http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.htmldelorenzoflyerenCopyright 2008 Mike Delorenzo2008-09-30T01:36:37-04:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:21:32 -04001288959http://www.feedburner.comweblog2008-09-30T01:36:37-04:00http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-51http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-51
I think I've been at a loss for words. But certainly not for thoughts. Renee and I have both been struck with insomnia. And mom worse than us. There's something about the silence and the darkness that reveals the realness of things.

We think of dad a lot. I think about the months before May and how they slipped by too fast. And I occasionally lose track of time. As if I just saw him yesterday, and we talked like there were many more tomorrows.

If you call dad's cellphone today, you can still hear his voice on the message. "Your call... and you, are important to me.." he says. I must admit I've dialed it a few times. And been tempted to leave him a message. But I just usually whisper an "I love you dad" after hanging it up. I know he knows. And I know he knows that I know. We didn't leave anything unsaid.
~~
It rained this past week and I was happy for it. I looped some music over the computer as I worked at the mission office and let myself cry whenever the need came over me. My desk faces a wall in an out-of-the-way corner of the building, so I had some welcome solitude. But the gray day out the window fit my disposition. Sadness felt OK that day, and to worship through it felt doubly good. I remembered that Jesus once called the mournful blessed. I think for the first time in my life I understood why. For I was comforted, and it felt so completely right. Even as my dad's unanswered phone would seem to say otherwise.

Dad's absence has affected us. We are all somewhat different now, as is the world minus one wonderful man. But where are we now? This is the question (in all its abstract and nuanced glory) that Renee and I are asking ourselves. And as I aspire to answer it in our next newsletter, at least you know a little more about were we've been this past month. Yes, awake on the couch (it's 2 am and I'm still typing) but also peacefully, assuredly nestled in the arms of Jesus—rain or no rain.

The rest of the answer, if I can formulate it, will have to wait for the next blog entry.
~~
Some other insights into where I've been this past month can be gleaned from two videos I've posted in that time. One is the edited version of dad's memorial service. And the other, a very short video about AIM AIR I put together. Both of them hold a pice of my heart. Missing my dad. And missing my ministry.

Oh, and this is the song I listened to for a whole day. Come and Listen-by David Crowder ]]>weblog2008-08-30T12:16:54-04:00http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-50http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-50

(In the bulletin)
We don't really need a memorial service to remember Matt. He is, and always will be, unforgettable. His bounding stride and boundless wisdom. His smile, laughter, and love... all dished out in limitless amounts—just like the way he would fill a plate at the Chinese buffet. His legendary stories will stay with us. As well as his antics. And of course his joy. These things defined him. These and thousands more: The very-red sports car. The collection of rubberized puke and other unmentionable pranks. His love for food and beach-front sunsets. The way he treasured Carina. The way he treasured our children. In our memories Matt is a comforting arm over our shoulder or a loving slap on the back. He's the face of one who was there on our best and worst day. One who never let go. He's the face of a shepherd forever in search of a single lost sheep. He's a hand stretched out to rescue, and feet made beautiful as they bring the Good News. Matt’s unconventional ways sometimes raised eyebrows, but they also opened doors. His unconditional love for young people made him a magnet for those who thought themselves worthless. His understanding made him an ambassador for their worth. Matt had more deep and meaningful relationships than seems reasonable for one man. He crammed more hours into a day than seems possible. His life on earth was fuller than a mere sixty-six years. Each of us will remember him for some of the lighthearted and heartwarming things that made Matt who he was. But some of us will remember him for far more—for some special time when he turned our life around. Or for the day he spoke courage to our heart. He once wrote to me saying that he liked to think of himself as an encourager; "because at its center," he said, "is found the word courage." We will not see Matt on this earth anymore. But neither will we be able to forget him. And as we laugh or offer up thanks at the random memories when they come, he would wish for us to be encouraged—to take courage. And perhaps, if we can, go after some of those lost sheep he didn't have enough time to reach—the ones who could rightly be called forgotten, but to Matt were unforgettable.

