It was six years ago at this moment that I was pulling into Williamsburg. I've been thinking about this a lot because six years ago, March 31 was a Saturday as well, and the next morning would be my first as pastor of St. Stephen. Our daughter, Emily was a senior in high school, and I would live with Patty's parents for the next 10 weeks, until Emily's graduation, when she and Patty would be moving down here.

In the morning of March 31, 2001 I watched the dress rehearsal of a performance of "Godspell" at the church I was leaving. The youth performance would happen the next morning. Emily was one of the players and Patty was music director. I said goodbye to them and to the youth, and got in the car alone for the drive to Williamsburg. What a strange feeling! That night Patty's parents were to be out at a party, so I knew there would be no one at the house. So, first thing into town I stopped at the church to unload my boxes of books from the car into my office (the office that has since been torn down for the addition that now stands). It was dark. A key to the office had been left in my mailbox in the hall, but I couldn't find the light switch! After much fumbling around, I got the office door open and turned on a light inside the room which gave me enough light to get the boxes into the building. Then I went to my home-for-10-weeks. Again, what a strange feeling -- of excitement at a new beginning and homesickness already for my family.

Easter was several weeks later in 2001 than it is this year. As Easter approached, so many people talked of family members who would be gathering, and they asked if my family would be here for the weekend. "No," I said. "Emily wants to be at her home church for Easter." I was left with envy for families that were gathering together. I remember feeling very lonely on the way "home" following the Good Friday service. But as I walked into the house I heard, "Hi, Dad." It was my son, Nathan! He was a student at Mary Washington College, and had thought to surprise me with a visit for the weekend. How thoughtful! What a grown-up thing to do! It's a wonderful thing to watch your kids grow up to be thoughtful, caring adults. What a joy.

How can it be that six years have flown past?

The boxed set of Bruce Hornsby's music, Intersections, is simply astonishing.

For a few years, in the late-1980s, Bruce was hot commercially, producing a string of hits. (It's surprising how many hits he had!) Then the public's musical taste moved on. For a while, that bothered him, because he wasn't selling as many records as he had. But, he told me a few years ago, he finally stopped worrying about trying to please a fickle record-buying public. Instead, he decided to simply work on his craft.

That's why the music on Intersections is astonishing. Nearly all of the 53 songs in the set are live. (For those who want to hear the hits exactly as they sounded, there's a DVD included of the 1980s videos made of those hits.) But his playing from more recent years shows that his musicianship is far better now than it was when the public was in love with him! And, since he's not worried about selling records, his music has become beyond classification. He was a classically-trained piano perfomance major in college, and some of the selections on Intersections are classical -- almost. His various arrangements turn many of his hits into jazz -- almost.

Maybe I can describe it in this way: Bruce plays rock and roll from the foundation of classical training, and, in the performance, the songs stretch out with jazz-like improvising. His band is full of incredibly accomplished musicians who are able to play off each other like a jazz band does. But there are also many solo pieces in the set. And there are songs Bruce plays with the Grateful Dead, with the Nitty Gritty Dirt band and Ricky Skaggs (bluegrass), with Branford Marsalis (one of the best working saxophonists today); there's even one track of Bruce playing free jazz with the legendary Ornette Coleman!

Intersections is a collection of tracks from a unique, highly accomplished and simply astonishing musician.

Some readers of this blog do not receive the St. Stephen newsletter, so here's the column I wrote for the month of April. (In months to come, you can read it by going to the St. Stephen home page (www.saintstephenlutheran.net), clicking on "Our Church" and then "Quill newsletter"!

Are You Radical Enough To Be Living The Christian Life?

In Luke’s version of the Easter story, on that morning, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women tell the fearful, disbelieving (male) apostles that Jesus has been raised from the dead! That Easter witness begins the Christian faith.

When you look for it then, you see that the rest of the New Testament is full of stories and teachings, revealing how the ancient Church worked out what it means to live as followers of the risen Christ.

Simply put, it’s a life that is radical in the extreme. It’s a life of embodying God who is love, of praying for your enemies, of turning the other cheek when someone hits you, of giving special attention and care to the poor and those who are oppressed, of humility, of withholding judgment, and on and on. The New Testament is full of stories and teachings that call us to live according to values counter to our American culture. To illustrate, here is one of my favorite teachings. It’s a quite obscure verse from James: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.” This does not mean that a Christian should not get angry! There certainly is justifiable anger. It is just that acting on anger almost never produces God’s righteousness. “Quick to listen!” “Slow to speak.”

