When my wife gets her hands on the TV's remote control, which is seldom, she usually chooses something educational. The other night she was watching a feature on what the host called "good things hurricanes do." Well, having seen some of the bad things hurricanes do, I was intrigued to hear about this. The feature told about these Australian pine trees that somehow had taken root in a place in Florida that hosted attractive plants which, in turn, attracted many beautiful birds and small animals. Well, as those pines grew and got tall, they literally created a canopy over those plants, and blocked out the sun. What had once been an area thriving with plant and animal life became a stretch of sterile underbrush - until the hurricane hit. The storm literally snapped those trees in two. And the sun was back. The area is now a beautiful park with pools, greenery, flowers, herons, and lots of interesting wildlife. But it took a hurricane.
I'm holding a $20 bill in my hand. I don't get to do that too often, so this is a really special moment. If you were sitting here with me and I offered this $20 to you, would you take it? I think you would. Now you're going to have to use your imagination to picture what I'm about to do, but here goes. I am now crumpling that nice $20 bill and I am crushing it into a little wad. You still want this bill? If you were right here, would you still take it? It's all wadded up. OK, now I'm beating on this wadded up bill, and I am actually stomping on it with my foot. Now, if I still... (Boy, I get some exercise on this program. That's unusual.) Now, if I still offered to give you this $20, would you still take it? I mean, it's been beat up, it's crushed, stomped on? Well, of course you would.
It's common to most every religious tradition; there's some ceremony or service where you dedicate or commit a new child to God. In some Christian traditions, it takes the form of baptism. Others have a brief baby dedication. The last baby we dedicated was our youngest child, and that was more than a few years ago. I held the little guy in my hands. Times have changed. I don't pick him up anymore, I'd hurt myself. He picks me up - literally. He's greeted me at the airport and pick me up off the ground and spun me around. That's my baby! A lot of things have changed. One thing never has.
My friend called me not long ago to pray for his Mom. During some medical tests, the doctor discovered something he didn't like - a large growth in her stomach. My friend said, "They haven't used the 'C' word yet. They wanted to take some more tests first." Now they've said the "C" word; the word all of us dread hearing from a doctor. You know - cancer. We know what that word can mean.
Our kids learned what "shun piking" is at a very early age. That expression actually goes back to Colonial days when people would leave or "shun" the pike, the main road, and take side roads. Today, it's just a good word to describe getting intentionally lost - just exploring some of those side roads you've never been on to see things you've never seen. Apparently, this shun piking thing has been inherited by the next generation. The other day our daughter took our three-year-old grandson on one of those crazy adventures on some unexplored back roads. And he saw lots of things he never saw before. When she asked him if he was ready to go home, he told her he wanted to keep going. His reason? "I liked exploring."
Twenty-three marks on the wall of his four-by-four prison cell told the story. It has just been three weeks since the soldiers captured him - the number one name on the Most Wanted List - at a local bar and they hauled him into this cell. The charges were robbery, treason, and murder. Day 23 was going to be just another day there, or so he thought until he heard the growing sounds of that angry mob outside the window above him. He managed to grab the bars on the window and pull himself up high enough to hear what the crowd was screaming. It was a combination of shock and fear that swept over him when he heard they were shouting his name! "Give us Ba-rabbas! Give us Ba-rabbas!"
It was the day of our class elections, and I hoped to be elected class president that day. I lost by two votes. Later, I found out that my girlfriend and my best friend had somehow gotten so busy that day they hadn't gotten around to voting. While subsequent events showed me what better plans God had for that year, I wasn't too happy on that election day. Especially with two people who were pretty close to me.
Columnist Bob Greene told a story that touched my heart. It's about a newspaperman in a small Midwestern town and the call he got from a school teacher. She wanted to tell him about something that had happened to a child on the playground. He was braced for bad news. Well, it wasn't. During a lunch break, most of the 8th graders were gathered in groups, talking and playing. This one boy - a student who suffered from severe physical disabilities and was new to the school - was off by himself as usual. He was painfully shy.
Antiques and children - that is not a good combination. It is, in fact, an invitation to disaster. Like that lovely antique teapot my wife had out years ago when the kids were little. Well, you know what happened; one moment a teapot, the next moment pieces of a teapot. But my wife quickly rallied to remedy the situation. No, she did not disown one of our children. She sent me out for a tube of some sort of super glue. And amazingly, she put those pieces together and recreated that old teapot, and that glue has held it together to this very day!
Our friend Steve has been involved with horses most of his life. He's even owned a couple of champions. But one day at the barn, in one moment of carelessness, Steve allowed himself to get in what horse lovers know as the "kill zone"; that area behind a horse where they can kick you with those potentially deadly hooves. In one life-changing moment, Steve was kicked in the leg, and it shattered his bones. Even though he was in excruciating pain, he managed to drag himself to the highway near his house where he pulled himself up and began waving for help. Car after car just drove right on past this seriously injured man - even his friends and neighbors. They didn't know he was hurting. They thought he was just waving "Hi!"
She was one of the most admired women in the world - Mother Teresa, that angelic woman who devoted her life to the least of the least in the slums of Calcutta, India. The world's greatest leaders wanted to meet her and to experience her love and her moral authority; just a diminutive woman who made such a difference in the world. Some years ago, a young man wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her how he could make his life count as she had with hers. He waited six months for a reply from this very busy lady. When it came, it was just a postcard with four words on it - four very powerful words - "Find your own Calcutta."
