All Stories Stories

Three Rings

A wealthy sultan of the Muslim faith, Saladin, once approached Nathan the Wise, a Jewish scholar, with a question: “Your reputation for wisdom is great,” said the Sultan. “You must have studied the great religions. Tell me, which is the best, Judaism, Islam, or Christianity?”

Nathan the Wise found himself in a predicament. If he answered “Judaism” his Islamic friend would be insulted, but if he answered “Islam” he would lose his own integrity. Nathan the Wise thought for a moment then responded with a parable.

“Once upon a time there was a king who possessed a magnificent opal ring. It glowed with thousands of colours, but its true power lay in the fact that it made  a person beloved of God and others. For many generations the ring was passed down from parent to favourite child, until finally it came to a king who had three children all equally favoured. What was the King to do? He decided to fashion two more rings, each identical in appearance to the original. He then gave one to each child, with each believing they had the original ring.

But instead of harmony the three rings brought conflict. Each child believed they possessed the true ring and therefore the right to inherit the throne. The tension was escalated when the rings were examined but differences between them could not be determined.”

At this point Saladin interrupts. “But surely my friend you are not suggesting that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are the same? Surely there are great differences between them?”

“You are right Saladin” replied Nathan, “but each of these religions is based on faith and belief, and who can prove that one is superior to the other? But let me continue with my tale, for it is nearly at an end.”

“The quarrel among the three children became so great it was brought before a judge. The judge listened as each child explained their case. When the time for judgement came all listened with great interest. ‘I have been asked to decide which of these rings is the original.” began the judge. ‘As the original ring made its wearer beloved of God and people I can only conclude that none of you have the original ring, for your rings have brought hatred and strife between you. None of you is loved by the other, so I must conclude that the original ring perished with your father and that all three you possess are counterfeits. Or it may be, that you father, was weary of the tyranny of a single ring, and made duplicates which he gave you. So let each of you prove his belief in his ring by conducting yourselves in a manner that befits those beloved of God and people.”

Source: Adapted from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise (1779).

The Sundial

Conscience is like a sundial. When the sun shines upon a sundial it points us to the right time. In the same way our consciences point us in the right direction in life. However, it’s important to remember that the sundial works only when the sun is shining upon it. When the moonlight shines on the dial it points to the wrong time. When a torch is shone upon the sundial it again points us to the wrong time. In these instances the sundial is unreliable. In the same way our consciences are sometimes unreliable because the “light” shining upon them is not the voice of God, but the voices of our families or our culture or even Satan. In these instances we’ll feel false guilt over things that should not make us feel guilty, or no guilt over things that should!  The key for the Christian is to have their conscience continually illuminated by God’s Spirit.

Source: reported in John White, The Fight

St Patrick

At the turn of the 5th century the Roman Empire was on the verge of collapse. With it’s power crumbling, the coast of Britain was subject to attacks by violent Irish slave traders. In 401 a 16 year old boy named Patrick was taken in one of these raids. Stripped from the comforts of his home life and a future which would have included a classical education and career, Patrick was made the slave of an Irish chieftain and assigned the role of shepherd. The life of a shepherd-slave was miserable – isolated for months on end in mountains that were bitterly cold, in a land where he did not know the local languages, and experiencing times of severe hunger.

Such severe circumstances drove the young man to God. His grandfather had been a Christian priest, and Patrick turned to his family’s faith. He spent his bitter days in constant prayer. As he did, a deep love of God and a profound sense of God’s Spirit at work within him grew in the young man.

Six years after his kidnapping Patrick had a dream-vision. In his sleep he heard a voice say “Your hungers are rewarded: you are going home.” He sat up, startled, and the voice continued: “Look, your ship is ready.” Patrick got up and started walking. Two hundred miles later he came to the coast and saw a ship. No ship was about to give passage to a fugitive slave and the captain told the young man to move on. But Patrick knew this was his ship. He spent some time in prayer and before he had finished one of the sailors came after him with the message that he could sail with them.

It takes him two years but finally the young man arrives home to Britain. His overjoyed parents beg him not to ever leave them again. But one night Victorious, a man who he knew in Ireland, appears to him in a vision. Victorious holds a letter with the heading “The Voice of the Irish”. The young man then hears a voice of a multitude crying “We beg you to come and walk among us once more.”

