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It occurred to me that I didn’t give a final report of Luke’s safe return home from the hospital (we actually arrived yesterday afternoon). After a final matchbox car race across the floor, we received discharge papers and headed home. Thank God, he is doing well.

Hospitals showcase the range of emotions and experiences—from the proud Dad, beaming with joy, celebrating the birth of his first child to the elderly woman in unspeakable grief after losing her beloved husband and soul-mate of fifty years. Walking down the hallway, you can almost see these stories written on people’s faces. It reminds me of something that C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic book, The Problem of Pain.

An author of more than thirty books, C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) taught English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities during his life. As a World War I veteran teaching at Oxford during World War II, Lewis addressed the hard questions brought on by war—specifically the problem of evil. In his book, The Problem of Pain, one of my all-time favorites, Lewis understands pain as one kind of evil, which God superintends for the good of mankind—as a megaphone to wake up the sleeping sinner, alerting him to his need.

The human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt. . . .¹

And pain is not only immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. A bad man, happy, is a man without the least inkling that his actions do not ‘answer’, that they are not in accord with the laws of the universe. . . .²

Until the evil man finds evil unmistakably present within his existence, in the form of pain, he is enclosed in illusion. Once pain has roused him, he knows that he is in some way or other ‘up against’ the real universe: he either rebels (with possibility of a clearer issue and deeper repentance at some later stage) or else makes some attempt at an adjustment, which if pursued, will lead him to religion. . . .³

No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for atonement. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.⁴

Footnotes:

¹ C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 90.

² Ibid., 90-91.

³ Ibid., 93.

⁴ Ibid., 93-94.

The Lone Ranger, Jell-O, and a cheeseburger on the way—signs that Luke is on the mend after a successful surgery. Thanks for your prayers.

Now for the fun part: ten days of recuperation in which Luke, *age eight,* must remain relaxed (minimal movement). Equipped with books, puzzles, movies, we’re on our way.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever (Psalm 136:1).

Thanks for your prayers! Luke is in surgery as I write. Another half an hour and the pager in my pocket should start vibrating to indicate that he in is recovery.

We had a lot of laughs in the pre op. You never know what’s happening on the other side of the curtain; it was a fiasco to the right and left. More than anything, Angela and I laughed at the doctor’s refrain to the poor soul in the neighboring gurney, “You will now feel some ‘pressure.’” Those of you who have heard the comedian Brian Regan’s medical routine know his thesis that “pressure” is simply code word for “extreme pain.”

Funnier still was Luke after a bit of anesthesia. By the time he rolled away from us toward to OR, he was having a conversation with Tinker Bell about pixy dust.

So here we are: Angela crocheting while I type. The words of Isaiah are especially important to us as we wait:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:28-31).

We see it in life and death, from the beginning to the end: blood. Scripture says that through the blood of Christ we’re freed from our sins (Rev. 1:5) and given the gift of peace (Col 1:20). For Angela and me, having a child with severe hemophilia, blood has additional significance.

Hemophilia is a condition in which one’s blood doesn’t clot. The process of coagulation is disrupted by the absence of a clotting factor, such that internal bleeding is nearly always a potential danger. The angst created by this ever-present possibility can be an occasion for anxiety, or it can be an opportunity for faith. And this Tuesday, when our son has nasal surgery in Chicago, we will be especially poised to exercise faith in the Lord’s gracious oversight.

Thanks to the blood of Christ, we have the capacity to not only walk in hope, but to know that the One who died on our behalf walks beside us.

I enjoy roving mic interviews, especially in urban settings among amusing people. In this video, the always funny Fr. Jack Collins CSP of Broken Halo exploits the ignorance of Catholics in New York, asking them about Mary’s “Assumption.”[1] By the way, just for the record, I am quite sure that if I were to stroll through Wheaton asking evangelicals to articulate their “order of salvation” or to explain “sola scriptura,” the outcome would look quite similar. In any event, as I watch Fr. Jack, I am reminded that, in addition to doctrinal reflection and dialogue, our gospel witness among Catholics, precisely because so many are doctrinally uninitiated, must also address the cultural and relational dimensions of Christian identity.

