The Walking Dead by Lorraine Triggs

A ‘Reversible’ Form of Death? Scientists Revive Cells in Dead Pigs’ Organs.

This was no tabloid headline. It was straight from a regular news story.* My inner unscientific journalist applauded the headline and the beginning of the article: “The pigs had been lying dead in the lab for an hour—no blood was circulating in their bodies, their hearts were still, the brain waves flat.” Who wouldn’t continue reading?

The author explained how a group of Yale scientists “pumped a custom-made solution into the dead pigs’ bodies” and though the pigs didn’t start wiggling and squealing, their “seemingly dead cells revived” including hearts, livers, kidneys and brains.

This research, though related to the viability of organ transplants long after a person’s death, did raise questions about “the definition of death,” according to a Duke University law professor who studies the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging technologies.

The law professor asked the question: “We presume death is a thing, it is a state of being . . . Are there forms of death that are reversible? Or not?”

Given my penchant for answering rhetorical questions, I automatically responded, “Yes!”

It’s the form of death the Apostle Paul described in Ephesians 2:1 as being dead in trespasses and sins, and just in case he wasn’t clear the first time, he repeats it in verse five: “even when we were dead in our trespasses.” We were as dead and helpless as those pigs lying in that lab.

My husband chimed in a bit too eagerly, “It’s like we’re Zombies, the walking dead.” Though I'm no fan of horror movies, I must admit that his description is apt.

Ironically, there are Walking Dead fans of fatalism. Everything is fixed in advance, and they are powerless to change these cosmic events, or change themselves. Dead is dead and there’s no room for improvement there.

Other Zombies attempt to mimic life. Like the rich fool in Matthew 12, they build bigger homes, bigger investments and bigger names for themselves. They and the rich fool take this so-called life easy: eat, drink and be merry. The dead live. Sadly, theirs is a second death as they store up things on earth, and wind up paying the wages of sin.

As it is, there are days I forget to consider myself dead to sin and see how close I can get to the Zombies—only the nice ones though, the Zombies that are most like me, not those others, those Walking Dead ones.

But dead is dead no matter how fatalistic or rich or Christian we are. When God’s custom-made solution that flowed from Immanuel’s veins has been pumped into our veins, our hearts, our souls, we are made alive with Christ. Our inner Zombies no longer exist.

English poet and hymnwriter William Cowper—a classic Walking Dead—shared the formula for the custom-made solution when he wrote:

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

And that is why this little former Zombie goes joyfully, joyfully, joyfully all the way home.


*From an August 3, 2022, New York Times article, "A 'Reversible' Form of Death? Scientists Revive Cells in Dead Pigs' Organs" by Gina Kolata.

A Prayer for When We Wait

From A Pastor Prays for His People by Wendell Hawley

Almighty and ever loving Father,
whose mercies are without number,
whose grace is without measure,
whose purposes can never be thwarted,
we bow before you in humble recognition that you are
the divine proprietor,
the administrator of the affairs of men—
indeed the whole world, the universe.

Your absolute sovereignty over all things is our conviction . . .
but Lord we confess that often we are frustrated by your seeming
inactivity.
We feel the pressure of the moment,
the circumstances that need changing now,
and we are sorely tempted to do something—
to take matters into our own hands—instead of waiting on you.
Help us, Lord, not be as King Saul who did not wait for a word from you,
but tragically took matters into his own hands.

Help us to wait upon you.
Wait . . . wait . . . wait.

It took years before Naomi’s heart turned toward Bethlehem.
But all the while you were working on her behalf.

Help us to wait upon you.
Wait . . . wait . . . wait.

In the fullness of time, God brought forth his Son . . .
and that “fullness of time” was preceded by centuries
of divine preparation.

Help us to wait . . . wait . . . wait.

Forgive us the sin of impatience.
For you have told us through the prophet Isaiah that
you hear and understand our case,
and you promise to give power to those who are tired and worn out,
and you offer strength to the weak.
Once again we bring our unanswered prayers to you and the situations that
seem irresolvable, unless you act . . .
We try to leave it all with you.

Help us to wait . . . wait . . . wait.

Amen.

Seasons of Drought by Wil Triggs

When I lived in California, we had droughts, but they didn’t seem like what’s being reported now. Restaurants stopped bringing glasses of water when you sat down and before you ordered. You had to ask for it which made it special. The tinkling of ice in a glass seemed like jewels--small treasures that would bring refreshment if only for a few brief moments until you drank the water and asked for a refill or the ice disappointing as It melted into nothing but a little more water. We were told to flush toilets only when necessary. If it’s yellow, let it mellow. I remember seeing signs like that in public toilets. But the Wall Street Journal reports that the drought California is facing now is the worst on record, so whatever is going on there now is much worse than what I’m remembering.