Try as he might Patrick cannot put the Irish out of his mind. The visions keep coming until finally he gives in. He enrolls to be trained for the ministry and emerges some time later an ordained priest and bishop. And so a young bishop by the name of Patrick heads off to become the first known missionary to Ireland. His mission is astonishingly successful. The Irish rapidly embrace the Christian faith. By the time of his death Christianity has been established across Ireland, the Irish slave trade has ended, and murder and inter-tribal warfare have markedly decreased.

One of Patrick’s greatest achievements was the salvation of Western civilisation. After the “barbarians” overran the Roman Empire nearly all the great literary works were destroyed. Hundreds of years of learning literally went up in flames. But there was a place the Latin books were copied and preserved – in the monasteries established by Patrick throughout Ireland. When Europe emerged from its Dark Ages it was to the monasteries of Ireland that they turned to recover their learning.

 

Source: Reported in Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilisation (Hodder, 1995)

Ole Bull

How a person reacts to criticism often means the difference between success and failure. Take the case of Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist of the nineteenth century. His practical father, a chemist, sent him to the University of Christiania to study for the ministry and forbade him to play his beloved violin. He promptly flunked out and, defying his father, devoted all his time and energy to the violin. Unfortunately, though he had great ability, his teachers were relatively unskilled, so that by the time he was ready to start his concert tour he wasn’t prepared.

In Italy a Milan newspaper critic wrote: “He is an untrained musician. If he be a diamond, he is certainly in the rough and unpolished.”

There were two ways Ole Bull could have reacted to that criticism. He could let it make him angry, or he could learn from it. Fortunately he chose the latter. He went to the newspaper office and asked to see the critic. The astounded editor introduced him. Ole spent the evening with the 70-year-old critic, asked about his faults, and sought the older man’s advice on how to correct them. Then he cancelled the rest of his tour, returned home, and spent the next six months studying under really able teachers. He practiced hours upon hours to overcome his faults. Finally, he returned to his concerts and, when only 26, became the sensation of Europe.

Source: unknown. I have not been able to verify the accuracy of this story.

Mel White

Mel White is an ordained minister of a Metropolitan Community Church in the United States. You may not have heard of the Metropolitan Community Church, but if you were to walk into one of their services you’d find it very much like an Evangelical one. The people around you would be singing songs of praise that you know, you might hear testimonies of people who had recently become Christians, the bible would be preached, prayers made, conservative Christian beliefs affirmed. In fact it’s an environment in which most Evangelicals would feel at home…until you discover that most of the people around you are gay. Not only are they gay but they are living in homosexual unions blessed and promoted by the Metropolitan Community Church.

Mel White is one of their ministers. He first realised he was homosexual when he was a 12 year old Boy Scout and fell head over heals for another boy, Daryl. It terrified him. He knew homosexuality was evil and would send him to hell. He spent the next 30 years in a constant battle with his homosexual feelings. Knowing they were not within God’s will Mel did what was expected of him – he got married to a lovely woman, had children and a rich family life. Yet almost from the start he and his wife knew something was wrong. They tried desperately to find a “cure” for his homosexual feelings. He tried aversion therapy, where electric shocks were applied to his body every time he felt stimulated by photos of men. He tried counselling, He fasted, he prayed, he was anointed with oil for healing. He tried chemical treatments. He tried exorcism. He wanted desperately not to be gay. But nothing worked.

In the meantime Mel had been to seminary, gained a doctorate in theology and was working as a co-author in writing books for many of the US Christian world’s biggest and most conservative names: Francis Schaeffer, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham.

After decades of failing to overcome his homosexuality Mel slit his wrists in an attempt at suicide. While recovering in hospital he again tried to kill himself. At that point his wife said “Why don’t you choose life?” They agreed to an amicable separation and from that point on Mel has entered into a long term homosexual relationship, reconciled his faith and his sexuality, maintained his strong and loving relationship with his children, and now works to help people discover their homosexuality as a gift from God, not a sickness nor a sin.

Of course this has met with a strong reaction from others in the very conservative Christian Right of which he was a part. As new of his homosexuality became public book writing contracts were cancelled, phone calls went unreturned, letters were written declaring him an abomination who would burn in hell, and some of his former colleagues refused even to shake his hand.

