In 1658 a young Italian boy named Antonio was apprenticed to the great violin maker Nicolas Amati. Legend has it, that like his townsfolk, Antonio loved music. Cremona was a town in which musical ability was highly valued. But poor Antonio was not a very accomplished musician. When he tried singing his friends nicknamed him “squeaky voice”. When he tried to learn the violin he was all thumbs. About the only thing Antonio could do was to whittle on a block of wood with his knife.
One day Antonio sat whittling by the roadside as three of his very musical friends were busking. The air filled with their beautiful playing and singing. One gentlemen stopped longer than any of the others and even asked the friends to sing a song again. After they finished he dropped a gold coin into the hand of the singer. Then he moved on down the street.
A gold coin was a princely sum for a street singer. “Who was he?” asked Antonio. “It was Amati,” his friends proudly replied. “Nicolo Amati, the greatest violin maker in all of Italy!”
That planted a thought in young Antonio’s mind. The next morning he went to Nicolo Amati’s house and waited for he great master to come out. When Amati opened the door, Antonio bounded up and told him that he wanted to become a violin maker. “I cannot sing and I cannot play, but I can carve.” Would Amati take him on as an apprentice?
Amati agreed and the eleven year old went to work for him. Years later Nicolo died and Antonio took over the business. Antonio’s full name? Antonio Straviari, the greatest violin maker of all time.
Antonio couldn’t sing, Antonio couldn’t play, but he could carve. That was his gift.
One of the things most of us find stomach churning and revolting is the maggot. Finding them in your garbage bin is enough to make you puke, but imagine finding them on your body! In 1982 an orthopaedic surgeon by the name of John Church was asked to treat someone who had been in a car accident and lain unconscious for three days in a ditch at the side of the road. The victim had deep cuts to his face and body, and those wounds were crawling with massive infestations of maggots.
But here’s the amazing thing. When John Church peeled away those maggots to examine his patient he was astonished to discover that the wounds were so clean they had already begun to heal! In fact, this discovery led to a revival of the practise of maggot therapy.
You see as revolting as they may be, maggots can be agents of healing. Put them on a wound and they’ll eat up the diseased flesh but leave the healthy flesh alone. The bacteria they don’t eat they kill with a chemical they excrete. And to top it off when they crawl all over your wound they provide the healthy flesh with a gentle and therapeutic massage.
In fact, doctors have discovered that in many cases maggots are more effective than antibiotics!
Sometimes the circumstances in our life function like maggots. They may be very unpleasant, but they can also be healing. We speak of them as “character forming”. They cause us to identify what’s important in life, to develop endurance and perseverance, to depend more on God and others. And in doing so they eating away the rotting parts of our character and leaving behind healthy parts.
Source: Scientific information from Karl Kruszelnicki’s New Moments in Science #3.
The great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King preached one of his most moving sermons on the title “Loving your enemies”. He was in gaol at the time, imprisoned for daring to suggest that American Negroes should have the same civil rights as other Americans. During his lifetime he had received death threat after death threat, he’d been maliciously accused of being a communist, his house had been bombed, and he was jailed over 20 times. Yet in this sermon he said “hate multiplies hate…in a descending spiral of violence” and is “just as injurious to the person who hates” as to his victim. But “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” for it has “creative” and “redemptive” power.
Source: reported in David Garrow, Bearing the Cross. Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
I had been working much too long on this job. I guess things could have been worse. I certainly wasn’t doing hard labor. But going door to door asking questions as a representative of the federal government wasn’t the most satisfying position either.
It was August. It was hot. I had to wear a tie.
“Hello. My name is Bob Perks and we are doing a survey in this neighborhood…”
“I’m not interested! Good bye!”…slam, lock.
You can’t imagine how many times I heard that. I finally caught on and began with “Before you slam the door, I am not selling anything and I just need to ask a few questions about yourself and the community.”
The young woman inside the doorway, paused for a moment, raised her eyebrows as she shrugged her shoulders confused by my rude introduction.
