My thoughts on the passing of my friend Derek Pavatte

As part of my grieving process, I feel the need to put some thoughts on paper. Some of these thoughts are not the kinds of things I normally write about or share publicly. I certainly don't blame anyone for not reading this, but if you do please read it in its entirety so you might better understand what I am trying to express.

Derek met Jesus face to face on July 24th, 2008. Normally guys like me say things like, "This is a day for rejoicing because our loved one has gone to a better place," and those are good words. However, rejoicing just doesn't seem appropriate right now. I have no doubts that Derek is now safe in the arms of Jesus and waiting for us in some mysterious way and that he has relief from his mental illness. Yes, those things are blessings. But I have trouble rejoicing when such a promising young life is ended, where family and friends are left to mourn and wonder what we could have done differently, and when one of the finest people I have ever known was so tormented that he saw no hope but to do the unthinkable.

Yes, rejoicing will come, but I'm not thankful for Derek's death yet. He amazed me when he was a young teenager and he amazed me as a college student. He was a leader where I ministered in Winchester and in Murfreesboro. I knew I could count on Derek. I knew he had a deep faith, deeper than practically anyone else his age. I knew that he liked my jokes. I knew that he liked to receive random CDs in the mail from me with ridiculous songs on it. I knew he loved his family immensely and that any funny thing I shared with him would be passed along to his dad, and vice-versa. I only recently came to know of his mental illness, and just last night discovered from his dad's comments that he was bipolar and schizophrenic. I knew that since February he had been tormented and suicidal, but I thought from conversations with him and his friends that he was getting better. I knew from Danny that the weekend before his death he had had a rough time. But when Brad shared with me the news last Thursday night, news that he warned was awful, I was not prepared to hear the words. I felt as if someone had kicked me in the gut. Mary and I both moaned as we sat in a hotel room in Philadelphia belatedly celebrating our ten year anniversary. We had known Derek nine of those years. My immediate concern was not for Derek, but for his mom and dad, and for all the young people who looked at him as an example of Christian faith. And it is not surprising that these were the same people on his mind as he penned his last words. He loved us all, but had lost hope.

He had not lost faith. I knew immediately that it was because of his faith that Derek took his own life. That might seem backwards, but it is true. He was so sure that Jesus would be there waiting for him in heaven that he was not afraid of taking that unthinkable step. I suppose that is what happens when a child of God is full of faith and void of hope. He thought there was no chance he would find relief, no chance to have a 'normal life,' and no chance that he could endure years of his illness. Even though he loved his family dearly, that love could not eclipse his hopelessness.

Derek made the wrong decision. I do not stand in judgment over him though I am still somewhat angry with him. I just wish I could have him back, shake him and convince him that there is hope, that the right medication might soon exist, that therapy could work... but I know that his parents said all those words and many more over and over. He could not be convinced by those who saw all that this tremendous young could be because he could not see it. I do not know how overwhelming the struggle with mental illness can be and thus can't pretend to say I would have done differently. But it was the wrong decision, a decision that was not his to make, and I hope that no young person sees in his decision permission to do the same.

Derek's 21st birthday is quickly approaching on August 6th, the first date that Dale and Beverly will have to utter the words, "Derek would have been... years old today." As friends of Derek's, we will mourn and then move on with our lives, thinking of him occasionally and being thankful for our happy memories. But Justin, Dale and Beverly will not have that luxury. Every good memory is now bittersweet and painful and, while the stinging pain will subside, the wound will never heal. That is why Derek made the wrong decision.

But I love Derek, miss him, and can't wait to see him in heaven. I told someone that when my dad died I felt for the first time a desire to be in heaven so I can see him and talk to him again. Derek makes it two people who really make me ache for heaven. Others I will be glad to see, but the presence of these two men makes it a place I need to be. I can't wait to worship God with them someday.

Pray for his family, and don't forget them.

My thoughts on the passing of my friend Derek Pavatte

As part of my grieving process, I feel the need to put some thoughts on paper. Some of these thoughts are not the kinds of things I normally write about or share publicly. I certainly don't blame anyone for not reading this, but if you do please read it in its entirety so you might better understand what I am trying to express.

Derek met Jesus face to face on July 24th, 2008. Normally guys like me say things like, "This is a day for rejoicing because our loved one has gone to a better place," and those are good words. However, rejoicing just doesn't seem appropriate right now. I have no doubts that Derek is now safe in the arms of Jesus and waiting for us in some mysterious way and that he has relief from his mental illness. Yes, those things are blessings. But I have trouble rejoicing when such a promising young life is ended, where family and friends are left to mourn and wonder what we could have done differently, and when one of the finest people I have ever known was so tormented that he saw no hope but to do the unthinkable.