I’ve been reading an article about a family of wheat farmers in Kansas and their upcoming harvest. Because of the war between Russia and Ukraine, wheat prices were high at one point; good news for the farmers in Kansas save one problem: drought. The lack of water meant that the harvest was delayed and the wheat itself was not growing as full as a normal season The rising price of diesel and fertilizer add layers to the uncertainty. Describing the dilemma David, a farmer, says, “It feels like we’ve been pulled into a high-stakes poker game . . . What happens if we have a crop failure or prices crash? It’s a scary time.”

In another story about drought, this time in Romania, an 81-year-old woman says she’s never seen a drought like the one they’re facing today. "We have children, we have cattle,” she says. “We make an effort to plant tomatoes in the garden and they dry out and we have nothing to eat. God, give us rain, don't abandon us."

The Financial Times just ran a story about how a cyclone drenched Crimea with damaging rains that gave a reprieve to the region from the shortage of water brought on by drought and the water blockades from the war.

And the UK has gotten a lot of news coverage about their heat wave but there may be more to this story. The Guardian reports, “The UK is facing the prospect of a drought being declared in August, experts have said, warning of potential crop failures after a period of remarkably dry weather and extreme heat.”

It’s confusing when the sun plays tricks on us. I’ve been in the desert when I’ve seen mirages—water that when you get close to it disappears. I asked Lorraine if she had ever seen a mirage, and her memories of it are in the heat of summer and the blacktops of Detroit—vapors roiling to give the appearance of water where there is none. The sun decides to be a magician. Sleight of hand. Tricked you. No water here after all. It’s just an interesting illusion. I say interesting because I readily have access to water from a tap or a bottle. Otherwise, I might say tormenting or terrifying or life-threatening.

True thirst is a real thing. I’m not sure that I have ever really experienced that.

When the conversation began between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, it began with Jesus asking her to give him some water. In that time and place, there were no cases of bottled water or taps; you had to walk to a well. As they talked, the request for water went from the lips of Jesus requesting thirst-quenching water to the lips of the woman asking Jesus for a different kind of water.

“Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

And then the disciples came, confused. She fled without her jar into the town to say to the others, “Come and see.”

I don’t want to diminish the struggles the world is facing with not enough water for people or crops. They are real. Often when we see suffering like those from drought, we want to do something to help people in need.

At the same time, there’s living water that is only Jesus, and mirages all around us. People fill their jars without the water that is Christ only to find when they do, life, like the desert or blacktop sun, plays a trick on them. No water in that jar after all. That which seems so fulfilling roils and dissolves into nothing at all. And the thirst, the longing that so often goes unrecognized, becomes more intense at the realization that what you thought was real water is really not.

Jesus not only offers living water; that's what he is. Nothing else is living water. Earnest devotion and determined discipline focused on whatever other kind of water leads only to dry, parched thirst. The longing and striving are their own drought. What can we do to help people in this kind of drought?

Perhaps we have only to say, “Come and see” like the Samaritan woman did. This woman wasn’t even sure what was going on, but she knew enough that she couldn’t keep it to herself. She wasn’t about to be fooled by the desert sun or wells. She was so eager to tell the others that she left her jar behind. She had encountered Christ and everything changed for her, for the Samaritans in town.

“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.’”

The Samaritans accepted the women's Invitation to come and see, but in the end, Jesus's thirst-quenching words met their deepest need—for the Savior. Living water has come—for us and for them.

Keep Calm and Carry On by Lorraine Triggs

The New York Times article podcast promised I could choose my own meditation from its list of seven five-minute meditations. All promised to calm my mind, transport me to a happier place and leave me energized. I thought that was what my first cup of coffee of the day was meant to do. Whatever. I continued to sip that first cup as I read the list of meditations from which to choose.

• Taming Negative Thoughts

• De-stress at Your Desk

• Invite Stillness

• Time Just for You

• Beat the Blahs

• Inner Staycation

• Calm During Crisis

My mind raced as I chose my meditation. Tame those negative thoughts, check. De-stress, check but highly unlikely. Stillness, check. Me time, do not like this phrase at all. Beat the Blahs, check. Inner staycation, clever. But the clear winner was Calm During Crisis.

I touched play, and my five-minute meditation began—with breathing. Well, not just ordinary breathing but deep relaxing breathing to find the space between my breaths and thoughts. The deep breathing did sort of calm me, which was good since what came next totally threw me.

