Over the Summer, I edited three volumes of poetry, namely, The Book of Ruth: The Courting Begins, The Book of Ruth: Courting In The Minnesota Valley of Tears, The Book of Ruth: The Courting Never Ends. I also copyrighted them with the United States Copyright Office.
Thr first volume began in December of 2011 as I was recovering from a MRSA infection and awaiting a second left hip replacement The poems were my Christmas present to Ruthie. It just continued to grow from there to its present form.
If there is a common theme between all of these poems it is encountering God in my lifelong relationship with my wife, Ruth.
For those who have followed this blog over the summer months, you may have read some of the new poems that I have written.
Last night, I composed a Preface for the new collection of poems. What follows is that Preface.
“On June 13, 2019, I had my retirement open house. On June 24th, I went to the New Prague Times to do interview on my retirement and upon completing the interview fell down the front steps of the building breaking my left ankle. On June 28th, I had the first surgery on my left ankle. On July 1st, I officially retired from active paid church ministry. On July 12th, I had the second surgery on my left ankle. On September 6th, I had the third surgery on my left ankle. On October 4th, with the aid of a walker, I walked for the first time since June 24th. As I write this, the healing of the surgical incision is still a work in progress. The circulation in my left leg is not good, a result of the numerous surgeries and MRSA infection back in 2011. With the same incision being opened three times, it is taking some time to completely heal over. There is still just a small part not yet healed, and that part, I discovered today has an infection. Here I go again …
I give this chronology of events to illustrate that I had plans for my retirement from full time ministry and it did not include hopping around on my right foot from bed to bathroom to chair to bathroom to bed for fifteen weeks. For some reason, beyond my comprehension, God apparently had other ideas for my retirement. This is not to say that God deliberately tripped my feet up as I was descending the front steps at the New Prague Times Building on June 24th. But, all the activities to which I had been looking forward were altered far beyond anything I could have planned or imagined.
Our lives are shrouded in mystery. To use the image of Psalm 23 of walking through the Valley of Death, I was unaware of the walking, or in my case, the lack of walking beginning my retirement. As Rabbi Harrold Kushner expressed so well in his book, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, God never says we will never experience suffering. Rather, God tells us that we will not suffer alone. God will walk with us through our suffering.[1]
I hesitate to use the words “God’s plan for me” because it implies a life of fatalism in which there is no human choice. God allows us to experience life: our loves, our sorrows, health, illness, joys, thanksgivings in all its manifestations. Contained within all these experiences is God’s grace. Sometimes, especially in those joyful times of our lives, God’s grace is easily seen and experienced. However, sometimes God’s grace is deeply hidden within the experience, especially true with the hard and painful experiences. The volumes of poetry in which I chronicle my life with Ruthie is my way of trying to part the mist of mystery in which to find God’s grace in my life.
I believe life is comprised of periods. The first period is that of our birth and the first five years in which we begin to learn to navigate the world around us. Our parents and family assist us in that navigation. The second period is comprised of our school years, in which we acquire “book knowledge” and other skills that continue to expand our knowledge of the world. While our parents remain a big part of our lives, we begin to explore, on our own, the world. We explore our interests and seek the knowledge we need for a career. The third period is using the skills we have learned to make a living at a job or career. Subsets during this period may be seeking a spouse/life-partner, raising a family, and continuing to pursue those interests that enrich us. The fourth period may be called “retirement” in which the busyness of our lives slows, giving us the opportunity to reflect over our past and looking for those significant events in which God has touched our lives with profound grace.
I have found the most significant times in which God’s grace is found are those times of great stress, illness, and physical, mental, and spiritual suffering. Scripture familiarizes us with many stories of God’s paradoxical habit of shaping people’s lives for the better in the worse of circumstances. As Paul of Tarsus notes in his second letter to the Corinthians, it is at our weakest and most vulnerable moments in our lives in which God’s grace is most profound. “[The Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:9-10, New Revised Standard Version Bible)
As I begin this fourth volume of poems, I have had fifteen weeks of essentially “sitting on my butt” reflecting on God’s grace in the past, and trying to ascertain God’s grace in the present. This volume of poems will continue to grow as I reflect on God’s presence in past events and attempt to seek God’s presence in the here and now. I believe God to be more immanent rather than aloof and transcendent. God is Emmanuel, “God with us.”
One thing that will always be consistent in my life’s story, is the immanent presence of God in my bride, Ruth. As I have said on numerous occasions, she is the greatest experience of God for me. In her embrace, I feel God embrace me. From her lips I hear God say, “I love you! I forgive you.” From her body, I have witnessed the creation of the world as she gave birth to our children. After all, this collection of poems is entitled: “The Book of Ruth.” Perhaps these poems will help readers reflect on the presence of God in their lives.
Robert Charles Wagner
November
12, 2019
[1] The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-Third Psalm, by Harrold Kushner, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2003. See Chapter Eight for an expanded discussion of this.
