When You Itch For A Transcendant Experience

There are those moments in life where we feel like we can fly, like we can do anything. I often wonder if there is anything we can do to make these transcendent experiences occur more frequently. I often itch to encounter these. Sometimes they happen in the clouds, sometimes in a windowless room.

There have been those times when I have looked at the stars from eight or nine miles above the South Pacific or five miles above the Himalayan mountains and had a nearly visionary experience of the universe. Anything seems possible. In "Climb Out" it occurs to me that the life of Faith can be much like the ascent in a space shuttle; the ride of a life time.

Often we believe we know what is best for us. My cat is no different. "Behind Closed Doors" provides the object lesson that as I know what is best for my cat, so does God know what is best for me. A closed door may prove to be a great blessing rather than a sign of denial or deprivation. Ask my cat when she comes back in.

Sometimes we walk through a portal into another world. Taking a ski lift above a mountain town at night, we looked down in wonderment at eight million Christmas lights hung by man. On the alpine summit we looked up in wonderment at the countless stellar lights hung by the Creator. "Night Lift" describes our ascent.

In our part of the world, summer brings violent afternoon thunderstorms. Sometimes these split the night open in arcs of lavender power. With the lightning and thunder comes the rain that waters next falls' harvest. Following this comes the still coolness. Such is the case with the severe turbulence that comes in life circumstances. "Updraft" says we can rise above cancer, unemployment, divorce, betrayal, and heart disease.

"Visionary" proves that we can rise above the worst storms of life. While attending a scientific conference in British Columbia, a lecturer demonstrated that he could rise above the trauma of losing his eye sight. Sometimes tribulation will scratch the itch we have for a transcendent experience.

We live in an era where credentials and certifications are over emphasized. Jesus never had any kind of credentials. When my mother died last year I learned first hand that some of the best teachers are not papered. "A Theology According To Puderd" makes the humorous suggestion that some of the world's best teachers are very short in stature but tall in wisdom.

A fellow doing some computer programming for me a quadriplegic confined to a pneumatic wheel chair for more than thirty years after having been paralyzed from the chin down in an auto accident. He is absolutely dependent on others. While visiting with Ron recently, we found ourselves musing about the paths we have each taken through life. Ron observed that I had a life that would easily be in the top one percent because of my opportunity to travel the world, study in six American universities, work in four different careers, even live in a castle in Europe. Ron went on quickly to tell me that his life represented the bottom one percent because of his vast unrelenting suffering and dependency. In "Orbiter" we found that in the eternal scheme of things, we were on an equal footing. Ron will transcend his paralysis.

As a hospice volunteer I hear some heart-rending stories. At other times I hear stories that inspire one to great faith in the human spirit. Altruism is one of the most inspiring aspects of humanity. Such was the case recently when I heard two tales from our volunteer coordinator. "Last Dance" chronicles the ability of a young child to empower a terminally ill wheel-chair bound octogenarian to rise above her limitations and to dance. "Tee Off" captures the dream of a dying golfer to once more travel the links before going to that last hole which marks the end of life.

Climb Out

Sonic blast exploding into silence,
Mach I stillness sets my soul soaring.

Piercing the alto-cumulus ceiling,
Mach II elation yields cosmic clarity.

Fierce fire fueling freedom's flight,
Mach III exhilaration is transcendent.

Jettisoning burdens of conformity,
Mach IV offers iridescent wisps in Cygnus.

Breaking free of fear's gravity,
I exalt in unfettered flights of Faith.

Abandoning illusion of self-made certainty,
galaxies of possibilities shimmer ahead.


Only for now, do we see through a glass darkly.


Behind Closed Doors

There is a rather large regal male Himalayan cat that has been hanging around my house for many months. This huge feline is clearly used to getting his way with the female kitties of the neighborhood. My neighbor's hapless female tabby just delivered a third six-pack of kittens fathered by this rogue. This is important to me because I myself have a small declawed gray with semi-orange tabby which loudly insists on being let outside for short roamings. Fortunately, a surgical intervention will prevent my becoming grandfather to a young troupe of rambunctious Himalayan/tabby hybrids.

My innocent little know-it-all pet will stand at the back door and inundate me with a rather carefully contrived and irritating yowl until I relent and let her out. She knows what's good for her. I don't, she's certain. Be that as it may, I let her out against my better judgement, realizing that the only way for her to understand my reluctance to let her out, is to let her out. If the grand stalker is out there, the lesson is learned quickly and kitty is back in the house before I can even think about closing the door. At other times learning is slower to come.

