It’s early Saturday morning. Christmas is not even two days gone and already things are changing.
Ginger drove out about an hour ago to take her parents back to Birmingham after their two weeks with us. Since the V. A. is going to provide Rachel with some money to pay for some home healthcare, Lola, our oldest (and least social) Schnauzer is staying here with us so new people can come and go from the house without fear of ankle bites. Gracie went back to Alabama to continue her role as Chief Lover of Reuben, which she does fabulously. Ella will now have to get used to having a sister. Reuben had good days and hard days here, yet all of them reminded us he is slowly slipping away.
My brother, who came home from the hospital last Monday after spinal cord surgery, ended up back in the hospital last night because spinal fluid was leaking from the incision. The last word I had was he will be operated on again this morning; I’m still waiting for further word about what the surgery will involve. His primary surgeon is now on vacation and another doctor is stepping in; what seemed to be going so well a few days ago now feels more complicated.
I’m not sure how long Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem (the stable would not have lent itself to a long term lease, I imagine), from the dawn following the chorus of stars and shepherds, when things had quieted down, the stunning reality of their new little one must have begun to sink in. They were still not married. They were still poor. They were still whatever they were – or weren’t – before the child was born and now they had a little boy. They had been fundamentally changed by the birth. Life could not be as it was, period.
When they got to the Temple with the baby and Anna and Simeon gushed about his being the salvation of the world, I wonder if it crossed the parents’ minds to ask, “Exactly how is that going to come down?” or “Does that mean life will ever be any easier for us?”
When Simeon tells Mary a sword would pierce her heart, Luke leaves her silent.
As the Christmas tide rolls in, I feel the undertow of life as well; both things are real and true. Simeon had waited his whole life to see Jesus. His whole life. And when the child showed up, he responded with unmitigated joy. I can’t find an ounce of “what took you so long” in his words. Anna was no different. Her husband had died young and she had lived, widowed, in the Temple for decades. For both of them, the waiting had nurtured their sense of wonder rather than suffocating it or turning it to bitterness or resentment or despair.
We waited all through Advent for Jesus to be born. He is here and we are still waiting. And we will keep waiting, even as the tide rolls in.
I missed blogging yesterday because I missed everything yesterday. Sunday night late I started throwing up and realized, as the fun continued through the night and into the morning, that food poisoning. Somewhere in the middle of last night, I realized it was over. For the last two days I have done little more than think about me. Tonight, I turned to some music to turn my thoughts to the bigger picture.
The first is an Emmylou Harris song from her album Light in the Stable. The song is called, “There’s a Light.” The video is not hers and some of the images are a little over the top, but the song is amazing.
There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness And the black of the night cannot harm us We can trust not to fear for our comfort is near There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness
It will rain it will rain in the desert In the cracks of the plain there’s a treasure Like the thurst of the seed we will await we believe It will rain it will rain in the desert
We will fly we will fly we will let go To this world we will die but our hearts know We’ll see more on that side when the door opens wide We will fly we will fly we will fly we will fly We will all go
The second song if from my favorite new album this season, Melissa Etheridge’sA New Thought for Christmas. I’ve been humming it for a couple of weeks now.
Windshields kissed with snow On this endless interstate Over the fields we go Laughing all the way We sing love, love, love It’s glorious
Friends and family near No more judgments no more fear All is calm all is bright Everyone will hold this light And sing love, love, love It’s glorious
Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly Believe in heavenly, in heavenly peace
I have heard the angels Sweetly singing o’er the plain And I’ve heard the mountains Echoing their sweet refrain They sing love, love Love, love, love It’s glorious
Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly Sleep in heavenly, in heavenly Believe in heavenly, in heavenly peace
The last song is one of my favorite renditions of one of my favorite Christmas songs: James Taylor singing “Go Tell It On The Mountain.” You know the words. Sing along.
I went to college in Waco, Texas where winter was more of an idea than a reality.
