Category Archives: Life

A gentle pastor faces death

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Next Monday five old friends will visit Steve Shoemaker at the rehab center in Champaign-Urbana. Steve’s humor remains in top form despite the cancer that has limited his mobility and chunk the weight of his 6’8″ frame from 240 to 187 pounds.

Thinking about Monday’s visit, originally planned around the first presidential debate, I recalled a story about Steve jumping into a swimming pool dressed in a tuxedo after a wedding. It was locked in the Views from the Edge “draft” folder because we couldn’t convert the original piece from tpyepad to this platform. Today, in honor of Steve, we “converted it” for posting. The words belong to Bill Tammaeus, former columnist at the Kansas City Star.

The first time I boarded an airplane after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was to fly to Champaign-Urbana, Ill., at the invitation of the Rev. Steve Shoemaker to speak to a YMCA gathering at the University of Illinois.

I knew I needed not to avoid planes after experiencing the death of my nephew Karleton, a passenger on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, and Steve’s invitation to speak made it necessary to get back on one.

I’ve been thinking about Steve a lot recently after learning that he has developed pancreatic cancer, which is expected to kill him within a few months. I follow his almost daily thoughts about that now on the CaringBridge.org website. Which is where I learned that the newspaper for Champaign-Urbana, The News-Gazette, just published this terrific story about Steve. [Aside: VFTE republished the News-Gazette story]

You can get a good sense of the kind of sweet, thoughtful man he is, a man whose Christian faith issues in much concern for life’s downtrodden people.

Steve first got connected to my family through my North Carolina sister, Barbara, and her husband, Jim, who are my late nephew’s parents. They became friends with Steve and his wife Nadja when they were neighbors in the Raleigh-Durham area.

Later Steve performed the wedding ceremony for some of Barb and Jim’s children, including Karleton.

I still laugh at the memory of Steve and Jim — fully dressed in tuxedos — diving into a swimming pool in joy at the wedding reception when Barb’s and Jim’s daughter Tiffany was married. It helps to know that Steve stands about 6-foot-8 and made quite a splash.

From that News-Gazette story, here’s a taste of Steve’s theology: “God has his eyes on the sparrow and not the eagle, on the people who are hurting. That’s the God that makes sense to me.”

God’s eye is on the sparrow.

 

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 9, 2016

What every New Yorker knows about Donald Trump

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For a good dose of both truth and humor, click What every New Yorker knows, a Washington Post piece about the presidential candidate whose name we ruefully deign to mention.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, September 22, 2016.

Obituary – read to the END!

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Rev. John Richard Vogel Jr. Obituary
VOGEL, JR. Rev. John Richard Vogel, Jr. died suddenly and unexpectedly of natural causes on Saturday, May 28, 2016. He was 75. Services will be on Tuesday, June 7 at 11 a.m. at St. James United Methodist Church, 5540 Wayne Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, with a visitation at the church immediately thereafter. Dick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 1940 to John Richard Vogel and Anna Watson Vogel. In 1948, the family moved to Normandy in the St. Louis, Missouri area, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. Dick graduated from Normandy High School as valedictorian in 1958, and attended the University of Michigan, initially intending to pursue a career in engineering. After a short time, he changed his course of study to philosophy and religion, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1962, and remaining eternally loyal to the Wolverines. He also obtained a master’s degree from Depauw University and a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School in 1966. Dick relocated to Kansas City that year to become the minister at Troost Avenue United Methodist Church and an integral part of the United Methodist Church’s Inner City Parish. He served at several churches during his career, including Central United Methodist Church, Kairos United Methodist Church, and later St. James United Methodist Church. As a minister, he was well regarded for performing countless numbers of weddings for couples throughout the area. Dick also worked for many years as the Executive Director of the Kansas City Mental Health Association. In the early 1980s, he transitioned into the financial services industry, and went on to a very successful career focused on life insurance sales, primarily with Northwestern Mutual Life. For many years, he could be found on the tennis courts or the restaurant at the Rockhill Tennis Club, of which he was an active member. At the time of his death, he was somewhat officially retired, although would likely admit he had a difficult time removing himself completely from the business of churches and insurance. He is survived by his wife, Mary Tracy Smith; a sister, Virginia Simmons; a son, David Vogel, and his wife, Maureen Mannion Vogel; a daughter, Emily Vogel, and her wife, Carly Evans; and four grandchildren, Mia Vogel, Connor Vogel, Kate Evans, and Sam Evans. He was preceded in death by his parents and a son, Mark Vogel. Dick was a wonderful father, brother, friend, colleague, and pastor, who worked very hard and dedicated significant portions of his life to helping those less fortunate. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to Della Lamb Community Center, Grand Avenue Temple United Methodist Church, or any other organization that helps those in need, as well as to the Yale Divinity School Class of 1966 50th Anniversary Scholarship Endowment Fund.

