The quote from Psalm 90 verse 12 I'm opening with is from the King James Version. In the more up-to-date New Living Translation, it's translated as, "Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom."
This is not a hint for presents or cards or anything like that. I do have a birthday coming up in a few days. Honestly, although I'm glad to be feeling better now, I was very depressed this year from about June 15 to about August 15. I came very close to telling my wife and my sister, "Look, I'll just remember my age changes to sixty-nine this September, but I don't want anything special done this year. I don't want to celebrate, so let's just leave it at that!"
My wife Mary Ann and my daughter Rachel also have September birthdays. And, my sister Dianne is probably the biggest "birthday person" I've ever known. So, I didn't make that ominous birthday announcement, and I guess at this point I'm glad I didn't.
However, I did decide to use the birthday thing as an excuse to pester family and friends to read a blog post, and this is the blog post. I almost gave it a title like, My Favorite Things, but I realized that sounds like some stupid, sappy title Oprah would use! I think Stuff I Want to Say works better!
I recently read the weirdest memorial service invitation/announcement I've ever encountered. A terminally ill woman is having a "Celebration of Life" event. Now, I think we've probably all attended "Celebration of Life" memorial services. But this one is unique! It's planned to happen while she is still alive! There will be balloons and lots of celebratory aspects to the event. I guess she wants to attend her own funeral, and to have fun, at that!
I gotta tell ya, I'm very conservative, but I love the idea! I like it so much, I wouldn't mind doing it myself some day - although I don't know if my wife or my sister would go along with that! Anyway some of the Stuff I Want to Say may not surprise you a bit - but some of it just might! Maybe someday when I do pass somebody will want to read this at the memorial service - and that might be a good idea!
I'm going to say a number of things that are very important to me, and I'm going to categorize them with using the famous questions: WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? and HOW?
Here we go:
1. WHO? It might surprise you but there are many people in my life that mean a lot to me and who have had a profound influence on my life. Of course this includes my wife and kids, but it also includes many others. But, for this piece I want to name the two people I've known in my life that I consider the greatest Christians: Opal Reddin and Norman Milley, Sr. Opal Reddin was a professor at Central Bible College. I believe she died in 2005. Many students considered her lightweight, super-spiritual, not academically deep, and very unrealistic. I never agreed with those students. She was not perfect. She did think Pentecostals were better than anybody else and she didn't particularly care for Billy Graham and his family. (I did not agree with her about the Graham family.) But Opal Reddin was just a really godly woman. She taught a course on "Acts of the Apostles" at C.B.C. Wow! What a class. From time to time she'd say something like, "Now class the Holy Spirit is wanting to move, let's start worshiping and be open to the Spirit." I know that may sound foolish or extreme. But in fact the Holy Spirit would move on those occasions. I remember some of the sweetest times in the presence of the Lord were in her classroom. Many years later I corresponded with her a few times. She was happy that my daughter Amy was a student at Evangel and was hoping to meet her. She passed away before that could happen. As far as Norman Milley, Sr., he worked construction most of his life. He was the Superintendent on the Mystic River Bridge job. Milley worked for Perini Construction. In his spare time he went out and started churches! No kidding. He became a Licensed Assemblies of God minister in 1936. I can still see him. He was tall with a head of white hair. He had a strong Newfoudland accent. When he just walked by you, you could feel the presence of God! He was very humble, but people were in awe of him.
2. WHAT? I want to tell you WHAT was my greatest desire in life? That was to serve and honor the Lord... to be a good pastor, to be a good husband, to be a good father, to be a good Christian, to be a godly man who regularly prayed and read the Bible and lived for God.