In a soft voice, my meditation guide encouraged me that I can help, heal, serve others with my special talents. Do what fulfills me.

“You are the one you have been waiting for,” the guide continued. I stopped breathing altogether as I choked out, “You have got to be kidding me.”

My five-minute mediation ended in a record two minutes and sixteen seconds, but it did give me a few unintended take-aways.

Waiting for oneself will always disappoint.
Simeon and Anna weren’t waiting for themselves when they went to the temple. Instead, gospel writer Luke shows Simeon holding that eight-day-old baby high, ready to depart in peace, because “my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32) Simeon had waited for this baby for years, and he wasn’t disappointed.

We see Anna, prophetess, widow, old, giving thanks to God and telling all who were waiting—surprise--not for themselves, but for the redemption of Jerusalem. The Savior, the one they had been waiting for had arrived. I wonder if advanced-in-age Anna had a new spring to her step as she passed along the news of great joy to all the people.

Calming the crisis may take our breath away.
Luke also shows us Jesus, calm in the crisis, breathing deeply because, well, he was fast asleep in the boat as the wind and waves crashed and slammed into it. The disciples woke up Jesus, convinced they were perishing, and what he did next probably took their breath away. Jesus spoke and the wind and raging waves ceased.

My mediation guide had been advising me to be fully present as I breathed. I was pretty sure the guide wasn't thinking about Jesus; nonetheless, Jesus was fully present on the cross struggling to breathe, becoming sin for us. Jesus was fully present when he breathed his last and called out, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46)

Jesus was so fully present in his last breath that Mark tells us that when “the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:39)

Me space or God space?
My meditation guide also told me in oh-so soothing tones to cultivate the space between my thoughts and breathing and fulfill myself before I can help, heal and serve others. Two thoughts: how unlike Jesus this is and how like me it is. I don’t need too much encouragement to look after my own interests.

Instead, as followers of Christ, we now live in a space that is bigger than our own interests, opinions and political leanings. It isn't really me doing the work, but God in and through me.

We live in that space between Anna and Simeon and Jesus’ second advent. The now and not-yet space when God’s kingdom comes. In this space, we cultivate fruit such as love, joy, peace, meekness. We cultivate wisdom from above that is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18)

Jesus is the one we are living for. Not my will but his. We are truly different when we sacrifice self for others. We should live like Jesus so when we breathe our last or simply take a deep breath and exhale, someone will say, “Truly this person is a child of God."

A Pastor Prays for His People by Wendell Hawley

Today's musing is from A Pastor Prays for His People by Wendell Hawley

Everlasting God, Lover of our souls,
Open our eyes to see your love for us—
your love which was established before creation
and continues unfailing and unending, even unto this very hour.
Your Word tells us that you had a plan for us a long, long time ago.
A love for us not based on
performance,
or beauty,
or inherent value.
A love which sent a Savior to the unlovely,
the destitute,
the helpless,
the condemned.
A Savior whose love prompted him to say:
“Come unto me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Lord, may you this day be the present help to all who turn to you,
whether hurt or ashamed,
whether sick or disheartened,
whether afraid or defeated,
whether troubled or angry.
You have come to change the human condition drastically, totally . . .
the sinful heart,
the stony heart,
the rebellious heart.

Holy physician, divine surgeon . . . work in our lives that our souls might
prosper in spiritual health and vitality.
Thank you, Lord,
for hearing,
for answering,
for meeting every need.
Amen.

National Day of What? By Wil Triggs

Back in the days when I used to read an actual morning newspaper, the kind that got delivered to my door or driveway, or somewhere close to either of them, I almost always checked out the little column that told me what was special about the day. I remember where it listed whose birthday it was, and what happened in history on whatever day of the year it was.

I no longer get a physical newspaper so I’m not sure if the column is still there. Instead, I get little messages that pop up, or Lorraine gets them and tells me, “Oh, so-and-so's birthday is today. Do you believe she is that old?” There are websites for this kind of thing, too.

Every day is, well, special.

Today, for example, July 9, is Collector Car Appreciation Day and National Sugar Cookie Day. It’s also Courtney Love’s birthday. It is the day that then Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten announced their engagement. It is the day that David Kelley and Allison Sipek will be married at College Church (I mean, literally, today). Perhaps most practical and momentous of all, in 1872 on this day, John Blondel was granted doughnut cutter patents that would make possible the mass production of the treat with a hole in its center.

We don’t remember who John Blondel was, but we live with his innovation a little happier than we would be without it.