(My words to the congregation... and to dad)
When I was a boy I remember spending time at my fathers hair-cutting salon. I would have my haircut and then try not to be bored for the rest of the day. I'd spin around in the barber chairs until I saw dad's look of warning from across the shop. I would help sweep up the hair. Or wander into the break-room and look for leftover coffee cake.

My dad's clients, ever faithful, were friends and confidants to him. He would often take an opportunity to introduce me to some of them—often, older ladies with a poof of hair atop their colorful faces—the kind of ladies who loved to squeeze the cheeks of little boys like me. Dad would call me over to say hello. And he and I would play this game.

"This is your son!" they would say. "What a darling! He's gorgeous!"

And then dad would ask them, "who does he look like? Me or his mother?" He would always ask that question. At his station was proudly displayed a beautiful picture of my young mom. And the client would glance over there, then to me, to dad, to me....

"Oh! He looks like his mother," they would say.

And I would pretend to be relieved. Roll my eyes. Thank you! I would say. Dad would laugh.

We did this a thousand times. Always my “mother” they would say. I was always relieved.

I grew up with a cautious distance set between my dad and I. He was not yet the man we know him to be today. And I think I always worried that I might become like him when I grew up. That I might look like him.

A lot of time has gone by since those days. Dad left the hair business to follow this crazy calling to work with kids. And in the process God did something amazing with him. What was once a calling became a passion; and his passion became what we see here today.

Dad and I grew closer together over those years—the distance between us closed in by a common heart for ministry; a common and deep understanding of this thing we both called a “privilege.”

And we both grew older. Dad, wiser and grayer. Me, less like a boy, more like a man. And I delighted to see myself grow more and more like him.

We will see Matt again someday, but not here in this world. And days may come when we wonder why he's gone from us, and we may look for him—if not from habit, then from the empty place in our hearts. But if we look closely we will still see him... In the legacy of the countless people he touched. People were the treasure he left here on earth. And the treasure he took with him.

And if you look and still can't see him, take a glance and look over here. Into these kind brown eyes he gave me.

Because the happy truth is that I do look like him.

Dad, I want to be just like you when I grow up.]]>weblog2008-08-28T01:21:50-04:00http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-49http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-49
I had spent the previous days, the entire weekend really, either at dad's side or recovering from the long, draining hours keeping watch with my mother and brother. Sunday night was the longest one and it was dad's last. I spent it with him, just the two of us. He had been slowly fading since Thursday and by now was struggling to breathe. His fever rose and fell and rose again. He became mostly unconscious, and his last word to me was a labored 'alright' when I asked him if we could suction out the fluid building up in his throat. We would repeat the arduous procedure throughout the night, and all I could do was talk him through it.

I knew he could hear me even if he could not speak. His eyebrows would wrinkle up on his forehead, hover feebly, and fall again like weights as I spoke encouragement in his ear. I talked to him at intervals; in the darkness telling him he was not alone. That I was there with him, at his side. Don't worry dad, I'm not leaving you.

As I held his hand and placed my head down on the bed, I measured his every labored breath in slow motion. I was weary and thinking about Jesus as he prayed in the garden; on his dark night of labored breathing, when the weight of the world was coming down on his shoulders. And the few friends he had in the world could not even manage to stay awake. I have always thought less of them for that. How hard could it be to just hold his hand?

But I was no different this night. I wanted to sleep. Partly because I was tired and overwhelmed by all that had happened in the previous weeks, and partly because I just wanted the suffering to go away. I was determined to stay awake but I could not. I would drift asleep precariously in that uncomfortable chair and wake again when dad's breathing became loud. We would suction again. And I would just cry and try again. It was the longest night.

Dad stabilized by Monday morning—thanks to our efforts or my pleas I don't know. But I was thrilled that mom would arrive to find her beloved resting easy. She buried her head where mine had fell in the night, there next to dad's hand, and wondered if she could get another word from him. But he never did wake again, as much as she wanted one more kiss. One more; for weeks she would solicit them. Just one more. He raised his eyebrows for her though. It was all he could do for her, and in those final hours, like the forty years before them, he would still do all he could do for her.

