Archive for category: Chaplain’s Corner

“The Legacy of Transformed Lives”

Ramses II was the most remarkable of the Egyptian Pharaohs. After taking the throne in 1279 B.C. he lived to be 90 and ruled for 66 years. He fathered more than 100 children. Most famous rulers become known as “The Great” only after they leave the scene. However, Ramses, wouldn’t have hesitated to put those words on his business card.

During the height of his powers he was worshipped as a God and left behind a massive number of works. Even today, 3000 years later, you can see them scattered across the Egyptian landscape.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, points out, “He was a consummate self-publicist. He had no scruples.”

Ramses ordered the creation of two massive temples of Abu Simbel. The larger of the two, The Great Temple, is like an ancient Mt. Rushmore with four 60 ft. statues. All four depict Ramses.

According to his scribes, he won every battle. Every victory was a knockout. MacGregor declares: “His purpose was to create a legacy to speak to all generations of people.” That’s why everything about Ramses was HUGE!

Maybe there is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph somewhere that has the motto: “Make Egypt Great Again.”

But the irony is that everything we see and know that Ramses today is in ruins. After his reign, Egyptian culture entered a decline from which it never recovered.

What other great leader lived out his years in this ancient part of the world?

Jesus left no statues of himself. We don’t know what he looked like. As far as we know, he wrote nothing. He never commissioned a temple or led an army.

Jesus died in weakness, abandoned by his own apprentices. So what is his legacy?

All Jesus left was the changed hearts of his followers.

You don’t have to visit a museum or travel to a distant location to see what Jesus accomplished.

His legacy is transformed lives. His legacy is us.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Spiritual Hunger”

What are the most memorable meals you have ever eaten?

Years ago when I was in high school our Pastor took us on a mission trip to rural Maine where we worked in a camp for handicapped children. It was quite an experience for a young man from northern Indiana to see a part of the country that I had never visited. One afternoon we went to a lobster cookout in the small village where we were located. I had never eaten lobster but to this day I can still remember the delicious lobster which we could eat all we wanted that day. I still enjoy an occasional visit to Red Lobster.

Just a few years ago I was in Croatia after their war with Serbia. I was with a group from my denomination visiting church leaders in Eastern Europe. In this small village which still showed the signs of war on almost every house, we were met by about 10 people who had gathered together a small lunch which obviously took much of their resources since they were very poor. I still remember their sandwich of egg salad which was made with love for these fellow Christians who had come so far. I remember praying with them and only after a few hours listening to their stories with the help of a translator we felt we had known one another for years.

Over my 28 years as Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Muncie, we made over 25 mission trips to a small village in the Yucatan of Mexico. At the end of every week the people of the village of Xocenpich would throw a fiesta with all kinds of Mexican treats.

Without question, most of the meals I have eaten in my life I can’t remember at all. It’s challenging–in fact for me to remember a good deal of anything I have eaten within the past seven days. But I have the distinct impression, however, that if I hadn’t eaten some good meals over the duration of my life, I wouldn’t be here right now.

What are your most memorable spiritual experiences?

One could be joyful while another traumatic. One might happen in a quiet chapel while you were alone, while another might be with hundreds of other people at Vatican Square in Rome or in a gospel sing at your church. Sometimes God’s Spirit comes into our lives as a lightning bolt while for others it felt more like waking up to the realization that you are deeply loved by a God that will never let you go.

Truly memorable spiritual experiences are wonderful. But for many people they are few and far between.

What keeps us spiritually alive? Daily prayer, moments of silent meditation are essential. Reading the Bible even when it feels like we aren’t learning anything new will often bring new insights when we least expect it.

It’s challenging to remember specific discoveries from most of our most memorable feedings. But we get the distinct impression that unless we make time day by day to feed our inner spiritual world we would have starved a long time ago.

Throughout this fall season, our bodies will faithfully remind us every day that we need to eat.

May we also heed the more subtle pangs of spiritual hunger that God faithfully sends our way.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Champions”

On a wintry morning in 1956 a riding instructor named Harry de Leyer drove from his farm in Long Island four hours to Pennsylvania to a horse auction. Every Monday as many as 300 horses were auctioned at this auction. Harry had hoped to purchase a gentle horse that could become a training horse for his students.

The auction attracted a plethora of horses. Some of the horses were purebreds. They fetched the big bucks. Some were animals that needed to be trained. Others simply needed to be loved. By mid-day the auction would be over and every horse would be sold.

The last bidder was always the Kill Buyer. He would pay bottom dollar for animals no one wanted. They would be crowded into a truck and sent to the slaughterhouse where they would become pet food or boiled into glue.

On his way to Pennsylvania, Harry’s old car struggled through the snow and blew a tire. By the time he arrived the auction was over. The only horses left were being loaded into the truck to head for the slaughterhouse.

Harry still hoped his long ride was not in vain. Maybe there was a horse he could find in the Kill Truck. The driver was in a hurry but Harry was drawn to an underfed, overworked plow horse covered with mud and manure. He was a grey horse with kind eyes but was missing a shoe, had cuts on his knee and he had been rubbed on his back by a harness.

How much for the grey horse in your truck? “$80 and he’s yours,” said the Kill Truck driver.

When the neglected horse arrived at the de Leyer farm, Harry was captivated by the grey coat against the background of falling snow. He looked like a snowman and Snowman became his name.