Besides tomorrow being the day for Sunday worship, it is also National Kitten Day (I’m allergic), Pick Blueberries Day (where is the patch?), and most important of all, the beginning of National Doughnut Week and Krispy Kreme’s 85th birthday (ready for both).

Later this month, on July 21, we get National Junk Food Day. That’s what actually started this. Lorraine announced earlier in the week that she had gotten notice about this on her phone. And it made me think back to the morning newspaper ritual and I started thinking about, among other things, surprise, doughnuts.

Whatever day we’re in, and whatever we may face this day, one thing is certain: today is a day that should include prayer. God is the companion we ought not to neglect, yet so easily do.

We don’t need to hold a convention. We don’t need to even have a meeting with some friends to join us. Such days do exist and focus our prayers on a particular need or area of prayer. But today ought to be a day of prayer for each of us in some way.

In the summer book group this week, we talked about the chapter “Prayer Isn’t a Moment; It’s a Way of Life” in the book Wisdom from the Ancients. We talked about the Muslim calls to pray during the day and the early church rhythms of prayer throughout the day, stopping to pray at fixed times every day, not just morning, noon and night. We looked at Jesus’s words of warning about praying like Pharisees. We talked about whether to write or not write out prayers or to read printed prayers. We considered the biblical admonition to pray without ceasing. And then, before the night ended, we did it. We prayed.

Today is our chance to talk to the God of the universe and the Savior who is right here in the room, closer than we can ever imagine. It doesn't have to be long or difficult. The Spirit is right here. We can turn to him with whatever is before us. And if we are tempted to sin, how much more difficult is the little or big fall, how much easier the flight from temptation, if we are already open and speaking to the One who will never forsake us. If we are facing a storm or it's an ordinary Saturday, we sheep have access to the Shepherd.

J.C. Ryle in his book Do You Pray? says “I beg you, let us keep a constant watch upon our private devotions. Here is the heart of the matter, the real backbone of our Christianity. Sermons, books, church meetings, singing praises to God and the company of other Christians are all good things in their way, but they will never make up the chasm that opens up if we neglect private prayer.”

I’d love to keep going, but I’m going to stop. You don’t need to read any more of my words but do spend a few extra moments today directing more of your own words toward the lover of our souls. Write them out or say them out loud. Or say them silently, not to yourself, but to Jesus, the one who is nearer than we can imagine, the one who intercedes. Pray for the people you meet, before or after you meet them. I have been trying to remember to not tell someone I’ll pray for them, but to just pray right then and there.

Go ahead. Do it. We don't have to tell God what to do; there is a certain level of absurdity in that, but we certainly are welcome to say anything and everything. This is an amazing gift open to us. Be mindful of it during the day. Pray every time you sink your teeth into a doughnut or pick blueberries or pet a cat or go to a wedding. Everything we do can be a celebration of turning to the Lord in prayer.

Today, after all, is International Day of Prayer to the One and Only God Who Died for Us, Rose Again, and Loves Us All the Time.

Summer Then, Now and To Come by Wil Triggs

I was going through some old books this week and mixed in with the books was a little photo album.

The photos were from July 2001. They were taken on the first-ever College Church missions trip to Russia. At that time, the church in Russia was celebrating its freedom. Doors were opening. Summer camps for children run by evangelical churches were on the upswing. They were taking down the statues of Lenin and Christians were standing in the places and telling the story of Jesus.

Word spread. It was news that evangelical Christians were doing the camp. It was even bigger news that a group of Americans had come to join them. Most of the people had never met Americans. It was a little bit like we were from Mars.

Camp was in an elementary school the staff had rented from the local officials. Our big meetings took place in the dining/meeting hall. Kids and counselors and our team all slept in classrooms. I remember studying an old propaganda poster about local heroes in Afghanistan.

Cars were stopping with children in them. The drivers were moms or dads or grandmas or grandads. No, they had never been to church. But they had heard that there was such a thing—a Christian camp. Something our Russian colleagues thought impossible when they were growing up. They wanted to drop off their children to join the camp. The Russian counselors gave up their room and pitched tents outside so the staff rooms could be converted to rooms for. more child campers. They added more sleeping spaces in the other rooms as well.

We made tie-dye shirts with the kids. We brought over the shirts and dyes and soda ash, that just a few years later would have not been allowed because of security concerns. To keep dye from staining kids, we made makeshift smocks out of trash bags. In between cooking for lunch and dinner, the cooks managed to fit dunking the dye-drenched shirts into the giant cooking pots.