Footnotes:

1. “CSP” is the religious order abbreviation for the “Congregation of Saint Paul” or “Paulists” (in case you were wondering).

According to The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, there are currently over 15 million former Catholics in America who now attend Protestant churches, many of whom comprise a considerable portion of our congregations.[1] After serving some of the 15 million this past week on Long Island, I am reminded of the enormous opportunity that we face in equipping these saints for gospel ministry.

One particular skill that we can impart to the people whom we serve is the ability to understand and navigate through complex cultural differences. For instance, we must explain how Catholics often define their religious identity by the catena of religious practices that emerge from one’s ethnic, institutional, and liturgical experience. These are traditions such as feasts, crossing oneself, processions, ashes on the forehead, eating certain foods (or abstaining from them), genuflecting, holy water, rosary beads, venerating saints, lighting votive candles, or having Mass said in the name of a deceased relative. We have the opportunity to help our churches thoughtfully address these traditions, in ways that serve the gospel instead of subverting it.

[1] The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. (Executive Summary, April 2009)”, Pew Research Center, http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux.aspx.

Pastor Tony Balsamo has been a friend since high school. Well, that’s partially true. I’m not sure he would have called me a “friend” back then. At one point, he wanted to beat me up on account of a disagreement concerning a member of the female gender. He was the captain of the football team, a linebacker; I played soccer. Thankfully, I ran faster than him.

Last year, when our graduating high-school class celebrated a 20 year reunion, and many of us connected beforehand, there was utter incredulity at the news that that Tony and I were now pastors… two very unlikely suspects for the “religious life.” Praise Jesus! God saves the worst of sinners to serve His eternal purposes.

I love getting together with Tony when I visit New York because he is doing the very thing that everyone talks about. As pastor of church planting, I commonly talk with men who plan to start new congregations. So often, however, these conversations never move beyond the level of talk. Not only has Tony stepped out with active, hard-working faith to plant a church, he has done it in one of the hardest areas of the country: Long Island, New York. And, by God’s grace, this church, Integrity Fellowship, is thriving.

After learning from Tony about the challenges that he faces as a pastor/church planter, and the way he is meeting them by God’s grace, we discussed the enterprise of relating to Catholics with the Gospel. I must say, every time I talk with pastors about this topic, I am reminded of the enormous opportunity that is before us in equipping our people for this engagement, to thoughtfully embody and proclaim the hope of Christ among our Catholic friends and loved ones. Such ministry, especially among fellow pastors, is a terrific joy and privilege.

I had forgotten something about Long Island. Whenever you order an espresso from a restaurant or homegrown cafe, it is served with a wedge of  lemon peel. You run the peel around the edge of your cup so that when you take a sip, a hint of its flavor follows the coffee into your mouth.

In a sense, Long Islanders are like their espresso. Their colorful personality and vitality punctuates everything they do. Last night was no exception.

What can I say? Last night’s seminar at Northport Baptist Church was one of the most wonderful occasions of ministry that I have had with Holy Ground. It wasn’t the church’s beautiful facilities, the enormous turnout, or the fantastic pastoral staff that made it so—although all of these were true in spades; it was the quality of conversation that unfolded in the Q&A session and discussions that followed. 

This is the reason why I wrote Holy Ground, to help families navigate through the relational difficulties that often arise along the Catholic/Protestant fault line: children disowned for having left their Catholic background, husbands whose (Catholic) wives refuse to allow their children to attend his Protestant church, alienation, contention, and misunderstanding with one’s extended family. These situations, and others like them, were represented in full force.

Another unique feature of last night was the considerable number of Catholics who were present, thanks to Northport Baptist’s great job of promoting the event. This always makes for a better seminar as I get to model the grace/truth balance in response to serious and sometimes impassioned questions. Along this line, I received the best piece of feedback that I have heard to date. When the seminar was all said and done, a tough looking paisano approached me and said, “Tonight I brought three strongly conservative Catholic friends. They are wound tight and were ready for a debate. However, they found your approach so disarming, even though you continually preached the gospel and didn’t pull punches, that they listened intently for the entire session and left asking if we could continue the conversation.” I dare say, I can’t ask for a better outcome than this. Thanks for your prayers.