Anderson, South Carolina
The most recognized name in the art world is none other than Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, the Dutch master who lived and worked in the 17th century. He is generally considered one of the greatest artists in Europe and certainly the most important in Dutch history, painting and etching in a period historians call the Dutch Golden Age. His etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime; for twenty years Rembrandt taught nearly every important Dutch painter. His greatest achievements are exemplified in portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits, and illustrations of Biblical scenes.
The human figure, more specifically the face, is one of the greatest challenges for artists. Creating a true likeness of a subject, one that not only captures physical attributes, but also demeanor and personality, is a great technical challenge. In an era two centuries before the invention of photography, the ability to create accurate and emotive images of human figures and faces was of great commercial and artistic value. As one observer notes, “Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called ‘one of the great prophets of civilization’.’’
Rembrandt enjoyed spectacular commercial success as a portrait artist, receiving many important commissions. Despite acclaim few artists have ever known, his personal life was often marked by tragedy and moral failure. Spending far more than his substantial commission income, Rembrandt was forced into bankruptcy and lost most of his possessions and his house. Only because of accommodating creditors, was he able to continue with some aspects of his work. His work in print making was cut short by the forced sale of his printing press.
A compelling image in the Old Testament comes when Moses is about to see the Face of God while ensconced on Mount Sinai. Moses is warned that seeing God’s face unprotected would overwhelm him to the point of death. Moses is permitted to see God briefly from the back side. Even then Moses was reported to have descended the mountain with a numinous radiance ‘burned’ onto his face. Theologians and others have long speculated what phenomenon might have produced that radiance. We do know one’s face is the most important aspect of physical being. Eyes have often been referred to as windows to the soul.
When one is born with a catastrophic congenital defect of the face or suffers catastrophic disfigurement from physical trauma or disease, the consequences are life altering, and often precipitate decades of physical suffering, social isolation, and poverty. Children deprived of their faces are one of the most poignant examples of the frailty of the human condition.
There are individuals blessed with artistic expression in ways rivaling, even exceeding that of Rembrandt. Rather that working with oil and paint, or burin and plate, they use scalpels to sculpt living flesh into new forms, to create unprecedented opportunities to embrace life. Volunteer orthopedic and plastic surgeons generously give of their time and talents to reconstruct faces of children born without ears, lips, with eyes in the wrong places. Children burned to the third degree in cook fires are granted liberation from hideous life-robbing scarring and contractions. There is simply no image in all the annals of art history that comes even close to that which emerges from the hands of a good team of surgeons and their colleagues.
For forty years I’ve been blessed to have many grand images in my daily world, even images of Rembrandt’s clients. In 1971 it was possible to acquire a handful of original Rembrandt dry-point etchings of the human face, compelling ones of the Holy Family and of Jesus on the Cross. Ten years later in Vienna it was my good fortune to come into more than fifty additional images by Rembrandt, images of his clients and neighbors, recaptured by one of the greatest engravers of his time, Armand Durand. These have been central to a major art collection for decades.
A great joy in the art world is the opportunity to trade up, exchanging lesser works for more compelling ones. Being able to swap small works for life-size works of gripping quality, so real as to seem alive, is a rare event. This week the opportunity presented itself to make the ultimate trade.
Childspring International is an organization with the mission of creating opportunities for catastrophically injured, diseased, and congenitally challenged children to come to the United States for life changing surgery. As many as two hundred children each year come here for staged orthopedic and plastic surgery to correct a wide range of vast challenges, most often involving their faces. There is no work of Peter Paul Rubens, or Leonardo da Vinci, or even Rembrandt that comes close to the before and after surgical portrait pairs hanging in the Childspring Office in Atlanta. The sense of vision and life executed by our medical artisans has no equal. For our children, their work is simply priceless. For those of us involved in the mission and the art world, it is the ultimate trade.
Saturday night in Atlanta, I traded four Rembrandt faces on paper for a new face, one made out of living flesh, one full of animation, one smiling with possibilities for a full life. Years ago The Holy Family and Jesus on the Cross ended up in museums in the South East. This week four of Rembrandt’s clients ended up in the hands of collectors who also thought the ultimate trade up was for a living work by a living artist.