Source: information from Metropolitan Tabernacle web-site & Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was Professor of theology at the University of Berlin in Germany in 1930’s. At this time German Christians were divided over Hitler. One group allied themselves with Hitler, they wanted a “pure” German nation. They formed an official German church which supported Hitler and banned Jews from holding official positions in the Church. Bonhoeffer was among those who could not go along with Hitler’s anti-Jewish, radically German vision. With others he set up an underground church which explicitly refused to ally itself to Hitler’s Third Reich vision. It was dangerous. In 1937 Bonhoeffer was sacked. He flees to London. Two years later Bonhoeffer’s faced with a choice. He’s been offered one of the most prestigious theology appointments in the world – lecturing at Union Seminary in New York or returning to Germany to head up an illegal, underground seminary for the churches who refuse to go along with Hitler. He decides his faith is meaningless if he takes the easy option. He heads back to Germany and finds Hitler so evil that he abandons his commitment to non violence and gets involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot fails and in 1943 Bonhoeffer’s arrested. In prison he leads worship services for his fellow prisoners, until the fateful day April 9, 1945 when he’s executed by the Nazis.

Through all this what distressed Bonehoeffer was the way so many Christians could sell out to Hitler’s evil vision. How could people who owned the name of Christ so betray Christ? How could they pray in a church which banned Jews from holding office? It convinced Bonehoeffer that religiosity in and of itself was worthless. It didn’t matter how fervently a person believed in Jesus, how many times each day they prayed, how earnestly and sincerely they sang hymns on Sundays. In the end the measure of spirituality is not how we are in the church but how we are in the whole of life. In the end the measure of spirituality is to live in the world as a man or woman who is for others.

 

Source: based on numerous accounts of Bonhoeffer

The Stone Cutter

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.

One day he passed a wealthy merchant’s house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. “How powerful that merchant must be!” thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. “How powerful that official is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a high official!”

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. “How powerful the sun is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the sun!”

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. “How powerful that storm cloud is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a cloud!”

Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. “How powerful it is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be the wind!”

Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it – a huge, towering rock. “How powerful that rock is!” he thought. “I wish that I could be a rock!”

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. “What could be more powerful than I, the rock?” he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.

Source: unknown.

The Special Olympics

Joni Erickson Tada is the president of JET ministries, a ministry which aims to serve the disabled. She is herself a quadriplegic. A few years ago she was a spectator at the Los Angeles Special Olympics. Her husband Ken was the coordinator for track and field events. Joni was among a large crowd watching the participants prepare for the 50 metres running race.

The starter’s gun fired and off the contestants raced. As they rushed toward the finish line one boy left the track and started running toward his friends standing in the infield. Ken blew his whistle, trying to get the boy to come back to the track, but all to no avail.

Then one of the other competitors noticed, a down syndrome girl with thick bottle glasses. She stopped just short of the finish line and called out to the boy, “Stop, come back, this is the way.”  Hearing the voice of her friend the boy stopped and looked. “Come back, this is the way” she called. The boy stood there, confused. His friend, realising he was confused, left the track and ran over to him. She linked arms with him and together they ran back to the track and finished the race. They were the last to cross the line, but were greeted by hugs from their fellow competitors and a standing ovation from the crowd.

The downs syndrome girl with the bottle glasses taught everyone present that day an important life lesson, that it’s important to take time out form our own goals in life to help others find their way. Reflecting on the episode afterwards Ken was reminded of some verses from Romans 15:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up . . . May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.

Source: reported in Joni Erickson Tada, “It’s Called Unity”, found at joniandfriends.org

The Space Race

On the evening of July 20, 1969 people across the world were huddled around black and white TV sets, breathless as they watched a grainy image. Those who didn’t have TV sets had gone to the homes of neighbours who did. No one wanted to miss what was being shown on the screen. The air was thick with excitement and nervous tension. Then at four minutes to eleven a white suited Neil Armstrong stepped from his spacecraft onto the surface of the moon, uttering the immortal words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Getting to the moon was a phenomenal achievement. It signaled hope that we humans could achieve great things. But from another perspective it signaled the very worst about us. Eight years before Armstrong stepped on the moon the Russians put a guy named Gagarin into a spaceship and launched him into orbit around the earth, the first ever manned space flight. That moment shamed the people of the United States. It was the time of the Cold War and once Gagarin went into space the US was hell bent on beating the Russians to the moon. They redoubled their efforts, the space program became a national priority.

