Downwind from Flowers

 

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. (Psalm 23:6)

 

        I read that people in certain eastern cultures seek healing from physical and emotional wounds by sitting downwind from flowers. It’s a therapy that’s been carried on for centuries in the belief that downwind from flowers one can be dusted with pollen from new blossoms, pollen that carries healing qualities.

        Linda Ross Swanson tells the story of a 52-year-old Tibetan refugee named Tenzin who lived in Seattle. Diagnosed with lymphoma and unwilling to undergo the usual chemotherapy treatment because it brought back memories of having been tortured as a political prisoner in China, he was brought to a hospice. There he told workers of the downwind method, and one of them was willing to help.

On a sunny afternoon the hospice worker picked up Tenzin and his wife, packed some provisions traditional to Tibetans: black tea, yak butter, salt and cookies, and dropped the couple off at a nursery. They found a suitable spot, sat downwind from the flowers and, under the watchful eye of curious nursery employees, enjoyed their afternoon tea. They did the same the following week at another nursery.

        Soon word got around, and nurseries all over Seattle were vying for Tenzin’s presence. Nursery workers called him when new plants arrived, placed chairs to match the wind direction and provided tea. Customers filled flats with flowers and put them carefully around the couple, and some began calling nurseries to ask how he was doing. Day after day through an entire summer Tenzin and his wife sat downwind from flowers at nurseries around the city.

That fall, Tenzin returned to his doctor for a follow-up CT scan. There was no trace of cancer. The doctor confessed he was astounded and could not explain the miraculous change. The patient had his own explanation: “The cancer left because it can’t live in a body filled with love. When I began to feel all the compassion from the hospice team, from the nursery employees, from all the people who wanted to know about me, I began to change inside.”

        Love cures. Love restores. When searching for a way to heal--if not cancer, at least a wounded heart--sit downwind from flowers. Allow yourself to touch and be touched by goodness and love. There’s healing there.

 

Copies of Mike's book You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of sixty faith-related reflections, are available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Growing a Quartet

 

We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8:1)

 

        Years ago I was occasionally invited to speak at a shelter for homeless men at the edge of downtown Minneapolis where residents were expected to listen to a gospel message in return for a free night’s lodging. It was a tough crowd, sullen and unresponsive. Many were hung over. No one seemed eager to hear the message, and I often wondered what good my suburban, over-educated thoughts could do. I had no idea how to speak to these men.

        One night the meeting was particularly unruly. My subject was love—love as action, kindness, caring—the kind of love being shown by those who made this shelter available. Members of the staff moved through the scattered crowd, encouraging bored men to listen, or at least to talk quietly in their casual, more relevant conversations, but with little success. One man in a dirty brown coat stood and muttered something about my not knowing what I was talking about, that there was no love in this world. In a moment, one of the staff members—I knew him only as Gene—was next to the man with an arm around his shoulder, gently steering him off toward a side room. I quickly concluded my talk and, mercifully, the director took over.

        Following a series of “housekeeping” items, the meeting was to conclude with a men’s quartet. Gene was part of the group and led the way to the front of the room as the piano music began. The four—no, five—singers lined up behind the small podium. The man in the brown coat was there too, beside Gene who had befriended him. Love had indeed been in action. Kindness had been shown; caring had been demonstrated. Quartet had become quintet.

        Russell Spittler tells of visiting a new baby ward as part of his role as hospital chaplain. His experience had taught him the meaning of many abbreviations that medical people use: TIA, SVT, CHF. But when he saw the label FTT at the foot of one infant’s bassinette, he was stumped and inquired about its meaning. “Failure to thrive,” the charge nurse told him. He asked about treatment, and she spoke of diet regimens, then pointed to a rocking chair nearby. “And we have volunteer grandmothers who come in and rock the baby for hours.”

        Love works where all else fails. Knowledge is good, but love builds up.

 

Copies of Mike’s book You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of sixty faith-related reflections, is available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

 

Obeying God

 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

 

        “It bothers me,” someone said to me following my Sunday morning message, “that in this church we don’t wash each other’s feet like Jesus told us to. Are we being disobedient to God?”

In fact, of course, there are many directives in the Bible which we no longer observe. We don’t often think about why; we just know that it’s no longer necessary to conform to a literal understanding of the words. Jesus did tell us to wash one another’s feet (John 13:14), but we understand that it’s the principle behind the action that matters. So serving one another in humility and hospitality—the principle—remains, but it’s up to us to find appropriate ways to do so in our time.

“Give to the one who asks you,” Jesus said (Matthew 5:42). Yet I routinely refuse to give to those who come to the church door seeking money because I know that their needs are better met by the social service agencies to which I direct them. The principle is to provide help to those who need it, and when that help can be more consistent and far-reaching, love urges us in that direction.

