I went to visit my Dad in the Hinds Hospice Home today.  He’s been in a morphine-induced state of unconsciousness for a few days now.  We all knew he was at death’s door.

I went into his room and (believing that he could still recognize my voice) I said, “Hey Dad.  It’s Gary.  How ya’ doing?”  He took a large deep breath, and exhaled.  I waited for him to breathe in again.  I waited for 30 seconds.  Then another 30 seconds.

His next breath never came.

The nurse came into the room, took his pulse, then looked at me and said what we both already knew.

“He’s left us.”

Just like that.  No gasping.  No furled eyebrows.  No opening his eyes.  He just stopped breathing.  And it all happened in a period of 60 seconds.  It was the most peaceful thing I’ve ever seen.

I looked at the nurse and said, “I guess I got here just in time.”

Her answer was swift and immediate:  “He was waiting for you.”  She went on to tell me that this story repeats itself in Hospice homes over and over again.  Somehow, terminal patients just know.  Amazing.

I told him goodbye one final time, and instantly became jealous of the jig he and my mother had already begun dancing.

Lucky him.

And as I look back on my 46 years of being his son…

Lucky me.

“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It was my father who taught me that it was an act of love to pat your wife on the butt – in public.

It was my father who taught me that there was nothing a 10 year-old boy on a Honda 50 motorcycle couldn’t do.  And it was my father who taught me that helmets should be thought of as “optional”, as long as Mom wasn’t around.

It was my father who taught me that if you call yourself a leader, but no one’s following, you need to call yourself something else.

It was my father who taught me that McDonald’s pancakes were good, but IHOP pancakes were internationally good.

It was my father who taught me that I should continue to develop my slider, even though the rules of the 5th Grade Boys Baseball League strictly prohibited it.

It was my father who taught me that the best stories are told around a campfire at Shaver Lake, and that they should always speak tales of friends who served together in World War II.

It was my father who taught me that writing is an art, and that words printed on a page can be as beautiful as anything Picasso ever painted.

It was my father who taught me that a wife can save a husband, and that husbands should be open to that gift.

It was my father who taught me that it’s better to go to jail, then to give up your sources.

It was my father who taught me that the church is business-like, but it’s not a business.

It was my father who taught me that real men say, “I love you”.

It was my father who taught me that, at 85 years old, you could publish your first book.

It was my father who taught me that the greatest words I could ever say to my own children were not only “I love you”, but also “I’m proud of you.”

It was my father who taught me that life is better lived when we stop asking “why?”, and start asking “Why not?”.

Honestly, this litany of lessons learned makes me wonder what my children will say about me.  Makes me want to live differently right now.

You?

That’s so easy to say.  Can’t believe how easily those words just roll off my tongue.

Until someone gets specific, and starts naming all the people God’s love embraces.  People not like me.  People who disagree with my slant on life.

“For God so loved the world” really means “For God so loved the Christians-who-think-and-believe-like-the-Bible-says-to”.

Or Christians who read the Bible like I do.

Right?

Are you telling me that God is head-over-heals in love with people who are running as fast as they can away from Him?

Really?

I invite you to pay close attention to your heart right now.  Is there anything that’s fighting this message?  If so, what?

Those words came out of my mouth at my Mom’s funeral.  They were unplanned, but they fit the need of the moment, and they just came out.

I’ve been revisiting that statement more and more.  I think it’s very true.

We were invited this weekend to the Central Coast, by the Montes’.  We first met Andy and Sherene in 1990, and we instantly hit it off.  We were young married couples with no children.  Our relationship has since persevered through the birth of six children, marital struggles, job changes, and more struggles too painful to chronicle here.

And this weekend, they stole us away to the Central Coast for an overnight respite.  They paid for everything.  Hotel, food, fun, waffles.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking that, at our age, we’ve got enough money to do this.  But it’s just not the case.  The Montes’ couldn’t afford to do this.

But they figured out a way, and they just gave.