Why? What was so important about being first to the moon? The race to the moon was a race for bragging rights. It was a competition to show which nation had the greatest know-how, which system – Capitalism or Communism – the most advanced technology, the cleverer scientists.

A report to the House Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight of the Committee on Science and Astronautics in 1974 stated that the Apollo moon program cost $25.4 billion, which equates to over $100 billion in today’s (2012) values. Christian rock singer Larry Norman observed in his song the Great American Novel that this occured at a time when the US and the wold were filled with hungry people.

Source: Scott Higgins

The Sicilian Court Case

In February 2000 newspapers reported an astonishing hoax that took place on the island of Sicily. The ringleader of the hoax was an Italian judge. He decided to stage a fake court case with the sole purpose of having a laugh at a lawyer from the mainland. The date was fixed, the court proceedings announced, and a female prosecutor, Iolanda Apostolica was brought across from mainland Italy. Everybody was in on the joke, except for Ms Apostolica. The aim of the hoax was to spend the entire case laughing at her behind her back. To heighten her humiliation the judge assigned everyone involved in the case a name drawn from Sicilian slang. He was to be known as Judge Licazzi, the Defence lawyer as Mr Crastello and a court officer as Ms Sbardasciata. For those of you unfamiliar with Sicilian slang, Licazzi means testicles, Crastello means castrated and Sbardasciata means cretinous. So for the entire proceedings, as the prosecution lawyer argued what she thought was a genuine case, she was referring to his honour Mr Testicles, defence lawyer Mr Castrated and Court Officer Ms Cretinous.

The first the prosecution layer knew something was amiss was when a colleague flashed her a sign that said “They joke about you in court”. When she returned home she described her day to her boyfriend Claudio, who just happened to be a university tutor in Rome who knew Sicilian slang.

Once she had put two and two together you can imagine how Iolanda felt – embarrassed, shamed and humiliated. The next day her boyfriend Claudio showed up at court, walked up to the judge’s bench and spat the judge in the eye, then left a note that read “A joke from Claudio Moffa”.

You wouldn’t believe it but the judge brought real charges against Claudio. Claudio defended himself on the grounds that he was reclaiming his girlfriend’s honour. He lost and was given a suspended prison sentence. At the time the Sydney Morning Herald reported the judge was facing disciplinary proceedings.

Source: Incident reported in Sydney Morning Herald, 18/2/2000

Desmond Tutu’s Confidence

During the deepest, darkest days of apartheid when the government tried to shut down opposition by canceling a political rally, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared that he would hold a church service instead.
St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa was filled with worshippers. Outside the cathedral hundreds of police gathered, a show of force intended to intimidate. As Tutu was preaching they entered the Cathedral, armed, and lined the walls. They took out notebooks and recorded Tutu’s words.
But Tutu would not be intimidated. He preached against the evils of apartheid, declaring it could not endure. At one extraordinary point he addressed the police directly.

You are powerful. You are very powerful, but you are not gods and I serve a God who cannot be mocked. So, since you’ve already lost, since you’ve already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!

With that the congregation erupted in dance and song.
The police didn’t know what to do. Their attempts at intimidation had failed, overcome by the archbishop’s confidence that God and goodness would triumph over evil. It was but a matter of time.
Source: reported in Jim Wallis, God’s Politics

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best modern films made. Set in 1940’s America it tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a gentle, quietly spoken banker who is falsely convicted of his wife’s murder and sent to prison. The prison is governed by the harsh and uncompromising Warden Norton. Life inside is even harsher. Red, a life prisoner who befriends Andy, puts it like this:

“The first night’s the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing s__t they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell… and those bars slam home…that’s when you know it’s for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.”

And so Andy is subjected to the harsh realities of prison life, including repeated sexual abuse at the hands of some guards.