        The Apostle Paul told women to avoid elaborate hairstyles and fancy jewelry (1 Timothy 2:8-10). The principle was modesty, and we promote the guideline not in its first-century specifics but in those relevant to our culture. In the same passage he spoke of men praying by “lifting up holy hands.” For us reverence in prayer may be expressed in other ways—folded hands, bowed heads, quiet hearts.

        Obedience to God is a matter of observing principles God provides. Love (acting in a way that is kind and truthful) offered in faith is the issue. What that love looks like is determined by local circumstances. “According to your faith it will be done to you,” Jesus said to two blind men as he healed them (Matthew 9:29). Faith was what mattered, not the particulars of the healing procedure. According to their faith, it was done.

Life happens for us in proportion to what we offer. Love people, we get people to love. Give much, we receive much. Focus on the good, we find the good coming to us. Have big faith, and we discover, as Carl Sandburg said of Lincoln, “far lights and tall rainbows to live by.” And that is obedience to the will of God.

 

Copies of Mike’s book You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of 60 faith-related reflections, can be ordered from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

 

Blessed Mediocrity

 

Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…?” God said, “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:11, 12)

 

        In Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, a fictionalized account of the death of Mozart, a bitter Antonio Salieri sarcastically compares his ordinary talents as a composer to that of the genius whose star so totally eclipsed his own. “Mediocrities everywhere,” he cries, “I am your champion! I am your patron saint!”

         Muriel was a mediocre talent as a painter—too stiff, trying too hard to tell a story. But she knew some basic rules of painting (start the horizon one-third of the way up the canvas, paint the darker parts of the sky first, etc.), and she was willing to teach them to others for a small fee to help her eke out a living. So loyal students more average than Muriel carried brush and canvas into her borrowed studio week after week and gladly received her modest instruction. There they also found consistent encouragement. “Just try,” she would say. “Let’s see what happens!”

        Muriel was only mediocre too as a ventriloquist, a second career to try to keep life and limb together. Her beloved puppets, Candy and Andy, fooled no one, for she could neither throw her voice consistently nor keep her lips from moving. Yet somehow she found a way to get in front of thousands of kids over nearly forty years. In her eighties Muriel was still making children smile with her puppets’ corny jokes and old stories.

        She was, frankly, less than mediocre as a writer—too wordy, too saccharine. Yet she persisted in her search for a publisher, despite rejection after rejection. Along the way, she met other aspiring authors, praised their efforts, affirmed their work. More talented writers than she were published in part because Muriel insisted that they keep trying, keep submitting.

        Muriel died several years ago. At her memorial service, artists and writers and ventriloquism audiences rose up en masse to call her blessed. The encouragement and opportunities she had provided, the sweet optimism she had displayed toward life—and toward her modest talents—came back upon her in a rush of gratitude. She had become a kind of patron saint of ordinary people.

Humble like Moses, Muriel knew that her abilities were ordinary. Wiser than Salieri, she cherished her gifts, accepting their limitations. She knew it was not the degree of her talent but the commitment and love with which she exercised it which alone mattered. She knew that to ordinary people—to mediocrities—God says, “Just try. I’ll be with you.”

Copies of Mike’s book, You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of 60 faith-related reflections, can be ordered through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Faith in Bronze

 

When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord... He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made.  So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them… (2 Chronicles 12:9, 10)

 

        King Reheboam, his resources depleted and under pressure from powerful nations around him, could not afford the luxury of replacing his stolen gold shields. They were only ornamental, after all, a symbol of royal status. Bronze was the answer. It was something, at least, to offer hope to his people that their nation would someday know again the glory of olden times.

         Russian friends have told me that in the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces were approaching Leningrad, the staff of the Hermitage Museum packed up tens of thousands of art objects and shipped them east. There was safety in the vast expanses of the Russian land. But they left the frames hanging on the walls. Pedestals that had held sculptures remained in place.  It was an act of hope, a trust that someday it would all be returned. The museum staff gave up priceless art, but they did not give up hope.

        The German army besieged the city for two years. Employees of the Hermitage moved into the basement to try to preserve museum buildings. Citizens of the city helped clean up damage from artillery shells and cover broken windows to keep out the snow. To say thanks, the staff conducted tours of the museum for these good people, though the art was not there. Photographs from the time show docents conducting tours among piles of snow on parquet floors. Small groups of visitors stand in front of empty frames, listening to descriptions of Rembrandts and Van Goghs that once hung there. The guides remembered every detail of that which had been lost, filling in the blank spaces of their magnificent museum with their own memories, commitment and love.

        Faith is being certain of what we cannot yet see. Like Reheboam with his bronze shields, these Russian curators made do with something—where there had been nothing—to demonstrate their assurance that there was a future for art, for their beloved Hermitage and for themselves.

