Community Stories

Don't Wait…

Just about every home in Australia today has a telephone in it. In fact many homes have multiple phones, and a lot of us carry mobiles. And many of you could easily answer the question: who invented the telephone? Of course, it was Alexander Bell. Bell was amazingly talented. Not only did he invent the telephone, he also invented the multiple telegraph, the audiometer – which is used to test your hearing, the tricycle landing gear you find on planes, and a host of other less well known machines. In addition to this he was cofounder of the prestigious magazine Science, served as President of the National Geographic Society, and spent his life working with deaf people.

But most famous of all is his telephone. It also made his family and his descendents enormously wealthy. But he almost lost it all. You see Bell never seemed to get around to submitting a patent application. Finally, his father-in-law, who had financed a lot of the research, got so impatient that he filed the patent on Bell’s behalf on the 14th of February 1876, Bell’s 29th birthday. And it was just as well, because just a few hours later, another scientist by the name of Elisha Gray went to the patent office to get a patent on a machine he’d been working on for many years – you guessed it, the telephone.

Application: Action. Bell reminds us that sometimes its not enough simply to have great ideas. We need to act on them.

Application: Faith, Works. Bell and his father-in-law are a good example of the relationship between faith and works. As James says, one without the other is ineffective. Bell had faith in his telephone but did nothing about it. His father-in-law had faith and works to go with it.

Application: Community, Giftedness. Bells story reminds us how we need all types of people to make our communities and churches function effectively. We need the thinkers like Bell, the doers like Bell’s father-in-law, and together we can accomplish great things.

Source: Scott Higgins. Scientific info from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s New Moments in Science #1

Ask Him About His Childhood

“You have no idea what this has meant to me. All these years I never thought you were even interested in what I had to say,” the old man told them.
It’s my get away. You heard me mention it before. My favorite restaurant for a good old clog your heart breakfast of eggs, home fries, and bacon. Oh yes. Whole wheat toast to make it healthy.

I find the most incredible people and stories in restaurants. Think about it. It’s your family dinner table removed from your kitchen and placed in a public area. Like home, but better. Somebody else is cooking and doing the dishes.

So scattered all around me are families having dinner, friends catching up with the latest news, business meetings and people like me just there to relax. Oh, of course. Great conversation.

Except in the booth across from me. Silence.

When I first sat down there two men sitting together quietly. One man appeared to be in his thirties. He was dressed in some old work clothes and still wearing his baseball cap. The other man I would guess was about 80. He had the most incredible face. The lines and creases gave him character. His white hair was messy from wearing a stocking cap he held on top of the table. He wore one of those red plaid shirt jackets that you might see on a construction worker. Heavy enough to keep you warm while you’re moving about, but not too bulky to limit your movement.

But he didn’t look like he was going any where. Neither was this conversation.

“Boy, I really worked up a hunger today, Pop. All that shoveling and sweeping the snow will do that,” the younger man said.

“Yeah, this is somethin’,” replied the old man.

Silence followed for the longest time.

Suddenly I heard the young man say, “Here they come,” as he pointed toward the doorway.

He almost looked relieved. Somebody who would join in and help get this conversation going.

It appeared to me that the two people who joined them were a mother and teenage grandchild. The woman sat next to the younger man and Pop stood up to let the grandchild slide in place.

“Hello, Dad. Good to see you!” she said as she sat down.

“Yep!” the old man replied.

Silence. Even longer gaps than before.

“I feel real good,” the old man said proudly.

“Oh, you look good Dad,” the younger man said. Then one by one the others agreed.

Silence.

The waitress approached and took their breakfast orders.

Grandpa excused himself. “Gotta go to the bathroom. It happens a lot when you’re old,” he said.

As soon as he was out of sight, the younger man said, “God, I don’t know what to say to him. We just sit here looking around. He never talks.”

“I know what you mean. God what do you say?” the woman added.

“He’s old. What do you talk about with an old man?” the kid joined in.

Oh, no. Here I go. I can’t just sit here and listen to this. I’m going to say something, swallow hard and wait to see if they tell me it’s none of my business.

“Ask him about his childhood,” I said as I continued eating.

“What? Pardon me? Were you talking to us, sir?” the woman asked.

“Yes. It’s really not my business, I know. But do you realize what he has to offer you? Can you even begin to understand what this man has seen in his lifetime? He most likely has answers to problems you haven’t even discovered as problems in your life. He’s a gold mine!” I said.

Silence again.

“Look, talk to him about his childhood. Ask him what the snows were like back then. He’ll have a million stories to share. He’s not talking because no one is asking,” I told them.