Melissa from Honduras received a new eye. Troy came from Jamaica to be freed from a massive tumor engulfing his face. Cachuska from Haiti received a mouth, lips, and palate. Herby received ear canals and external ears and dreams of rebuilding his family’s house in Port au Prince. From Moldova, Viorica is a current work in progress, having her face rebuilt, along with her spirit. These works of sculpture live in young lives and the hearts of collectors who know really good art when they see it.
In South Carolina where I live and auto license plates contain the phrase “Smiling Faces Beautiful Places,” the state tourism board has enjoyed grand success with its enlightened mottos and logos. In my many journeys the images I remember most are the radiant smiles of those I meet. In many of the most challenged places on earth, one find the grandest beautiful works of art, the radiant smile of a child. We can be thankful that gifted artisans are still following in the steps of the Master.
But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Community - The Gift of Statecraft 3-16-10
Anderson, South Carolina
Each spring the university offers a course in foreign policy; providing a seminar format for perhaps a dozen of us to second guess American statecraft. Optimal foreign policy strategies for coping with regional and global conflicts are proffered by us armchair prognosticators. Our first week we discussed the virtues of executive appointment of special envoys; individuals who mediate resolution to problems refractory to conventional diplomatic solutions. In general, this strategy has not been especially effective. A brilliant exception to this was the quenching in early 2009 of extreme violence in Kenya following a corrupted national election. Countless thousands of lives were saved by the swift concerted action of a special envoy appointed by the President and that of representatives from adjacent African governments.
Since mid 2009 we have observed with keen interest as federal policy makers have made yet another attempt to come up with a national plan to provide affordable accessible health care. As with many other administrations, these attempts faltered and faded into the dusty pages of the Congressional Record. Finding workable solutions to exploding health care costs and issues of accessibility seems as difficult as finding the Holy Grail.
Like envoys and policy makers, finding solutions to our own personal problems is difficult, unless one adopts a form of grass roots statecraft that can deliver the Holy Grail. Recently a special envoy came to our attention, one who took it upon herself to improve the lives of hundreds of people by applying her craft to solving very real problems affecting millions - Alzheimer’s and associated forms of dementia.
Alzheimer’s is especially hard on those caring for loved ones with this scourge. It has been observed that patients with various forms of dementia are often agitated and especially fidgety. This agitation can be particularly taxing on caregivers. June Woodall noticed that patients who are given something to twiddle with or pick at experience much comfort from being able to do so. This tactile form of distraction proves soothing to these tortured souls. After exploring the availability of commercially made fidget pillows and table mats, June found them to be shockingly expensive. After all there is big money to be made in health care.
June took it upon herself to create cost-effective solutions to obvious therapeutic needs. Building an infrastructure of volunteers, she was able gain regular supplies of tassels, buttons, beads, fake fur, corduroy, and various textures that could be turned into stunning pillows and mats, looking almost like three-dimensional quilts. Quietly, behind the scenes, June made grand works of art for years and delivered them to seniors having a hard time holding onto serenity. Patients found it easy to hang onto June’s gifts and love them to death, picking away at the buttons, beads, zippers, fluffy fur, and other tactile decorations covering these.
We just had June’s funeral on Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of people came to say farewell to one who worked tirelessly to bring color, texture and peace to those literally losing their minds. Her husband, Earl, brought mountains of these pillows and mats to church. Family and friends were invited to take one and give it away to someone who would enjoy it. He wanted June’s ‘work’ to continue.
Suddenly I had a mission. Taking flowers and chocolates to nursing homes is one thing; taking magnificent three-dimensional quilts made into the form of crosses, hearts, and prisms is another matter altogether. To avoid being crass, I waited until most people had left the church and then proceeded to ask Earl if I could take pillows and mats to my ‘regulars,’ offering him a tiny bit of back story. I figured he didn’t want these collecting dust in the parish hall. He gave me permission. I couldn’t bag them fast enough.