Some time it takes ten minutes or more. The problem is that in ten minutes I may have forgotten that Puderd is outside and not hear her proclamations of a lesson well-studied. This has on occasion made for some very long and cold contemplation as she spent the whole of the night outside. I may find myself wondering why the cat has not hopped up on the bed during the night, but I don't get up to hunt for her. When I go to stand in the bathroom first thing in the morning, after one of those nights, doing my business, looking out the window, wanna guess who is precariously perched on the second-floor sill, greeting me with a plaintive heart-rending bid for safety, inner warmth, fresh Purina pellets, and a soft bed? One of the unexplained mysteries of my universe is how that cat can possibly know I am in that bathroom (there are three) at that precise time. You must understand I don't use the bathrooms in a predictable fashion.

An important spiritual principle occurred to me as I let her in the house yesterday after a wandering in the outer darkness, compounded by one of those surprise freezes that aren't supposed to occur because the calendar says it well into springtime. God knows best. We humans like to think we know what is best for us. We are quite willing to enter into protracted entreaties with God in Heaven to grant us our secret desires. We believe there is something better on the other side of the closed door. Sometimes there is. Today there was a clear warm spring day on the other side with no feline monsters lurking in the bushes. Yesterday there was darkness beyond AND that Minotaur was out there. I knew this, but Puderd didn't want to trust my judgement on this. It almost got her badly hurt. We often don't want to trust God to know what is on the other side of our doors. We yank knobs. Some times we get torn up, very badly at that. Sometimes we even die.

We often like to say that God does not close a door without opening a window. Sometimes God doesn't open the door in the first place. We may ignore the fact it's closed and rip it open only to find an abyss on the other side. Our own momentum may well carry us out into the void. If we are fortunate, we may grab onto the safety chain and avoid freefall. That door may well have been closed for our protection.

Each of us has been created unique with a constellation of life experiences, strengths and weaknesses. What is an abyss for one may be for another an opportunity to test new wings. What for another may be a horror of darkness may be for me an opportunity to see diamonds of possibility glittering in a night sky.

Large-scale polls show that the number one fear in the United States is to speak before a group of people. People would rather die than be compelled to do this. For me, what others fear even more than death, is a pleasure of the highest order. Today, I spoke before groups twice, relishing every moment, wishing I had a multitude more of them. I could happily stand in a stadium before ten thousand.

Every time I get on an airplane, which I have done hundreds of times, I am amazed that most of the people around me quite blithely pop out a novel, the Wall Street Journal, or a lap-top computer and carry on with the ordinary doings of life. Me? I'm too busy leaving my fingerprints in the steel of the armrest to be bothered with something as trivial as reading or pounding on my computer. I don't do well flying, especially in TURBULENCE! I think about nothing except the delicious prospect of that small bounce that comes when the wheels touch down on my beloved terra firma once again.

After going her own way for a season, my cat comes to realize I had a better plan for her. Her animated scamper and gleeful gurgle as she rushes back into my safety tells me she has accomplished some learning. I had offered her security, food, repose. She chose darkness, want, and fear. Alas, the next day she forgets. But, so do we.

Only God knows the future and only God is able know what is really best for us. Surely if I can see to the best interests of my house pet, then we can trust God to bring the right mix of experiences and challenges to enrich our lives and to grow us past our fears. We can believe He has nothing but our ultimate welfare in mind. After all, we were bought with a Great Price. The promise of the Christian message is that God will withhold no good thing from us. At the same time, He doesn't promise us freedom from turbulence. Yet, we can often seek out the safety of smooth air by following His precepts, including honoring closed doors. And, He will see His chosen through to a safe landing in Heaven.

When God let's us out, He also remembers to let us back in.


Night Lift

Leaving behind warmth of hearth,
we board Heaven’s chariot.

Shimmering with tension,
stainless strand catapults us forward.

Electric galaxies glimmering below,
hushed reverence silences pilgrims.

Ascending to winter’s summit,
we transcend ourselves, awed.

City lights forgotten,
cosmic fires twinkle in frigid voids.

Soaring in that High Place,
we worship with wonderment.


He is known through that which is created.


Updraft

Spring sublimating into summer,
cherry blossoms wilt into memory.

Tempestuous towers of cumulus rise,
incited by solar infernos of August.

Struggling, losing lift in fiery heat,
fear fuels frantic flapping of wings.

Perilous perturbations of life overloading,
adamantine landing looms far below.


In translucent shadow of tempest,
rain refreshes my parched spirit.