To us.

My friend Kathy tells me that there are two types of people in the world – Takers and Givers.  And the problem is this – Everyone thinks they’re a Giver.  I can become easily self-deceived at this level.

I can think I’m the most generous person on the face of the earth, not because I really am generous, but because I really WANT to be generous.

But you and I know there’s an acid test to apply, right?  Simply ask:  When’s the last time you gave like the Montes’ gave to us?

For God so loved the world, He gained tons of Bible knowledge…

For God so loved the world, He made regular contributions to His 401K…

For God so loved the world, He donated only when He was already in excess…

For God so loved the world, He…

gave.

“I have this core belief, that you know Jesus best when you’re the most generous.”

And we were all wrong.

The professor informed us that there is only ONE place in the entire New Testament where a biblical writer actually defines what “the Gospel” is.  Literally, it’s referenced and talked about everywhere, but defined only once.  By Paul.

1 Cor. 15:1-8.  You can read it for yourself here.

The Gospel, as defined by the Bible itself is the story of Christ’s coming, Christ’s death, Christ’s resurrection, and Christ’s appearances to tons of people.  And all of that is “for sins.”

There is no part of this Gospel definition to be performed by me.  Or you.

TO FUNDAMENTALISTS – Don’t get on the defensive; I’m not attacking. If you find yourself taught to attach any lifestyle issue to “the Gospel”, then you might want to re-evaluate.  If – for you – the Gospel of Jesus includes not drinking, or not dancing, or not watching rated R movies, or not gossiping, or not killing anyone, or not being gay… If you’ve accidentally attached any of those works to a working definition of “the Gospel”, then you’ve attached a work to the Gospel (I meant to repeat myself there).  You can have your own personal convictions from your reading of Scripture, but those personal convictions are never intended to be added to the Gospel.

Because the Gospel is about His works, not ours.

TO SOCIAL JUSTICE ADHERENTS – There’s a huge debate these days about whether the Gospel of Jesus Christ includes feeding the poor, clothing the naked, and giving water to the thirsty.  While Jesus taught us to respond to “the least of these”, He didn’t make it a part of the Gospel message.  I’m giving this season of my life to the poor in El Salvador, but my work is not a part of the core Gospel message.  It’s my RESPONSE to the Gospel.  And I can’t drop that same expectation onto anyone else’s shoulders.  That’s not my job.

Because the Gospel is about His works, not ours.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT? Just one reason, mainly.

Because it stops being good news the minute I include my own veiled piety.  If I attach my own “holiness” to the Gospel, I’ve just become a Pharisee.

I’m trying to give away an old version of some really crappy news to people (the story of Christ PLUS my own good efforts), and I’m packaging it as being “good news”.  It’s kinda like hiding cow dung in a Victoria’s Secret bag.

There is a Grand Story that God is telling – one that culminated in Jesus.  He came.  He died.  He rose again.  Then He appeared to lots of people.  And EVERY nano-second of that Narrative was done “for sins”.  Yours.  Mine.

Can’t imagine why we’d ever want to add to that.

Every week for months and months, there were certain hours devoted to talking, listening, and praying with people who were sick, dying, or both.

A few weeks ago, a 52 year-old man was electrocuted while trimming a tree.  For 14 days, he struggled for his life.  His family stayed with him.  If you’ve ever had a family member in the hospital for that long, you know how emotionally draining it is on the family members.  At some point, the family just gives up because they can’t handle it anymore.

Last weekend, the man’s family couldn’t take it anymore.  Their father and husband was dying.  So they left the hospital.

There was now a man, lying in a bed in the ICU, waiting to pass.  Alone.

My friend stepped in, and chose to wait with the man until he passed.  He posted this update on Twitter after it was over…

I just sort of felt tonight like no one should die alone. That’s why I sat with a patient and was fully present in that moment.

I would argue that the most honorable moments we have in this life come when we do things that fight hard against our personal comfort levels, and are incredibly draining.  I think honorable actions always cause us to ache.

It’s a basic human right that no one should have to die alone.  My friend helped defend that right in a quite room last weekend.

I find myself living backwards these days – asking what memories my children will have of me at my Memorial Service, then trying my best to live into that.

My Mom modeled this for me.  As you’ll see, no one in my family had a hard time coming up with specific memories that she created, and then gave away to the rest of us…

For those of you who are choosing to walk this road with me, I cannot tell you how sustained I feel because I’m not alone.  Thank you.  Thank you so much.

The morphine drip was initiated, the oxygen mask came off, and the waiting game began.

Five grandchildren, two daughter-in-laws, two sons, and one soon-to-be widower entered the room and said their unique and beautiful goodbyes to my Mom.  The family would go into the waiting room and wait.  Myself, my brother, and my Dad would sit in the room with my Mom.

At 6:00pm, my Dad couldn’t stay awake any longer.  He’s confined to a wheelchair, suffers from Parkinson’s, and had been awake since 4:00am that morning.  He needed a change of scenery.  So I offered to take him to where the rest of the family was waiting.  He agreed, and we began to leave the room.

I think in his heart, he knew.

He knew that he’d never again see her in this lifetime.

So he looked at her, and with deep compassion and sadness in his soft voice, he whispered words to her.  Words I’ll never forget.

“You’re my girl.”

And with those words, I wheeled him out of the room.  We took him home, and made sure he was gonna be okay.

He went to sleep in his own bed.

His wife of 48 years passed at midnight.

So we write.  Whether we know it or not, we’re all authors and bloggers. Every day, we write scripts.  It’s what we’ve been called to.  It’s what we live to do.  It’s art.  It’s storytelling.  It’s beautiful.

But the opposite is true as well.

We all have scripts that are writing us.

These scripts consist of accusatory internal and external voices speaking to our hearts.  In a moment, these unseen voices seem to grab ahold of our distant past, throw in a few collaborating voices of current friends and family members, and spew out sentences we’ve come to know all too well.

They’ll leave you.

Don’t let them see the real you.

We’re not even aware that we’ve come to live our lives believing in the unquestioned validity of these voices.  The problem isn’t that the voices are there.  The problem is that we’ve become so accustomed to them, we aren’t even aware that we’re living under their abusive authority.  We’ve stopped recognizing them as false messages, and started recognizing them as normal. These voices have become scripts.  And we live according to the script they’ve written for us.

So in a moment of honesty, what script writes you?  You don’t need to post it below.  But we do need to become aware of that voice, and the death-giving words it spews all over us.

The unlikely and unwilling hero of the story – Bilbo Baggins – is confronted by Gandalf and told this profound truth…

“Bilbo Baggins.  There is more to you than you know.”

Gandalf knew that there were two sides to Biblo Baggins’ bloodline.  There was the sedentary, unadventurous side (the “Baggins” side).  But there was also the risk-taking, adventurous side (the “Took” side).

Gandalf comes to visit Baggins in his home.  After a meal, Baggins lies down near the fireplace.  The dwarfs begin singing ancient songs.  And as Baggins lies there, listening to the music…

“…something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick.”

A sword instead of a walking stick.

And he’s not promoting violence with this metaphor.

He’s promoting risk, adventure, and danger.

I believe, with my whole heart, that when sin entered the world, one of the most tragic consequences of that Fall was that our swords were replaced with walking sticks.  Our willingness to live comfortably became more desireable than our heart’s cry to live dangerously, with great adventure.

I’m 45 years old now, and I can say the following with the utmost confidence and assurance:  If you’re trying to create a comfortable, controlled life, it will not happen.  It cannot happen.  The Took side of you is too great. It runs too deeply in your veins.

The question is not whether or not we’ll try to quench our deepest desires.  We will.  The question is what form the quenching will take.

And every day we live, we choose.

Play it safe?

Or replace our walking sticks with swords?