Contrast that, for instance, to media that encourages anger! When I lived in Delaware, I sometimes listened to a Philadelphia all-talk sports radio station whose on-air personalities provoked controversy 24 hours a day, because that caused listeners to call in to rant and rave. (To me, it was comical because the intent to provoke anger was so transparent. But it was sad to see how easily people became angered.) I am convinced that the Virginia Gazette tries its best to stir up controversy in its “news” coverage – so lots of people will write or call in to the “Last Word” -- which sells newspapers because people want to read the juicy comments in the “Last Word.” It’s all very destructive to our community here in Williamsburg. On the national stage, political commentators such as Bill O’Reilly and Al Franken and Ann Coulter try their best to be as insulting as possible to those they disagree with. Politics is so poisoned that Republicans and Democrats who work too much with the other party run the danger of being punished in the next election by “true believer” voters.

How sad it is when those who call themselves Christians turn away from following the risen Christ, and allow themselves to be formed by the anger in our culture. It is a very radical thing to live the Christian life. Listen to another description of this, from Luther’s explanation, in the Small Catechism, of the Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Luther explains: “We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”

Read that second sentence again. Wow! How would that have changed the controversy, for instance, over the Wren Chapel cross?

We are nearing the end of our Lenten journey. We are pointing towards Easter. I pray our openness to the Spirit’s formation through the stories and teachings in the New Testament, the ancient Church’s witness of what it means to live as followers of the risen Christ.

Are you radical enough to be living the Christian life?

Ah, Marshall McLuhan revisited, this morning, along Jamestown Road.

The medium: a bumper sticker on a minivan that passed me while I was pedaling to work.

The message: "Get back on a bike," complete with an illustration of a bicycle.

Which I read -- while I was indeed on my bike.

But the person communicating the message was driving an internal combustion vehicle, and not riding a bicycle!

You do see the irony, don't you?

I've made a number of hospital calls in our new hospital with the new name (the Williamsburg Regional Medical Center) since being back to activity. Generally, I have been in a "pastor" mindset, there to bring care to the person in the hospital bed.

Yesterday's visit was different. I think it's because the person I was visiting had just been settled into a chair next to the bed, and I was there as the nurse worked with her to get the phone and call button within reach. It made me remember, vividly, the days when it was a major physical triumph to "walk" the two steps to a chair next to my bed (helped by two nurses). Then, in the chair, before the nurse left the room, I remember how important it was to have everything I needed within reach -- because I couldn't just jump up to get what I needed! So, in my conversation with the parishioner I was visiting, I was there as pastor. But I was also in the mindset of a patient.

That continued, as I walked out of the hospital after the visit -- past the waiting area where I've spent time waiting to be called, for chest x-rays and C-T scans, and past the other waiting area where I've spent time waiting to be called for blood work. Yesterday afternoon, I felt very glad that I wasn't at the hospital for those purposes!

I don't remember much about the overnight I was hospitalized at the "WRMC." Patty has told me where my room was, on the third floor, and where my ICU room was. She has told me about the night she stood there and watched the paramedics transfer me into an ambulance to take me to Sentara Norfolk General, and about the ICU nurse who decided to ride along in the back with me, because their patient census was low that night. (Unfortunately, Patty does not know who that nurse was -- it was such a stressful evening that she just didn't pick up the name! -- so I cannot offer my thanks for going beyond the call of duty. It did show how worried they were about me.)

I haven't yet made a call to a parishioner in either of "my" hospital rooms. Sometime, I surely will. I wonder how that will affect me?

Meanwhile, I do hope to make hospital visits in a dual mindset -- that of pastor, and also that of someone who's been a patient, so that I might be more alert than I would be otherwise to the needs that are beneath the words that are spoken.

I don't know about you, but I don't like this earlier-than-usual move to daylight savings time. At this time of year, I really like getting up with the bird chorus -- the 10 or 15 minutes before dawn when the birds celebrate with their singing the coming of a new day! But with the time change, when the alarm goes off at 6:00 AM, I'm up before the birds!

A friend and I got out on our bicycles today (well after the sun had risen). We took the ferry across the James River, to the rural roads in Surry County. The total ride was 36 miles, by far the farthest I've ridden since being sick. We averaged just under 13 miles per hour, so I'm a couple of mph below the pace for a bike club ride Not bad, at this point. My thighs are complaining a little bit. But the good news is that my breathing is entirely clear! I can take deep breaths without coughing! That's still new enough to be a novelty. I think that histoplasmosis was with me for a long, long time before it finally caused the respiratory crisis.

I was struck by some sentences in yesterday's meditation, in the Henri Nouwen Lenten devotional booklet that many of us are using:

"The relationship between Jesus and the Father is so intimate it is like breathing. God offers this same intimacy to you and me, breathing love into us and with this breath inspiring us to breathe love to others. This is intimacy with God.