There’s not a better thing in the world to have been doing last night than paying it forward with June’s art objects. We spent the evening in several nursing homes passing out fidget pillows to our regulars; a truly amazing experience. Everyone receiving one of these colorful pillows thought Ed McMahon had shown up with his camera crew. All were elated, even the guys. A couple of women were in tears, saying they’d never been given such a thing before. For sure, I hadn’t.
Being allowed to be a conduit for June’s love to those feeling exiled in their ancient bodies was exhilarating. Time with these dear ancient souls was nearly numinous. June would have been elated to see the radiant faces of those who received them. I was just as elated to pay it forward.
June long ago figured out solving problems requires first becoming a careful observer, not offering answers until the question is heard clearly. She then came up with a low-cost custom-made solution to a health challenge faced by her beneficiaries. As a successful envoy or diplomat knows, one must be able to speak into situations stakeholders find themselves in. June spoke into the lives of those tormented by unceasing restlessness. She loved them into blessed relief, at no cost to those trying to re-organize health care without first listening to the question.
It’s been said that for democracy to prosper it is not required for everyone to agree, but everyone must participate. For community to flourish it’s necessary for everyone of us with different gifts, values, talents, strengths and weaknesses to be woven together into three dimensional fabrics that can stand up to the challenges of our day. June certainly developed the state of her craft to a degree special envoys might want to make note of.
I think I will call Earl and see if I can get some more of June’s stock before it runs out. I think she’s now busy getting ready for a state dinner - The Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Each spring the university offers a course in foreign policy; providing a seminar format for perhaps a dozen of us to second guess American statecraft. Optimal foreign policy strategies for coping with regional and global conflicts are proffered by us armchair prognosticators. Our first week we discussed the virtues of executive appointment of special envoys; individuals who mediate resolution to problems refractory to conventional diplomatic solutions. In general, this strategy has not been especially effective. A brilliant exception to this was the quenching in early 2009 of extreme violence in Kenya following a corrupted national election. Countless thousands of lives were saved by the swift concerted action of a special envoy appointed by the President and that of representatives from adjacent African governments.
Since mid 2009 we have observed with keen interest as federal policy makers have made yet another attempt to come up with a national plan to provide affordable accessible health care. As with many other administrations, these attempts faltered and faded into the dusty pages of the Congressional Record. Finding workable solutions to exploding health care costs and issues of accessibility seems as difficult as finding the Holy Grail.
Like envoys and policy makers, finding solutions to our own personal problems is difficult, unless one adopts a form of grass roots statecraft that can deliver the Holy Grail. Recently a special envoy came to our attention, one who took it upon herself to improve the lives of hundreds of people by applying her craft to solving very real problems affecting millions - Alzheimer’s and associated forms of dementia.
Alzheimer’s is especially hard on those caring for loved ones with this scourge. It has been observed that patients with various forms of dementia are often agitated and especially fidgety. This agitation can be particularly taxing on caregivers. June Woodall noticed that patients who are given something to twiddle with or pick at experience much comfort from being able to do so. This tactile form of distraction proves soothing to these tortured souls. After exploring the availability of commercially made fidget pillows and table mats, June found them to be shockingly expensive. After all there is big money to be made in health care.
June took it upon herself to create cost-effective solutions to obvious therapeutic needs. Building an infrastructure of volunteers, she was able gain regular supplies of tassels, buttons, beads, fake fur, corduroy, and various textures that could be turned into stunning pillows and mats, looking almost like three-dimensional quilts. Quietly, behind the scenes, June made grand works of art for years and delivered them to seniors having a hard time holding onto serenity. Patients found it easy to hang onto June’s gifts and love them to death, picking away at the buttons, beads, zippers, fluffy fur, and other tactile decorations covering these.
We just had June’s funeral on Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of people came to say farewell to one who worked tirelessly to bring color, texture and peace to those literally losing their minds. Her husband, Earl, brought mountains of these pillows and mats to church. Family and friends were invited to take one and give it away to someone who would enjoy it. He wanted June’s ‘work’ to continue.
Suddenly I had a mission. Taking flowers and chocolates to nursing homes is one thing; taking magnificent three-dimensional quilts made into the form of crosses, hearts, and prisms is another matter altogether. To avoid being crass, I waited until most people had left the church and then proceeded to ask Earl if I could take pillows and mats to my ‘regulars,’ offering him a tiny bit of back story. I figured he didn’t want these collecting dust in the parish hall. He gave me permission. I couldn’t bag them fast enough.
