Posts Tagged ‘cancer

21
Dec

The Real Christmas part 1

By derek 4 Comments
Categories: Church
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Well, this being the last weekend before Christmas it is time to start talking about what’s been going on in Christ’s house, eh?  At least the particular earthly house of His that I visit on a regular basis- I can’t speak for any of the thousands and thousands of other ones around the world.  Aside from advent, which began at the beginning of the month, the real show began last weekend.  At the, er, other branch of this house that I attend.  That is to say, the worship service including the choir was on tour with two stops.  I did not take part in the choir last weekend as I am also involved in children’s ministry and I needed to be at my usual place.  That was okay because although the other church is larger, the stage is smaller so not all the members of the choir would fit.

Since I wasn’t there I’ll just skip ahead to this weekend.  We sang three choir pieces, all of which had to be memorized, and five worship songs, which the entire congregation sings.  One of the songs was from a previous year so I more or less had it memorized already, meaning only two songs for me to work on for the last month.  One of the interesting things to note about this choir is the altos seriously outnumber the sopranos and the tenors outnumber the basses.  The women of course outnumber the men.  Now I couldn’t do anything about the altos vs. the sopranos, but as a lyric baritone (tenor II) I dutifully stepped down to the bass part.  This wasn’t at all unfamiliar territory since I had sung baritone in choir for years before my tenor range opened up.  The choir songs were The Night that Christ was Born, a strange up-tempo rendition of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and Light of the World.  Now I said that we did one of these songs before so I knew it (the first one I listed), but really we did two of them before.  The other one though had a very different choir part so the choir part (most choir songs we do are solos/duets with choir background) was new.  I lasted for the Saturday night service and the first Sunday service.  After that my voice started going- the upper range.  I just don’t have the endurance I should.  I should exercise my vocal muscles more.  Well, I should exercise all my muscles more, but that’s going a bit off topic here… :P

Following two of the choir performances I rushed to serve in the 4th/5th grade room, where I made it for the lesson and small group time (the important part).  While past years have often meant a video during this weekend and cookies, we had a real lesson this year instead of the video (still had cookies at the end- yum).  It was on patience.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had to wait several decades for a child before God finally gave them one.  The Bible says they were “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” and so their childlessness wasn’t due to sin in one of their lives.  Eventually, God gave them the son they had waited for all of their lives into their sixties.  Naturally since it was customary to name the son after the father he would have had his father’s name, only Zechariah the Baptist isn’t a name we know.  Rather, God had them name their son John of course.  In fact, these were the first words out of Zechariah’s mouth after God allowed him to speak again (his disbelief over having a child at his age earned him the inability to speak until John was born- good thing he wasn’t in a choir, at least that we know of! :) ).  So in small groups then we talked about how patient they, as 10- and 11-year-olds, tended to be.  They got to rate themselves and talk about what kinds of things makes them impatient.  Waiting for big gifts like video game systems topped the list, but there were other things like healing.  Two of my kids are actually going through cancer in ther families- an uncle and a mom.  Big ouch on the mom.  If anyone wants to add these two to their prayer lists their names are Daniel (mom) and Matt (uncle- currently not responding well to treatment I understand).  This while my pastor and associate pastor are both being treated for prostate cancer… :(

Christmas part 2 coming later following Christmas Eve service.

15
Nov

Who’s the nerd over there?

By derek 4 Comments
Categories: Other
Tags: , , , , , ,

No one as far as I know asked the question posed in the title, but today I certainly felt that way, as the nerd that is, not the one asking the question. I suspect my brother felt the same way. You see, we went to the funeral of someone we have never met. As such, we never met her family either so I am certain more than one person was wondering, “Who are they?”

Let me start at the beginning.  About twenty years ago my uncle met a woman and her family.  Eleven years ago they started seeing each other.  They never did get married, so I can’t call her my aunt, but they were close just the same.  In all that time none of us were ever introduced to his girlfriend; I’m not sure why.  A couple of months ago she was diagnosed with brain cancer, apparently inoperable, and was given a prognosis of just several months.  Then, the cancer showed itelf to be extremely aggressive and about about a week ago I learned her prognosis was downgraded to just a couple of weeks.  Less than a week later she was gone.

I suppose the wake yesterday would have been a more appropriate time for near strangers like us, but we didn’t make it so we went to the funeral today instead.  I pretty much went just to support my uncle and my mother as again I never met his girlfriend or her family.  She did leave behind several grievers though including children and grandchildren, so my uncle wouldn’t have been her first husband had they gotten married.  I must have looked like robotman at this funeral.  How can one be sad and grieved when he doesn’t even know the subject of the funeral?  Truthfully, as far as sadness goes I do tend to be kind of a robot at times.  Even at my father’s funeral I never broke down, and you can’t get much closer to someone to be grieved over than a parent (or child to put the bond in the other perspective), with the exception of a spouse. Needless to say my uncle was very grieved and like my mother with her spouse, JustJ with his, and countless others who have lost the one closest to them, he will not soon get over this (nor should he, if anyone thinks I am suggesting this).

The funeral was a three part affair.  We met at the funeral home and any who wished to were able to make last respects at this time.  Though I had never met her and thus didn’t need to see her body I nonetheless joined the line as we processed past her and out the door to the vehicular procession, the part that drivers everywhere are always thrilled about ;) .  We headed to part two- the church where the funeral would be held.  It was a Catholic service, so I found much of the ritual unfamiliar and I found I could not join in many of the prayers.  Those prayers were either to Mary, to the Saints, or just prayers for the deceased.  As a Protestant I do not believe in any of those.  I pray to God the Father directly with Jesus as my only intercessor, and I believe once dead a person is judged immediately and then goes on to one of two places so therefore prayers for them are useless.  Prayers for the family and others still living on the other hand are more than welcome and I either joined in at these points or prayed in this fashion during the other prayers.

Part three of the service was the long procession to the cemetery.  It was at this point we made our departure and headed home.  My other uncle was also there and chose to stay so at least there was someone still there for my one uncle from his own family.  I do hope everything went well with it.  I expect we will be seeing my uncle and my grandmother soon.  My mother is very close to them both even if I don’t get close to my extended family.  She tells me there is a lunch planned for the near future.  Perhaps I’ll pay for it if my uncle will let me.  He always covers these things and it would only be right if he didn’t have to this time.

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