Snowman proved to be gentle, especially around children. But he wouldn’t stay in the fence. He jumped numerous fences. Even after building a high fence they thought could corral Snowman, he proved he was capable of real talent for jumping. Gradually, it dawned on the Dutch horse trainer that this might be an extraordinary animal. The horse never again left Harry’s side. He began to train him for jumper events.

People laughed out loud when the old grey plow horse walked alongside the best of the best at the Open Jump Championships in 1958-just two years from being rescued from the Kill Truck. He was named the American Horse Jump Association Horse of the Year in both 1958 and 1959.

Snowman became a celebrity. He was featured in Life Magazine and was on The Tonight Show with Jonny Carson. Along the way he never lost his love for children.

Who knew that for a mere $80 Harry de Leyer had rescued one of the greatest jumpers in equestrian history?

In a similar way God has rescued us from the slaughterhouse. The Apostle Paul minces no words: “God rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption of sin.”
(Colossians 1:13-14)

Many of us are put off by the notion we need to be rescued. But once we have spent some time living under God’s leadership, our lives reflect hope instead of cynicism, grace instead of exasperation, and peace instead of trying to control everything-only then will we grasp the understanding that when God looked at us covered with spiritual mud and scars He didn’t turn us away.

Instead, He saw in us what we were always meant to be: Champions.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“The Mystery of Suffering”

We are seeing some suffering all over the world from COVID-19. But we are also seeing incredible events from nature that are causing people additional strife. The wildfires that are raging in the west are taking a human toll and an environmental toll as firefighters seem to lose ground daily. Then off in the Gulf of Mexico another hurricane heads for Louisiana.

Other tragedies remind us of how unforgiving nature can be. The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 took 227,000 lives. Towering waves, some over 100 feet high fanned out across the Indian Ocean crashing into the coastlines of 14 countries.

In all of these tragedies including the victims of this Pandemic we look for answers. Who is at fault? Ananda Guruge, a Buddhist teacher suggested that those who perished in 2004 were paying the price of accumulated demerits in this life or past ones. Nadadur Vardham, president of the Hindu Temple Society of Southern
California declared, “We all believe too many people were doing too many bad things.”

A number of American televangelists likewise see disasters as the direct consequence of personal sin.

How might Jesus land on this issue? We have a pretty good clue based on a famous exchange in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus and his disciples encounter a blind beggar. This man has been unable to see from the day of his birth. It was par for the course in the first century Judaism to speculate on the source of such heartbreak. There were two primary options: either the man’s parents had sinned (and their son had to pay the price), or the man himself had somehow sinned before birth. Perhaps God knew he was going to grow up to be a whale of a sinner and decided to punish him in advance.

“Teacher who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus doesn’t check either box. He offers a third option.

“You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do”. (John 9:3)

When something disastrous happens-like a tsunami, a wildfire, a hurricane, a pandemic, or an economic collapse-we can look back and try to figure out why it all happened. We will almost inevitably end up wallowing in our own ignorance.

Or we can do what Jesus does. We can look forward. Instead of asking “Why did this happen?” we can ask, “What happens next? With God’s help, where do we go from here?

In John Chapter 9, Jesus doesn’t use the blind man to teach a graduate course on the reasons for suffering—–He Heals him.

Why has God allowed 2020 to become so painful for so many people? We haven’t been granted access to the fullness of that mystery. But there’s something we do know–Followers of Jesus have seldom had a more remarkable opportunity to be his hands and feet to help others in need.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Never Give Up–Pick Up a Brick”

In 1834, the British philosopher, John Stuart Mill approached his friend Thomas Carlyle with a proposition. Mill had signed a contract to write a history of the French Revolution. But he had over-committed himself to other work.

Would Carlyle be interested in taking on the project, along with its handsome payment? Carlyle and his wife were barely making ends meet. He embraced the project passionately.

After completing the sweeping first volume of his literary tour de force, Carlyle brought his one and only manuscript to Mill. Would he be willing to read it and make suggestions?

Mill was delighted. But he absentmindedly left the manuscript at the home of another friend, where the maid-who could not read-used it to start a fire in the fireplace. A few charred strips of paper were all that remained of Carlyle’s masterpiece. And in 1834 handwritten documents weren’t exactly backed up by the Cloud.

Mill was beside himself with shame and grief. Carlyle took the news surprisingly well, at least when Mill told him what had happened. He didn’t want to add to his friend’s despair. But inwardly, he felt his world had come to an end. All that work. Irreplaceable investments of time and research. Nothing left but ashes.

Carlyle later said, “I remember and can still remember less of it than of anything I ever wrote with such toil. It’s gone.”

Some days later Carlyle found himself watching a brick mason building a wall. The work was ponderous. But the wall grew. One brick at a time. Carlyle concluded he could do the same. He restarted the project.

“The French Revolution: A History” was published in 1837. It is a Carlyle masterpiece and has been continuously in print for almost 200 years.

With the current pandemic it may seem as if one of your deepest dreams is in ashes today. A cherished relationship. Your health. Your family’s future. Your confidence in God. The Bible teaches us that hope is often most visible at the place of despair.

Will your story end in hopelessness, despair and futility?

Don’t for one moment ever give in to despair.

Pick up a brick. Start again. Christians have been doing that for over 2000 years.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain