A few nights ago, I had a dream that terrified me. Actually, it woke me up feeling physically ill in my waking moments.
I was on the side of a mountain that had a series of large boulders lining it. I was perched on a boulder with my other family members perched on their own boulders. My father decided to be on the rock I was on and jumped to me in parkour fashion. He leaned against me, and I started to lose my balance. Dad quickly jumped to another crag across from me, but he missed. He did manage to grab a hand on a rock — free solo style — but couldn’t hold on. He began to fall and fall and fall until he was crushed on the rocks below. My brother Daren, who was perched on a rock near me, looked at me and said, “I think we just watched our father die.” Fighting back tears, I did something I never have done in my conscious world: I cursed God with the words, “I hate you, God!” Even as I write this I am tearing up.
Craig Martin
In real life, my father, Jack Martin, is still living at a nursing home called Bonview Rehabilitation Center across the James River here in Richmond, Va. While he has severe dementia, thankfully he still has moments of lucidity and clarity. Dad and I just had tacos together with my sister Debbie, her family and Dad’s best friend who sat with us, Richard. Richard is a dapper man who loves Dad and has looked after him the entire time he has lived at Bonview. Both men are known by the staff as being kind and loving to everyone.
My dad also happens to be a retired Southern Baptist missionary who, with my mom, Gladys, started the prison ministry in Bangkok, Thailand. Dad lost his life partner and my mother nearly two years ago to a severe stroke. When he asks about Mom these days, I just say, “Dad, Mom is with Jesus.” To which he often replies, “Well, I’ll be. I didn’t know that.”
Dad always has represented Jesus to me. I know of no other person on this planet who is more like Jesus of the New Testament. Not the currently reinterpreted Jesus of judgment and wrath but the Jesus of kindness, forgiveness, humility and love for everyone.
I set this story up and will say I have no idea what dreams mean. I did, through deep sobs, feel obligated to tell my siblings because Dad might live another 10 years or he might die tomorrow. No one knows the answer to that question. Nor do I want to know, quite honestly.
I discussed this later with my wife, Erika, who is incredibly wise. When I said, “I don’t think I am prepared for Dad’s death,” she replied, “You will never be prepared, but you have to be strong.”
When I said, “I don’t think I am prepared for Dad’s death,” she replied, “You will never be prepared, but you have to be strong.”
The universal power source of all love didn’t leave me “hanging” after that dream, by the way. I fell back to sleep that awful morning and I had another dream. My gray-haired mother was on the same death bed where I watched her begin to slowly die. But, unlike those last moments with her, Mom had a full head of black hair. She was very cognizant. I leaned over to kiss her on the head like I did the last time I saw her alive. In the dream, I said, “I love you, Mom.” To which she kissed me on my cheek and replied, “I love you, son.”
In church this morning at River Road Church Baptist, Daniel Glaze spoke about not knowing the intent of God. We never will know why things happen in life, but what we do know is that God as the all-loving power of this universe knows more than we can possibly know. And, while war rages, loved ones die, hurricanes and tornadoes destroy communities … to say we know the mind of the power of the universe is a completely inept view of the universe and all things in it.
Sure, it might be cathartic to curse God. But I chose to look toward the man I see as my personal Jesus and ask myself, “What can I do better?”
As the war in Ukraine continues and people in Ukraine and Russia alike are suffering, I have no solutions. My wife wisely observed this morning that for some reason in the media all the discussion is about who is “winning.” Erika said, “What is this March Madness where we are glued to the TV to see who will ‘win’?”
No one in this situation will win. For all eternity, both Russians and Ukrainians are all losing sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers — all because of one evil man who knows nothing of the universal true power of love. I will be trying to figure out how to personally help those people who are hurting because of the war.
Pastor Glaze concluded his message today with some poignant words that I needed to hear:
I suggest to us today that it’s not the best use of our time trying to figure out who’s to blame for the tragedy that exists in our world, or try to assign guilt for all the bad news out there. Instead, let us meet the bad news with the good news that God loves us, God always wants the best for us, and come what may, God will be with us. And for that we say thanks be to God. Amen.
“Let us meet the bad news with the good news that God loves us, God always wants the best for us, and come what may, God will be with us.”
After returning from church, I saw a family begging for money in my neighborhood. I must admit that I always look with derision and judgment at the father. He often has his children on the streets even in the bitter cold. I know better than to cruelly despise the man, but with grown children of my own it just always pisses me off.
I thought, “God, how should I feel? What should I do?” After all, I would love to help. In a truly divine moment of clarity I thought, I should ask Dad; he will know what to do. He often has these strange moments of clarity. So, balanced on this boulder of my own current life experience, I will ask my father while he is still here to teach me what love means practically. He will teach me the ways to love not just through emotion but through intention.
After writing the first draft of this piece, I did go to Bonview and I asked Dad the question. He told me something similar to what I had heard before from a woman who had been exploited by her parents. These are Dad’s word’s verbatim:
If you help him, the man might stop doing bad. It’s a risk. Everything in life is a risk. That’s really good to think of people like that because we don’t think of people outside the church. We don’t think guys like that need encouragement, but they do.
Craig Martin is a documentary television and film producer and co-host on the PBS docu-series, The Good Road. He is a member of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, Va., and serves on the board of Baptist News Global.
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