Cloud, offering respite from torrid trial;
trepidation transmutes to tranquillity.

Convection currents ascending unseen,
life’s maelstrom elevates my perspective.

In barren deserts of thirsty souls,
cloudbursts detonate flowering miracles.


Rainbows appear after storms.


Visionary

I wandered into your lecture hall today, expectant of an opportunity to learn facts. The program announced you would tell me something about scientific mysteries. Instead you taught me of the greater mystery of the grand capacity of the human spirit to overcome challenge. You demonstrated one is capable of excellence, in spite of the greatest of hardships and loss.

For a number of minutes I sat as you delivered a flawless presentation with a perfect slide series. Looking about the room you keep the audience with you, not missing a point in your presentation, not once looking at your slides for prompts, not once looking to your notes for cues. This would have been a most impressive program for any of us. For you it was truly astounding.

Only after you told us, did we realize you are totally blind. The most important things I learned today in your lecture had nothing to with science or computing technology, it had to do with seeing the possibilities for personal growth; to seeing the opportunities from standing up to the challenge of losing one's sight. You, who have no eyes, have taught me how to see things that really matter.


A Theology According to Puderd

If we are really honest, we have to all confess to having some really absurd silly terms of endearment for our little furry friends and, horror of horrors, our not‑so‑furry friends, lovers, and soul mates. We would probably be mortified if others ever heard us use these terms in the light of day. Time for a true confession I have a small smoke‑gray cat that lets me live with her. Somehow the name she had when given to me, Frisky, has been transmuted to Puderd. Don't ask how. I guess it's the same process that transmutes Jan to Fuzzums. Life seems to have its little mysteries.

The important things here are the ecclesiastical merits of this fuzzy spokesfeline for a Higher One. I have attended bible school in Europe and have a letters in theology in one of the Hammermill photocopy paper boxes in my basement. Yet I have gained some deep insights from my small fur‑coated teacher I never learned from the scholarly men of the United Kingdom.

I have a small room in my house in which I keep an antique book cabinet filled with ancient books from prior centuries. I also have an oak table in there on which I have a large plaster Celtic Cross, back lit with a single orange light bulb in one of those little candlestick things you normally see in windows at Christmas, with clear lights in them. An olive‑wood clad New Testament I got in Jerusalem and the Episcopal Book of common Prayer are there also. There's a nine foot miniature‑leaf schiffelera filling up the remainder of the room.

With my mother having died this week I find I am going into this room a lot more than I normally do. It seems like a good place to wonder about stuff like the meaning of life, death, illness, dreams, God, the order of the universe. I just discovered last night it to be an exquisite place of learning about the peace of God. It was very late in the evening and I was sitting there on floor, legs crossed, facing Jan (Fuzzums), who was as I. We were having a time of prayer since the angst of the world and issues of mortality seemed much too close for comfort. In the midst of this other‑worldly time, a very short‑statured teacher came quietly into our midst, padding so silently in fur‑lined slippers.

This confident tutor, arranging herself in my legs, gave me a look as if to say "I have an important quiet lesson for you to learn, Watch." I didn't know that cat's legs could go in all these directions at once. This cat managed to assume a position of repose with all four feet somehow intertwined and at the same time pointing to Heaven. This spoke ever‑loudly to me, in the silence, of great trust and confidence. This little mentor went quite happily to sleep with a loud purr, proclaiming the peace of God.

The aura of peace, contentment, and serenity that surrounded this small teacher radiated out in ever‑widening circles. I had a vision of those ever‑widening circles moving out beyond the dim orange light of this sanctuary to enfold an entire troubled world. I even asked out loud if God was making himself known to me through my cat. The ancient writings of Faith tell us God spoke through the mouth of a donkey. Perhaps he speaks through cats in the atomic age. I still feel like whispering and tip‑toeing.

They didn't tell me in Sunday School that God can purr.


Orbiter

If you have had the rare and singularly spectacular experience of orbiting the earth in a space craft, you will quickly agree there is almost no experience that compares to it. Seeing the corona of the rising sun as one careens along at seventeen thousand miles an hour is inspiring beyond imagination. In mere moments, one is blasted from inky cosmic darkness into blinding solar brilliance. Black shadows transform into magnificent swirls of cerulean and platinum as morning spreads across Heaven.

A most tantalizing aspect of orbiting earth is the apparent horizontal flatness of land surfaces. One can look down through a porthole at vast mountain ranges and only distinguish them by virtue of small tufts of white on their peaks and hints of shadow cast by them early and late in the day.