Next, WHAT was my greatest fear in life? That was to fall far short of the goals of my greatest desire... to live a compromised, worldly life, to be thought of as a bad husband, a bad father, a bad pastor, and a superficial and inadequate Christian. Specifically, if I would ever be dishonored as a pastor, disgraced, rebuked, and told what a poor pastor and family man I was, that would be my greatest fear. Then, WHAT is my greatest regret in life? It's that in 2010 my greatest fear HAPPENED! I wrote about that recently on Facebook. I am not exaggerating when I say I would easily have preferred a terminal cancer diagnosis or an early onset Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis. I don't say that lightly. My mother died of cancer. My father had advanced Alzheimer's Disease. As horrible as cancer and dementia are I'd have welcomed either of them instead of what happened in 2010.
3. WHEN? WHEN were the happiest years of my life so far? Easily those were 2002 and 1982. 2002 was one of the few years in my life in which I was financially comfortable and in which I visited a couple of cool places. And 1982 was the year Mary Ann and I got married.
4. WHERE? You're probably wondering WHERE those cool places are that I visited in 2002? They are Alaska, specifically Alaska's Inside Passage, and Prince Edward Island. In July of 2002 Mary Ann and I flew to Vancouver, and took a cruise from there throughout Alaska's Inside Passage. Both British Columbia and Alaska are breathtakingly beautiful. I wouldn't mind going there again! And in October of 2002 we drove to Prince Edward Island. My maternal grandmother was born near Souris, PEI in 1888. If you like greenery and you like the ocean, you'd like Prince Edward Island. The people seem as if they came right out of Little House on the Prairie. It's such a peaceful and beautiful and cool place, it was difficult to leave! Now I will give an honorable mention to two other place I love to visit: Vermont, particularly the Stowe area and the Burlington area, and Cape Cod. They're two of my favorite places in the States.
5. WHY? I want to tell you WHY there are two films I really love. My favorite film is Field of Dreams and a very close second is The Apostle. I know some of my Christian friends will argue that Field of Dreams is sort of a New Age film. It is. And I'm no fan of New Age. But it's a fantasy. No, a bunch of professional baseball players are not going to show up in your back yard playing catch. You have to use your imagination and also look for the symbolism when you watch this film. I've seen it many times and I never get tired of it. I relate so much to the character Ray Kinsella. He's idealistic to a fault. So am I. When I became a born-again Christian and later went to Bible College, these were not plans my sensible, practical middle-class parents had for me. I always wanted my parents to see me as successful. I don't think they ever did. My favorite scene in that movie is where it's December and Ray is looking out the back door window watching the baseball field he built filling up with snow. His wife is telling him they're in real financial trouble and they'd be fine if he hadn't built that baseball field. In 1992, I "pulled a Ray Kinsella" in my own life and ministry. I brought a totally bizarre, foolish, and unrealistic proposal to the church I was pastoring. Actually, most people were willing to go along with it, but a minority reported it to my ecclesiastical superiors. I was called in, and I had to agree to stop what I was planning to do. I did. I'm not mad at those guys. They had to be practical and realistic. I suppose if some guy brought a similar proposal to me today, I'd probably react the way those men did. I thought about that recently. And I wondered: Just what if we had been allowed to do what I was proposing? Would the church still have eventually declined and failed? Or would great things have happened, and we'd have been on the cover of national magazines? Only God knows. As far as The Apostle, if you can, watch it. I know Christians don't like this film, either. The Rev. E.F. Dewey (Robert Duvall's character) is a drinker, womanizer, and murderer. He's also a very idealistic and powerful man of God. I know that may sound crazy, but he was "all that"! And also that character is someone I relate to very much. There's a scene in the middle of night in which Rev. Dewey is up "yelling at God". He talks to God and prays to God like he's a little kid begging his Dad to increase his allowance. I've prayed a lot like that, too! Yes, I'm a lot like Ray Kinsella and I'm a lot like E.F. "Sonny" Dewey. If you really get a hold of who those guys are, you'll have a good understanding of who Bob Baril is.
6. HOW? HOW would I most like to be remembered when it really is time for my funeral? I'd like to be remembered as genuine and vulnerable. And that's what I think I have been as I've written this piece.
I'd love to know what you thought of this piece! Thanks for reading it!
