war, because it is a finite object, cannot absorb the entire attention of the human soul. Thus, no matter how badly things are going around us, we were not wired to be entirely absorbed in them.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has put eternity into man's hearts, something far beyond the travails of the present world.

He moves on from there to emphasize that our work of learning (whether we are in school or college or engaged in a career or ministry) becomes a spiritual act if offered in humility to God.  He encourages them not to let their emotions and nerves make them think that their situation, mired in the suffering of WWII, is more abnormal than it is. Those same words need to be heard in my heart today.  Sure, there is much to grieve and much to be alarmed about, but Lewis encourages his students with three defensive mental exercises with which to combat the war (or the equivalents of war we experience today).  These enemies are:

1. Enemy #1 - Excitement - Don't wait for distraction to end to get to work.  He remarks that the people who work hard, including under unfavorable conditions, will achieve much. Sure, evil seems to be thriving and there's plenty of distractions but if we wait for the distractions to end, they won't, and we will have achieved nothing. Instead, we could have been about doing good in this world.
2. Enemy #2 - Frustration - Lewis encourages his listeners to instead of saying "No time for that" or "Too late now." or "Not for me" to put the future in God's hands.  He reminds us that working moment to moment "as to the Lord" since the present is the only time in which duty can be done or grace received.  Live for today.
3. Enemy #3 - Fear - Although the threat of death and pain was incredibly real for Lewis's listeners, he reminds them it's not a question of life or death for us but only one death or another.  Being aware of our mortality is useful and was considered a blessing by great Christians of the past.  Lewis reminds us that in this world we're on a pilgrimage, not trying to build of a utopian society on earth.

The idea of a life of learning that Lewis encourages for his war-time students is worthy of our attention today.  It is up to us subdue our enemies and to flourish in these times when many are held prisoners by enemies (excitement, frustration, fear).  Lewis's narration can be read here: https://bradleyggreen.com/attachments/Lewis.Learning%20in%20War-Time.pdf
 

   

The Christmas Gift Of My Helping Family

 

The family 2021 Christmas Day plans were all perfectly in place.  The rides to pick up Mother and Dad were all set, we had invited Corinne's hairdresser and son to join us, Matt had made the trek home from Philadelphia, and I was thinly slicing potatoes with a mandolin two hours before all our guests were set to arrive.  Then, in a blink of an eye my hand slipped off the handle, sliced the end of my finger off, and our Christmas plans were instantly jeopardized.  In the hours that followed, I who was to be putting out for everyone else, received the Christmas gift of my family helping me and working together to care for everyone. 

Just a few of the many blessings I received included:

1. Matthew finding a nearby Urgent Care facility, driving me there and being my caretaker through the painful medical procedure, that fortunately didn't require stitches. 
2. Corinne contacting everyone and pushing the schedule for dinner back 2 hours.
3. Bunny and Tim picking up Dad, which I was set to do, safety bringing him to our house and returning him to the Episcopal Church Home.
4. Bob and April picking up Mother, which Bunny and Tim were set to do, bringing her to our house and returning her to River Edge Manor.
5. Corinne, Bunny and April taking over all the food and other preparations and doing the kitchen cleanup afterwards.

It was a wonderful experience for me to see my family jumping in to help when the unexpected happened to me and to see them carrying on so graciously.  In all those events, I could see in action the words of the Christmas song O Little Town of Bethlehem that say:

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given,

So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.

No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

I felt that I received some of the blessings of God's heaven through my family members on Christmas Day 2021.    

In Harmony With the Creator

Here's a series of photos I took from the shoreline of Heart Lake at the Adirondack Loj at sunset, relaxing and marveling with Corinne over the changes in the sky in just over 15 minutes.  The science of how light reflects off a still body of water and of how the sun rays are refracted as they take a longer path through the earth's atmosphere at sunrise and sunset are well known.  But what I responded to in those moments was not the physics of light but the harmony of nature with its Creator God.  The sky started out cloudy but as the clouds lifted the setting sun splashed some clouds in pinks and peach colors, blue sky appeared, and some of the clouds remained gray.  Nature seemed to be responding in tune with its Creator's design, and it was beautiful and peaceful in line with the Hebrew word Shalom.

Then I considered the state of humankind. Of all the created world, humans were to be God's crowning creation.  