If I am down on earth climbing mountains, I have an acute awareness of variations in elevation and inclinations. "Verticalness" can be a dizzying, overwhelming experience when roped to the side of a ten-thousand foot wall of granite for three weeks. One longs for, almost craves, anything horizontal. A ten-inch ledge can seem like a king-size bed. Yet, from three hundred miles up the overpowering "verticalness" is completely lost in a transcendent view of the world. Nothing has changed in the mountains, only my perspective has been altered.

I have a fellow working for me who has been confined to an air-driven wheel chair for thirty-one years after having been paralyzed from the chin down in an auto accident. He is quite unable to attend to any of his personal needs whatever. He is absolutely one hundred percent dependent on others.

I was visiting with Ron recently when we found ourselves musing about the paths we have each taken through life. Ron made the observation that I have had a life that would easily be in the top one percent of lives live because of my opportunity to travel the world, study in six American universities, work in four different careers, live in a castle in Europe, make good on many of my dreams. I have known but little suffering. Ron went on quickly to tell me that his life represented the bottom one percent of lives because of his vast unrelenting suffering and dependency. There was no argument from me. I assured him he was absolutely correct on both points.

At that moment it occurred to me that we both had taken radically different paths to get to the same place. We were both sitting in the same room, looking at the same computer screen, wanting to do the same thing and we were both drinking from the same bottle of soda, even if I had to hold the bottle and give him his through a straw.

I said "Ron, what matters now is that we share the most important thing in common, a saving faith in the Son of God. One day you and I will both be very far from here. For unnumbered tomorrows we will walk in the New Jerusalem. You will have forgotten that you ever lived in a wheel chair or that you couldn't even wipe away your own tears, which you've had plenty of. You will be too busy dashing about, exploring the place He has prepared for you. I will have forgotten that I was able to study in six universities and travel by jet plane all over the world. I will be too busy learning the real answers to the questions that matter most. Hardly will it matter that I had a fine home and more than enough money in the bank. I will be walking on those streets of transparent gold, trying to find you."

Heaven will be like an orbiting space shuttle in some respects. From that vantage we will no longer find ourselves in dark shadows between mountain peaks. From the great height of Heaven it is unlikely we will even be able to see the shadows below. We will simply find ourselves in eternal brilliance that never ceases.

But for a season of darkness do we see dimly for one day the Son will rise above the horizon of Heaven.


Last Dance

Children are often our greatest teachers. For one thing, they are much less conscious of human limitations and think most anything is possible. Such was the case of a small nameless little girl in a restaurant who empowered a terminally- ill wheel-chair bound octogenarian to rise above her limitations, to have a child-like faith that all things are, indeed, possible.

Recently, five of our Hospice patients were given an opportunity to maximize the pleasures of a balmy spring day. We all knew this would be the last spring for these dear souls. A church van was pressed into service and five youth group members volunteered to help make a memorable last outing possible for these patients.

The patients were loaded with their nurses, wheelchairs, oxygen tanks, and other medical paraphernalia into this chariot and taken on an expedition to a nearby mall where they could forget about the hard work of dying for a short while. And chances are the squealing happy voices of kids still resounded in that van from prior expeditions and added to the merciful forgetfulness of these patients' present difficult circumstances.

I remember how it was as a child to be confined in a hospital bed for weeks with a severe case of mononucleosis. I recall my utter entrancement with the ordinary world outside of my sickroom on that delicious day when I was released from the hospital. My hospital bed and its torments were soon forgotten. For our Hospice patients, darkened rooms and hushed uncertain voices were left behind and exchanged for a vast, bright, colorful world of fountains, trees, chattering families, delicious aromas, and endless possibility in that mall.

This world included the fine tasty southern vittles of Aunt Sue's restaurant. If you have ever been through a spell of hospital food, then you know how important this is. After a grand luncheon the patients wanted to listen to an organist playing dance music out on the patio and eat two large scoops of rich ice cream without a thought to the cholesterol count or fat grams. And so they did.

One of these fragile life-loving patients, Catherine, was wheel-chair bound, on continuous oxygen therapy, and a dancer. Once a soul has experienced dance, it is never content with the sidelines and is forever a dancer. Yet, her body had long since betrayed her and it had been years since she was whisked about a ballroom floor in a shimmering gown.