“Sure. Come on in. Don’t mind the mess. It’s tough keeping up with my kids.”
It was an older home in a section of the valley where people with meager income found affordable shelter. With the little they had, the home looked comfortable and welcoming.
“I just need to ask a few questions about yourself and family. Although this may sound personal I won’t need to use your names. This information will be used…”
She interrupted me. “Would you like a glass of cold water? You look like you’ve had a rough day.”
“Why yes!” I said eagerly.
Just as she returned with the water, a man came walking in the front door. It was her husband.
“Joe, this man is here to do a survey.” I stood and politely introduced myself.
Joe was tall and lean. His face was rough and aged looking although I figured he was in his early twenties. His hands were like leather. The kind of hands you get from working hard, not pushing pencils.
She leaned toward him and kissed him gently on the cheek. As they looked at each other you could see the love that held them together. She smiled and titled her head, laying it on his shoulder. He touched her face with his hands and softly said “I love you!”
They may not have had material wealth, but these two were richer than most people I know. They had a powerful love. The kind of love that keeps your head up when things are looking down.
“Joe works for the borough.” she said.
“What do you do?” I asked.
She jumped right in not letting him answer.
“Joe collects garbage. You know I’m so proud of him.”
“Honey, I’m sure the man doesn’t want to hear this.” said Joe.
“No, really I do.” I said.
“You see Bob, Joe is the best garbage man in the borough. He can stack more garbage on the truck than anyone else. He gets so much in one truck that they don’t have to make as many runs.”, she said with such passion.
“In the long run,” Joe continues, “I save the borough money. Man hours are down and the cost per truck is less.”
There was silence. I didn’t know what to say. I shook my head searching for the right words.
“That’s incredible! Most people would gripe about a job like that. It certainly is a difficult one. But your attitude about it is amazing.” I said.
She walked over to the shelf next to the couch. As she turned she held in her hand a small framed paper.
“When we had our third child Joe lost his job. We were on unemployment for a time and then eventually welfare. He couldn’t find work any where. Then one day he was sent on an interview here in this community. They offered him the job he now holds. He came home depressed and ashamed. Telling me this was the best he could do. It actually paid less than we got on welfare.”
She paused for a moment and walked toward Joe.
“I have always been proud of him and always will be. You see I don’t think the job makes the man. I believe the man makes the job!”
“We needed to live in the borough in order to work here. So we rented this home.” Joe said.
“When we moved in, this quote was hanging on the wall just inside the front door. It has made all the difference to us, Bob. I knew that Joe was doing the right thing.” she said as she handed me the frame.
It said: If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep the streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
Martin Luther King
“I love him for who he is. But what he does he does the best. I love my garbage man!”
Source: Bob Perks Copyright 2001. Used with permission
Reuben Gonzales was a leading racquetball player. In his first ever professional tournament Gonzales reached the final. He held match point in the fifth and final game when he made a terrific “kill shot” into the front corner to win the tournament. The ball was called good and all were ready to congratulate the new champion when Gonzales turned around and declared that his shot had hit the floor before it reached the wall. He lost his serve and his opponent went on to win the match and the tournament.
The next issue of National Racquetball Magazine featured Gonzales on its cover. Everyone wanted to know why Gonzales did it – why would a professional sportsman disqualify himself after he had just been declared winner of match point?
Gonzales reply was simple: “It was the only thing I could do to maintain my integrity.”
Source: reported by Dennis Waitley, Being the Best.
An English biologist, Gavin Maxwell tells the story of how two otter cubs were brought to the UK from Nigeria. One morning a Church of Scotland minister was walking along the foreshores of a nearby lake and saw the otter cubs playing by the edge. He pulled out a shotgun and shot them. One of the cubs died instantly, the other died later in the water. When a local journalist questioned him about it the minister replied there was no moral problem for “the Lord gave man control over the beasts of the field.”