We had snow – significant snow – two or three times in my four years there, as well as a couple of ice storms. The events were such rarities that school was cancelled even though we all lived on campus and could have walked to class. On one of those afternoons I was walking across campus when I realized the person walking in front of me was the president of the university. He was by himself and he didn’t know I was forty or fifty feet behind him. While I watched, he stopped under a tree whose branches were encased in ice and tapped them with his closed umbrella, causing a noisy rain of icicles on the frozen sidewalk. Then he giggled and did it again.
I don’t know how often he let himself feel that kind of joy and wonder, but I loved that I got to see it happen that afternoon. The memory rose to the surface today because of Ginger’s sermon. She started by telling about a recent trip with her mother to see the Biltmore Mansion decorated for Christmas. She gave us a wonderful virtual verbal tour and ended up describing one of the ornaments that held the inscription, “Christmas brings out the child in all of us.”
“What if,” she asked, “we heard that statement as, ‘Christmas brings out the Child – the Christ Child – in all of us.”
And with those words, her sermon became a call to joy. She went on to quote Charles Spurgeon:
Besides, Christian, dost thou not know that it is a good thing for thee to praise thy God? Mourning weakens thee, doubts destroy thy strength; thy groping among the ashes makes thee of the earth, earthy. Arise, for praise is pleasant and profitable to thee. “The joy of the Lord is our strength.” “Delight thyself in the Lord and he will give thee the desire of thine heart.” Thou growest in grace when thou growest in holy joy; thou art more heavenly, more spiritual, more Godlike, as thou gettest more full of joy and peace in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. I know some Christians are afraid of gladness, but I read, “Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.” If murmuring were a duty, some saints would never sin, and if mourning were commanded by God they would certainly be saved by works, for they are always sorrowing, and so they would keep his law. Instead thereof the Lord hath said it, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice;” and he has added, to make it still more strong, “Rejoice evermore.”
Listening to the two of them I realized joy is a choice.
I’ve been a part of UCC churches for almost two decades. One of the folks in a previous church described our denomination by saying, “If Christianity were a neighborhood, we would be the last house on the left.” I love our address and (not but – and) I have to admit joy runs thin at our end of the block. We know about courage and resolve, inclusiveness and industriousness, transformation and tenacity. It dawned on me today that we know less about joy. Choosing to let the Christ Child run amok in our hearts chasing the balloons of the Spirit is not our default setting. We aren’t looking to be surprised by joy as much as we are working to live like Jesus. Isn’t it interesting that those could be two different things?
Perhaps joy is not an easy choice. Or, perhaps, we have to learn how to choose it. A group from church went caroling tonight and one couple was walking with Ginger and talking about the sermon. Claudia said she has reduced the sermon to three words: “Be the Baby.” She went on to tell how Suzanne had been reminding her of the sermon throughout the afternoon when she became judgmental or critical.
Be the Baby.
I worked at the restaurant tonight. I went back to the ice machine to get what I needed for my station and Ramon, one of my coworkers, was there. He works hard as a cook and also works hard on learning English, though, at this point, most of his vocabulary is still restaurant related. When I got to the back, he was filling a small bucket and he looked up, grinned, and said, “Ice, ice, baby,” and we both laughed. Ramon knows about choosing joy.
Towards the end of the evening, Abel, another coworker began singing loudly in Spanish, as he does every Sunday night was we start breaking down the line. He sings well and with gusto. Abel works with me at Duke also. As he began to croon, I called out, “Ramon!”
“Yes, Miton.” (When he says my name there is no “t.”)
“At Faculty Commons I have to put up with this everyday.”
“Everyday, Miton?”
“Everyday.” And we all laughed.
Be the Baby.
We are telling the story of how an unwed teenage girl gave birth to a baby in a barn behind a hotel that had no room – even for a pregnant woman — in a town faraway from her home and was then visited by all manner of people while she had hardly had a chance to clean up. And when we tell the story, we sing
Joy to the world, the Lord has come.
The entire story is shot through with joy from Elizabeth and Mary singing together to the angels telling the shepherds, “We bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people.”