His family also believes that he would want those who respect his memory to agree they will never vote for the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
Published in Kansas City Star from June 2 to June 5, 2016

Which song for today?

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Steve Shoemaker is hospitalized in Illinois.  CaringBridge and FaceBook, which have kept us up-to-date on his journey with terminal cancer, have been silent since Thursday. Steve’s last post on FB read “another set-back, fall-back, back-slide,” posted with a photo of his book “A Sin for Each Kind of Day.”

Waiting for news, Steve’s verse “A Song for Each Kind of Day” (posted on Views from the Edge on On April 12, 2012) came to memory.

One Hebrew word for “god” was “jah.”

(It was a time of many words

for god–and many gods.) To say

“hallel” was for all to sing praise,

so HALLELUJAH meant “Praise God!”

(or “Thanks to you, oh God!”– for some

words could be truly translated

more than one way.

And so, a Psalm, or Song, that offered thanks or praise

might well be paired with a lament:

a cry of pain from one who prays

for help, relief, from gods who sent

disaster. (But, of course, some Psalms

wisely acknowledged that some wrongs

were caused by those who sang the songs!)

There is a Psalm for each one of our days…

[Steve Shoemaker, April 12, 2012]

Today Kay and I are far away in Minnesota, but our hearts are in Illinois. Your prayers are invited. Just close your eyes. Sit quietly. Speak the name “Steve”. . . .[be still]. . . . Then “Nadja” . . . .[be still] . . . . Then “Shoemaker family”. . .  [be still] . . . .Then “Jah”. . . and leave the rest there.

There is a psalm for each kind of day. Today, it’s Psalm 46.

— Gordon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward Albee

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Edward Albee, whose death was reported tonight by the NYT and The Washington Post, was my favorite playwright.

A line from “The Zoo Story” became one of the few texts committed to a memory not given to memorization:

“Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.”

Albee’s line begged for sustained reflection. It described my life experience.

Life is not a straight line. It’s jagged. Sometimes it doubles back on itself. It coils and uncoils, breaks, and appears again from nowhere. We don’t go a short distance “correctly.” and those who have gone a short distance “correctly” (playing by the rules of social convention), often wonder whether they have been anywhere at all.

The NYT and Washington Post articles are worth the read. Edward Albee was not straight, but he understood that the deeper human issues transcend sexuality. They are intrinsic to the human condition.

Receiving today’s news of his death at home in Montauk, Long Island, I bow with thanksgiving for the gift.

RIP.

  • Gordon C. Stewart

 

 

Love – Lisa Larges’s statement of faith

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After years of struggle, Lisa Larges will be ordained and installed October 10 at Lake Nakomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. Here Statement of Faith is unusually creative and spot on. Last Tuesday, the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area approved her call to ordination with standing applause. Here’s Lisa’s statement of faith:

Love.

And from love grace.

And through grace we claim what is beyond us to know:

That the source of all that is, is for us.