Source: reported in John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today
In November 2000 my wife, my kids and I took a holiday to the Gold Coast. About 600kms north we were driving up a big hill, knowing that Byron Bay was down the other side. We were looking forward to it. We’d been in the car for a long time, it was hot, and we were eagerly anticipating a break. So up the hill we came, knowing that our break was down the other side. And then we saw it – the most breathtaking view you’re ever likely to encounter. At the top of the hill we got the most breathtaking view of a lush green valley stretching away to the deep blue of the ocean.
There was a lookout at the top of the hill, so we stopped, jumped out of the car and stood looking. The kids figured they’d reached the top of the world, so they danced on a little stone wall singing, “We’re on top the world, we’re on top of the world.” Over and over, “we’re on top of the world, we’re on top of the world.”
And in some ways it really felt like it – it was one of those perfect moments frozen in time. The kids singing and dancing, the wind fresh on the face, the sun shining above us, the road we’d travelled stretching out behind us, the road to come winding its way ahead. We knew who we were, where we’d come from, where we were going.
If you think of life as a journey, most of us would like to sit at the top of the world, to have one of those perfect moments where it all comes together and make sense, where we can look back at where we’ve come from and look ahead and know where we’re going, to have a sense of what is out there waiting for us, to see the detours and potholes and danger points that lie out there and start planning how we’ll meet them.
But instead of sitting at the top we spend most of our time travelling on either side of the hill. God sits at the top, has a sense of how it all fits together, but we usually don’t get that view. We get surprised by potholes and detours and danger spots and have to struggle our way through them. Faith however reminds us that God is at the top of the hill, and that even in the roughest parts we can live with trust in him to guide us through.
Source: Scott Higgins
A college student once wrote this letter to her parents.
Dear mum and dad,
It has been nearly three months since I left for college. I have been remiss in writing, and I am very sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now; but, before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down. Okay.
Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out of the window of my dormitory when it caught fire shortly after my arrival are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital, and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day.
Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me at the hospital; and, since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It’s really a basement room, but it’s kind of cute. He is a very fine boy, and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven’t set the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.
Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents, and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion you gave me when I was a child.
The reason for the delay in our wedding date is that Michael has some very large debts from his three previous marriages that he needs to work off before we can afford to be married.
Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not get a concussion or a skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, and there is no one in my life. However, I am getting a “D” in History and an “F” in Science, and I wanted you to see these marks in the proper perspective.
Your loving daughter,
Edna
When you see geese flying along in “V” formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are travelling on the thrust of one another.
When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone – and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.
If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.
When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.
Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
What messages do we give when we honk from behind?
Finally – and this is important – when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.
If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
Source: Unknown
What should have been a joyous occasion turned into a nightmare of grief. Randy Hoyt watched helplessly as his wife Kris went into hospital for an emergency Caesarean section operation when only 5 months pregnant. The bleeding was tremendous. Kris required 30 units of blood. As the doctors battled to save her life Randy cried out to God “God, what do you want? I know you can heal her; why don’t you?”
God didn’t heal her. Kris and 16 days later their prematurely born daughter Grace lost her struggle for life. Randy was left the single parent of six children.
“What about our plans, God?” he asked. “Who will teach the kids, guide them, and love them like their mother?”
Randy soon found out. A program was started which became known as “Help Bring Hope to the Hoyt Kids.” Over the next six months, hundreds of people worked, sent money, donated meals and supplies and poured love into Randy’s family. Randy received more than 500 letters, e-mails and cards from people who said they were praying for us.
At the end of the six months the medical bills are all paid, the mortgage has been paid and Randy is back at work. God did not save his wife, but God’s love was ministered to Randy and his children in deeply profound ways after Kris’ death.
The pain of Kris’ and Grace’s death of course remained. Yet when he started to sink into despair Randy could imagine the two of them in heaven together, fully alive, healthy and full of joy. “See her as she is now,” he felt the Holy Spirit saying. “She is alive.”
Reflecting upon his experience Chris says, “I asked God for the life of my wife; I received instead a lesson on the nature of God. God is good. Armed with that knowledge, I have no fear for today or the future. God will always be enough…for any situation.”