After angels, perhaps knocking ice out of the trees or cracking jokes at the ice machine doesn’t seem like such great joy, but I think both choices created thin places for joy to break through and take hold in our hearts. Our hearts harden gradually as we choose to complain or judge. As Spurgeon said, “If murmuring were a duty, some saints would never sin.” Our calling, however, is not to make the world right but to help make the world whole, which means we must be moving toward wholeness ourselves, moving to be more like Jesus: to be the Baby.
I’m going to finish this post the same way we ended our service this morning, with “Love Came Down at Christmas.” The video I found is by Jars of Clay and shows Mary riding to Bethlehem on a pink unicorn. I think they understand.
You know she lived for years, many years after he left – and she moved from Galilee, following those who had pledged to care for her. Maybe it was easier to not live in the same land where he had parabled and miracled, healed and helped. After he was gone, they still came to town asking to see the house where he was born and she would have to tell them – again — they were in the wrong place. Maybe it mattered most to be with friends who knew the stories, who had lived through the glory and the grief, and yet, when they knocked on the door they asked, “What did you do today?”
I wish I could remember how I first heard of Kiva.org.
It was probably because someone took time to write or send an email telling me about micro loans and what they can do in developing countries. Kiva began because a couple, Jessica and Matt Flannery, listened to the voices that gathered around them. She heard Dr. Muhammad Yunus speak – he was the founder of the Grameen Bank, a pioneer in microfinance, and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. After a visit to Africa, the two began to talk about how they could bring together what they knew about the Internet, what they had seen in Africa, and what they believed could happen to make a difference in the lives of people around the world who live in poverty. You can read their story here. They said they came to three realizations:
We are more connected to the developing world than we realize. Even when he was in San Francisco and she in rural Africa seemingly worlds away, Matt could reach Jessica on her cell phone as though she were one block away. Distance means little in the world of communication today.
The poor are very entrepreneurial. While the profit margins may be very different, the spirit of entrepreneurship is as strong among the poor of the developing world as it is in Silicon Valley.
Stories connect people in a powerful way. As they listened to story after story of a fishmonger who needed enough money to buy directly from the fishermen at the lake, or a farmer who needed to buy a better breed of cow to produce more milk, Matt and Jessica knew that any of their friends back home would want to support these business ventures if they also heard their stories. With each story came a human connection as similarities were identified, making an African entrepreneur someone easier to relate to despite differences in language, culture or levels of wealth.
In March of 2005, they made their first seven loans, for a total of $3500, in Uganda. By September, those loans were repaid. Word began to get out and the organization began to grow exponentially. In March of this year – only three years later – Kiva loaned its 25 millionth dollar. Most of those loans are made $25 at a time.
Ginger and I made our first loan in March of 2007. I wish I could remember how we learned about it. We, along with several others, loaned our twenty-five bucks to Maria Guadalupe Martínez Magdaleno in Mexico to help her buy a cart so she could take the hamburgers and tacos she made at home to the nearby factories and thereby grow her business. She paid us back by September. We took the money and loaned it to Angela Kamenge in Tanzania to expand her poultry business. I’ve also taken some of the money from the sales of A Faraway Christmas to help Sok Nea open a grocery store in Cambodia and the Mastula Kagere Group who sell mattresses in Uganda.
My point is this: you can help. You can become a lender and help people all around the world. Pick the place, pick the kind of business that interests you, but please go pick one or twenty-seven of them and become a banker to the world. You can also give the gift of lending to someone else. Last December Kiva raised over two million dollars in gift certificates.
Change somebody’s world for twenty-five bucks. Where else are you going to get a deal like that?
In the midst of my waiting tonight, I began going through the first lines of songs I love and found this poem.
Index of First Lines
I pulled into Nazareth was feeling ‘bout half past dead I don’t want to hear a love song doctor my eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of tears headlights are flashing down the highway I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home a look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping when you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand keep a fire burning in your eye pay attention to the open sky you you along the road must have a code that you can live by you come a-walking with a scar on your soul taking too much too lightly you with the sad eyes don’t be discouraged there’s a river of sorrow in my soul don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by there are the ones you call friends there are the ones you call late at night another turning point a fork stuck in the road people get ready there’s a train a-comin’ you can play the game and act out the part baby I’ve been searching like everybody else in the middle of late last night I was sitting on a curb where have all my friends gone? they’ve all disappeared like a bird on a wire like a drunk in a midnight choir I will remember you will you remember me
when the road gets dark and you can no longer see in every heart there is a room a sanctuary safe and strong didn’t say we wouldn’t hurt anymore people that are sad they wear a frown it’s coming on Christmas and they’re cutting down trees I heard was there was a secret chord that david played and it pleased the Lord am I young enough to believe in revolution when it’s dark outside you’ve got to carry the light the waltzing fool he’s got lights in his fingers there ain’t nobody asked to be born shut it down and call this road a day we’re living in a time of inconvenience you come home late and you come home early we are swimming with the snakes at the bottom of the well all the unsaid words that I might be thinking the presence of your absence follows me something in your eyes makes me want to lose myself here we go again another round of blues it was all I could do to keep from crying oh play me a blues song and fade down the lights so many years so many hardships just when every ray of hope was gone tell anybody that ain’t got nobody somebody’s coming when you start if you exist God believes in you I can hear her heartbeat from a thousand miles
We were scattered across the sanctuary, twenty-five or so in a room that will hold three hundred, the candles covering the Communion table offering warm light as the day surrendered to the darkness. In front of the altar was a small table with one place setting – plate, glass, coffee cup, napkin, silverware – and a basket full of place cards. Each of us entered and found a seat with room for the sorrow we had brought with us and we sang and prayed and talked about who and what had been lost this year. Tonight we had our Blue Christmas.
After we had prayed and sung “In the Bleak Midwinter” and listened to a stirring version of “It Is Well With My Soul” by our music director and organist, Ginger explained why we had place cards.
Write the names of those people or those things that will not be with you this Christmas and then, when the music starts, bring your card and place it on the table.
I wrote my grandmother’s name (she died this year) and my aunt’s (she’s been gone a long time now), Hannah and Phoebe (Schnauzers I still miss), and then I began to name people who are still living but now are far away since we moved. The last name I wrote was my father-in-law’s because even though he is here he is not. While we were in the service, he slept in Ginger’s office because he can’t sit in church anymore. And he loved going to church.
I put my card on the table first because I was to sing while the others came forward. The song was Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile,” from his album The Wind, which he finished recording just weeks before he died of cancer.
Shadows are falling and I’m running out of breath Keep me in your heart for a while If I leave you it doesn’t mean I love you any less Keep me in your heart for a while
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun Keep me in your heart for a while There’s a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo Keep me in your heart for a while Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo Keep me in your heart for a while
Sometimes when you’re doing simple things around the house Maybe you’ll think of me and smile You know I’m tied to you like the buttons on your blouse Keep me in your heart for a while
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams Touch me as I fall into view When the winter comes keep the fires lit And I will be right next to you
Engine driver’s headed north to Pleasant Stream Keep me in your heart for a while These wheels keep turning but they’re running out of steam Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo Keep me in your heart for a while Sha-la la-la-la la-la-li li-lo Keep me in your heart for a while Keep me in your heart for a while
We prayed together and then sang
O little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by yet in thy dark streets shineth an everlasting light the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight
The service ended with Ginger’s inviting people to stay as long as they wished and to leave in silence when it was time for them to go. We left still carrying the losses we brought with us (how can a loss be so heavy?), yet our loads were lightened because we were all carrying our losses together. We were keeping each other in our hearts.
My friend Lindsey sent me a Henri Nouwen quote today in response to yesterday’s post:
Prayer for others… is the very beat of a compassionate heart. To pray for a friend who is ill, for a student who is depressed, for a teacher who is in conflict; for people in prisons, in hospitals, on battlefields; for those who are victims of injustice, who are hungry, poor, without shelter; for those who risk their career, their health, and even their life in struggle for social justice; for leaders of church and state, to pray for all these people is not a futile effort to influence God’s will, but a hospitable gesture by which we invite our neighbors into the center of our hearts. When we come before God with the needs of the world, the healing love of the Holy Spirit that touches us touches with the same power all those whom we bring before him.