Just then he came walking around the corner.

“Oh, boy. I feel much better now. You know I haven’t been goin’ good in a while,” the old man told them.

They all turned and looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders. Okay. So old people also talk about the facts of life. And going or not going is a major thing when you’re old. You take the good with the bad.

After a long silence the young girl said, “Paw Paw. When you were a kid were the snows this bad?”

“Gees, honey. This is nothing like the snows I had when I was a kid. Did I ever tell you about the snow storm that covered my house?” he asked.

“No, Pop. I don’t think I ever heard that one myself,” said the younger man.

Now for the next twenty minutes the old man was in his glory. At one point he even stood up to show them how high the one snow drift was. Throughout the entire meal everyone chimed in with more questions. They laughed and he lit up like he was on stage and the play he was acting in was his life story.

Just as I was about to leave I heard the old man say, “You have no idea what this has meant to me. All these years I never thought you were even interested in what I had to say.”

“Oh….. well, I guess we just didn’t think you wanted to talk,” the woman said.

“Well nobody bothered to ask me anything. I just figured I was boring or somethin. It’s been a tough life you know. Ever since Ma Ma died I really had nothing to say.” He paused for a moment. I could see him nervously wringing his rough life worn hands together.

“You see, her and I were like a song. I made the music and she…she was the words,” he said.

Like tough guys of his time are supposed to do, he held back any visible emotion, sniffled and wiping his eye he said, “No sense talkin’ if you ain’t got the words.”

As I turned to walk away I looked across the table. I saw the young girl wave and smile at me as she put her arm around Paw Paw’s shoulders.

She didn’t have to say a word.

Source: Bob Perks © 2001. Used with permission

Contact

Contact, starring Jodie Foster, tells the story of astronomer Ellie Arroway’s search for extraterrestrial life. It is more however than a movie about aliens. It raises profound questions about life, faith and science.

Ellie’s parents both died while she way very young, and she is left with a keen sense of aloneness and a drive to discover some sense of meaning and purpose to life and existence. Her chosen path to truth is science. She refuses to accept anything on the basis of faith. Only that which can be scientifically demonstrated can be intellectually embraced.

The other central character in the movie is Palmer Joss, a spiritual adviser to the president. Ellie and Joss find themselves attracted to each other, but their relationship forces them both to explore the place of faith and reason in their lives. Ellie challenges Joss to proven that God exists. Ockham’s razor demands that the simplest explanation is the best. On this basis she asks “So what’s more likely? That a mysterious, all-powerful God created the universe, and then decided not to leave a single evidence of his existence? Or that He simply doesn’t exist at all, and that we created Him, so that we wouldn’t have to feel so small and lonely?”

Joss responds by asking Ellie if she loved her father. She affirms that she loved him deeply. Joss then turns Ellie’s demand back on her. “Prove it”. Joss explains that although he may not be able to scientifically prove God’s existence, he once had a deeply moving experience where he felt overwhelmed by the presence of God. It’s on this basis that he believes. Ellie however can’t accept this. If it cannot be proven it cannot be true.

Then one day, as Ellie is listening for signals from outer-space contact is made. Aliens from deep in space have returned radio signals to earth and then send details for the construction of what seems to be a time machine. After one person has died when the first machine explodes, Ellie is chosen to travel in the second. When Joss asks her whether she is willing to die for this she replies: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for something, some reason why we’re here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer… I don’t know, I think it’s worth a human life. Don’t you?”

So Ellie finds herself sitting in a small metallic sphere suspended from massive circular arms. The arms start rotating furiously, reaching a point where the sphere is dropped. This time the machine doesn’t explode, the sphere simply falls to earth. Nothing has happened…

Or at least that’s how it appears to inside observers. Ellie’s experience within the capsule is extraordinary. She finds herself hurtling down a “wormhole”, a doorway through space, until she emerges on a beautiful beach. A figure walks across the sand toward her. It’s her father…in fact an alien life form coming to her in the guise of her father so that she will feel comfortable. Finally Ellie has overcome her sense of cosmic aloneness, perhaps found some of the answers she is looking for. In some poignant lines the alien says: “You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”

After 18 hours Ellie has to return. When she does she finds herself confronted by the same skepticism towards her experience that she showed to Joss when he spoke of his experience of God. From the viewpoint of everyone observing from outside the capsule nothing happened. Surely Ockham’s razor demands the simplest explanation – that nothing did happen other than Ellie being fooled? Surely they can’t be expected to accept Ellie’s story on the basis of nothing but faith? Ellie’s confronted with a terrible dilemma. Can she now embrace her experience on the basis of nothing but faith? It seems her answer is “yes”. She says “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but… that continues to be my wish.”