Source: reported by Randy Hoyt, “Seeing God,” Pentecostal Evangel, January 21, 2001, pp.14-15
In the eleventh century King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of court life and the pressures of being a monarch. He made an application to Prior Richard at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a contemplative and spend the rest of his life in the monastery.
“Your majesty” said Prior Richard, “Do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king.”
“I understand” said Henry. “The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you.”
“Then I will tell you what to do”, said Prior Richard. “Go back to your throne and serve faithfully in the place where God has put you.”
When King Henry died, a statement was written: “The king learned to rule by being obedient.”
Source: told in Leadership Magazine, Fall 1985.
King Canute was once ruler of England. The members of his court were continually full of flattery. “You are the greatest man that ever lived…You are the most powerful king of all…Your highness, there is nothing you cannot do, nothing in this world dares disobey you.”
The king was a wise man and he grew tired such foolish speeches. One day as he was walking by the seashore Canute decided to teach them a lesson.
“So you say I am the greatest man in the world?” he asked them.
“O king,” they cried, “there never has been anyone as mighty as you, and there never be anyone so great, ever again!”
“And you say all things obey me?” Canute asked.
“Yes sire” they said. “The world bows before you, and gives you honour.”
“I see,” the king answered. “In that case, bring me my chair, and place it down by the water.”
The servants scrambled to carry Canute’s royal chair over the sands. At his direction they placed it right at the water’s edge.
The King sat down and looked out at the ocean. “I notice the tide is coming in. Do you think it will stop if I give the command?”
“Give the order, O great king, and it will obey,” cried his entourage
“Sea,” cried Canute, “I command you to come no further! Do not dare touch my feet!”
He waited a moment, and a wave rushed up the sand and lapped at his feet.
“How dare you!” Canute shouted. “Ocean, turn back now! I have ordered you to retreat before me, and now you must obey! Go back!”
In came another wave lapping at the king’s feet. Canute remained on his throne throughout the day, screaming at the waves to stop. Yet in they came anyway, until the seat of the throne was covered with water.
Finally Canute turned to his entourage and said, “It seems I do not have quite so much power as you would have me believe. Perhaps now you will remember there is only one King who is all-powerful, and it is he who rules the sea, and holds the ocean in the hollow of his hand. I suggest you reserve your praises for him.”
There was a woman who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. So as as she was getting her things “in order,” she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. The woman also requested to be buried with her favourite Bible. Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her.
“There’s one more thing,” she excitedly.
“What’s that?” came the pastor’s reply.
“This is very important,” the woman continued. “I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.”
The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say. “That surprises you, doesn’t it?” the woman asked.
“Well, to be honest, I’m puzzled by the request,” said the pastor.
The woman explained. “In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners I always remember that when the dishes were cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part because I knew that something better was coming… like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. Something wonderful and of substance! So I just want people to see me there in that casket with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, ‘What’s with the fork?’ Then I want you to tell them: ‘Keep your fork… the best is yet to come.’
The pastor’s eyes welled up with tears of joy as he hugged the woman goodbye. He knew this would be one of the last times he would see her before her death. But he also knew that the woman had a better grasp of heaven that he did. She knew that something better was coming.
At the funeral people were walking by the woman’s casket and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favourite Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over, the pastor heard the question, “What’s with the fork?” And over and over he smiled.
During his message, the pastor told the people of the conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He also told them about the fork and what it symbolized to her. The pastor told the people how he could not stop thinking about the fork and told them that they probably would not be able to stop thinking about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down for your fork, let it remind you oh so gently, that the best is yet to come.
Source: Unknown.
Karl Kruszenicki is well known to many Australian’s as master of the weird and wonderful in science. Beyond radio and TV appearances, Dr Karl has written a number of books on the weirdest and greatest moments in science. He can tell you why maggots can be good for you, whether people named Smith weigh more than people named Taylor, and why navel lint has a bluish tint.