"...That is why the Holy Spirit is such a gift to you. The Spirit is God's breath, bringing you into intimate communion. God, by the Spirit, dwells in you and makes a home in you."

The image of breath and God's presence in breath takes on profound meaning for someone who has survived a disease of the lungs! During the darkest days of my hospitalization (when I was not aware of what was happening), the ventilator was set at times at 100% oxygen -- a level that was necessary because I was in such critical condition, but a level that cannot be maintained for long without damaging a person's lungs. Think of the skill of those respiratory therapists who were working to keep me alive!

Then came the day when the therapists began working with me to wean me off the ventilator. That was a terrifying experience. My lungs had grown used to the machine breathing for me. When the therapists disconnected the machine, I felt as if I was suffocating. And so, the first couple of days, I begged them to put me back on after only short periods. The turning point for me came as I was describing what I felt to one of my nurses, and she said that's what it was supposed to feel like -- suffocation! "Be strong," she said. "You aren't going to suffocate, even though you feel that way. Your lungs will again become used to breathing on their own."

On Thanksgiving Day, Pastor Cheryl Griffin came in to visit me. I will never ever forget this. One of the things she read to me was Eugene Peterson's version of the 23rd Psalm, including this paraphrase of one of the verses: "You allow me to catch my breath." Electrifying! Only days earlier I had become free of the machine that breathed for me! I was, indeed, able now to catch my own breath!

God is closer to us than our own breath. What intimate presence. Don't take a single breath for granted.

Ah, the vernal equinox. It's my favorite equinox. I even prefer it to either solstice! The vernal equinox, of course, marks the beginning of Spring, and there's nothing like Spring in Virginia.

The vernal equinox also means that we're getting close to Easter. As everyone knows, Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox.

Here's your second Easter trivia tidbit of the day, from Greek Orthodox priest, Gregory MacGregor: "The term Easter comes from the spring festival of Eastre, honoring the pagan goddess of fertility. She was symbolized by the rabbit, which is where the Easter Bunny started. Since the pagan festival fell at approximately the same time as the Feast of the Resurrection, the feast became commonly called Easter in the West, during the assimilation of pagans into Christianity."

Orthodox Christians shy away from honoring a pagan goddess and, instead, call the Feast of the Resurrection "Pascha." "The term Pascha comes from the Hebrew word pesah, a yearling lamb that was sacrificed at Passover....Christ is our Passover Lamb, who gave himself for the life of the world (1 Corinthians 5:7)."

Health update. Dr. Flenner called last night with the results of the latest C-T scan of my lungs. Darn it, the lungs aren't clear of the histoplasmosis as he hoped they would be. He said some areas that showed infiltrates back in the December scan are now clear -- but other areas that were clear in December show signs of the histo! Dr. Flenner said, "You shouldn't lose any sleep over it. It's just the nature of the disease." And it's the reason why I'm having to continue taking the anti-fungal medication for months and months.

Meanwhile, I feel good. My lungs feel more clear than they have in at least a couple of years. And I'm enjoying lots of energy. (My hemoglobin level is back to normal for the first time in months.) And I'm up over 80 miles on my road bike for the year, building up my muscle strength and aerobic capacity.

God my creator, my redeemer, my sanctifier, give me the eyes of faith to see your presence in all of life. To see the grace in waking up to receive the gift of a new day. The grace in the gift of another day with Patty. The grace in the physical ability to walk to the end of the driveway to get the newspapers. The grace of that terrible medicine I have to take each day. The grace of a cup of coffee and a few minutes for prayer. The grace of my colleagues in my work. The grace of your presence in those I encounter during the day. The grace in a conversation with a woman who will forget I was there as soon as I leave her room. The grace in another woman's story of overcoming her addiction. Give me the grace to take nothing for granted. Give me the grace to be thankful. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.

I hate to burn fossil fuels. For that reason, I've insisted that we live three miles or less from the church building of any congregation I've served. (Poor Patty!) That's so I could bicycle or walk as many days as possible. My favorite commute was in Wilmington, Delaware. Half of it was through the crown jewel of Wilmington's public parks, past the little zoo and along the banks of the Brandywine River. There's nothing like a historic urban park that's been well-maintained. I wish I could have moved that park to Williamsburg! I feel the same way about the 1910 house we lived in in Wilmington. (Houses of that vintage in Williamsburg were torn down by Colonial Williamsburg -- so they could replace true history with pretend historical buildings.)

It used to be, here in Williamsburg, that I could ride my bicycle when my day consisted of office work and hospital visits. I made many, many trips to the hospital on two wheels. Now, with the new location of the hospital, I have to turn an ignition key. So much for care of the earth.

