Sturtz Stuff

  For many Americans death has become medicalized. Death is often viewed as some failure of medical treatment and less as a stage of life. We logically understand that we will die someday yet it is not something that as a culture we talk about much. Understandably so. It is scary and uncomfortable. We all have personal experiences, theologies and family beliefs that inform what we mean when we talk about death.  This often leaves many individuals and families surprised, shocked and confused when a significant other, close friend or family member dies. We are often left with our grief to “just figure it out” or “just give it time.” We find ourselves unable to sleep, out of emotional balance, angry, tearful and unable to hold a thought in our heads.  Grieving is a healthy response to loss. In fact, grieving is not unnatural, it is a normal part of what it means to be alive. Many have grieved the loss of a friendship, family pet or the end of a dream. Grieving is not a rarit...

I had never seen anything like this before. Mind you I stand in the trauma room and serve right alongside all the members of the medical trauma team. I have witnessed the aftermath of horrific car crashes, terrible falls, bone crushing on the job accidents and life ending gunshot injuries. As well as folks who fell because they cut the very tree limb they were standing on. I, and my chaplain compatriots, work with all of those trauma patients and as well as their families. It is not unusual to work a dozen to twenty plus traumas (levels one, two and three) during a shift.  Yet I had never seen anything like what happened when COVID hit Oklahoma in 2020. Like many other hospitals across America ICU areas and entire floors were turned into COVID units. Where I serve as a chaplain was no exception. Seemingly overnight COVID areas were created.  In the COVID areas I saw the hands of nurses and doctors that were dry and irritated from constant hand washing and the use of high alcoh...

A while back I found myself at a car dealership working through the song and dance process of getting a car. While going through the process the guy doing the selling asked me what kind of work I did. I told him that I was the minister at a church. He perked up and said that he did the same thing. In fact, he went on to tell me that he had just received an ordination certificate in the mail. I asked what process he went through to receive his ordination. He said that he had typed up a little paper stating, in summary, his understanding of God, Jesus, the Bible and a few other theological issues and mailed it off to some Christian group. This group then sent him a certificate saying that he was an ordained minister. He continued his story by telling me that he was preaching at some small sized local churches in the area. There is a lot to unpack with the story this fellow told me. What I heard was something that greatly concerned me. Imagine that you are seeking medical treatment. You j...

 I grew up going to church. That is not the experience of everyone. I have also learned that growing up going to church doesn’t make me better than anyone. Yet growing up there was never a question about where my family would be and what we would be doing on Sunday mornings. Unless I had a fever you would find me at church. Growing up in and around church I have been to plenty of VBS programs, youth conferences and Sunday morning services. I have enjoyed my fair share of church potluck dinners, Christmas eve services and listened to some wonder messages from the Bible. While I believe that the church is the continuation of Jesus’ ministry the church also involves human beings. Anything that involves human beings has the sad tendency to do harm while thinking they are doing good. I was told as a kid/teen that the church/Christians were supposed to be different then the world/culture. What I have come to discover is that often the church and Christians are truly not that different...

Your twenty-year-old self can look back at your fifteen-year-old self and think . . . what an idiot! You were worried about all the wrong things and an overall jerk. And your twenty-five-year-old self can look back on your twenty-year-old self and think . . . what an idiot! You were worried about all the wrong things and an over all jerk. And so on and so on to where you are now. Point is we’re all idiots! Worried about all the wrong things and kind of an overall jerk. This couldn’t be truer when it comes to how a large amount of people view the church in America. Don’t get me wrong there are thousands of stories of how churches and individual Christians have done great things for their communities and lives have been changed. At the same time there are way too many stories of how churches and individual Christians have often been worried about the wrong things and were kind of an overall jerk. Being a follower of Jesus means admitting that you and I are in the position of a lear...

My Dad had some quirky sayings that he was known for. One of them was “Well, what did ya learn?” He typically said that after I did something that was way south of smart. Like attempting, at age 10, to play in the family car . . . and taking it out of park . . . and the car rolling down the driveway into some healthy sized holly bushes. If it were not for the holly bushes the car would have rolled right into the side of our neighbor’s home. And did I mention that my little sister was in the backseat. You might imagine my parent’s reaction and part of it included my Dad asking, “Well, what did ya learn?” I would like to think that I have learned a lot from the mistakes that I have made in life. Maybe. Sometimes. What I am wondering, at this particular moment, as I look back over the past year, is “Well, what did ya learn?”. The year 2020 will go down as one of, it not the, worst year ever. I suppose that is saying a lot considering that people lived through feudalism, the Black Plague...

The year 2020 wasn't so great for a lot of reasons. Yet I did manage to read some good stuff during the year. Here is my little list of books that I read and found enriching, challenging and helpful. They are not all the books and articles that I read but they are the ones that I felt like sharing. Here they are in no particular order.  In September of 2019 my good friend Jerl Joslin suddenly passed from this life into the next. Jerl served several Christian Churches in Oklahoma. The majority of his life was spent preaching, teaching and encouraging fellow ministers and their families. In 2014 Jerl and his wife Dani started a new ministry called Refresh Ministry. Refresh Ministry seeks to refresh and encourage local ministers. Jerl drove countless miles across Oklahoma touching base with local ministers to be a trusted listening ear, someone who would pray for them and be an overall source of encouragement. It is the encouragement part that is often so lacking in the lives of loca...