The next day after the dying, we unwrapped the shirts revealing the bursts of color. The kids could hardly wait to put them on. We tried hanging them to dry, but the bursts of color on the shirts were irresistible to the children. On the shirts went, dry or not.

During afternoon rest time, we got to know the Russian Christian leaders and counselors. We listened to them and they listened to us, telling how Jesus had touched and changed us.

This all happened about 130 miles south of Moscow. The expressway signs told us we were headed toward Donetsk. Another 370 miles on the same road, and we would have hit the border with Ukraine.

Things change, don’t they? The children in the photos are all adults. We would not be allowed in Russia to do now what we did then. The evangelical church there has to be careful what they do outside the walls of their churches.

But God did something. Most people would not have predicted or dreamed that it could have happened. And it was such a blessing that he used little us to be a part of it. A shadow falls as I think about that road to Ukraine and how different it must be now.

God never stops. Neither people nor Satan will defeat him.

Today, God is touching lives. He can still use little us, not in the same way as back then, but does that really matter? God can do what God wants to do. Ours is only to be willing and available with where he has put us and to not shrink back to our own ways.

When we look back in another 21 years, in 2043, we will be in a very different world. But Jesus will not have changed. The Holy Spirit will still be moving into the houses of souls. God’s living Word will still be speaking. Maybe the most hostile places to the gospel today will be places filled with churches and revival. May our hearts have grown to be more like the heart of Jesus between now and then. May we still be found serving Jesus, caring for and reaching out to others on the road to the kingdom that has no end.

Imaginary Friends in Real Life by Wil Triggs

In a discussion earlier this week, a person commented on historical books (his favorite) as reading about “real things” as opposed, I suppose, to reading fiction. I enjoy reading history and memoir. But the subtext to comments like that is the idea that fiction cannot be real. He may not have meant it that way, but it’s easy for us to say that fiction is not real and historical writing is.

I am sensitive to this kind of language because years ago, a colleague at another workplace made an even more horrifying comment on theater and acting. The person said to me that all acting is a form of lying because the actor is pretending to be something he’s not. I thought at the time that he had to be joking. I looked at his face for the beginning of a grin that would signal that he was playing with me, but no. He was serious.

As a lifelong theatergoer this was unimaginable. Going to plays has been an important part of my life. I love doing it and spend time checking what is playing in London, New York, Stratford, Chicago. It was a triumph of God’s Spirit that I did not get mad at that man.

And as a reader whose life has been shaped by some great pieces of fiction, I cannot say that the imaginary people of fictional works are not real.

Never mind Raskolnikov or Hamlet or Gandalf. What about Atticus Finch or Ebenezer Scrooge or Sherlock Holmes? When we read good books, we easily embrace the people in them one way or another. Either we see in them ways to live, virtues to aspire to, or bad choices that we don’t want to make. Sometimes we see both good and bad in one character and read through the suspense of what’s going to become of him. I want to be Scrooge at the end of the book, not the beginning, but the “real” me right now might not be there just yet.

The characters in Jesus’s fictions are so real that we easily forget that they, by definition of the people I’ve quoted, weren’t real. They’re fiction.

So maybe they’re hyper-real. In some ways, we can become them.

In real life, we can take on their roles like an actor becoming Hamlet or Willy Loman, but with these Scriptural characters born from the mind and mouth of Jesus, they may not be us at all, and yet, they could be pointing us to the way we might be, even should be.

We are like a sower who sows seeds that grow over time--as we did last weekend at the Cream of Wheaton when we gave away Bibles to people. Or when we teach in Kids’ Harbor we’re sowing seeds that will grow over time.

We can be the Prodigal Son’s brother or his father. We can be jealous of our brother or kill the fattened calf and throw a party. We can bandage and house the wounded man, taking on the role of the Good Samaritan, but not in some theoretical fiction, but with living, hurting people who are not at all like we are. We can knock on the door of prayer and not stop. Or we might need to play the part of the shepherd who drops everything for one lost sheep.

When we take on these roles like actors playing parts written by playwrights, it may not feel like us, but that doesn’t mean we’re lying. Perhaps we’re moving closer to heaven than earth, living as members of a kingdom that has come and is yet to come.

Consider Abraham and his promised descendants—they auditioned and got the starring roles as strangers and exiles on earth (so-called real life). They played the part, because “as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:16). Abraham was not a fictional character, but he went to places he never dreamed and God gave him a new name.

What role will you act today? Sower, father, Good Samaritan? Stranger or exile? Sometimes acting, like fiction, can be a pathway to truth and becoming a new you that’s more like Jesus and less like the natural men and women we are so accustomed to being.