Fear of Ebola

The panic that has surrounded the recent arrival of Ebola at a Dallas hospital has been extreme. I do understand the fear of a disease with a mortality rate over 50% and no present cure. But I wonder at the hysteria of the moment, hyped by our twenty-four/seven infotainment industry. People have been dying of Ebola in Africa for a long time. A brief history of the disease on the Stanford website says it first emerged in 1976. The son that was born that year is now one of four doctors in the family. He is a physician in San Antonio, as is his older brother, an infectious disease specialist, and that brother’s wife. I am not worried about my safety, in spite of the front-page headline this morning in our small town paper that says a family living here traveled home by plane with the second Dallas nurse recently diagnosed with Ebola. I do worry about the safety of my sons and daughter-in-law when an Ebola patient arrives at the hospital in San Antonio. I am a mother after all, and I know that many of the deaths in Africa have been of health care workers, who none-the-less continue to care for patients there, in spite of the risk.

I wonder if our present focus on Ebola is a way to avoid thinking about the other more immediate threats our world faces at the moment. Some days it feels as if the world is falling apart around us. That nothing works like it should anymore.  That we are in constant danger of catastrophe. So we focus on this one threat, which is real, but unlikely to harm most of the people in this country who are the most panicked. It’s not easy to catch this disease unless you are in close contact with a person who has active symptoms. It’s not like catching the flu. But we focus on Ebola instead of on the problems we can do something about, like the flu, which hundreds will die from this year, while too many of us never get a flu shot.

Perhaps focusing on Ebola is a way of feeling in control. If we can just solve this one problem, maybe the world will feel safer. If we can vanquish this deadly disease, maybe even death itself can be conquered. Yet we are not in control. We will die and so will those we love. That is our reality, in spite of our culture’s irrational denial of death. While we can care for ourselves, and those we love, we cannot banish this ultimate reality. Death reminds us that we are not in charge. God is. And I am thankful for that knowledge. What ultimately matters is how we deal with this reality, and what we do with the life we have been given. I think that Jesus provided the best answer. In the time we have here in this life, what we can do is love God and love others as much as we love ourselves. If we had spent more time and money caring for distant brothers and sisters dying in Africa from a disease we thought would never touch us, we might not be panicking about Ebola here and now.

Grace and Peace,

Donna

Wilderness Times

I preached last week about Moses obtaining water from a rock, and since then I’ve been thinking about wilderness times. I’ve had some of those times in my life recently. Of late, however, my life’s journey has evened out, but I have been saddened watching friends struggle. I do not know how people manage during life’s difficult times if they do not have faith in God to fall back on. I talked with a new friend this morning about the challenges she is facing. She is a woman of deep faith. Her mother is in hospice care, and she spends her time caring for her. She said the problem is not death as such, but the journey to reach that point and cross over into the next life.

I have also learned that the journey is often the challenge. The hard part I think is to remember that God is there, even at those times when I’m so frightened and sad that I have a hard time remembering anything. I decided that was the point of the story of Moses obtaining water from a rock in the wilderness for the Israelites. They were frightened and sad, with good reason after all they had been through before they fled into the wilderness. I think maybe their physical challenges may have been less daunting than their emotional and spiritual ones! Somehow in the midst of that time, they forgot all that God had already done for them. Fortunately, God had not forgotten them and continued to provide for their most basic needs.

I am working at trying to remember that God is there for me no matter what is happening in my life, as close as my own heartbeat  and the air I breathe. I’ve learned that’s easier if I look and listen with eyes and ears of faith, though it’s probably going to take the rest of this life to get that right!

Grace and Peace,

Donna

The Blessings of Home

I have travelled many hundreds of miles this summer, for both happy reasons and sad. Towards the end of this season of travel, I found myself more and more frustrated and annoyed with the constant effort to find routine items amongst my jumbled belongings. At times merely brushing my teeth seemed to be a Herculean task. I was more than ready to return home to a familiar place with a familiar routine, much as I sometimes chafe at the sameness of life here at home.

I am forced to admit once again how often I fail to be grateful for ordinary blessings: a place for my toothbrush where I can easily find it, and the ability to sleep in my own bed in peace and safety. I know that there are many homeless people here in this country. I have met some of them through Family Promise, a program that houses homeless families in churches, including the one to which I belong. I also know that around the world, the flood of refugees fleeing their homes with nothing more than what they are wearing seems to expand almost moment to moment.

This summer, I stopped to think about what it might be like never to be able to return home to a familiar place and a familiar routine. And while familiar objects are mere things and my family matters more to me than any inanimate object ever could, I still find it a blessing to live among familiar things with their reminders of times past and present, a living museum that contains the history of our family. I grieve for those who have lost that kind of comfort, perhaps forever. I weep for those who have lost the blessings of home. And I pray for the coming of that time when God’s peace and justice will prevail in a world made new.

Grace and Peace,

Donna

In the Valley of Shadows

I finished reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark last night. Reading her books refreshes my soul, like a drink of cool water on a hot Texas afternoon refreshes my body. Life has been too full of dark times recently, and I feel weighed down by worry and sadness. I find I have to remind myself to take slow deep breaths rather than panicky sips, and also to remember that life will be brighter again. In the midst of the shadows of illness and death of family and friends, I am comforted by God’s presence. Taylor’s book is a timely reminder that much as I do not like the dark times in life, by God’s grace I have survived them in the past, and through those dark times, I have learned some things about life and about myself I would not have learned otherwise.

As I wait for life to circle back to sunny times, I am trying to continue to care for myself as best I can. I’m finding ways to celebrate life and reasons to laugh with family and friends, and I’m trying to be faithful to my usual devotional, prayer, exercise, and healthy eating and sleeping habits. I’m grateful for my family and friends and for my church family.  I’m especially grateful for those who are patient with me right now, and who are praying for me. The news from around the world of people who suffer from horrific violence and dislocation is a timely reminder to put my problems in perspective. My life is richly blessed in so many ways in spite of the present darkness. God is indeed good, even in the shadow times.

Grace and Peace,

Donna

Blessed Are the Children

I am amazed at the ways the need for clean water unites people from widely different backgrounds. I have yet to find anyone who is against clean water for all of God’s children, the mission statement of Living Waters for the World, a project of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our local church, First Presbyterian, Temple, Texas, has covenanted with the tiny community of Las Lajas, Nicaragua, to help them install a water purification system early next year. We are raising money for that project now.

This particular mission project has caught fire in our congregation like no other in my time at this church. Our choir director’s wife was especially excited. She teaches at a local elementary school and invited us to come and talk to the students about our partnership with Las Lajas. The students were involved in a weeks-long study of the ways human beings affect their environment. Our Pastor’s wife and I spent a wonderful hour with these kids talking about why clean water matters, and our hopes for the people of Las Lajas.

Last night at choir practice, I received a pile of thank you notes from the students that surprised and delighted me.  They had been surprised to learn there are people who lack clean water and sometimes must walk long distances to obtain any water. They were saddened to learn about children who die from drinking contaminated water. These students too have been fired by the vision of clean water for students like themselves in far away Las Lajas, Nicaragua. In spite of their own poverty by this country’s standards, they decided to do something. They began making rubber band bracelets to sell to raise money for our water project. So far they have raised $33, an offering God will use to provide water for the students of Las Lajas. Blessed are the children, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Grace and Peace,

Donna