There’s not a better thing in the world to have been doing last night than paying it forward with June’s art objects. We spent the evening in several nursing homes passing out fidget pillows to our regulars; a truly amazing experience. Everyone receiving one of these colorful pillows thought Ed McMahon had shown up with his camera crew. All were elated, even the guys. A couple of women were in tears, saying they’d never been given such a thing before. For sure, I hadn’t.
Being allowed to be a conduit for June’s love to those feeling exiled in their ancient bodies was exhilarating. Time with these dear ancient souls was nearly numinous. June would have been elated to see the radiant faces of those who received them. I was just as elated to pay it forward.
June long ago figured out solving problems requires first becoming a careful observer, not offering answers until the question is heard clearly. She then came up with a low-cost custom-made solution to a health challenge faced by her beneficiaries. As a successful envoy or diplomat knows, one must be able to speak into situations stakeholders find themselves in. June spoke into the lives of those tormented by unceasing restlessness. She loved them into blessed relief, at no cost to those trying to re-organize health care without first listening to the question.
It’s been said that for democracy to prosper it is not required for everyone to agree, but everyone must participate. For community to flourish it’s necessary for everyone of us with different gifts, values, talents, strengths and weaknesses to be woven together into three dimensional fabrics that can stand up to the challenges of our day. June certainly developed the state of her craft to a degree special envoys might want to make note of.
I think I will call Earl and see if I can get some more of June’s stock before it runs out. I think she’s now busy getting ready for a state dinner - The Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Community - From One Mother to Another 3-12-10
Anderson, South Carolina
As a kid, the most profound wondrous statement in my little insular world was “Free Inside.” When dragged by my troubled mother to The Pantry grocery store in the next block to get groceries, my brother and I immediately set a bearing for the cereal aisle. In the 1950s cereal was a good source of empty calories for those living within the gravitational boundaries of fiscal black holes. A great source of attraction for me in my tiny childhood was the possibility that I could get something really cool - for free.
Growing up in an alcoholic drug-ridden environment, one becomes an opportunist, grabbing at whatever one can to survive. My precarious psyche needed to occasionally find one of those magical little packages in the bottom of cereal boxes. Scanning the shelves, we looked for those two magic words, but they had to be on cereals that were semi-nutritious and reasonably priced, ones that a fear-driven alcoholic mother would allow us to pick out. Even in the 1950s some cereals were out of reach economically. Some days we were lucky. Those words of promise would show up on lower and middle class cereals. It must have been a very effective corporate strategy to habituate kids to cereal; occasionally putting toys and trinkets in the cheap boxes. To this day I would rather dine on a good bowl of cereal than steak any time.
Twenty years ago I was offered a grand job in another state, meaning I would be leaving a large universe of friends to move hundreds of miles east. Several creative individuals decided a farewell party was in order. Fine invitations were printed and sent out to about eighty people. Unusual was a request of the hostesses asking guests to bring a box of cereal as a token for admission. For a non-recovering non-repentant cerealholic, Nirvana manifested in my life experience. When the party was over, I was proud possessor of a mountain of some eighty boxes of cereal, including highly prized posh kid-vid cereals like Count Chocula, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Fruit Loops, things I never saw in my alcoholic childhood.
A violist attending the party was creative and made a mixture of high end cereals, putting the whole of it in an empty Electrolux dishwasher soap bucket. Having wrapped the outside of the two-gallon bucket with masking tape, she wrote on the outside in black marker, “For a regular guy.” Amazingly, twenty years later, that bucket is still in my kitchen filled with an admixture of raw oats, nuts, wheat bran, raisins, and even some kid-vid for sweetness. Sugar can be a bit hard to give up. Alcoholic people know all about this. Eating cereal from that bucket most mornings reminds me of the sense of community I enjoyed in another state for many years. Melanie is still part of my world.