She knew it was now or never. It was time for the last dance. She asked our volunteer coordinator, Charlene, if she could dance with her. Charlene pondered how one gets a fragile terminally- ill patient out of a wheel chair, up on her feet and then dancing without stumbling over her oxygen tubing. Catherine somehow was able to cling to Charlene and they danced just a bit, right there, submitting to the limitations of her oxygen tubing. She then sat down exhausted, in her wheelchair.

Charlene is a very outgoing, social soul and was visiting about the patio with the other patients and staff following this small miracle. A greater one was soon to follow.

After some minutes Charlene looked up to see Ms Catherine had taken off her oxygen, arisen from her wheelchair, and was now dancing in the middle of the floor with a small angel of a child. This child had not yet been taught about the limitations of terminal disease or oxygen tubes. They danced round and round that floor. Catherine returned and sat down in her wheelchair, put her oxygen back on, and smiled. She died but a few days later, having danced to the end.

This child-angel had helped this departing soul to fulfill a last dream. Perhaps this child also knew that Catherine would be dancing when she experienced the magic of Heaven and would have wanted to freshen up on her dancing just a bit before arriving.

The Christian scriptures tell us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Perhaps that child had whispered in Catherine's ear and told her this was really true. She believed it and transcended her own weaknesses.

This dear patient's nurse was present on that dance floor and was simply astounded that Catherine could possibly get up out of her chair, let alone dance, and do this without oxygen. Catherine later said that was the best day she had in many years.

Yes, all things are possible for those who believe.


Tee-Off

An octogenarian golfer, Mr. Carter, could only walk the emerald links in his memories when he was admitted to our Hospice program as a patient. An inoperable cerebral aneurysm had stolen most of his sight and would soon steal all of his life. Before this dark thief stole in on him, he walked and played at least thirty-six holes of golf everyday. He lived for golf.

This swinger of yesteryear had a birthday soon after his becoming a Hospice patient and our volunteer staff was in a quandary as to what they might do to help him celebrate his birthday in proper fashion. One of the truly splendid things about Hospice is the recognition of important days for patients by staff and volunteers; anniversaries, birthdays, holidays. Hospice workers know too well these days probably won't occur but once again for the patients.

The staff decided to surprise Mr. Carter with a luncheon at a restaurant of his choice. What they didn't tell him was the nature of dessert, a visit to the Picken's Country Club where it had been arranged with the golf pro for a tour of the course in a cart with detailed explanation of the course by an experienced golfer.

Following a fine birthday lunch, Mr. Carter, his nurse, social worker, home-health aide, and the volunteer coordinator went for what proved a magical Tru-Flite experience. While an experienced golfer talked him through the course, telling him the distances on the fairways and the lay of the greens, Mr. Carter offered his suggestions on club use; a seven iron or a pitching wedge, or putter. In his mind, he might as well have been at the Masters in Augusta with full galleries cheering him on.

At the club house following, Mr. Carter was given the opportunity to show he was still in swing with life. The staff that had accompanied him to the country club maneuvered him to a putting green, guided his hand to the cup and let him step back his paces from there to challenge the others to a putting contest. He was virtually blind to this world but in his dreams he could still see. He actually went on to win that small putting contest with the Hospice staff.

That putting contest never made it to the annals of the PGA but it did make it to annals of Heaven, where, no doubt, Mr. Carter has bragged about it often, but not as much as he did his final exploit on the golf course.

About this time Hospice was arranging a fund-raising benefit tournament and it was suggested that if Mr. Carter were still alive when the tournament took place, he should be the one to hit the first ball of the contest. When he was told of this plan, one might have thought he had been told he was going to live anew as a successor to Arnold Palmer or one of the other golf greats. He was excited. Every time a nurse or health worker went out to his house, they were quizzed on the status of the tournament. Was it still going to happen? Would it be soon enough?

Just before the great event it was announced that a special guest, Mr. Carter would be hitting the first ball to open the tournament. By this time he was essentially blind and had to be led to the T. A ball was placed for him. He was put in position, told where the ball was, given a club, and allowed to follow his dream. He hit the ball, as if laser guided, more than one hundred and fifty yards, perhaps one hundred seventy-five yards down the center of that fairway.

'Did I hit it?' he asked. 'Where'd it go?' The other contestants erupted in applause. For him, Augusta had arrived in time. He stayed the whole tournament to see who would win. We already knew who the real winner was. The others just raised money. Mr. Carter raised our awareness of how real dreamers can do just about anything.

For the remaining days of his life, Mr. Carter could speak of no other thing than the magic of that Tru-Flite ball going down the exact center of that fairway.

"Call unto me and I will show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not."