Dad was peaceful, and it gave mom peace to see it. I, however, was dizzy. Incoherent. Hopelessly tired. I finally called Renee and asked her to come sit in my place. I would not leave mom alone, and I hoped Renee could make certain she wouldn't be. Renee came without a second thought. She packed bags and coordinated a place for the kids. She drove a far distance. I said I was sorry for the trouble. She wouldn't let me be. By the early afternoon I was freed up and drove off just a few miles over to mom's house. I fell down asleep in my tiny old bedroom. I dreamed of being a kid again; there in the brown house on Bates Drive. Thirty years wound back and disappeared. And two hours later they rushed in to the present with the wail of a cellphone.

Were you with him? I asked. Yes, she said. And I loved her for it. If I had never known Renee and never loved her until this day, I would love her forever for that one thing. She held dad's hand for me while I slept.

Dad slipped away around four o'clock. From his dark night, to a peaceful morning, to a radiant joy. Renee watched him make that journey. She brought mom in just in time to be there too. My dad always loved Renee like the daughter he never had. And I wonder if He and God arranged for that most special, miraculous moment to fall on her watch.

She said it was a privilege.

***
Friday at 10am is the memorial service for dad. It will be huge. If per chance you would want to come, directions are here. And for those of you on the other end of this blog who pray for us and have been, thank you.
]]>weblog2008-08-11T22:29:58-04:00http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-48http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-48
Renee and I usually take turns when the kids are sick at night, and this time I heard Amelia first. I slipped out of bed and onto the cold cement floor next to her and beside the toilet; rubbed her back and didn’t say a word.

On this particular night, she was truly ill and the vomiting didn’t stop. She began to heave again, with all her little might. I wet a washcloth in cold water to lay on the back of her neck between the waves. She was exasperated now; a mat of sweaty hair atop a fever; a runny nose left unattended; and an aching stomach. She looked over to me, not quite in the eye, and blurted out a heart-wrenching question:

“Why did God have to make me like this?!”

It caught me by surprise. “Like what Amelia?” I said in shame. I knew what she meant, and a dad ought to have an answer for a sick little girl at such a time.

“Like this!” She looked down at her vomit-stained nightgown. “All gross and everything,” And she began to cry; a bundle of wetness and woe.

I stumbled to respond. The trouble was that I was wondering the same thing.

I held her and did the best I could to make sense of what humanity has been trying to make sense of for all of time. I would not have the answer she sought, hoping that my arms were all the answer she would need for the moment.

***

I’ve never forgotten that night, and her question. It seemed to encapsulate the big issue. The big problem that is pain. It is the most commonly cited reason for disbelief in God – despite our best efforts to understand and explain God. Somehow it still seems like He owes us an explanation.

What we get instead is Job’s story, which upon first reading looks as though it might settle the issue. However, the lesson of Job is not to answer the problem of pain but rather to show us that God does not, in fact, owe us an explanation. A let-down at first, but a rich lesson as you think about it.

Subsequent readings and contemplations reveal other, rich lessons – at least for me. One big one is the idea that we, in our best intentions, often fail to understand God’s ways. God does not meet our expectations. Job’s circle of nearsighted friends taught us that, even if they themselves didn’t learn it.

This insight into the great barrier between our ways and God’s ways is perhaps the biggest lesson from Job’s book. And it is most likely the real, biggest reason for disbelief in this world. It’s not so much that we can’t accept a loving God in a world of pain, but that we lack the imagination for such a scenario.

If you wonder if this is true just ask yourself what you would do if you were God? “If I were God” this world would have never seen the bubonic plague or Hitler. Nineveh would have been smitten before it was sorry, and Jesus would have never gone to the cross. Poverty would not be a problem. Leukemia would not be a word.

In fact, I would wind back the cosmos and undo this mess from the start. Humanity would be wonderfully made, not “fearfully and wonderfully.” Little girls would never ask why they were made that way.

It is all too easy to imagine ourselves a god. Although not a healthy way to think, the exercise has at least one merit: It shows the origin of our objection – why God? – as shattered expectations.

One of the world’s most famous Atheists was once interviewed for the cover story of Newsweek magazine. He de-constructed the existence of God in so many careful sentences and then stood his ground. But when pressed on the possibility “however slight” that there might, just might be a god out there, he balked. It’s possible. But not this god. Not the god of the Bible. Some other god wholly unlike the childish idea of the Christian god. This is not the sort of God you would expect...