Yes, rejoicing will come, but I'm not thankful for Derek's death yet. He amazed me when he was a young teenager and he amazed me as a college student. He was a leader where I ministered in Winchester and in Murfreesboro. I knew I could count on Derek. I knew he had a deep faith, deeper than practically anyone else his age. I knew that he liked my jokes. I knew that he liked to receive random CDs in the mail from me with ridiculous songs on it. I knew he loved his family immensely and that any funny thing I shared with him would be passed along to his dad, and vice-versa. I only recently came to know of his mental illness, and just last night discovered from his dad's comments that he was bipolar and schizophrenic. I knew that since February he had been tormented and suicidal, but I thought from conversations with him and his friends that he was getting better. I knew from Danny that the weekend before his death he had had a rough time. But when Brad shared with me the news last Thursday night, news that he warned was awful, I was not prepared to hear the words. I felt as if someone had kicked me in the gut. Mary and I both moaned as we sat in a hotel room in Philadelphia belatedly celebrating our ten year anniversary. We had known Derek nine of those years. My immediate concern was not for Derek, but for his mom and dad, and for all the young people who looked at him as an example of Christian faith. And it is not surprising that these were the same people on his mind as he penned his last words. He loved us all, but had lost hope.

He had not lost faith. I knew immediately that it was because of his faith that Derek took his own life. That might seem backwards, but it is true. He was so sure that Jesus would be there waiting for him in heaven that he was not afraid of taking that unthinkable step. I suppose that is what happens when a child of God is full of faith and void of hope. He thought there was no chance he would find relief, no chance to have a 'normal life,' and no chance that he could endure years of his illness. Even though he loved his family dearly, that love could not eclipse his hopelessness.

Derek made the wrong decision. I do not stand in judgment over him though I am still somewhat angry with him. I just wish I could have him back, shake him and convince him that there is hope, that the right medication might soon exist, that therapy could work... but I know that his parents said all those words and many more over and over. He could not be convinced by those who saw all that this tremendous young could be because he could not see it. I do not know how overwhelming the struggle with mental illness can be and thus can't pretend to say I would have done differently. But it was the wrong decision, a decision that was not his to make, and I hope that no young person sees in his decision permission to do the same.

Derek's 21st birthday is quickly approaching on August 6th, the first date that Dale and Beverly will have to utter the words, "Derek would have been... years old today." As friends of Derek's, we will mourn and then move on with our lives, thinking of him occasionally and being thankful for our happy memories. But Justin, Dale and Beverly will not have that luxury. Every good memory is now bittersweet and painful and, while the stinging pain will subside, the wound will never heal. That is why Derek made the wrong decision.

But I love Derek, miss him, and can't wait to see him in heaven. I told someone that when my dad died I felt for the first time a desire to be in heaven so I can see him and talk to him again. Derek makes it two people who really make me ache for heaven. Others I will be glad to see, but the presence of these two men makes it a place I need to be. I can't wait to worship God with them someday.

Pray for his family, and don't forget them.

N Blvd

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Ministers

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Square Dance

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Can Can

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Video

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Last night Mary, Helen and I took 5 Ethiopian guys to Nashville to eat at an authentic Ethiopian restaurant. I got lost twice, but after 20 minutes or so or meandering, we found the Awash Ethiopian Restaurant. The only problem is that it is closed on Sundays. Genius me believed this website that said it was open until 11pm on Sundays. So, instead of authentic African food (of which Ethiopian might be the most dissimilar from Western foods - I've eaten it twice in my life, once in NYC and once in Nashville) we ate some less than appetizing stuff from Picadilly Cafeteria close to the Ethiopian place.

On the way home, I stopped to help a guy who was pushing his car down the road. The guilt pangs hit me after I passed him, knowing that last May a kind chap in the UK gave us a push when we most needed it. Last night, whenI pulled up beside the guy's car, I discovered that his English skills were less than adequate, but by pointing he was able to communicate to me where he was going. Another guy stopped to help in the interim. Of course, the thought he was helping me out, too. So after a minute he asked, "Where are we pushing this thing, too?". My reply - "I have no idea". Soon the car was rolling downhill at a faster pace than we could handle, so we trotted back to our cars and were on our way.

