Tag Archives: Robert Kates

A Devotion for the Fourth Sunday In Lent

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This is the fourth entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional 2015. This reflection comes to us from Mr. Robert Kates an M.Div. student at Brite Divinity School. 

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and God saved them

God sent out God’s word and healed them, and delivered them from destruction.

Psalm 107:19-20 (NRSV)

As a child, I would cry out to my mother and father when I was afraid, cranky, hungry, or in pain. My parents always seemed to be there for me, coming to my rescue, though today I know they were not. Not that they did not care for me. They were both busy medical doctors, always hearing the cries of others and not always mine. However they did make sure I was always comforted, always held and rocked to sleep, always fed, and always healed, having those ‘boo boos’ on my knees and hands kissed away with kindness.

I was blessed as a child, as many were not and still today aren’t. My parents could not always be there for me or with me, but I have come to know that they desperately cared for me, by supporting me with the love and kindness of others. I was truly blessed as a child.

Many years later, both my mother and father, have passed on to what I believe is the ultimate life to be living. Yet in their absence I have come to know my Mother/Father/God is always, somehow present in my life. Just as my parents were always, somehow present in my life, my Heavenly Parent is also.

I still have periods in my life when I am afraid, cranky, and hungry or in pain. Not as a child anymore, but now as an adult, an adult dealing with the consequences of physical disabilities. And just as that child I have cried out to my God, pleading for comfort, desperately needing the therapeutic solace of being rocked to sleep at night in my pain, to be fed when I could not swallow, and to have my old man ‘boo boo’s’ on my legs massaged away so I could attempt to walk again.

It is not easy feeling like one is a child again, at the mercy of the world around you. But again I am blessed. For my God is always present, through God’s own actions of care or those healing actions by others where God’s spirit resides.

I was blessed as a child, but now I know I am truly blessed even as an adult. Thanks be to God.

Our Mother/Father/God, from time to time…we all cry out to You. From time to time…we all share multiple inabilities within ourselves that we are afraid to face. From time to time…we all become lost and seek your guidance.  So dear God of All possibilities, show us, lead us to awareness, make us face those challenges in life, that from time to time, stand in our way. Make us realize that with Your Support and Your Love, there is always another way, perhaps even a better way. For it is within Your possibilities we find our way and our selves. Amen.

A Word of Hope on Ash Wednesday

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This is the second entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional 2015. This reflection for Ash Wednesday comes to us from Mr. Robert Kates an M.Div. student at Brite Divinity School. 

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

~Matthew 6:6 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

I have prayed to my Mother/Father, God, many times behind my closed door. First, over twenty-five years ago when I felt that door slam in my face with the reality of HIV/AIDS and now these past seven years having developed polymyositis, a disease that affects all the muscles of the body. For that door opens onto a staircase leading down to the first floor. There are 14 steps.

However doors do have door knobs, God has shown them to me. They can be opened and walked through, even though now I may require a walker. And that staircase beyond my door must be descended cautiously, and climbed passionately. Yet still God has shown me nothing is impossible, nothing is forever, everything has possibilities even when they seem ultimately futile. There is always hope or another way to achieve things.

The door that slammed in my face twenty-five years ago has miraculously turned into a chronic disease, no longer an ultimate death certificate, and not to become the last door in my life with which to deal.

The door opening onto my exterior staircase going down those fourteen, very scary steps, may eventually be replaced by a door leading onto a ground level sidewalk with no steps, maybe perhaps an easy sloping ramp.

God has shown me my abilities by rewarding me with the knowledge to take care of myself. How to turn the door knobs in life. God has given me back my life, my dignity, to take control of my life once again and live it to its fullest. Abling me to transcend many doors, and descend and ascend many staircases.

For there are doors for everyone to heal behind and then venture out from. Doors are of benefit, meant for privacy and intimacy, but never for exclusion.

Right before Christmas, this year, I had a relapse of my polymyositis. I was in the middle of fall, final exams at seminary. I fell and could not walk for three days. Today I can, but carefully. This is encouraging considering I graduate this spring from seminary and hope to be ordained in two years, before I turn 65.

Perhaps God still wants me to keep walking out that door to the staircase, to use those steps as daily exercise so as to forestall my disease, perhaps negate it. Perhaps God keeps challenging me, because once I am ordained, my concern will be with other people’s challenges. I hope always to have doors to pass through, and pray behind.