 

Application: Science and religion, truth, God’s existence, evidence for God, apologetics. The movie suggests that faith and science are not opposed, as Ellie thinks, but can complement each other as Joss believes. Truth can be accessed not only through scientific experiment but also through experience. Indeed, the film suggests that the greatest truths – love, meaning, purpose, etc – are outside the ability of science.

Application: Meaning of Life. Ellie’s closing words represent a wonderful description of the Christian perspective on life. “I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but… that continues to be my wish.”

Application: Relationships, Loneliness, God’s presence. The alien in the movie provides a poignant expression of our desperate need for others (and God), when he says of humans, “You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”

Storms

The Sydney to Hobart is one of the world’s great yacht races. But in 1998 it was struck by terrible disaster, when a ferocious storm forced most of the fleet to retire and claimed six lives.

One of the yachts competing was the 43 footer, the Sword of Orion. During that storm the Sword of Orion was a cork on the ocean, battling its way against huge seas. All of a sudden the crew heard a roar like the sound of a train, a breaking wave of 80 feet hit their yacht side on, and flipped it over. When the boat righted itself, one crewman had been swept away, the mast had torn away from its footing and was threatening to spear straight through the hull, and the equipment and rigging was in terrible shape.

The crew sent out a mayday call and did their best to keep the yacht afloat. They braced the hull to prevent it from collapsing, they started bailing out the water seeping in, and like a cork bobbing on a violent ocean they waited for a rescue team to arrive.

They waited through the night and heard nothing. Then in the dim light of early morning one of the crewman saw something he almost couldn’t believe. There just 150 metres away was another yacht! He raced below deck to grab the flares. He let off the first, but got no response. He let off a second, but got no response. He let off the third, but got no response. Hadn’t they seen him? Couldn’t they see this yacht was in trouble? He let off a fourth and a fifth, but still no response. With their hearts sinking the crew of the Sword of Orion watched the other yacht sail away.

The other yacht was the Margaret Rintoul II The skipper of the Margaret Rintoul had seen the flares set off by the Sword of Orion, but was faced with an agonising decision. One of the first rules of yachting is that you always go to the aid of a yacht in distress. But the Margaret Rintoul was only just making it through the storm herself. The engine was not working, making manoeuvrability in the atrocious conditions very difficult, and to go to the aid of Sword of Orion would mean turning the Margaret Rintoul II side-on to the giant waves, and that would mean a very strong risk that Margaret Rintoul IIwould herself be flipped and left helpless by the sea. Weighing up the risk to his own crew the skipper of the Margaret Rintoul II made the heartbreaking decision to sail on. They eventually sailed to safety, and were later vindicated by the coroner for their choice.

Meanwhile back on the Sword of Orion the crew held on. They were located by a search plane, and a short time after watching it fly off, they heard the drone of a helicopter engine. The helicopter lowered a cable into the raging seas, and a crewman would jump overboard, grab the cable, attach it to themselves and be hoisted to safety. After rescuing three of the nine crew the helicopter had to leave, it was running low on fuel. When it arrived back at base it had just 10 minutes of fuel left. The six remaining crew waited out a cold and terrifying night. Then the next morning another helicopter arrived, able to rescue the remaining six crewman. Moment after the last crewman was rescued the Sword of Orion was flung down the face of another huge wave and began to crack apart.

When we’re in crisis often the only thing we can do is hang on and wait for help. Like the crew of the Margaret Rintoul we might be so overwhelmed by the crisis we face that we’re not able to help others in need. But in a healthy community there will always be those who can help us through.

 

Source: Scott Higgins. Information on the yacht race found in Rob Mundle, Fatal Storm.

Bearing Another’s Burden

Albert Schweitzer was one of the most famous missionaries of the modern era. Leaving behind both an academic career (Schweizer had Phds in both theology and physics) and a musical one (Schweizer was also a concert organist) he set up a medical clinic in French Equatorial Africa. He was 85 years old when Andrew Davison of Colgate Rochester Seminary had the privilege of visiting. Davison tells how one morning, at around 11.00, he, Schweitzer and some others were walking up a hill. It was extremely hot. Suddenly the 85 year old Dr Schweitzer walked away from the group. He made his way toward an African woman struggling up the hill with a large load of wood for the cookfires. Schweitzer took the entire load of wood from the woman and carried it up the hill for her.

