Have you ever had those situations you didn’t know what to do by virtue of the fact that you’ve never had to deal with that before?  I tend to have a lot of these situations in my life and its unfortunate.  In the summer of 2001 at the front  of our church property one Monday laid a gray cat, clearly dead and clearly rolled over by a car.  Evidently the driver of the car emerged from his or her vehicle and lovingly placed the cat off the road onto our property.

I asked my boss at the time what we should do with the body of dead cat, and he told me to let it stay there until Sunday (6 days away) or until the owner of dead cat came to save  the lifeless feline from being eaten by the birds of Fellowship Church.
That week happened to be 1)the week of VBS and 2)the hottest week of the summer, so all the kids who happened upon our campus complained about our lack of air conditioning in the buildings and that nasty smell emanating from dead cat.

Saturday rolled around along with another successful week of kids craziness and once again I asked my boss what I should do, to which he replied that I should “get rid” of dead cat and he should not be there the next morning.  “How should I get rid of him?” I asked, not familiar with the politics of ‘getting rid’ of koffin kitties, having rarely spent any time with pets as a child.  “I don’t care, just make it gone,” was his response, clearly feeling the same way I felt about dead cat.

So I walked to the back of our church and grabbed a heavy duty construction trash bag.  Then I walked slowly toward dead cat as if somehow it would jump up and attack me.  Oh yeah, I forgot the shovel.  I had a shovel in my other hand.

Dead cat was nothing, if it wasn’t heavy.  I got the shovel deep underneath the cat, and heaved it above the ground.  Then I had that awkward bag shuffle we sometimes do when we have something to place in a trash bag, but we don’t have two hands left to open the trash bag wide enough.  Do you know the awkward bag shuffle?  It frustrates me.  I have the awkward bag shuffle often now as I place Bruno’s (the dog Carie and I are currently dog sitting) dung in a plastic bag when he goes on Neighbor Michael’s lawn.  Just kidding.  He hasn’t gone on Neighbor Michael’s lawn…yet.

So after about 10 minutes of trying to fit dead cat into a bag, I then walked over the the dumpster and threw dead cat away, not realizing the impact this would have on dead cat’s human mother.

As you probably could have guessed (though in some world inside of my head I did not), dead cat’s human mother eventually came to me, showed me a picture, and asked if I had seen her cat.  Immediately I knew what had happened to her cat, and I inferred to her that I knew.  In shock, she brushed my words off as if it probably wasn’t her cat I had done that too.  I half-heartedly and like a politician agreed, saying that the possibility existed it was someone else’s cat, and that I could not be certain, but inside I thought to myself, I’m sorry maam, I threw your cat away about a week and a half ago.  If I was raised with animal common sense I would not have, but I don’t have any of that.

If it ever happens again though, I’ll be sure to give the deceased animal a funeral.

We’re going through a series in our church called “30 days to live.”  The main question for the series that we are asking:  If you had 30 days to live your life, how would you spend it?

It would appear that this has come absolutely true for one of our members, Stanley Urbanowicz.  Stan was an amazing guy who, in the year I’ve known him, poured so much of his life into mine.  Then this morning, he passed away to be with Jesus.  In his last 30 days, he couldn’t move much, or work hard, or see too many people, which made me ponder the above question a lot more.

Because if I had 30 days to live, would I even be able to spend it doing much of anything?  Would I be too sick or too tired or even too unmotivated?

The reality is that none of us know when we’re going to pass on.   God has given me a little bit of time and little bit of space in this world to do what He has enabled me to do, and it’s up to me to use my time now to accomplish those things.

But man, is it scary.  Watching someone pass on is a sure fire motivational tool for seeing your life differently, for scrutinizing what you should be doing as opposed to what you are doing.

There’s really no point to this post other than for you to know that Stanley Urbanowicz was an amazing man who loved Jesus and that his passing makes me celebrate his life and contemplate my own.

Thanks Stan.

I went to a viewing  tonight. 

It was for the grandfather of my friend, Jason and his brother, my new blogger friend Chris.  Their grandfather lived a full life, and was in his 90′s (I believe) when he passed away this last weekend.  But something struck me as I talked to them for only a brief moment – I had very little to say.

I reached out my hand  to them, and said “If there’s anything I can do for your family, please let me know.”  Earlier I had told Jason I would be praying for him and his family.  And those were the only words I had.  The night was certainly not about me, and they had a line of people talking to them, so I walked away after being there for only a short time and saying only these few short words.

As I drove away on this beautiful evening here in new England, I started questioning whether I was a very good pastor or not.  Shouldn’t I be loaded with good things to say at this time?  Shouldn’t I be able to tell them how it’s all good and God is good and everythngs going to be all right?  And while I certainly believe each of those things, I coudn’t bring myself to dig up the trite expressions of the positive person I am.  All I could say was, in essence, “I’m here for you.  Whatever I can do, just say my name.”

My heart was heavy thinking about it.  So I called up my own grandfather (not realizing the irony of it) in Indiana.  He’s been a pastor since 1964, and surely he’d tell me the things I should have said.  I told him of my plight, and of how I felt inept of my calling, and how I should have been able to say something else – something profound.

Unfortunately (or not) he told me I said the only thing you could say – an encouraging word.  “No need to expound on doctrine or rhetoric at that point, but just offer an encouraging word of prayer and/or scripture” In a sense, you can just be there for them.

So that’s what I am.  Here, for my friend if he needs it, and here if he’s doing good.  The point about friendship is that a friend is there for their friends.  Not necessarily profound or smart or good or cunning – but just there.

And so for all of my friends and family and church family and community – I’m here, even if that’s all I have to say.