All posts by David Osielski

Looking to the God of Peace

Alumni, College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives
Chaplain Stephen B. Kellough

Since September 11 there has been a lot on my mind, and there has been a heaviness on my shoulders that is associated with the privilege and responsibility of serving as Wheaton’s chaplain in these days.

For this generation of students, the charged atmosphere brought about by catastrophic world events is unprecedented. Columbine comes closest, and maybe Oklahoma City. But Vietnam and even the Gulf War are off the radar screen for most students. Korea and Pearl Harbor are ancient history. For that matter, even those of us on the faculty and staff at the College have never faced the kind of assault on American turf that we have witnessed.

During these difficult moments, we are finding that the resources of our Christian faith and the value of living in Christian community are becoming near and dear. Wheaton College is a good place to be right now, even for students who are many hours from home.

Shortly after the hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a special chapel service was called for the College community. Within hours of the attacks, students, faculty, and staff were assembled in Edman Chapel reading Scripture and praying to our heavenly Father. We were together in worship when we needed to hear from God and to speak to God.

Classes were not dismissed on September 11, and that was a good decision. But we followed the news reports on televisions around campus, and phone calls were made to family and friends. Caring faculty assisted students in processing the events that were shaking our world, and don’t think that students didn’t minister to professors as well. We were together in community, trying to understand, assisting each other in struggling to focus the lens of our Christian worldview on the events of the day.

As most Wheaton alumni remember, it is our tradition to designate a passage of Scripture as a “year verse.” The verse for the 2001-02 academic year is Hebrews 13:20-21, the words of a blessing, a benediction that reminds us of our position in Christ and our resources in God: “May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Little did we realize months ago when this text was chosen that we would be in such need of this reminder of our resources in the God of peace. The letter to the Hebrews was written to people of faith whose faith was being tested. They needed to be reminded of what they knew but what they were struggling to hold on to.

The letter to the Hebrews is more than a letter; it is a sermon. It’s an encouragement, and it’s a reminder. In my role as chaplain, that is my goal—to encourage and to remind. In these days it is my duty and delight to point our community to the God of peace. This is a title for our Lord that we need to savor right now. In the midst of very uncertain times, it is important for us to understand with our minds and to embrace with our hearts the God of peace and the peace that God gives.

Wheaton Magazine (Autumn 2001)

Abundant Life

College-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

The Energizer Bunny advertising campaign proved to be a success partly for its novelty and also for its implication that if we use the correct battery, we would never run out of energy to operate small appliances.

But the actual never-ending feature of our daily lives is the reality that our resources are limited. We do not have enough time, money, energy, or talent to achieve all that we desire. Some of the most nettlesome ethical choices facing our world are the result of limited resources, such as the availability of oil, medical aid, and fertile land; or the supply of courage, wisdom, and trust.

Acknowledging the limitation of resources is not difficult for the believer, for we know that our world—and its provisions—is under the temporary rule of death. In death we face the ultimate threat to our plans and dreams. We struggle with limitations because death has stained every facet of creation.

With Paul we may cry, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). Or with Moses we may pray, “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants” (Ps. 90:13). In Christ alone we find the promise of life outside the rule of death. After that poignant question in Romans 7:24, Paul describes how Christ sets us “free from the law of sin and death” (8:2). Our new life is a reception of life indeed, the freedom to live with the resources not of this deathly world, but of God Himself.

Moses answers his own urgent plea by recognizing that God is the source of abundance: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Ps. 90:14). God’s love does not operate on the principle of scarcity, and the rule of death does not limit the resources of His charity.

Only if we understand the abundance of God’s grace can we begin to understand Christ’s remarkable instruction that we forgive not just seven times, but seventy times seven. We ought to treat others not out of our limited resources, as if our capacity to forgive others can be depleted, but out of God’s abundance, through which we can forgive over and over and over again. Only a life lived within God’s abundance can accomplish Christ’s instructions: “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Mt. 5:40-42). This is the practice of abundant life, not the rule of death.

