Living with life’s adversities

We buried my father in law in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. He was, by profession, an electrical engineer. By hobby, he had been an avid backpacker, with his favorite trips taking place in the Sawtooth Mountains.

He was a music lover and sang in his church choir for over 50 years, and a Boy Scout leader for his two sons’ troops. He was the most industrious person I ever knew, always finding, designing, and executing a project — from turning the wet muddy yard (rare in Boise) in the house they bought 50-plus years ago into a yard a professional landscaper would envy, complete with a running brook, to making cabinets, to the little yellow chair he designed for his first child (my husband) that could not be turned over no matter what angle the child climbed into it (through the years, he built a few more for his grandchildren).

He designed and (with our help) installed his own underground sprinkler system in the family cabin in the mountains. All this impressed me when I first knew him, but it was his later life that spoke to something in me that I have often seen in other people and even in whole cultures.

He’d had a stroke about seven years ago and that left him a little bit lame on one side. Parkinson’s disease left him even more lame and gave him a shaky hand. He eventually had to use a scooter at the cabin, where there was a rougher terrain.

Many people, at that stage of infirmity, would take up whittling or something less physically taxing. Still, he loved working outside and so he designed and installed a trailer hitch on his scooter so he could still carry lumber and tools around. He enjoyed his life until his illnesses overcame his bodily life. His life speaks to me of the tenacity of the human spirit.

Ecclesiastes 3: 9-14 says, “9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.”

Eternity is set in the hearts of people, according to Qohelet (often translated as “the Teacher” or “the Preacher,” but neither is quite accurate), and there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live with satisfaction.

While my father in law could find ways to enjoy his life and to carry on with it and be satisfied with his work, as Qohelet says, even in the midst of infirmity — making adjustments for his failing physical health — he nonetheless had a privileged life. There are many more who find ways to enjoy their lives even under dire circumstances and even oppression.

Consider, for example, Gee’s Bend. Located in a sharp bend of the Alabama River, Gee’s Bend has a long history of poverty, isolation and racism. In recent years, however, it has become famous for the quilts the women made. They made them out of old clothing and scraps of cloth that were too small to use for much of anything and used them as things like horse blankets and floor coverings. That is, until the quilts were discovered as one of the last, purest forms of folk art.

Called, “Ugly Quilts,” these former horse blankets are now prized and preserved in museums because they speak for the history of the women who made them — women who got together to quilt and forge out a life and a community with few resources and they created a style all their own.

Consider, also, German theologian and author Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was caught in a plot to assassinate Hitler during WW II. Bonhoeffer struggled with the ethics of killing a man — even one who did such evil — but had concluded that, in the end, many more lives would be saved as a result.

Imprisoned with fellow Christians, they were denied access to Scripture and means to worship. Nonetheless, they managed to worship the Living God even in the midst of prison and to keep each other encouraged.

Of course, access to bread was any they got for dinner and wine was out of the question. Still, one time as they worshiped, they pantomimed the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup of Holy Communion. They were at one with Christ and one with each other and one in ministry to the world — even without the physical elements of bread and wine.

There may be a saying that, “you can’t keep a good man down,” but really the saying should go, “You can’t keep a good God from being eternal.” If the women of Gee’s Bend can make something from nothing and if Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his fellow Christians can worship under lock and key, then it’s easy to see how my father in law could make a trailer hitch for a scooter and to never give up living.

I pray that I, and any reader of this column, can also remember the words of Qohelet in Ecclesiastes and to enjoy God’s gift of being happy and enjoying ourselves as long as we live — until we see God face to face.

Sally Oakes is pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church, 607 Rivers Road, Fayetteville, GA 30214. Phone: 770-964-6999 or 770-964-6992, or e-mail bethanymnc@bellsouth.net.