It begs the question, “what do we expect?”

Perhaps it would be easier to voice what we don't expect of God. What’s so surprising, confounding, impossible for us to imagine if “we were God?”

The fall. And the cross.

That would sum it up really. Neither one would have happened by our imagination. And this ought to tell us something about God.

***

I held mom's 90-pound frame in my arms as she shook. "We never expected this," she said. "Dad and I never thought about this." She was talking about the leukemia. It was only nine months ago that it blind-sided her and dad. And today we were hit with another impossible, unexpected blow; his team of doctors telling us "there's nothing more they can do."

We've hardly begun to absorb the thought. I've spent a few days thinking over the past few months because I feel somehow like the time slipped away from me; like I wasn't ready for the prognosis and so it must be some kind of mistake. But the time revealed itself full of memories. One surfaces now as I am comforting my mother.

One afternoon in dad's hospital room, when he wasn't doing too well, mom was sitting by his bedside – scooted up as close as possible – tenderly holding his hand. We were all listening to the music I had set-up for dad as it played in an endless loop on an iPod and a dock:

"What can wash away my sin? What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood. Nothing but the blood of Jesus." Matt Redman was cranking out a particularly earthy and melodious version of the old hymn and mom was singing along. Her head was pressed down into dad's hand and tears rolled out of her eyes past his fingers to the sheets. I watched the spectacle in awe.

I could not articulate it then – or even now – but somewhere in that spectacle was the answer. The answer to the "problem" of pain. The answer to why God's ways are so unexpected. Even the answer to why dad had leukemia, and why we were now preparing to say goodbye. I saw a glimpse of the mystery that angels long to look into. A picture of the fall, and the cross, mingled together with tears and hope.

"Why did God have to make me like this?" Like the image of my mom and dad, Amelia's sobs still resonate in my memory. And now I wonder if any created thing observed us that night. As we sat there on the bathroom floor in the darkness, wrapped up in each-others arms. One of us shaking with fever, and the other shaking his head.

"God is good sweetheart. No matter what, God is good."

(The mysteries of the gospel, and the methods of man's salvation, are so glorious that the blessed angels earnestly desire to look into them; they are curious, accurate, and industrious in prying into them; they consider the whole scheme of man's redemption with deep attention and admiration. – Matthew Henry in his famous Bible commentary, on 1 Peter 1:12)]]>weblog2008-06-29T22:24:45-04:00http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-47http://www.delorenzoflyer.com/index.html#unique-entry-id-47~~~

I crossed First Avenue with a downtrodden face. An eight-dollar sandwich in my hand, and the weight of glory in my back pocket.

There is a small city park just a block behind dad’s hospital, and I thought it a good spot to eat and think. The days are warm now in New York, and the park was full of people who probably come there as a matter of habit. I had never been there before and so made some effort to fit in. Kicking at the pigeons, I observed, was the mark of a regular. Gawking over them like a tourist was not. Besides, it was a well-posted ordinance to “not feed” them. I doubt they would have gone for my chicken pesto anyway. But, being New York pigeons, you never know.

So I made threatening gestures with my shoes as they encroached on my corner bench – one New Yorker to another – and pulled out the little paperback from my back pocket and began to read.

CS Lewis is like an old friend. Renee and I uncovered a stash of his old books in our trunks from my mother’s garage when we got home. This particular one I have had since college days. It’s a faded little book in which the pages are browning and musty. The essays inside are marred by ghostly streaks of yellow highlighter, and as I flip through it I remember making those marks – where I was when I read certain bits, or when I first understood them – a moment of understanding revealed by an overzealous highlight that bled through the page. Not only is Lewis like an old friend, this very book is. I grabbed it from the apartment on my way out to visit with dad, and was comforted by it now, on this unsettling day.

The Weight Of Glory. It is a collection of essays written some time during the war in Europe, during a period when things were quite serious in war-torn England. Lewis writes about pacifism and forgiveness and things of that nature. But the opening essay is the one which gives the book its name, and it is the one I sat and read while munching on a sandwich in a park just a short walk from where my father lay helpless and fading away.

I remember first reading this essay. I was in the basement library at Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago, and I did not quite understand what I was reading. The second time I was in a mission guesthouse on the edge of the Amazon jungle in Ecuador. Even there, I wondered what it meant. The weight. And how glory could be a burden, which is Lewis’ point. All of this came back to me now in the park. As if revisiting and building upon those moments in the school library, or alone in that humid, dim little guesthouse again. In the essay, Lewis writes of a dimension of human nature that we cannot adequately explain. A longing. A desire.

“I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you… which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and believe as if that had settled the matter.”

But here on earth we feel, as Lewis explains, a “sense of exile.”

“We remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy.”

He is, of course, talking about heaven. But more than just the concept of heaven, he is talking about how we are made for it. Meant for it. That there we shall be with Christ and like Christ and, interestingly, imparted with some sort of “glory.” It is this glory that takes the rest of the essay to explore.

Lewis shows the glory to mean fame, not in the eyes of other men, but in the eyes of God. Fame with God? Approval perhaps. Appreciation.

“Well done thou good and faithful servant.”

“I suddenly remembered,” writes Lewis, “that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child – not in a conceited child, but in a good child – as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised.”

There is the world’s version of glory, polluted by ambition and self-admiration, and there is a purer kind. What he calls the most “creaturely of pleasures.” – “A child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator.”

“It is written that we shall stand before him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us that really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God… to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

The fury of the city raced onward behind the sturdy bench from which I had been traversing the universe. I found my sandwich gone, remembering not the act of eating it. I took a moment to look about the park and observe a hundred strangers in other worlds of other books and telephone calls. The gravity of earthly burdens such as the quickly passing day and a desire to return to dad’s bedside gripped me. I bundled up my trash and took one last, friendly swipe at the pigeons as I began my walk toward to the hospital. The book crammed back into my pocket. The words, again, indelible in my mind.

Donning gown and mask and gloves, I returned to my spot next to dad. His eyes were shut, as they mostly are these days. He is overcome by exhaustion. Every movement is a chore for him and so he moves very little. He had not done much talking today, but he would look up from his serenity every once in a while to see if I was still there. “I’m just hanging out with you today dad,” I said each time. And he smiled each time. He closed his eyes again as I rubbed his legs and talked about things that begged no response of him. I noticed his face and how it had changed over these months. He was thinner. His hair was completely gone now, and he glowed. With an otherworldly glory.

For the first time since his illness, I began to fathom that our prayers for his healthy return might not be answered. Of course, that was not all we prayed for. We prayed for God’s will. And there were probably things we had not the imagination to pray for, that were silently underway. I prayed again today with dad’s swollen hand pressed between my gloved ones, “Thy will be done.” And I was for the first time in this ordeal content to accept it.

I was reading again, quietly – suspended with dad for a moment in this timeless place, and sharing a secret.

“The sense that in the universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret.”

“And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

The words, “good report with God” struck me as I looked upon dad’s humble countenance. I wondered if God did such things as brag about us, and if so, to whom.

“Have you considered my servant Job?”

Dad struck me as one like that. Not because of his suffering, but because of what God has made of him. And of how dad's life has, in the words of John Piper, "made much of God." And at once I had the sense of being beside someone famous. As I listened with ear and heart I could hear more than just the dutiful hum of the climate control, or the IV pumps standing sentry above his head. I could hear a faint cheer. A whisper in the room bled over from some other world where voices stood up in a roar, shaking the ground, applauding a hero. And hidden there behind that distant celebration was the face of a Father curled up in a knowing smile, proud of his son. Delighting in him. "Have you considered my servant?" he whispered.

I saw my father as never before. In his helplessness, I saw him strong. In his humiliation I saw him the most amazing person I have ever laid eyes on. In this, his most human of days, I saw him as almost more than human.

"There are no ordinary people..."

These words which round out Lewis' essay came back to me as I considered a man about whom God would say "I know him."

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it."

For dad today, the weight of it, for once, I understood. And the burden was a comfort to me.

"There are no ordinary people. You have never spoken with a mere mortal."]]>