Yet he’s also very intelligent. Andy is co-opted by the warden to handle his accounts, including monies gained through corrupt and illegal activities. He develops careful and elaborate schemes to launder the money. And in return Andy is able to get some concessions for himself and the other prisoners – a library and basic educational services, a gramophone, beer while on a prison chain gang. These concessions are like little tastes of heaven. When Red hears an Italian opera on Andy’s gramophone  he says:

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

Unlike the other prisoner Andy retains a sense of hope, hope that life can be more than the hellhole of prison, hope that he can one day be released and live again. When he hears Red playing his harmonica Andy comments

“Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget. Forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s a – there’s a – there’s something inside that’s yours, that they can’t touch.”

Then one day, two decades after he enters prison, Andy is gone. It turns out that for those two decades hope has driven him on as he has painstakingly carved out a tunnel, hidden behind a Rita Hayworth poster on his wall. No one knew about it, but with his tunnel complete Andy crawls though the earth, through the stinkhole of the sewer to freedom. He’s liberated and free.

Andy now goes to the bank that held the false accounts he’s set up for the warden. Nobody has ever met the fictitious account holder, Peter Stevens, before. But Andy has been preparing for this for a long time. He has the required ID’s and the matching signature. Andy becomes Peter Stevens and withdraws all the warden’s corrupt money. And then he anonymously reveals Norton’s corruption to see Norton’s harsh fist removed from the prison.

But one thing remains. Andy’s good friend Red. Red is finally parolled but struggles to cope with the changed world outside. He longs to return to the world he knows – prison. He thinks of ways to break his parole, when he remembers a conversation he once had with Andy, a secret hiding place in the wall of a windblown field. Red goes there, finds a box with an envelope in it that says “Red” on the outside. Red opens the envelope and reads a letter from Andy:

“Dear Red. If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I’ll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend. Andy.”

Red does remember the town they’d spoken of, and has in his hand $1000 Andy left for him. He sets off to find his friend, telling us

“I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain…I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”

Red does make it. The film closes with Red and Andy reunited by the sea. And the message rings loud and clear: “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”

The Shadow of Death

The Manchester City Art Gallery houses a painting of Christ by Holman Hunt. It shows Jesus standing inside his father’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. He has momentarily put his saw down and is stripped down to a cloth around his waist. A weary Jesus stretches his arms above his head, casting a shadow onto the wall, a shadow in the shape of a person crucified. A long narrow tool rack hanging on the wall intersects perfectly with his shadow to give the impression of the crossbeam of the cross.

There is a woman in the foreground on the left hand side. She kneels among the woodchips, with her hands resting upon a chest that houses the gifts of the magi. It is Mary, startled by the cross like shadow cast by her son.

Hunt shows us in artform what the Gospels show us with words. The shadow of the cross was cast over Christ’s life from the beginning. His death lies at the heart of his story, and ours.

 

The Rosetto Effect

In the early 1960’s a GP and the head of medicine at the University of Oklahoma were sharing a beer when the GP told the head of medicine that heart disease seemed much less prevalent in the town of Roseto than in its neighbour Bangor. This set in motion some remarkable research.

Roseto was a town of 1600 Italian-Americans. Every home in the town had three generations living in it and the sense of community was very tight.

Teams of medical researchers spent time in Roseto trying to determine why the rate of heart attack was so much lower than nearby Bangor. Was it diet? No, Rosetans shared a typical American diet. Was it genes? No. other Italian communities had heart attack rates similar to the national average? Was it healthy habits? No.  Rosetans smoked as much as people in neighbouring towns and exercised as little as people in neighbouring towns, and met the  national average for obesity and high blood pressure. Was it the physical environment? No, there was no significant difference between Roseto and neighbouring towns. Was it a short term statistical anomaly? No, the trend held up over a fifty year study.

In the end health officials tracked the secret to good health in Roseto – ready for it: close sense of community, very strong bonds of family and friendship. The head of the research team wrote in his report: “In terms of preventing heart disease, it’s just possible that morale is more important than jogging or not eating butter.”

Interestingly, the initial research team predicted that the health benefits would diminish as successive generations ‘Americanised’ and lost their tight knit sense of community. A fifty year study found their prediction to be accurate.