When Schweitzer rejoined the group one of them asked why he did things like that. With the rest of the group this person was surprised and concerned that a person of Dr Schweitzer’s age would strain themselves so. Dr Schweitzer looked at the group, then pointed to the woman and said, “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone.”

 

Source: Reported in a letter by Andrew Davison found in Illustrations Unlimited.

A Banquet for the Homeless

It’s Christmas 2001. One thousand specially invited guests are seated on coaches transporting them to a secret location. They arrive to a splendidly decorated ballroom, find their seats and sit down to a sumptuous meal prepared by chefs from Sydney’s Regent and ANA hotels: a beautiful salad of prawns and mangos, traditional roast turkey and ham with stuffing and vegetables and to top it off traditional Christmas pudding with a gourmet custard. Guests will be treated to complimentary gifts and an evening of entertainment.

Who are these 1000 specially invited guests? They are homeless people from the streets of Sydney. They’ve been invited by Jeff Gambin, a former restauranter. In 1993 Gambin and his wife set up Just Enough Faith. Every night Gambin and his team of volunteers prepare and distribute meals to Sydney’s homeless. They also provide them with housing, employment, rehabilitation and counselling. In the nine years they’ve been running Jeff Gambin and his wife have spent $2.5 million of their own money, and plan to continue until it runs out. And at Christmas they treat the homeless to a celebration normally reserved for the rich and the celebrity.

Gambin knows he will exhaust all his resources and receive nothing material in return. Yet he says “it is easily the most gratifying thing I have ever done in my life.”

What a wonderful image of the banquet feast of God described by Jesus, a banquet to which the marginalised and the poor are invited, a banquet which turns on its head our common notions of importance, status and honour. Here is grace available to all.

Source: reported on Today Tonight news show, Channel 7, December 21, 2001.

A Pilgrim Church

Eminence, a novel by Australian author Morris West, tells the story of Luca Rossini, a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. Luca who now serves in the Vatican, live sin the shadow of a terrible experience he suffered as a young priest in Argentina. It was the 1970’s, a time when the military junta that ruled Argentina, acted with terrible brutality. Luca was brutalised in front of the villagers. Lucky to escape with his life he was spirited out of Argentina. Yet the scars across his back are an outward symbol of the scars he bears within. By the time we find him in West’s novel Luca is 50 years old, a confidant of a rigidly conservative Pope. He has had to deal not only with his suffering, but his sense of betrayal at the silence of many Church leaders during the “dirty war” in Argentina.

At one point in the novel Luca is interviewed by Steffi Guillerman, a journalist. They sit opposite each other, and Guillerman launches straight into it. “Let’s deal with the big questions first. What’s wrong with the Church?”

Luca’s reply is insightful and instructive, an answer that points us to the true nature of the people of God. Guillerman has asked what’s wrong with the Church. Luca replies, “The same things that have been wrong with it for two thousand years – people! Men and women and children, too, who make up the family of believers. This isn’t a community of the pure and the perfect. They’re good, bad and indifferent. They’re ambitious, greedy, fearful, lustful, a rabble of pilgrims held together by faith and hope – and the difficult experience of love.”

 

Source: Morris West, Eminence (Harper Collins, 1998) p151.

Awareness Test. Can You See the Dancing Bear Video

An incredible video highlighting how we tend to see only what we’re looking for and easily miss things. Can be applied to relationships, not seeing the needy, worldview and how we interpret the bible.

We Are All Family – A Story About Loving One’s Enemy

CNN television  reporter Peter Arnett was once on assignment in Israel when a bomb exploded. Through a mass of wounded people strode a man carrying a little girl. She had been badly injured by the blast. The man begged Peter to take her to a hospital. As a member of the press he was one of the few be able to get through the security cordon that police had formed. Peter agreed. He bundled the man and the girl into his car. The trip to the hospital was traumatic. Neither Peter nor the man knew if the beautiful little girl would make it.

They made it to the hospital, rushed the girl in, and waited anxiously for news. After what seemed an eternity the doctor came out with the tragic news that the little girl had died. The man collapsed in tears. Peter Arnett stumbled to comfort him as best he could. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine what you must be going through. I’ve never lost a child.”

The man turned and looked at Peter. “That girl was not my daughter. I’m an Israeli settler. She was a Palestinian. But there comes a time when each of us must realize that every child, regardless of that child’s background, is a daughter or a son. There must come a time when we realize that we are all family.”

 

Source: unknown. I have been unable to confirm the details of this story.

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