We have all lost and we are found when we share the sorrow and keep each other close. Tonight felt closer to Christmas than anywhere else I’ve been this season.
Over most of my adult life in faith, I’ve been fortunate to go to churches small enough to still take one of the Sundays in Advent for the Christmas Pageant, though the word pageant always brings a smile to my face. I can’t help but wonder which of the magi will win the gown competition and if any of the shepherds will do something other than shear a sheep for their talent. Vocabulary aside, something about the parade of bath-robed shepherds helps Jesus to be born anew year after year.
The first year Ginger was in Winchester, she had a number of the young people taking part. One of the girls, who had not grown up in church, asked to be King Herod. As the rehearsal continued and came to her scene, she broke character in the middle of her speech and said, “Wait a minute! Herod’s a bad guy.”
My favorite moment in Marshfield each year came when the angels appeared to the shepherds. The pulpit at the church was a wall of wood across the front, creating a ministerial fortress of solitude behind it. The angels, always some of our youngest and most enthusiastic participants, would jump up from behind the wall holding stars above their heads, their faces beaming, as we all sang, “Joy to the World.”
The pageant here in Durham is an Advent one, which, I’ve learned, means everyone shows up except Jesus. We had shepherds and angels and the star and the wise men who all gathered around Joseph and Mary, but she was still pregnant when we headed out for coffee hour. The days have not yet been accomplished; we still have to wait for Jesus.
I thought about our pageant several times yesterday and today as I have been with my father-in-law who has Alzheimer’s. I thought about it because I feel like one of those little towel-headed kids, all dressed up for the big event and all I’m doing is waiting. Ginger and my mother-in-law spent a couple of days together and I was with Reuben, who is to the core of his being one of the most gentle and hopeful people I know. In other years, we would have spent the drive talking about what he saw on the news, which he watched voraciously, or he would have asked me questions about my job and about Durham. Instead, he wondered if it was going to snow (because he thinks we still live in Boston) and asked about every thirty minutes what time Ginger and Rachel were going to come home. Today, I looked in his face as he sat across from me at lunch and his eyes looked vacant, as though he were fading like a face in an old photograph, except it was happening right in front of me.
As we drove yesterday, I was also waiting for word on my brother’s surgery to remove a tumor from his spinal cord. About ten o’clock last night I got news that was about as good as it could get: they were able to repair the disc, remove the tumor, and all indications were the tumor was benign (we’ll have to wait a couple of days for the official pathology report). More than one person said it was “an answer to prayer. God is good.”
It was and God is. I prayed the tumor would not be cancer, and that it would be as uncomplicated at surgery on one’s spinal cord can be. And I also prayed that Reuben wouldn’t get Alzheimer’s and that he wouldn’t disappear as quickly as he is. My brother is going to get to go on with life relatively unscathed – at least from this and my father-in-law is going to continue to lose his life incrementally. Holding both of them in my heart, I’m hesitant to say God showed up somehow and healed Miller because then I’m left with Reuben not being so fortunate.
When we finally do put a baby in the manger, we will sing
Christ, the highest heaven adored Christ the everlasting Lord Light and life to all he brings Risen with healing in his wings
The last phrase always gets me: with healing in his wings. Both the beauty and mystery stir my heart. I love those words and I’m not sure what they mean; I only know they touch me at a place of deep yearning and hope. Run a Google search for the phrase and you’ll find it means a lot of different things to different people. When I look at the person the baby grew to be, the healing wings he sprouted have as much or more to do with the grace and forgiveness he showed people like Zacchaeus or the adulterous woman as they do with those who were physically healed.