 

 

Source: research reported in “The Roseto Effect: A 50-Year Comparison of Mortality Rates”, American Journal of Public Health, 1992

Alexander Papaderous: Reflecting Light into Dark Places

During the Second World War German paratroopers invaded the island of Crete. When they landed at Maleme they were met by islanders bearing nothing other than kitchen knives and hay scythes. But the consequences of resistance were devastating. The residents of entire villages were lined up and shot.

Overlooking the airstrip today is an institute for peace and understanding founded by a Greek man named Alexander Papaderous. Papaderous had lived through the war and was convinced his people needed to let go of the legacy of hatred the war had unleashed and so he founded his institute at this place that embodied the horrors and hatreds unleashed by the war.

One day while taking questions at the end of a lecture Papaderous was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” There was nervous laughter in the room. It is such a big question. But Papaderous answered it.

He opened his wallet and took out a small, round mirror and held it up for everyone to see. He told how as a small boy from a very poor family he came across a motorcycle wreck. It was during the war and the motorcycle had belonged to German soldiers. Alexander saw pieces of broken mirrors from the motorcycle lying on the ground. He tried to put them together but couldn’t, so he took the largest piece and scratched it against a stone until its edges were smoothed and it was round. He used it as a toy, fascinated by the way he could use it to shine light into holes and crevices.

He kept that mirror with him as he grew up, and over time it came to symbolise something very important. It became a metaphor for what he might do with his life.

 I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world–into the black places in the hearts of men–and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.

 

Source: reported in Robert Fulgham, It Was On Fire When I Laid Down On It

The Same God

The image of missionaries trekking through deepest, darkest Africa to share the Christian gospel with the indigenous peoples is one of the most enduring in Christendom. On these trips the missionaries met with varying successes. One of the groups they sought to “convert” were the bushmen of the Kalahari desert. But even to this day the bushmen of the Denui village steadfastly refuse to become Christians in favour of maintaining their traditional religion. At night the women and children sit around the fire clapping, while the men shuffle around in a dance. The rhythm gradually picks up and a chant grows. The resident shaman wears a headband with an ostrich plume rising from it. He eventually falls into a trance, and during his trance the people believe he makes contact with the world of spirit.

During the year 2000 a reporter from National Geographic spent some time among the bushmen, and here’s what the village leader at Denui had to say about their religion. “We are traditionalists here” he said. “We are not Christian. But we can talk to whoever Christian talk to. It is all the same God. There are just different ways of talking to him.”

Is he right? What should we think of different religions and their attempts to access God?

Source: Information on Kalahri bushmen from National Geographic, Feb 2001

The Sailing Sermon

A young pastor was once asked to preach a sermon on sex. Being somewhat reserved he found himself embarrassed when he came to write the word “sex” in his notes while preparing his sermon. To remove this discomfort he decided to simply put the letter “S” wherever the word “sex” was to be used.

During his preparation the young pastor’s wife came in and looked over his shoulder. She noticed the letter “S” planted liberally throughout the text and asked him what the topic for the sermon was. Embarrassed even to tell his wife the topic the young pastor said, “s…s…sailing! That’s what the sermon’s about, sailing.”

His wife thought it a bit of an odd topic for a sermon, but guessed sailing might form a good analogy to the Christian life.

Come Sunday the young pastor’s wife was sick with the flu and missed church. Her husband however preached a terrific sermon. Although he started nervously he warmed to the topic as the sermon progressed and handled the matter most tactfully and helpfully.

During the following week a member of the congregation was speaking to the young pastor’s wife. “Oh your husband preached a beautiful sermon last Sunday. He handled a difficult topic most sensibly and I found what he had to say rather helpful.”

“Well that is a surprise” said the young pastor’s wife. “I’m afraid I didn’t think he’d be of much help to anybody. After all, he’s only ever done it twice, and both time she went right overboard !”

Source: unknown

The Rich King

Once upon a time there was a very rich but unhappy king, unhappy because he was all alone in an empty palace. How he longed for a wife with whom he could share his life.

Then one day the king saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, riding through the streets. Enquiries revealed she was a peasant girl, but the kings heart was captivated. He would make sure that each day he rode past her house in the hope of catching a glimpse of his love.