But there’s also a serious side to Karl Kruszenicki. Karl’s parents were both survivors of Nazi concentration camps. His mother had been in Auschwitz. Karl only found this out towards the end of his parent’s lives, but the news was highly impacting.
Added to this is his experience growing up in a very Anglo-Saxon part of Wollongong, Australia as someone with an ethnic heritage. He recalls walking to school in the rain during his primary school days. Not many people had cars in those days, but those parents who did formed a car pool to ferry the children to school when it rained. Karl was the only one left out. He recalls his feelings of alienation because he didn’t embrace the sporting pursuits of the mainstream Anglo culture.
According to Karl those childhood experiences shaped his spirituality. He says, “I find it difficult to believe in a God that is in any way concerned about us but I’m prepared to believe in a God who doesn’t give a stuff. I’ve been to Salt Lake City and at the Mormons’ centre there are these sweet 16-year-old girls who give you guided tours. One of them said she believed in God because he does things for her all the time, like the other day she was coming to work and she needed a parking spot and God gave her one. And I remember thinking there are millions of kids in Third World countries dying of AIDS. Why doesn’t God help them?”
In this statement Dr Karl has expressed the problem of evil for us. Why doesn’t God solve the problems of the world? He has also raised a problem Christians have whenever we speak of a God who is personally involved with our lives. What makes us think God would find us a car spot while allowing AIDS stricken children to die? Perhaps part of the answer is that God is known only through us human beings, we who are to be his image here on earth.
Source: Scott Higgins. Information on Karl Kruszelnicki found in Sunday Life magazine , Sun Herald, June 10, 2001
The bible holds out the great and glorious hope of a resurrection for us all. But what will the resurrected body be like. Theologian Harry Blamires offers the helpful illustration of the butterfly. As the caterpillar is to the butterfly, so our present body is to the resurrected body. There is continuity but there is also difference. Just as the caterpillar’s body is suited to the realm of the ground, and the butterfly’s to flight through the air, so our present bodies may be suited to this world of sin, but our resurrected bodies will be suited to the life of the Spirit, in a world that is eternal and without limit. And just as it would be difficult for even an intelligent caterpillar to imagine what life would be like as a butterfly, so we struggle to imagine the resurrection life.
Finally, it may be helpful to remember that when we think of the caterpillar we think of its life in terms of its becoming a butterfly. We define its present existence by its future. So too, our present existence is defined by the future God has for us.
Source: based on Harry Balmires, “The Eternal Weight of Glory” Christianity Today, May 22, 1991
In 1995 Harvey Keitel and William Hurt starred in a movie called “Smoke.” Harvey Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a tobacco store, the Brooklyn Tobacco Co. which sits on the comer of third and seventh streets in Brooklyn. One of Auggie’s closest friends is a writer by the name of Paul Benjamin, played by William Hurt. At the end of the movie Paul Benjamin the writer, tells Auggie that he’s been asked to write a Christmas story for the New York Times, but he’s stumped. What’s he going to write about? Auggie says, “I’ve got lots of Christmas stories. In fact I’ve got a great Christmas story. Buy me lunch and I’ll tell it to you.”
Paul buys Auggie lunch and Auggie tells his story. “It’s about me” says Auggie. “One day, I’m in my shop” – the Brooklyn Tobacco Co. on the corner of third and seventh – “when I notice a kid in the act of stealing a girly magazine from the shelf up the back of the store. I call out and the kid bolts for the door and starts running away. So I chase him.” While he’s running something falls out of the thief’s pocket onto the sidewalk. It’s his wallet. Auggie stops running and picks it up. It’s got the thief’s drivers license inside. Now Auggie’s got his name and address. The only other thing the wallet contains is three photographs. One of them is the thief as a young boy with his mother. It softens Auggie’s attitude. This is just a kid who lives in a poor part of the town, who’s struggled all his life to get by. So Auggie decides not to go to the police. Instead he takes the wallet home and puts it on the shelf. And there it sits.
A couple of years later it’s Christmas day. Auggie’s got no friends or family to celebrate with, so he’s sitting at home and his eyes fall on that young thief’s wallet sitting on the shelf. “What the heck” he thinks. “I’m gonna go round to that kid’s place and give him his wallet back.” So he heads downtown, ‘til he comes to the address on the driver’s license. He walks up to a rundown building, rings the doorbell and waits. After a few moments he hears some shuffling, then an old woman’s voice, “Yes, who’s there.”
“I’m looking for Robert” says Auggie.
“Robert” replies the woman. “Is that you Robert? I knew you wouldn’t forget your Granny Joe on Christmas day.”
She flings the door open and Auggie can see she’s an old woman who’s almost completely blind. She opens her arms wide, and next thing Auggie knows she’s hugging him.
“I knew you’d come Robert. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint your old gran.”
Well, what’s he supposed to do? “What the heck” thinks Auggie, “I’ve got nothing better to do today. I’ll play along.”
“Yes gran, it’s me, Robert.”
He can tell by the look on her face that she knows it’s not her grandson Robert, but she’s living all alone and seems to need some company. So she decides to play along too. She welcomes Auggie in, and for the rest of the afternoon Auggie pretends to be her grandson Robert. He tells her how he’s got a good job now, that he owns his own store, that he’s met a lovely girl and they’re going to be married. All this brings a smile to her face and she replies “That’s fine Robert, that’s fine.”
Auggie decides to make lunch for the two of them, but when he goes to the cupboard he finds Granny Joe has no food. So he goes down the road and buys a chicken and breadrolls and salads, and brings it back for them to have lunch together. They open a bottle of wine Granny Joe has lying about and spend a wonderful afternoon together, Auggie still pretending to be her grandson Robert, and she pretending to believe he really is her grandson.
Later in the afternoon Auggie needs to go to the toilet. He walks down the hallway til he finds the bathroom. He goes in, and as he’s relieving himself he notices a stack of six polaroid cameras by the window. Brand new, still the box. Six of them. He thinks to himself, “I’ve never had a camera before, but I’d love to have one.” In a moment of decision he decides to take one of the cameras. After all, the old woman won’t know. She’s blind, she’s got no use for them. So he picks up one of the cameras and heads back to the lounge room. When he gets there Granny Joe has fallen asleep. He decides to let her sleep. He washes the dishes, cleans up the kitchen, picks up his coat and the camera, and walks out the door.
From that day on he starts taking photos of his shop, the Brooklyn Tobacco Co, on the corner of third and seventh. Every morning at exactly 8.00am, whatever the weather, he walks across the road and takes his photo. Over 14 years he documents life in his little comer of the world. It becomes his hobby, his life’s work.
A few years after that Christmas he stole the camera, Auggie decides to go and see Granny Joe again, to apologise for stealing the camera. But she’s no longer living there. He guesses she’s died, but his guilt pangs have not died with her. Fourteen years later as Auggie Wren tells his story to his friend Paul Benjamin the writer, he still feels guilty and ashamed for stealing that camera.
The story says something about all of us, not just Auggie Wren. It captures the human dilemma. On the one hand we’re capable of extraordinary acts of love and generosity, like Auggie’s gift of his presence to an old woman on a cold Christmas day. But on the other hand we’re capable, in exactly the same moment, of extraordinary selfishness, like Auggie when he steals a camera from the house of a lonely old blind woman. In Auggie we see ourselves, in all our glory and all our shame.
Judith Durham was one of Australia’s first international pop stars. As lead singer for The Seekers she toured Australia and the world and had a string of hits, including the first Australian group to have a No 1 hit overseas.
Yet while Durham appeared to be on top of the world, emotionally she was a mess. In contrast to her adoring fans she became deeply depressed about her weight and appearance. She started to hate her face – too pudgy, eyes too small. She developed a hatred for her body, considering her fuller figure unattractive. When superthin model Twiggy came on the scene her self loathing grew. Even after losing 16 kilograms she still felt fat!