And that this source, expressed love, is sovereign over

all of life and death, all that is, has been, and is yet

to be.

And because love is not in itself alone, therefore love

creates.

In love, through love, by love, we were created.

Created together with the whole world.

And not world, worlds.

So that star and worm, soil and sea, rock
and leopard – life known to us and life unknown was

claimed by the Holy and called by the Holy,

“Good”.

And still there is this in us:

Something that fights life.

Something broken, even yes, violent.

Call it sin.

Sin in me, in this world.

In this world, but also in me.

So that love, and by love grace Must come in to this

world.

Must be here in the midst of us.

Abiding in this broken, wrecked world, to bring life,

restoration, wholeness.

So call this love, this grace, God.

And this breaking in to the world, call Christ.

Christ in a person who was Jesus.

And this Jesus among us, healing, teaching, confronting,

reconciling.

In everything, one of us. In everything, holy.

And then, death came.

Because death comes.

Christ. The resurrection of Jesus.

And, that restoration, that wholeness, that life, call it

salvation.

And we now, seeking in the Way,

We have the gift of one another.

Call that gift church – “God’s provisional demonstration”

For he was love in a time of terror.

And love is always a threat to usurped power.

So by injustice, fear, and force, he was put to death.

Death came.
– – – – –

Then life came.

Then life came.

Then, life came.

Life the last word.

Life, the Word.

Life for us, for freedom, for love.

Life that is resurrection, the resurrection of the

of the holy intention for all living things.

And we learn with and through one another forgiveness

and reconciliation, repentance, and beginning again.

And this love in us, this capacity to turn to one another,

to learn and forgive, is grace at work in us – and

that work is the mystery we call the Holy Spirit.

And together we enact the eternal promise of welcome

and belonging, of community and service, and

that
enactment we call sacrament: Baptism and

Communion, by which community is made with

and through us.

So that by this love, and through this grace, and in the

gift of the spirit and by the tending of community and

the call to lay our hearts down in service, we may be

love for this world.

This world that God so loved.

Love.

Thee years before the decision, Lisa wrote a long description of her personal journey as a very public focus of church debate and discussion. An excerpt is republished here:

My friend and mentor Janie Spahr has counseled many LGBT folks like me struggling with the questions of whether to stay in the church, whether to pursue a call in our church, or come out to their congregation. The question she will ask is, “Are you willing to be curriculum for the church?”

All of the ups-and-downs and ins-and-outs of this long judicial process have been part of what it means to be curriculum for the church. We have to learn together, and we don’t seem to learn well in the abstract. And I can’t say that it’s been anything but a privilege to do this work. At the same time, even as I understand in a deep way that the whole of this journey, and the good work of being “curriculum” has been a part of my sense of calling, this judicial process has also been personally painful. The many delays, and the waiting, have exacted a cost. There’s a kind of spiritual pain here that I’m still figuring out. Suffice it to say that our judicial process, as necessary as it may be, is hard on everyone, from the commissioners to the legal counsels on both sides, to the individuals whose lives are directly affected.

But we believe in a God who is the redeemer of time, and we strive for that equanimity of thanksgiving that Paul speaks of and practiced in his own life. “Gratitude in good times,” Calvin said, “patience in adversity, and [most of all] a wonderful security respecting the future.”

 

 

 

 

Coming up for air

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Hello there!

It’s been forever since we posted something of our own here. For very different reasons.

Steve is still with us but only writing on CaringBridge and FaceBook to keep friends up-to-date about his daily life with pancreatic cancer. A group of seminary friends will swoop in on the Shoemakers’ from Texas, Colorado, northern Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota to groan and moan together at the September 26 presidential debate.

Gordon is still with us, too, but has been under water preparing Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness for publication by Wipf and Stock Publishers (Eugene, OR). Steve’s poetry is featured in the book as well as Gordon’s essays on religion, culture, and the  news. He hit the “send” button Sunday evening for final submission.