But the king had a problem. How would he win her love. He could draw up a royal decree commanding her to become his queen. But then he could never be sure he had won her love, for she would be required to obey a royal decree.

Perhaps he could call on her and try to win her over, appear in all his regal glory and sweep her off her feet. But no, then he could never be sure whether she had married him only for his power and riches.

Finally he came upon the perfect plan. He would come to her as a peasant. That was the only way to truly win her love. So he abandoned his palace and his riches and his comfort and put on the clothes of a peasant. He went and lived among the peasants. He worked with them, shared their sufferings, danced at their feasts, until finally he won the heart of the woman who had captured his.

So it is with God. Christ became one of us, lived among us, worked among us, suffered with us, danced with us. All in order to win our hearts.

 

Source: A retelling of a story by Soren Kierkegaard.

The Red Mahogany Piano

Many years ago, a man named Joe Edwards was a young man in his twenties working as a salesman for a St. Louis piano company. They sold pianos all over the state by advertising in small town newspapers and then, when they had received sufficient replies, they would load their little trucks, drive into the area and sell the pianos to those who had replied.

Every time they would advertise in the cotton country of Southeast Missouri, the company would receive a reply on a postcard which said, in effect, “Please bring me a new piano for my little granddaughter. It must be red mahogany. I can pay $10 a month with my egg money.” The old lady scrawled on and on and on that postcard until she filled it up, then turned it over and even wrote on the front – around and around the edges until there was barely room for the address.

Of course, the company could not sell a new piano for $10 a month. No finance company would carry a contract with payments that small, so they ignored her postcards.

One day, however, Joe Edwards happened to be in that area calling on other replies, and out of curiosity he decided to look the old lady up. He found pretty much what he expected: The old lady lived in a one room sharecroppers cabin in the middle of a cotton field. The cabin had a dirt floor and there were chickens in the house. Obviously, the old lady could not have qualified to purchase anything on credit – no car, no phone, no real job, nothing but a roof over her head and not a very good one at that. Her little granddaughter was about 10, barefoot and wearing a feedsack dress.

Joe explained to the old lady that he could not sell a new piano for $10 a month and that she should stop writing every time she saw the ad. He drove away heartsick, but his advice had no effect – the old lady still sent the same post card every six weeks. Always wanting a new piano, red mahogany, please, and swearing she would never miss a $10 payment. It was sad.

A couple of years later, Joe owned his own piano company, and when he advertised in that area, the postcards started coming to him. For months, he ignored them. But then, one day when Joe was in the area something came over him. He had a red mahogany piano on his little truck. Despite knowing he was about to make a terrible business decision, he delivered the piano to the old lady and told her he would carry the contract himself at $10 a month with no interest, and that would mean 52 payments. He took the new piano in the house and placed it where he thought the roof would be least likely to rain on it. He admonished the old lady and the little girl to try to keep the chickens off of it, and  left, sure he had just thrown away a new piano.

But the payments came in, all 52 of them as agreed – sometimes with coins taped to a 3×5 inch card in the envelope. It was incredible!

Joe put the incident out of his mind for 20 years. Then one day he was in Memphis on other business, and after dinner at the Holiday Inn he went into the lounge. As he was sitting at the bar having an after dinner drink, he heard the most beautiful piano music. He looked around, and there was a lovely young woman playing a very nice grand piano.

Being a pianist of some ability himself, he was stunned by her virtuosity, and moved to a table beside her where he could listen and watch. She smiled at Joe, asked for requests, and when she took a break she sat down at his table.

“Aren’t you the man who sold my grandma a piano a long time ago?”

It didn’t ring a bell, so Joe asked her to explain.

She started to tell him, and suddenly Joe remembered. It was her! It was the little barefoot girl in the feedsack dress!

She told Joe her name was Elise and since her grandmother couldn’t afford to pay for lessons, she had learned to play by listening to the radio. She said she had started to play in church where she and her grandmother had to walk over two miles, and that she had then played in school, had won many awards and a music scholarship. She had married an attorney in Memphis and he had bought her that beautiful grand piano she was playing.

Something else entered Joe’s mind. “Elise,” I asked, “It’s a little dark in here. What colour is that piano?”

“It’s red mahogany,” she said, “Why?”

Source: reported by Joe Edwards.

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