Durham says that her depression was matched by loneliness. There was no one she felt she could talk to about it. “I was just consumed by it” she says. “You could go to a doctor and ask for diet pills, but I didn’t know if there was anybody I could have talked to who could have changed inside my head, who could have convinced me, ‘It’s all right to look like this.'”
In the summer of 1967, Joni Erickson and her sister rode their horses to the Chesapeake Bay to go for a swim. The result was tragic. Joni dived into shallow water, struck her head on a rock and became a quadriplegic. She is paralysed from the neck down.
During two years of often painful rehabilitation Joni learned how to paint with her mouth, and what this disability meant for her faith. At times Joni was angry with God, demanding to know why he let this happen, even at times wishing she hadn’t survived. But in the years since Joni has learned that it is in her weakness that God’s strength can shine through. She has been a source of enormous blessing to people all over the world as she shares the faith that sustains her.
At first Joni found it impossible to reconcile her condition with her belief in a loving God. But one night Joni became convinced God did understand. The catalyst was a good friend who said to her, “Joni, Jesus knows how you feel. He was paralysed. He couldn’t move or change position on the cross. He was paralysed by the nails.” The realization was profoundly comforting. “God became incredibly close to me and eventually I understood that He loves me. I had no other identity but God, and gradually He became enough,” stated Joni. “I prayed for healing and truly believed it would come. The Bible speaks of our bodies’ being glorified’. Now I realize I will be healed; I’m just going through a forty or fifty year delay, and God stays with me even through that.”
Source: Joni and friends website, Joni’s books
One of the world’s best known children’s songs is “Jesus Loves Me”.
Jesus loves me this I know
For the bible tells me so
Little ones to him belong
They are weak but he is strong
The song was originally composed for a novel, Say and Seal, published in 1860. It tells the story of a little boy, Johnny who is sick and dying. He is being rocked in the arms of his Sunday School teacher John Linden and asks John to sing him a song. John sings “Jesus Loves Me”.
The profundity of that song extends way beyond simplistic childhood faith. Karl Barth was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He possessed a brilliant mind and wrote thousands of words exploring the interrelation of faith, theology and culture. Towards the end of his life Barth gave a lecture at the University of Chicago Divinity School. At the end of the lecture he was asked what he considered to be the greatest theological discovery of his life.
Everyone sat with bated breath ready for an extended and complex answer. Karl Barth paused for a moment, then smiled and said “The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”
Source: Reported in Deep Cove Crier, November 1993, Reporter Interactive (umr.org) May 2001 and Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story.
While a student at theological college in the United States Bernard Travaieille was playing basketball with some friends. They were using the court at a nearby school, where a friendly old janitor would patiently wait until they had finished their game before locking up. One day Bernard noticed the janitor was reading the bible. In fact he discovered the old janitor was reading the Book of Revelation.
Bernard was surprised. It was a difficult book to interpret even for highly trained bible students! “Do you understand it?” asked Bernard.
“Oh yes, I understand it” the janitor replied.
Now Bernard was really intrigued. Here was this book that baffled scholars, that was the focus of every conspiracy theory known to humanity, and this old man, a janitor with little formal education, claimed to understand it!
“You understand the Book of Revelation?! What do you think it means?” asked Bernard.
The old man looked up at him and very quietly said, “It means that Jesus is gonna win.”
Source: Reported by Bernard Travaieille in Illustrations Unlimited
The capacity for self deceit about our sin is illustrated graphically in the life of James Hammond, a plantation owner, slaver, congressman and governor during the years the United States practiced slavery. He was also a man who abused his power to satisfy his raging sexual desires. In 1839 he purchased an 18 year old slave named Sally and her child Louisa. He made Sally his concubine, and had many children by her. Then when Sally’s daughter Louisa turned twelve he made her his concubine and fathered children by her.
Not content with the sexual abuse of his slaves he also sexually abused his sisters four daughters.
His evil caught up with him when his brother-in-law threatened to publicly reveal the sexual assaults on his daughters if Hammond didn’t resign from political office. Hammond’s wife left him, and many of his livestock died as a result of disease epidemics.