I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him, 

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little

lower than the heavenly beings,

 and crowned him with glory and honor

Psalm 8:3-5 

So as wonderful as creation itself was intended to be, we who were to be the capstone of His creation, seem to be more out of touch with our Creator than the rest of creation.  What went wrong?  He gave to humankind something that he gave to nothing else in the created world - a free will.  With that free will, Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden, Cain killed his brother Abel, Isreal abandoned God and clung to idols, and the Jewish leaders and Romans conspired to murder His Son, Jesus.  If God knew all this was going to happen, why did He allow it?  He could have made us like the rest of creation which seemed to me at that sunset moment to be in harmony with the Creator.  But God has made us for himself, to experience fellowship with Him. That kind of desire does not derive from compulsion but from a heart that desires such a relationship.  So if He intentionally created us to experience fellowship with Him and our waywardness has separated us, what can be done to restore it?

God sent His Son, Jesus to perform the work of atoning for our sins, and putting us back into a right relationship with the Creator God (Romans 3:21-23).  While enjoying these long-awaited summer months when we are outdoors near our homes or vacationing in remote and beautiful places, and marveling at God's Creation, think about the door God has opened for us in Jesus to be brought back into harmony with Him.

         

The Marcy Dam Breach and Its Effects

 

While hiking in the Adirondack High Peaks on July 13, 2021, we came across what's left of the Marcy Dam that breached during Hurricane Irene in August 2011.  The top view looks downstream and the bottom view looks upstream.  There used to be a bridge that spanned across the top of the dam that served as a route for hikers on their way to Mt. Colden, Mt. Marcy and other High Peaks. It turned out that as my son, Tim, shared his photos on social media that he learned a good friend of our family's had crossed over the top of this dam with his children hours before it failed.  The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has decided wisely, I believe, to not rebuild the dam. They instead have built a new stone crib bridge to replace the function that the dam provided.  We crossed over that bridge as we made our way to Mt. Colden.  The dam itself, constructed of timber cribs filled with boulders and faced wtih timber planks was not well suited to such a harsh environment and aggressive stream conditions.  A replacement dam, constructed to NYSDEC dam standards would cost $10M or more and would still be a safety hazard for people and infrastructure located downstream of the dam.  

As we approached the dam from upstream on our way back from Mt. Colden, I noticed that the banks of Marcy Brook were severly eroding and many trees had fallen into the brook.  The breach of Marcy Dam also triggered a channel avulsion that changed the brook's geomorphology in a dynamic manner that can be explained by the relationship developed by E. W. Lane (Lane, 1955).  In his emperical relationship, there's a balance between stream energy (represented by the product of stream discharge, Q and channel slope, S) and sediment yield (represented by the product of sediment discharge Qs and median sediment size, ds) as shown below:   

Q_s * d_{s ~} Q * S

Prior to the dam's breaching the channel slope, S, upstream of the dam had flattened and sediment had been deposited in the upstream zone.  When the dam breached, the slope began to re-steepen by increasing the sediment discharge, Qs from in front of the dam, but that erosion also extended upstream as I observed from the severely cut banks and downed trees.  A change to any one variable in Lane's relationship on one side of the equation requires a change to one of the variables on the other side of the equation.  In this case, channel slope, S increased while stream discharge, Q, remained unchanged, thus the sediment discharge, Qs must increase since median particle diameter would be unchanged by the dam breach.  Streams in a pristine environment, such as the Adirondacks, don't typically display this dynamic unless there's a significant and dynamic change.  Eventually the stream will return to a quasi-equilibrium and the banks upstream of the dam will eventually cease to erode.

Remembering The Lord Is My Banner

These little yellow socks are a remembrance from a scary and surprise event that our 2 year old son, Matthew, and our family walked through together while traveling around town.  We were driving along and noticed Matthew was lethargic and when Corinne looked in his eyes, she noticed they were bloodshot.  We happened to be on the other side of town when we discovered this, and it was the weekend, before the time of urgent care centers.  But a doctor friend from our church lived in the area and we decided to drop in just to get him checked out.  She looked him over and told us to take him to the emergency room.  It turned out that he had a severe bacterial infection and needed an IV.  So this toddler was kept in the hospital for a day or two until they were certain the infection was under control and could discharge him.  I remember later the evening we left him at the hospital, gathering the rest of our kids together with Corinne and weeping while praying that Matthew would be healed from this and not harmed by it.  God answered our prayers, he was soon back home with us, and we rejoiced, but I held onto the little yellow socks that he wore while in the hospital as a remembrance of God's faithfulness to Matthew. 