And speaking of other things, I was glad to see Auburn manhandle Alabama on Saturday. The weird thing is that I probably enjoyed the Vandy win over Tennessee more. One of the truly sad elements of human nature and sports is that we sometimes get more pleasure from our rivals losing than our team winning. But, hey, Go Commodores!!

If you want to see the funniest video I've seen in a while, click here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3816525722816364522&q=wow

In helping a friend prepare a paper on "The Beloved Disciple" in the gospel of John, I found myself in a conundrum (or maybe he did). We were using Google Print to for some research and, as you probably know, the beauty of Google Print is that you get free access to at least portions of thousands of books. The pages have been scanned and the text is searchable. The question is - "Should one cite Google Print if he or she uses it to read a portion of book for research?". On the one hand, anytime one uses a web resource for research the expectation is that he or she will cite the website. On the other, it is not expected that one cite a provider of a book, for instance a library that loaned the book out. I have often simply made copies of certain pages of books for research instead of checking them out. Is Google Print a source or a depository? So what to do? What thinks ye?

And tag this story in with the immigration stuff I blogged on yesterday. Here's the first paragraph:
One day in the late 1970s, the writer James Baldwin was explaining to an Arab friend that he wanted to go back to America after many years as an expatriate in France. "America has found a formula to deal with the demon of race," Baldwin told Syrian businessman Raja Sidawi, who had a house near him in St. Paul de Vence. In France and the rest of Europe, people pretended that the race problem didn't exist, Baldwin said, but "someday it will explode."

While driving into work a few days ago, I was listening to NPR and heard a segment on the International Bluegrass Music Association's annual conference in Nashville. While the story wasn't spectacular, in the background I heard a guy recording an advertising spot for a bluegrass radio show. The cool thing was that it was for 'Southern Style' hosted by Jan Dale -- in Melbourne, Australia! And, because of my deep international connections, I know her. Or, at least, I know her brother, John Hull, the prof for whom I worked in the UK. She makes annual treks to the US to study and collect bluegrass/country music information. She is THE bluegrass/country music guru for the land down under. One her show's site you can hear a similar advertising spot to the one I mentioned done by bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. Never expected to hear anyone mentioned on NPR whom I know except for possibly (il)legal reasons.

As the semester begins to wind down, I'm starting to get a touch of breathing room. We'll be in Moulton from Sunday to Wednesday for me to preach a revival. Then it won't be until the holidays that we'll have to travel.

I've heard lots lately about immigration. And while I know that a continual flow of illegals is untenable, it is obvious that our immigration problem is much different than Europe's. The predominantly Mexican illegals who come here work hard for lower wages at backbreaking and/or discgusting jobs simply to give better lives to their families. They work hard, love their families, and their children tend to assimilate well. Compare that to the current situation in France, where children of North-African Muslim legal immigrants (thus native Frenchmen) are rioting. To ignore the religious motives of the rioters is silly, but it is equally mistaken to ignore the fact that French society has not welcomed their assimilation and and the fact that the tight grip of the unions (in a country with over 9% unemployment) ensures that these folks can't find work. No doubt their parents came to France for the same reasons Mexicans cross the US border.

Whatever troubles illegal immigration creates for the US, the threat of terrorism is way down the list. For Europe, their unassimilated Muslim ghettos could turn into a tinder box for future terrorists (here is an article written this summer which predicted France's trouble). Thus, the London bombers were homegrown, UK citizens who didn't feel 'British,' or at least that they were accepted as such. They found identity in radical Islam.

"Perhaps some of the journalists, political scientists, intellectuals and public officials who've been peddling this merchandise meant it to remain an abstract ideological diversion. France is a long way from Iraq, after all. But now that the militancy is being turned on the French state itself, they are suddenly shocked at what they've sown".

Our immigrants are Catholic and much more likely to blend in, adding cultural flavor with much less cultural tension.

I state this not because I pretend to know a solution, but because I fear things will get worse before they get better. Niall Ferguson says all this better than I.

In a similar vein, its worth watching this fascinating video courtesy of WOAI in Texas. They were able to talk to a 'coyote', one who smuggles people into America, and to convince one of the illegal crossers to carry a camera which shows how they were caught by border patrol. The interesting thing is that these people were NOT MEXICAN... they were Brazilian. It's funny to me that while the liberals in Brazil protest America, thousands more (the ones who the liberals claim to care about ) vote with their feet every year to travel across Colombia and Mexico just to come to this place. It is also interesting to note that the coyote and the border patrolmen were yelling all their commands in Spanish while the Brazilians spoke Portuguese and probably had difficulty knowing what they were being told.