Yesterday was one of those lucky days, one of those magic ones when we experience God doing something really special, giving us a gift one cannot possibly buy, a “Free Inside.” One of the greatest highs for me comes from knowing God is working in my midst. In recovery we so often speak of seeking through prayer and meditation conscious contact with God as we understand him. We speak of “deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and towards God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.” In the afternoon this grand promise of recovery manifested for me.
Circumstances were such that I had been asked to deliver a gift of great value. A dear friend of mine, Jane, a happily married mother with a special needs child of her own came to learn of a disabled single mother’s great challenge to raise several special needs children. I was asked to deliver this gift with the statement, “This is a reaffirmation to you that God loves you and your struggle, from one mother to another.” Being granted the privilege of acting as courier between two mothers who have never met was exactly that, exalted privilege. Contacting a retired minister, I was able to locate Danielle and her children and arrange a meeting.
So it was I found myself sitting on a couch in an ancient house in the part of town safety conscious people stay out of. In this small home I experienced a level of hospitality that was simply stunning, radiant, open, and unconditional. Silliness prevailed. We touched each others pain, gently. We hugged. I crawled in dog piles with these three kids, laughing in ways unknown to my own childhood. I thought of a magnet on my refrigerator stating, “It’s never too late to have a childhood.” Perhaps so.
At one point one of the twin boys, fifteen years old with the intellectual level of about four years, unprompted, went off into another room. He returned carrying a porcelain-coated steel bowl containing the freshest crispest Count Chocula swimming in what seemed like a quart of the coldest freshest milk in the world. How could Zachary possibly know that manifesting hospitality in this way would reach down into the deepest regions of my troubled childhood? I have often heard that very small children have an ability to hear God in ways quite lost in adulthood. Does Zachary retain some kind of innate knowledge of God?
My most astounding experience with this family was seeing the profound sense of safety this mother gives to her children. This mother and her normal daughter have seen and experienced the very worst this world has to dish out. Yet, somehow they have been gifted with an ability to provide structure, predictability, and love to severely challenged boys so that they know the true nature of the universe, that it really is friendly after all. The care-free laughter and frivolity of these boys suggests they haven’t a care in the world. Seeing them safely to sleep in their beds confirms this is so.
I pray my happily married friend has been able to teach another mother that the world is really friendly for Danielle also. It certainly is for me. For me it was a “Free Inside” day.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
As a kid, the most profound wondrous statement in my little insular world was “Free Inside.” When dragged by my troubled mother to The Pantry grocery store in the next block to get groceries, my brother and I immediately set a bearing for the cereal aisle. In the 1950s cereal was a good source of empty calories for those living within the gravitational boundaries of fiscal black holes. A great source of attraction for me in my tiny childhood was the possibility that I could get something really cool - for free.
Growing up in an alcoholic drug-ridden environment, one becomes an opportunist, grabbing at whatever one can to survive. My precarious psyche needed to occasionally find one of those magical little packages in the bottom of cereal boxes. Scanning the shelves, we looked for those two magic words, but they had to be on cereals that were semi-nutritious and reasonably priced, ones that a fear-driven alcoholic mother would allow us to pick out. Even in the 1950s some cereals were out of reach economically. Some days we were lucky. Those words of promise would show up on lower and middle class cereals. It must have been a very effective corporate strategy to habituate kids to cereal; occasionally putting toys and trinkets in the cheap boxes. To this day I would rather dine on a good bowl of cereal than steak any time.
Twenty years ago I was offered a grand job in another state, meaning I would be leaving a large universe of friends to move hundreds of miles east. Several creative individuals decided a farewell party was in order. Fine invitations were printed and sent out to about eighty people. Unusual was a request of the hostesses asking guests to bring a box of cereal as a token for admission. For a non-recovering non-repentant cerealholic, Nirvana manifested in my life experience. When the party was over, I was proud possessor of a mountain of some eighty boxes of cereal, including highly prized posh kid-vid cereals like Count Chocula, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Fruit Loops, things I never saw in my alcoholic childhood.