Fast forward almost 30 years and we are at a worship service at Renewal Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia with Matthew, and the pastor is preaching from Exodus 17:8-16.  In this passage the Amalekites launch a surprise attack on the Israelites near Rephidim.  Moses instructs Joshua to launch a counterattack the next day.  As Joshua and the Israelites engage the enemy, Moses stands on a hill with Aaron and Hur on either side of him.  When Moses' hands are raised the Israelites prevailed and when Moses' hands drop from wearyness, the Amalekites prevailed.  So, Aaron and Hur have Moses sit on a rock and they keep Moses' hands held high until the Amalekites are defeated at sunset.  At the conclusion of the event, the Lord tells Moses "Record this event on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely erase the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven."  Then Moses builds an altar and called it The Lord Is My Banner.  He said "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord..."

There are many connections here.  It is good to remember the times when God's banner was over us, where we needed to raise our hands towards the heavens and seek His help, where we needed the help of other believers and people of faith to walk or stand with us.  And it's good to build altars by keeping remembrances of events where God showed up and we experienced The Lord is My Banner in a deep and rich way.  Because of distance we don't often worship together, but recalling this family event while we worshipped together, while being instructed to remember the times when God has showed up in our lives was a very special gift.

Mike's Mother's Day Tribute

 (I welcome guest blogger, a dear friend and brother in the faith, Mike Mazzochetti who shares the following blog post.)

Having a Mom who is still alive gives me pause as I age too!

Yes, my Mom took care of me from my youth, sorted out my relationships and situations as needed, dealt with my behaviors, and offered guidance until I was on my own as a young adult.

Once when I was in my mid-20s my Mom said to me, the oldest of 3 siblings, that she was sad that she was not a mother any longer. I assured her that I needed a Mom as any 26-year old could have. Once a Mom, always a Mom!

I carried on in career development, and then marriage with 3 sons of our own. The years went by as my Mom was in and out at different times in the normal course of events. Along that journey my Dad died when I was 38. She was a young widow herself as she struggled with loneliness and finding her way. I did not offer her any special attention as she enjoyed family with her 7 grandchildren and found a way to cope with a certain set of friends. Eventually, she dated a widower whom she knew from her youth, so we were delighted she was with someone we could trust until his death a few years ago.

We grew up in a household that was the center of activity. Friends and family members were a continual source of visiting. Food and drink were always plentiful as we had fun with my parents' fiends and their children. My Mom and Dad never really had to go out, so you knew where to find them. But over time, she, being the youngest of her friends, saw them die one-by-one to just a handful remaining.

In the last few years as her arthritis advanced, sustained a broken hip, and experienced mounting internal ailments, she quietly withstood this onset of age with strength and little complaint, unless you ask her! As the executor of her will, I have had to help her with financial decisions. I laugh now, but it has been so frustrating to deal with a multitude of fragmented accounts as a separate "envelope system" for her expenditures - one for house repairs, another for grocery and monthly expenses, a third so she can cash checks with a known teller, yet another where she had a credit card, and so on. She lives on her own and has a helper whom she has known for years, attending to her 3 days a week, doing the laundry, and grocery shopping. I visit her 2 or 3 days a week to pay some bills and take care of some household tasks amid the conversation.

Why do I tell you these things? 

What is most beneficial is that I call her each day, even when I am to visit. This gives me a chance to assess how she is doing and what she needs - some days she feels better than others. This phone conversation is focused as we give undivided attention in just a few minutes to anticipate the actions for the day. 

I pause at this because I find in my heart the reason to care. I realize we are in relationship and not just a needs provider. When I am there, I hear her thoughts and sense her emotions as I note her problem solving skills. Is this easy? No, as I can be testy or stand-offish with her idiosyncrasies!  She has hearing deficiencies as I need to repeat myself, not always being patient. When she has a restless night, she sadly is incoherent in speech or cannot count money properly. When she struggles with the remote for the TV or navigating her smart phone, I do my best to teach her watching her steps - again hopefully with patience! I applaud her when she cooks a meal, or bakes cookies, or mops a portion of the floor - things she likes to do that make her feel productive - but learning that she needs her rest to take on the next day.