What fun on my bicycle today! Actually, I had fun on both the bicycles I ride. I commuted to work on two wheels, and, early in the morning, I had gotten out on the road bike. Since Saturday I've put a little over 50 miles on the road bike. I'm a little short of breath after climbing a hill, and, since I'm still not entirely confident in my recovery, I wonder: "Is that the disease, still in my lungs?" I'm sure the answer is no! I'm just far from the shape I was in before I got sick.

Speaking of lungs, I was talking to one of our congregation members who is recovering nicely from a collapsed lung. The recovery was very slow at first, however. She was in our Williamsburg hospital. We talked about our common experience of being hospitalized for lung ailments -- in a hospital that does not have a thoracic surgeon! It's a little scary.

The shortage of nurses is even more frightening. My conversation partner told me that, since the hospital is so short-staffed, the nurses were necessarily spending time with those in more dire shape than she, and only infrequently checking into her room. I had the same experience at Norfolk General, once I got to a regular room. Actually, I was kept in the Progressive Ventilator Care Unit for several days past the point I had been released to go to a regular room -- but they had no rooms available that were staffed! And I'm glad now that I only spent two days in a regular room. On all shifts there, I was cared for by LPNs. There were several RNs on the floor, and regularly one would hear over the intercom, "A nurse is needed in room ____." Meaning: an RN was needed to do a procedure that only an RN is authorized to do. So the RNs spent their days traveling from room to room when they were needed.

According to the wife of one of my cousins -- who teaches in a nursing school in Boston -- the nursing shortage is not because there is a shortage of people who would like to be nurses. Instead, there are not enough nursing schools to train them! In our area, Paul Trible was a prince of a guy when he closed the nursing school at Christopher Newport University, wasn't he?

Hooray! A beautiful day, and a beautiful day to be out on a bicycle. I rode just over 20 miles this morning, and I feel pleasantly tired in my muscles. My lungs-breath-cardio system feel great. I've gotten back to the point where I'm ready for some serious riding. The Capital-to-Capital ride is May 5. (From the Colonial Capital to the state Capital and back.) Riding the entire route would be a century (100 miles). I'm going to aim at that!

This past Tuesday, I took to my appointment with Dr. Flenner a picture that Reed Nester had taken of my son, Nathan, and me, with our bicycles, in the little in-the-middle-of-nowhere town of Clairmont, VA. We were taking a break during a 45 mile ride. I said to Dr. Flenner, "You're helping me get back to this." He said, "Oh, you'll get there!" And then he said, "May I keep this?" I was pleased to give it to him. Doctors need reminders that their work has good results -- just like all of us do!

Boy meets girl. Usually, the first attraction is physical. Then, there is romantic infatuation. Then, with God's blessings, there grows a love that lasts. And the years go by. And the years bring health difficulties -- so boy and girl are called on to care for each other.

Patty took care of me for weeks, after I was released from the hospital. Now, she's suffering from a herniated disk which is pressing on a nerve that's attached to the sciatic nerve, so I'm getting to be the caregiver. (She says the pain is worse than childbirth. When I hear a woman say that I say, "Whoa!!")

Actually, this week has been better than last week, when she had to stay home. This week she's been able to move around so that she can go in to work at her teaching job at Walsingham. She's taking vicadin (sp?) for pain, when necessary, but some days she doesn't have to take any. Meanwhile, the doctor has prescribed for her a week's treatment of (ta-daa!) prednizone, to quickly reduce the inflammation. Prednizone, of course, is what caused the histoplasmosis to grow out of control in my lungs this past October, causing my respiratory crisis! When I got home from the hospital I threw the remaining pills away in horror. Just think: if I'd kept them around we wouldn't have had to buy any this time ...

Since it's Wednesday, two local newspapers were delivered this morning (the Gazette and the Daily Press) with screaming headlines about the Wren Chapel cross. The stories described the compromise reached by the College's committee studying the role of religion on a public university campus, which will result in the cross being displayed in a glass case.

But the cross is not the issue. That's obvious from what leaders of the "SaveTheWrenCross.org" website and "No Cross, No Cash!" campaign said, when they learned of the compromise. (I'm assuming the Gazette quoted them accurately. Considering the quality of "journalism" practiced by the Gazette, that's a big assumption.) These opposition leaders are predicting that there will be continuing animosity towards College President Gene Nichol. In fact, they are hoping there will be!

I wonder if the people the Gazette quotes call themselves Christian? They are certainly vociferous fighters in the culture wars. But Christians are called to a radically different way of life. Here is one place the Christian way of life is described: in Luther's teaching, in the Small Catechism, of what the Eighth Commandment means, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

Luther explains: "We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light."