A violist attending the party was creative and made a mixture of high end cereals, putting the whole of it in an empty Electrolux dishwasher soap bucket. Having wrapped the outside of the two-gallon bucket with masking tape, she wrote on the outside in black marker, “For a regular guy.” Amazingly, twenty years later, that bucket is still in my kitchen filled with an admixture of raw oats, nuts, wheat bran, raisins, and even some kid-vid for sweetness. Sugar can be a bit hard to give up. Alcoholic people know all about this. Eating cereal from that bucket most mornings reminds me of the sense of community I enjoyed in another state for many years. Melanie is still part of my world.
Yesterday was one of those lucky days, one of those magic ones when we experience God doing something really special, giving us a gift one cannot possibly buy, a “Free Inside.” One of the greatest highs for me comes from knowing God is working in my midst. In recovery we so often speak of seeking through prayer and meditation conscious contact with God as we understand him. We speak of “deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and towards God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.” In the afternoon this grand promise of recovery manifested for me.
Circumstances were such that I had been asked to deliver a gift of great value. A dear friend of mine, Jane, a happily married mother with a special needs child of her own came to learn of a disabled single mother’s great challenge to raise several special needs children. I was asked to deliver this gift with the statement, “This is a reaffirmation to you that God loves you and your struggle, from one mother to another.” Being granted the privilege of acting as courier between two mothers who have never met was exactly that, exalted privilege. Contacting a retired minister, I was able to locate Danielle and her children and arrange a meeting.
So it was I found myself sitting on a couch in an ancient house in the part of town safety conscious people stay out of. In this small home I experienced a level of hospitality that was simply stunning, radiant, open, and unconditional. Silliness prevailed. We touched each others pain, gently. We hugged. I crawled in dog piles with these three kids, laughing in ways unknown to my own childhood. I thought of a magnet on my refrigerator stating, “It’s never too late to have a childhood.” Perhaps so.
At one point one of the twin boys, fifteen years old with the intellectual level of about four years, unprompted, went off into another room. He returned carrying a porcelain-coated steel bowl containing the freshest crispest Count Chocula swimming in what seemed like a quart of the coldest freshest milk in the world. How could Zachary possibly know that manifesting hospitality in this way would reach down into the deepest regions of my troubled childhood? I have often heard that very small children have an ability to hear God in ways quite lost in adulthood. Does Zachary retain some kind of innate knowledge of God?
My most astounding experience with this family was seeing the profound sense of safety this mother gives to her children. This mother and her normal daughter have seen and experienced the very worst this world has to dish out. Yet, somehow they have been gifted with an ability to provide structure, predictability, and love to severely challenged boys so that they know the true nature of the universe, that it really is friendly after all. The care-free laughter and frivolity of these boys suggests they haven’t a care in the world. Seeing them safely to sleep in their beds confirms this is so.
I pray my happily married friend has been able to teach another mother that the world is really friendly for Danielle also. It certainly is for me. For me it was a “Free Inside” day.
At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Community - A Long Term Investment 3-8-10
Anderson, South Carolina
When Warren Buffet was six years old he bought six packs of Coca Cola for twenty-five cents and resold the bottles for a nickel each, pocketing a twenty percent return on his short-term investment. When he was eleven years old he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 for himself and his older sister. The shares promptly dropped to $27. He held on and promptly sold them when they rebounded to $40, a regrettable decision as Cities Service vaulted to $200. The experience taught him one of the basic lessons of investing: patience is a virtue. His investment strategy has been deceptively simple and spectacularly successful - buy stock in those well-managed companies that do a good job of producing basic products, and keep it forever.
By the time he graduated from high school in 1947, Buffet had earned the equivalent of $42,610, delivering newspapers. In 1989 Warren’s equity in Berkshire Hathaway was worth $3.8 billion. In 2006 his positions were worth an estimated $46 billion. He still lives an unassuming life style in Omaha. As one observer points out, “This billionaire doesn't even have a chauffeur - he drives himself around in a 2006 Cadillac DTS, recently purchased after he auctioned off his old Lincoln Town Car, which was famous for its Thrifty license plate. And no, he does not want a yacht or many mansions. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy a good football game in his sweat suit on a big screen television - with popcorn.”