When she was young and I was a child, she took care of my needs - but I know now she was in relationship with me. She is the "other woman" in my life. We have each other in relationship of giving and receiving, caring and sharing - building on vulnerability. I love you, Mom! I know you say the same to my brother, sister, and me.

Remembering My Friend, Don Oppedisano

 

Heartbroken is the word that described me after hearing my friend Don Oppedisano had died so suddenly.  How long a history did I have with Don?  44 years.  Don and Sharon were married at Parkminster Church on Thanksgiving weekend 1977, exactly one week before Corinne and I were married there.  We began our married lives blessed by many faithful people of that worshipping community.  Although the opportunity to buy his family's shoe store in Honeoye Falls resulted in him and Sharon moving there, we've stayed in touch over the years.  

We first vacationed with Don and Sharon in Cape Cod in 1978 and we recently visited them in Doral, FL in March 2020 just before the pandemic hit.  In between, Don and I took many road trips to NY Yankee baseball games.  Each game was its own special adventure because Don planned our outings with such thoughtfulness.  June 1992 was the first of these adventures, and included his son Rich, my son Tim, pastor Mike and his sons.  We ventured to Camden Yards in Baltimore, during its inaugural season, to watch a Sunday night ESPN game followed by a Monday night game against the Orioles. We Yankee fans were well entertained that evening: 4 Yankee home runs; controversy with Baltimore's manager and umpires as to whether the Yankees starting pitcher was doctoring the ball; and receiving single serving size boxes of Wheaties as we left the stadium.  The Yankees, who were a sub 0.500 team at that point in the season, undoubtedly had eaten their Wheaties for breakfast that day.  Don arranged for us to stay with friends that night and created a plan for the following day that included a visit to Ft. McHenry and the Babe Ruth Museum.  We got to the stadium early for the Monday night game to watch batting practice. Don was somehow able to find a way for us to meet the Yankees manager at the time, Buck Showalter, and for the boys to get his autograph.  Although the Yankees lost the Monday game, we had a wonderful trip and time together.

There were many other Yankee road trips we enjoyed together including:

• The 2003 away opener against the Blue Jays at SkyDome, Hideki Matsui's first season and game with the Yankees, and the game that Derek Jeter broke his hand sliding head-first into third base; 
• The September 11, 2009 game where Tim, Don and I saw Derek Jeter break Lou Gehrig's all time Yankees hits record; and
• The July 21, 2018 game against the Mets that both my sons, Tim and Matt, attended with us and watched Yankees closer, Aroldis Chapman, nearly blow, leaving the bases loaded to end the game.

Don squeezed so much out of each trip, each game, each game highlight.  After one particular home game, we met up with Sharon and Corinne after the game and enjoyed Italian pastries at Veniero's in lower Manhattan.  Win or lose, the adventure of the road trip and appreciating the time spent with Don was rich because we also shared our joys, struggles, hopes and prayers.  He understood and lived out the concept that attending baseball games held much more than just entertainment value - we shared our faith walks, enjoyed the times as a gift from God, and we grew in our faith on these journeys.  Every game I attended with Don was a pure blessing.  

Because of my competitive nature, sports too often became an unhealthy obsession for me. Through Don's example I learned to appreciate baseball as a gift from God for all the positive things it teaches about life: discipline, focus, excellence, failure, and redemption.  I don't know when and with whom I'll be attending my next NY Yankees baseball game, but I know I will be remembering and giving thanks to God for my friend Don. 
 

Encountering Darryl Strawberry

 

Our family travels and vacations have come with planned and unexpected encounters, but were always an adventure.  On this trip, we encountered a person with celebrity status who, though broken, blessed our family. 

I was attending the International Bridge Conference, held each year during the month of June in Pittsburgh, which was a big deal for me. I was the principal author of a paper describing the bridge scour evaluation program that Bergmann and two other consultants ran for the New York State Thruway Authority. We made this event into a family mini-vacation, that included an evening baseball game at the old, Three Rivers Stadium on June 11,1991. It was to be a night of disappointments and blessings.  At that time Tim was 9, and baseball was the love of his life.  We were all pumped to attend the game between the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Unfortunately, we left Three Rivers Stadium early that night, wet and disappointed.  After a 2.5 hour rain delay the game was cancelled.  As we trudged through the parking lot, all I could think about was whether I would be able to get back the $50 I'd spent on game tickets.  I also hoped that we could get back to the Gateway Hilton Hotel, where we and the Dodgers were staying, in time for Tim to get autographs from some of the Dodgers.  Realizing this possibility, he was easily able to forget about the rainout.  We arrived ahead of the Dodgers, and there were already about a half dozen boys waiting around the front lobby near the main doors. The hotel management were not pleased to see these children loitering in their four star hotel and said that when the players arrived, we'd have to go outside to attempt to get autographs.  