Bronze is not gold, and an empty frame is not a Picasso, but faith fills in the blanks. When opportunity goes lacking and fulfillment is missing, when joy hides its face, faith believes they will surely one day return. Meanwhile it acts—every moment—as if they were still around.

 

Copies of Mike’s book, You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of 60 faith-related reflections, can be ordered through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

What’s in a Name?

 

I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me. (Isaiah 45:4)

 

        These words were spoken for the benefit of Cyrus, king of Persia, who conquered Babylon in the 6th century B.C. and then permitted Israelite families who had been captive there for fifty years to return to their homeland. Cyrus was not a believer in the God of Israel and had only political and economic reasons for his acts. Nonetheless, the prophet and people saw him as a hero, an unwitting servant of God, and gave him a title of honor: Cyrus the Liberator.

        Titles used to mean something, but today informality rules. Hardly anyone uses even simple titles like “Mr.” or “Mrs.” anymore. New acquaintances are immediately addressed on a first-name basis. So a telemarketer was taken aback the other day when I stopped her from calling me by my first name.  “We don’t know each other that well yet,” I said.

Titles still have significance to me. In the old Swedish immigrant community that was my heritage, titles were added to names just to distinguish one Olson from another. There seemed to be a shortage of surnames, and one didn’t want to confuse Model T Anderson (who drove Fords) with Packard Anderson (who wouldn’t be caught dead in one—though his wife rode to choir practice with Mrs. Model T). My grandfather was known as Texas Johnson because of where he had lived as a boy, and it distinguished him from Seventeen-Years-in-Alaska Johnson who obviously boasted too much about his missionary experience. Curtain-stretcher Swanson took out a loan with Big Money Swanson (both did well on the deal), and of course Gravestone Peterson sold you his wares after Gravedigger Peterson had finished his work.

        I doubt that we’ll be returning to a more civil approach to names anytime soon, but how about at least adding some of that color as these old-timers did? I’m thinking of you, Tiger Johnson (red hair), Slapshot Schultz (hockey player), and Earlybird Livingstone (never late). How could a woman with the name of Sojourner Truth have anything but a meaningful life? How could a man called Possibility Brown find anything but hope, even in unfortunate circumstances and unlikely people.

        Cyrus the Liberator was a modest figure at best in world history. Yet twenty-five hundred years later he is remembered while a thousand other rulers more powerful than he have been forgotten. Whether or not our names live on after us, the effects of the encouragement we offer and the love we give surely will.

What title identifies you? Hopeful Jones…Faithful Smith…Craig the Peacemaker…Sharon the Befriender? There is something in a name.

 

 

 

Copies of Mike's book You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of sixty faith-related  meditations, can be ordered from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Kin to the Cupbearer

 

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. (Genesis 40:23)

 

        Steve was a high school classmate who shared pre-law classes with me when we were university undergraduates. We spent hours in the Great Hall of the library, helping each other memorize names and dates for upcoming tests upon which we imagined our futures to depend. I dropped out of pre-law, but he went on, ultimately becoming a respected judge. At a class reunion I asked if he remembered studying together. He did not. Steve, the cupbearer’s kin, barely even remembered my name.

        Ron was my study partner when I went from pre-law into education. He too was going to be an English teacher, so we sat in that same Great Hall helping each other identify rhyme schemes in Romantic poetry and character development in Russian novels. Ron spent the better part of that year trying to persuade me to join his fraternity. He went on to become a radio news writer and producer. I called to congratulate him when I read of his retirement. He didn’t remember me at all. Ron, the cupbearer’s kin, never heard of me.

         Jon stood in the back hall of his home on a Saturday morning and gently tapped his finger against my chest. “If you want to teach,” he said, “why don’t you teach something that you know is the most important thing in the whole world?” The words struck home with the force of a hammer. It seemed God was speaking out loud to me. About to graduate and embark on a career in education, I knew at that moment that I was going to be a minister—and that I wanted to be a minister. Thirty years later Jon stood in the door of my office in a church in California. I reminded him of that Saturday and his words that had had such a profound effect on me. He passed by them with a shrug. “Sorry, but I don’t remember,” he said. “You were in my home?” Jon too was kin to the cupbearer.

        The same moment is often significant in the memory of one, utterly forgettable to another. God’s whisper can be a shout to one ear, a dull buzz to another. That seems to be for the best. God can use any of us as cupbearers when we are not aware of the impact we have. When self-consciousness is erased from the equation, pride has no footing.

So Katherine called a few weeks ago, recalling some important conversations and occasions we shared while returning from Europe as exchange students long ago. I too am kin to the cupbearer. I had forgotten them. I had forgotten her.

 

Copies of Mike’s book You Are Rich: Finding Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of sixty faith-related reflections, can be ordered through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.