God is good and would still be if Miller had gotten bad news about the tumor or had been left paralyzed by the surgery. God is still good even though Reuben is disappearing before our eyes. It was after Horatio Spafford saw all of his daughters die in a shipwreck that he wrote
When peace like a river attendeth my way and sorrow like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say It is well, it is well with my soul
George Matheson was rejected by his fiancée when he told her he was going blind because she didn’t want to spend her life taking care of him. And he wrote
O Love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, That in thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to thee; My heart restores its borrowed ray, That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart to thee; I trace the rainbow through the rain, And feel the promise is not vain, That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from thee; I lay in dust life’s glory dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be
What these hymn writers know is healing is something more profound than the absence of disease or the release of pain. I’m not talking metaphorically here. My mother-in-law needs healing for her heart learning to live with the husband she is losing. My brother’s healing will go beyond the surgery to include learning how to live in a way other than his gazillion hour-a-week schedule that was killing him long before they found the tumor. Whatever our circumstances, we all need healing.
After I got off work last night I drove to Asheville to meet Ginger and her parents who had driven from Birmingham. We met in the mountains because our Christmas present to Rachel, Ginger’s mother, was a couple of days with her daughter to see the Biltmore Mansion at Christmas and to be able to relax and know that Reuben, her husband who has Alzheimer’s, would be taken care of. He and I drove back to Durham today and are hanging out – along with all three of the Schnauzers – while the women wander in the mountains.
As we drove back today, my brother Miller was having surgery to repair a herniated disc and to remove a tumor from his spinal cord. I got word about nine o’clock that the surgery was a success, the doctor is confident the tumor is benign, and Miller is resting comfortably. I thought a lot about both Miller and Reuben as I was driving, one with a tumor that scared us all to death but that could be removed and the other who is slowly disappearing and none of us can stop it.
It was after ten when I walked home from the restaurant to get ready for my late night road trip. I decided to make a quick CD mix of traveling companions. One of the songs I chose I hadn’t heard in awhile, but pulled me somehow. I must have pushed the repeat button six or seven times because the Indigo Girls seemed to be singing my song, “The Wood Song”:
The thin horizon of a plan is almost clear My friends and I have had a tough time Bruising our brains hard up against change All the old dogs and the magician Now I see were in the boat in two by twos Only the heart that we have for a tool we could use And the very close quarters are hard to get used to Love weighs the hull down with its weight
But the wood is tired and the wood is old And well make it fine if the weather holds But if the weather holds we’ll have missed the point That’s where I need to go
No way construction of this tricky plan Was built by other than a greater hand With a love that passes all out understanding Watching closely over this journey Yeah but what it takes to cross the great divide Seems more than all the courage I can muster up inside Although we get to have some answers when we reach the other side The prize is always worth the rocky ride
But the wood is tired and the wood is old And well make it fine if the weather holds But if the weather holds we’ll have missed the point That’s where I need to go
Sometimes I ask to sneak a closer look Skip to the final chapter of the book And then maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took To get us where we are this far yeah But the question drowns in its futility And even I have got to laugh at me No one gets to miss the storm of what will be Just holding on for the ride
The wood is tired and the wood is old Well make it fine if the weather holds But if the weather holds we’ll have missed the point That’s where I need to go
It’s getting late here and I can’t get Reuben to go to bed because he doesn’t remember Rachel and Ginger are spending the night away and I think he’s waiting for them to come home. Lola, Gracie, and Ella, our little canine carriers of compassion, are snoozing all around him. I’ve tried to get him to go to bed, but I don’t know much else to do but let him stay in the recliner. He feels lost and neither of us have a map; best I can do is to make sure he knows he’s not traveling alone.
Tonight after work I’m driving to Asheville to meet Ginger, who is driving from Birmingham with her parents and our other two Schnauzers who have lived in Birmingham since we moved south. Originally, they were only going to stay a month, but they were so helpful to my father-in-law as he lives with Alzheimer’s that we have left them there. I will bring Reuben, my father-in-law, and Lola and Gracie back home with me while Ginger gives her mother a few days away as our Christmas present. (I wrote a poem about him here.)
When I get home tomorrow afternoon, I will spend the evening here, with Reuben, waiting for word about my brother’s surgery to remove a tumor from his spinal cord. The surgery will not be over until about nine tomorrow night. I can’t get to Dallas because I need to be here. Somehow, between Dallas and Asheville and Durham, we are all together, thank God.