Here is a subject for prayer: that all Christians, on both sides of the cross issue, would open themselves to formation by God the Holy Spirit, to treat each other in the way Luther describes, obeying the Eighth Commandment.

Health update: I had an appointment with Dr. Flenner today, and he was real pleased with how I'm doing. He listened to my lungs and said, "You're clear as a bell." (A mixed metaphor there, I think.) Of course, I had blood work and a urine test and I always do when I see him, and he'll have the results next week. I hope I'll hear that the histoplasmosis level is negligible, and that my kidneys are functioning well, etc.

He also scheduled another C-T scan for next week. That will help him see whether the disease is still retreating in my lungs.

He doesn't want to see me again for another three months!

My cousin, Michael, spent the night with us this past Sunday. He rides his bicycle as much as I do -- in fact he does a good bit of bicycle racing. He was eager to show me his brand new bike, with a carbon fiber frame, which makes it ultra-lightweight.

Serious bicyclists are fanatical about lightweight bikes. The thing is, all of us ride light bikes that are very light (even mine, with an old-fashioned steel frame). Some want to shave off even more weight. Past a certain weight, though, it becomes extremely expensive buying the types of frames and components that make that possible!

Why the passion for lightweight bicycles? Because the lighter it is, the less weight there is to pedal! One time, a bunch of us on a ride were talking about all of this during a rest break. I said, "You know, it would be easier to simply lose a few pounds off our bodies than to spend several thousand dollars for a new bicycle that weighs a few pounds less." One of the other riders said, "Which of those two would be easier? It'd be easier to write the check than to lose the weight!!"

All of which brings me to a realization. This past Saturday I got out on my road bike for the first time in months, and was surprised how easy it was to ride 11 miles. Why was that? Partly it's because I've been using an indoor exercise bike some, so I've been getting into shape. But the big reason, I'll bet, is because I weigh 10 pounds less than I weighed the last time I rode a long distance! It makes a big difference when I have 10 pounds less to pedal around!

I wouldn't recommend a major illness and hospitalization as the way to lose weight. But I've gained back about 20 of the pounds I lost, and I hope I don't gain back the final 10!

Yesssss! Yesterday was such a beautiful day, and it was the first time I got out on my road bicycle since I was sick.

I have two bicycles. I have a Bianchi, which is my dream commuting bike. And I have a road bike. That's one with the drop-down handlebars. That's the one I ride for serious mileage. (Last year, for example, I rode my commuting bike about 300 miles. I put about 2,000 miles on the road bike.)

I'm being very careful: I don't want to do any heavy breathing in air that's cooler than, say, 50 degrees. So I've only put about 14 miles on my commuting bike so far. Yesterday I rode a grand total of 11 miles. Last year was a down year for mileage because I lost the last three months. This year will be down, too, because I've lost the first two months. But yesterday, at least, I had a smile on my face!

Our new car got wet today, darn it! We'd gone nearly a week since picking it up this past Saturday without even the tires getting dirty.

We got rid of the mini-van. The kids are grown; there's no need any more to have a vehicle large enough to move a semester's worth of possessions off to college. Patty will have lots more fun driving a smaller car around town. And there was no reason to continue putting up with the mini-van's atrocious gas mileage.

When we were car shopping, I set a minimum standard of 30 mpg around town, and we ordered a manual transmission Pontiac Vibe that's rated right at 30. (36 on the highway.) The stick shift is for fun -- but we had to order one because the dealer doesn't sell any when they're in stock! Isn't that sad?

Anyway, there are two major motivations for getting a smaller gas-sipping car (besides the fun component!). One is to better care for God's creation. We'll still be spewing polutants into the air, but not nearly as many of them. The other motivation is patriotism. The less gasoline we consume, the less we'll be dependent upon oil producers who hate us.

Today is the one-month anniversary of my return to work! I know, February is a short month. But it counts! It is a bona fide month on the calendar.

Speaking of calendars, today I turned the page to March on my wall calendar from the Fountain Pen Hospital. The FPH is a shop in Manhattan. I've sent several fountain pens there for repair over the years, and bought a new pen this year. Last summer, Patty and I spent a few nights in Manhattan and I made her come with me to see the actual shop. It was like arriving at fountain pen Mecca! I bought two bottles of ink.

Anyway, my fountain pen wall calendar features one gorgeous pen each month, in luscious full color with an alluringly beautiful background. That's how weird I am (as if you didn't already know): Other guys have girlie pin-up calendars. I have a "pen-up" calendar ...