Because of God’s abundance, Christians are to be known for their giving, their caring, and their hospitality. Oxford theologian Oliver O’Donovan notes the provocative nature of Christian generosity: “An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation” (The Desire of the Nations 109). We ought to defy the logic of this world, and lives rooted in God’s giving are capable of just that.

Through my research on communication practices, I now believe that our ways of talking and listening can be rooted in life or in death. Are we cynical, measuring the talk of others according to the waste of limited resources, or are we charitable, looking with grace upon the efforts of others? Do we persuade others by appealing to their fears of loss or their hopes of gaining scarce rewards? Or do we urge others to lives of trust, charity, and generosity?

We still must struggle in a world ruled by death. Perhaps, the greatest benefit of God’s abundance is the never-depleted supply of wisdom He gives us to see our difficult decisions from the vantage point of abundant life, We are free to rest in a limitless God.

Dr. Kenneth R. Chase, Associate Professor of Communications, came to Wheaton in 1994 after teaching full-time at Wabash College, and in other various capacities at Biola University, Illinois Wesleyan, and University of Illinois. His research in ethics, public address, and popular culture will be invaluable as he assumes additional responsibilities in the fall as director of Wheaton’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics. He and his wife, Linda, live in Wheaton with their three children. (The above statement was included at the time of publication — Wheaton Magazine, Spring 1998)

Doing & Being

Collection-related Publications, Wheaton College Archives

I have always enjoyed being outside—as a little girl swaying in the tops of evergreens while hiding from my siblings, or lying in sweet-smelling grass looking for shapes in the summer clouds. I visit past moments often in my heart—times when I walked near the ocean that my soul became closely attuned to hearing myself think and God speak.

Some folks believe they have to be “earthy” to deeply appreciate Creation. Not so. We all desperately need the healing balm of nature—a display that can calm and simplify our lives while drawing us nearer to our Creator.

Henri Nouwen suggests in his books The Way of the Heart and Out of Solitude, that we are often motivated by the compulsions of society to measure our self-worth by the many things we can accomplish—some of which are not as necessary as we might think.

I struggle with this compulsion. Yet God’s Creation teaches me about the tension between “being” and “doing.” All things created by God display his glory by simply being what God created them to be. And so, I find myself longing for times of solitude—times of throwing pottery, walking in a park, visiting the ocean bottom, admiring the trees outside my office window, or watching spiders jump along my windowsill.

Nouwen points out that when we let society define us, we take on “false selves.” We get caught up by selfish ambition, doing things that are prestigious and pleasing to our peers, and—so we think—to God. Sometimes in our Christian duty we get the doing part confused with the being part. We think of the things we are to do that will bring him glory more so than what we are to be.

The relationship between being and doing became clearer to me as I related to my sister, Rob, throughout her battle with cancer. Before her illness, I was much better at doing the work of my career than in being there for those who needed me, So, naturally Rob found it difficult to believe that I really cared deeply for her because my work took up so much of my life.

After I turned down two permanent job offers so I could live near her and later took a job in Minnesota near her home, she was finally able to fully realize my love for her.

But more importantly, God began to communicate his love for her through me. Rob eventually moved to Virginia to live with my older sister, Sandy, and I later chose to go there to be with Rob during her last months of life.

During my sister’s battle with cancer, God taught me a lot about the difference between being and doing. I learned what it meant to be myself, to be what God had intended me to be—a channel of his love and grace for Rob. This may not seem like a profound revelation, but it is important for all of us to be reminded that it is not what we do that is most important, but rather what we end up being or becoming.

There is a balance, of course. But God calls us to be his people, to be people who are in close communion with him, and to be our true selves, human beings created in his image to bring glory to him.

The following statement was included at the time of publication (Wheaton Magazine, Summer 1997)

Dr. Nadine Folino, Assistant Professor of Biology earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Cincinnati, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in zoology from the University of New Hampshire. She is an enthusiastic marine biologist specializing in invertebrate zoology. Her hobbies include pottety, sports of all kinds biking, skiing, and running-cooking, and camping. Dr. Folino enjoys Creation greatly seeing God’s creativeness expressed in all of earth’s many and varied “critters.”