At this moment, Steve is in the hospital, which is both a concern and a hope. He was admitted because he needed immediate medical attention the required surgery. But Steve has joined Jimmy Carter as a beneficiary of the cancer protocol credited with saving Jimmy’s life. Last night he wrote on Caring Bridge:

Family, friends, neighbors, church, Synagogue, mosque,
Club members–what would sick folks do without you?
New friends from nurses, Doctors, aides, who move in with skills, caring, short-term help help, help!
How to say thanks?  $ helps a little.  But who are the poorest of helpers?  Some of the poorest cannot even receive tips, gifts, or gratuities…
Mutual kindness…charity…love…

Hours before Steve’s latest CaringBridge post, the “statement of faith” by Lisa Larges arrived in Gordon’s in-box.

Why mention Lisa, a complete stranger to most Views readers?

The Presbyterian Church (USA), Steve and my church, denied ordination to Lisa Larges many years ago because of sexual orientation. Some changes take a very long time. Lisa’s statement on love itself illustrates love’s forbearance. It speaks of love, as does Steve’s CaringBridge post, and it’s all the more telling because of who said it.

Love wins.

Not indifference. Not fear.

Love wins.

Lisa’s statement will be posted next on Views from the Edge.

Author Madness

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Had I known it was this complicated, I might have thought twice about publishing a book. Yikes! I like to write. Securing copyright permissions, adhering to the publisher’s requirements for final manuscript submission, converting from Apple’s Pages to Microsoft Word, and completing the marketing survey are much more complicated than auth0r vanity imagined.

Be careful what you ask for. (You might inadvertently end a sentence with a preposition.)

September 10 is the date for final submission of “Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness,” in the once vain hope of making the NYT Best Sellers list. The author’s life is way too complicated!

The Daily Post’s invitation to write something on the word “complicated” is responsible for this waste of your time.

  • Gordon, Chaska, MN, August 14, 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first best thing…

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We’ve been silent recently on Views from the Edge. The world doesn’t need one more blah-blah-blah pundit.

But when a candidate (we won’t use the name because the media are flooded with it, to his advantage) tells a crowd there would be “nothing you could do” to stop his opponent from stacking the Supreme Court with anti-gun justices, and follows with “although, the Second Amendment people,  maybe there is, I don’t know,” a memory seems worth sharing.

During a 2013 public dialogue (First Tuesday Dialogues in Chaska, MN) to discuss the Second Amendment in light of gun violence in America, a participant proudly cited a Facebook posting that “the second best thing that could happen to Obama would be for him to be impeached.”

The speaker continues, “And we all know what the first best thing would be….”

What was said the other day in North Carolina is not new. Mr. ____ blamed the media for the widespread criticism of his remark. “Give me a break!” he said.

Insinuations of assassinations never deserve a break. It didn’t deserve a break in 2013. t does not deserve a break in  2016. It’s not a joke. It’s not funny!

Enough said. Thanks for dropping by.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, August 11, 2016.

 

 

 

An Evening of Sin

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Steve recently published A Sin a Week: Fifty-two Sins Are Described Here in Loving Detail for Folks With the Inclination and Ability to Do Wrong, but Who Have Run Out of Bad Ideas. You can hear Steve’s renditions in an audio book available on Amazon.

This morning he posted this invitation on his CaringBridge page:

A Sin a Week: 52 sins described in loving detail…

Remember my book reading tonight, Thursday, August 11, 7-8 pm @ the Philo Presbyterian Church, 105 E. Jefferson, Philo, IL.

Crackers, cheese, coffee & wine with words about sin. A whole evening with sin.
Free & open to the public. Free parking.

Bring your copy to follow along & see the illustrations. The bookless can use loaners–or just listen happily….

NOTE from Gordon: Steve’s poetry and reflections on life, death, and dying are featured on Views from the Edge. Just enter his name in the search box and he’ll pop up!