In 1991, both the Dodgers and Pirates were contenders, and the Dodgers had several big names including Orel Hershiser, Eric Karros, and Darryl Strawberry.  In November of 1990, Darryl Strawberry, who had been a New York Met, signed with the Dodgers as a free agent.  He was kind of a big deal.  Darryl Strawberry was voted to the NL All Star team that year, and later in his career signed with the New York Yankees and was a member of their 1996, 1998 and 1999 World Series Championship teams.  

We waited a little longer, then saw several limos arrive with the bulk of the players.  What happened next was fast paced.  Tim and Corinne went outdoors, but the players passed them by.  Darryl Strawberry, a lean 6' 6" tall, towered over everyone.  He stopped in front of three boys in the lobby and quietly signed their cards and papers.  Tim, who was rarely quiet or patient, raced back inside and positioned himself next to Darryl who autographed his paper too.  Tim was filled with awe.  I wondered if Darryl Strawberry knew how happy he made those boys.  Leading up to that game he had been slumping, and was hampered by injuries.  I didn't know too much about Darryl Strawberry at the time, except that he had recently come to faith in Jesus.  That night I saw him as a person who was willing to take the time, when nobody from the media was watching, to bring a group of boys some joy by showing an interest in them.

Darryl Strawberry's baseball and personal life has been filled with both success and brokenness.  You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Strawberry .  He suffered under an abusive father, was suspended three times by Major League Baseball for substance abuse, suffered two bouts of cancer, and several times was in trouble with the law.  Yet, one can see through the brokenness that Darryl Strawberry is a person loved, saved and restored by Jesus, who taught us "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17).

Trying to Understand God's Perfect Way

 

This God - his way is perfect: the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.  2 Samuel 22:31

My 94 year old father, pictured here, has experienced a series of challenges since the start of 2021 and yet he's expressing joy and thankfulness in this photo.  The year began with a fall and trip to the hospital where he was released less than 24 hours later.  He returned home and got very sick, spent a day in bed, then fell in his apartment the next day and was taken back to the hospital.  He tested positive for COVID-19 and immediately began receiving the conventional treatments.  Thirteen years earlier he signed a living will that limited the medical measures that he was willing to receive, one of which was intubation, a measure that is often used to treat COVID-19 patients.  During this hospital stay, which lasted three weeks, his condition worsened to the point where they were running out of treatment options.  He then came out of the danger zone and gradually got off oxygen completely.  In the process of evaluating him, an alert vascular surgeon found that a portion of his aorta had an aneurysm that was three times the normal diameter and deadly if it were to burst.  She recommended an endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR).  He went through all the pre-op appointments and for the last appointment he was supposed to have a stress test, but the cardiologist and vascular surgeon could not find a suitable stress test due to some other complicating factors.  They ended up recommending that since his heart was sufficiently stressed through COVID-19 it would not be necessary to put him through a stress test which came with other risks.  They recommended him for EVAR and we agreed to the procedure.

On the day of the surgery, I picked him up at 5:30 AM, took him to the hospital, went through all the check-ins with the doctors and nurses, prayed with him and left at 7:30 AM when he was taken into surgery.  I returned at 6:00 PM and took this photo.  I've come to realize the privilege I've had to walk with him through this challenging time.  In 2020 he asked me to help him write a story of a two year period of his life that we named My Formative Journey.  He met and embraced Jesus as Savior during his journey, a journey that began forming him at age 19 into a man of integrity, a man who seems to me to live the words of Psalm 23:6.  Trying to understand the path of troubles God has led my Dad through in 2021 has been futile for me at times.  What I can see now is that God's way is perfect even when it does not seem perfect and that God has been a shield for my Dad because my Dad has taken refuge in Him.  It seems that my Dad suffered through COVID-19 so that his dangerous aneurysm could be discovered and repaired, restoring him so that he would not have to bleed to death at some point in the near future.  God has more chapters to write in Dad's life.  This was one of them.

 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, 

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  Psalm 23:6