Astonishingly Hammond was so self deceived that he couldn’t see the error of his ways. After many of his slaves and livestock had died from disease this is what he wrote in his diary:
“It crushes me to the earth to see every thing of mine so blasted around me. Negroes, cattle, mules, hogs, every thing that has life around me seems to labour under some fated malediction…Great God, what have I done. Never was a man so cursed…what have I done or omitted to do to deserve this fate?…No one, not one, exercises the slight indulgence to me. Nothing is overlooked, nothing forgiven.”
Source: Reported in John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Ortberg sourced the information from historian James McPherson’s Drawn With the Sword (Oxford University press, 1996)
Jacob Dylan is the lead singer in a band called the Wallflowers. He’s also the son of Bob Dylan, and all his life he’s had to live in the shadow of his famous musician father. When his band went on their first tours they’d find the audiences packed with middle aged fans of his father armed with 20 page letters for the accessible younger Dylan to pass on to his inaccessible father.
I was struck by something Jacob Dylan said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine. He talked about how books had been written about his father, even history books, analysing Bob Dylan’s place in shaping modern culture. The he said this, “There’s countless biographies. In most of the books, there might be one page that mentions the names of [Bob’s] children. That’s it. I don’t want to be a page in the book.”
Source: Quote taken from Rolling Stone Magazine Issue 585, March 2001
Gabrielle Carey is an Australian author most widely known for the movie Puberty Blues, based upon the book of the same title. In a later book, In My Father’s HouseCarey relates an incident that led to her conversion to Christ. Carey was raised in an atheist humanist household. Her father was a university lecturer with a passionate commitment to the left side of politics. Throughout her upbringing he railed against oppression, capitalism and was a key figure in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years.
Being against religious instruction Carey’s father wouldn’t allow her to attend Scripture classes at school, but he did allow her to attend Sunday School with her friends at the local Baptist Church. He had just one piece of advice: “Just remember to ask the teacher a question. Ask her why God doesn’t stop the war in Vietnam.”
Gabrielle did so but didn’t get an answer. The teacher, obviously embarrassed by the question, excused her self to go to the bathroom, and didn’t return to answer the question.
The experience convinced Carey that her father was right, that there was no God.
Years later Carey was living in Ireland. A music program she was listening to on the radio ended, to be followed by an interview with a Benedictine abbot. Gabrielle was about to turn the radio off when the interviewer asked the question her father had always used in debates with religious leaders. “If there is a God why is there so much injustice in the world.” Gabrielle paused to hear the Abbot’s reply, expecting the same old line about it being God’s will. The Abbot’s reply stunned her. “I don’t know” he said. “Sometimes being married to God is a bit like being married to Jack the Ripper. You just don’t know what he’s doing.”
Gabrielle says “It was the best and most honest answer I’d ever heard to that question.” She began a correspondence with the Abbot that eventually led her to convert to Catholicism.
The Abbot’s answer is honest. At the end of the day we don’t know why God allows suffering and evil. Sure, we can develop philosophically rigorous responses, but in the end they usually seem inadequate in the face of evil.
Source: Scott Higgins, based on Gabrielle Carey’s In My Father’s House (Pan MacMillan, 1992)
Only a few humans have been fortunate enough to journey into space, and it seems that the experience can be overwhelming and indeed, life changing. James Irwin was an astronaut on the Apollo 15 mission. He got to see the earth while standing on the moon and it reshaped his view of the world forever. Here’s how earth appeared to him from space: “That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart.”
George Harrison was one of the Beatles, one of the greatest and most influential pop bands of all time. Harrison knew fame, adulation, the pleasure of mastering his craft, the sense that his was a formative influence on music. So his comment in the Beatles Anthology is instructive: “When you’ve had all the experiences – met all the famous people, made some money, toured the world and got all the acclaim – you still think ‘is that it?’. Some people might be satisfied with that, but I wasn’t and I’m still not.”
Source: Reported by Ananova News Service, Nov 30 2001
