The Wedding!

Saturday was an exciting day for the Frost family. We witnessed the most touching ceremony uniting in marriage our son Alan with Sheila Neely. (It was my honor to be the "officiant" of the wedding.) Then, we celebrated the rest of the night with a wonderful collection of family and friends. Maybe I'll have more to say later about the many beautiful aspects of the wedding, but for now, a few pictures:




Alan eagerly waiting for his beautiful bride to arrive. Proud father of groom is to the left.







Sheila on her way to meet her groom.







"You may kiss the bride!"



In addtion to Alan and Sheila, there were seven other couples in attendance whose weddings I had performed. What an honor to be with all of them again!

Quiet and Pirates

Things have been pretty quiet on this blog, and they're about to become more quiet. My daughter Caren and her husband Jason are in town for an all-too-rare visit. We are all leaving for Chicago tomorrow for the wedding of Sheila Neely and my son Alan. I love all of you who read this blog, but not as much as I love spending time with my kids. So, if I have a chance to post over the next few days, I will. If not, check back early next week and I'll tell you about the most amazing wedding ever.

We saw Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest last night. You know that you're not enjoying a movie when you're praying, "Please don't let there be another plot twist, because that will lengthen this turkey another twenty minutes, minimum." And to think: to get into the theater to see Pirates, we had to walk right past the theater showing Snakes on a Plane. What a blown opportunity!

Of Specks and Logs and Coffee Pots

The following Post-it^® note recently appeared on the coffee maker in the church kitchen:

TO THE PERSONS MAKING COFFEE: IF YOU MAKE COFFEE, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TURNING OFF THE COFFEE MAKER. PLEASE REMEMBER TO IT OFF.

Being a smart aleck, I contemplated placing another note underneath it:

TO THE PERSONS PUTTING NOTES ON THE COFFEE MAKER: IF YOU WRITE NOTES, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR COMMUNICATING CLEARLY. PLEASE REMEMBER TO ALL THE WORDS YOU INTENDED TO SAY.

I didn't post it (well, except for here on the internet for billions of people to see). It just illustrates again how easy it is to remind others of their oversights, while minimizing our own.

P.S. - I'm not the one who left the coffee maker on. At least I'm pretty sure I didn't. I think I remembered to turn it off...didn't I?

The Battle Hymn of...Michigan?

Most schoolkids in Michigan know that Michigan, My Michigan is our unofficial state song. It's sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, which also happens to be the tune for Maryland, My Maryland and Florida, My Florida (OK, Maryland was first; Michigan and Florida are copycats). The first verse, which is the only one anyone remembers, goes thus:

Home of my heart, I sing of thee!
Michigan, My Michigan,
Thy lake-bound shores I long to see,
Michigan, my Michigan.
From Saginaw’s tall whispering pines
To Lake Superior’s farthest mines,
Fair in the light of memory shines
Michigan, my Michigan.

The original version, written by Winifred Lee Brent in 1862, drones on for nine more tedious verses. In them Brent, the wife of a Civil War surgeon, speaks of the glorious, if bloody, victories won by Michigan's troops over the enemies of freedom and equality. Truth be told, Maryland, My Maryland was written a year earlier and shamelessly glorified the Confederate cause, so Brent probably penned her song to even the "score" (pardon the pun).

With our state song so poignantly proclaiming our willingness to shed blood for such a righteous cause, you would expect modern-day Michigan to be a mecca of racial harmony. Instead, white flight over the past 40 years has made Detroit the country's blackest major city and rendered Southeast Michigan the most racially-segregated metropolitan area in the nation.

Maybe we need a final verse that reflects current reality:

We whipped the Rebs' butts all day long,
Michigan, My Michigan.
'Cause we were right and they were wrong.
Michigan, My Michigan.
We put an end to slavery,
But not to our own bigotry.
We've moved out of Detroit city
In Michigan, My Michigan.

If Only It Were This Easy!

Headline: Prohibitively High Rocket-Fuel Prices Bring Mideast Crisis To Standstill

Out or In?

While riding my bike today at Lake Erie Metropark, I saw a group of teens at the beach volleyball court. They weren't playing volleyball. Their body language indicated an argument in progress. As I pedaled past, one of the kids yelled out, "Hey, mister! That was out, wasn't it?" By this time, I was well beyond the court, but I turned and yelled over my shoulder, "No, it was definitely in!" I couldn't understand the words of his reply, but the tone of his voice indicated that my opinion wasn't really appreciated. Of course, neither his question nor my reply were meant to be taken seriously. To have the right to call balls in or out, I would have had to stop, get off my bike and get sand in my shoes. I would have had to have gotten involved in the game.

As a Christian, I believe that there are moral boundaries that are just about as absolute as the lines on a volleyball court. And as a preacher, I must faithfully proclaim what is "in" and what is "out" according to God's word. But I wonder how often I do that while I'm zooming past the field of play, completely uninvolved in the action or in the lives of the players. And I wonder how often my pronouncements seem to my hearers to be no more relevant than my on-the-fly "call" on the volleyball court. You see, to have meaningful input into peoples' lives, you have to be willing to stop, get some sand in your shoes and get right in the middle of their struggles. Jesus had a few choice words for those who presumed to judge others from a distance without caring enough to be involved in their struggles: "Woe to the teachers of the law and the Pharisees! They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." (Matthew 23:4) Twice in his ministry, in the face of overzealous self-appointed referees, Jesus quoted the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."

I believe that I am called to stand for biblical truth and morality. But I believe the call of Jesus goes way beyond merely playing referee as I cruise on down the road. I recall the time the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. "Hey mister," they asked, "she's 'out,' isn't she?" Jesus stopped, got right in the middle of the action--right down in the sand--and identified with her hurt, her guilt and her shame. Then, he called all of her accusers "out" and there was no arguing his call. "Who is it who calls you 'out'?" Jesus asked. And there wasn't anyone left. In my ministry, I want not so much to call people "out" as to call them "in" to the love of a merciful and gracious Savior.

Pain and Joy

Last week, we were in Santa Monica, California to attend a memorial gathering for our foster son, Bruce Shaffer (pictured at right), who took his life a year ago. I'm glad we went. Maybe you think that such a trip would be filled with pain and sorrow. Yes, there were tears. Bruce's suicide was just the latest in a life puncuated by tragic events. We mourned for him and grieved over our mutual loss. But there were smiles and laughter and lots of love and warmth too. In between the tragic events of Bruce's life, there were times of great joy. All of us who had a part in his life were able to share our joy at having known him.

All children are unique mixtures of pain and joy. They are conceived in joy and born through pain. You cannot be a parent without signing up for hurt, worry, conflict, heartache and grief. But it's not all pain; there are some pretty incredible joys embedded in the experience as well. We paid a heavy price for bringing Bruce into our lives. He hurt Cheryl and me. He hurt our biological children. He cost us dearly, both financially and emotionally. At the memorial gathering, there were lots of others who had paid dearly for their emotional investment in Bruce. But the overriding tone of the gathering was neither bitterness nor outrage. Was it because the joy Bruce brought us was so much greater than the pain? I can't say that for sure; I don't know how to weigh such things. I do know that we all owned and embraced both the pain and the joy, and God made it into a good--and healing--thing.

I'm leaving tomorrow for a quick trip to Cincinnati to be reunited with Tina Sherman, another of our foster kids. Tina's youngest sister, Jackie was killed in a tragic auto accident last week, and I'll be conducting the funeral. It will be good to be with Tina and her family again. But my heart breaks for their loss. Pain and joy, mixed together once again.