Matel Dawson, Jr, was a forklift operator at Ford Motor Company. Dawson, born in Shreveport, LA, quit school in the ninth grade. In 1940, moving to Detroit, he began working at Ford's Rouge complex in Dearborn, staying there more than sixty years. A hard worker who often worked double shifts, Dawson seldom took a vacation and came to work two hours before his shift started. He maintained his grueling work schedule into his eighties, well past retirement age. He lived simply in a dingy one-bedroom apartment in a rough suburb of Detroit, Michigan and drove a used car without hubcaps, thanks to neighborhood thieves.
He told a reporter at Jet magazine why he felt compelled to work so hard. "I need money to make me happy. It makes me happy to give money away. It gives me a good feeling." In 1991, after decades of investing in Ford’s employee stock purchase program, Dawson began donating heavily to educational programs and universities and by the time of his death in 2002, had given away over one million dollars. Having dropped out of school at a young age in order to work, Dawson was committed to seeing no one was denied an education because of lack of money. "I advise kids to get a good education," he told Ebony magazine. "I have more than what I need, and I'm sharing it with them." He funded two scholarship programs and donated extensively to the United Negro College Fund.
He walked into the UNCF office in overalls and rubber fisherman's boots up to his knees," the UNCF director recalled to Ebony. "In his hand he held a paper bag, and in that bag was a check for $30,000." It was the largest individual gift ever made to the Michigan telethon and it left UNCF staff speechless. Soon the story of the blue-collar philanthropist was making headlines. However, Dawson remained modest, driving his 1985 Ford Escort to the factory before dawn each morning as he had done nearly all his life. "The first time I realized what he was doing, I heard it on the radio," Dawson's supervisor told Ebony. In an interview with Time, Dawson said, "If I was to do anything with my money other than help some of these kids begging to go to school, I'd be throwing it away." A board member of Wayne State University told the Detroit Free Press, "He planted a seed with his generosity and a harvest for all of us."
Grace Groner was an unassuming secretary working in the warrens of corporate America. According to the Chicago Tribune, “she got her clothes from rummage sales. She walked everywhere rather than buy a car. And her one-bedroom house in Lake Forest held little more than a few plain pieces of furniture, some mismatched dishes and a hulking TV set that appeared left over from the Johnson administration.” Orphaned at age twelve, she never married nor had children.
Like Warren Buffet, Grace Groner bought three shares of stock in the 1930s, only she held onto her three shares of Abbott Labs. Over seven decades those shares split countless times and she reinvested all the dividends.
She died at 100 years on January 19, 2010. The president of Lake Forest College received a phone call informing him she had made a surprise bequest of $7 million, funding a scholarship foundation. “The foundation's millions should generate more than $300,000 a year for the college, enabling dozens more students to travel and pursue internships. Many probably wouldn't be able to pursue those opportunities without a scholarship: 75 percent of the student body receives financial aid.” according to the college’s president Stephen Schutt. One student, nearly in tears said, “It’s giving hope to people to allow them to live a little big bigger than they might have.”
"She did not have the material needs that other people have," said William Marlatt, her attorney and longtime friend. "She could have lived in any house in Lake Forest but she chose not to. She enjoyed other people, and every friend she had was a friend for who she was. They weren't friends for what she had."
The Tribune reports “The study and internship program is not the end of Groner's legacy. She left that small house to the college, too. It will be turned into living quarters for women who receive foundation scholarships, and perhaps something more: an enduring symbol that money can buy far more than mansions.”
Three lives, three stories, three legacies, three individuals with vision for building community for the long term, enabling others to reach their fullest potentials, to build a better world. Three ordinary people of commonplace means with extraordinary vision set out on journeys spanning many decades, taking countless others to the places of their dreams.
One life, one story, one legacy. Show me your check book register and I will show you the extent of your legacy.
But lay up for yourselves treasure in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
When Warren Buffet was six years old he bought six packs of Coca Cola for twenty-five cents and resold the bottles for a nickel each, pocketing a twenty percent return on his short-term investment. When he was eleven years old he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 for himself and his older sister. The shares promptly dropped to $27. He held on and promptly sold them when they rebounded to $40, a regrettable decision as Cities Service vaulted to $200. The experience taught him one of the basic lessons of investing: patience is a virtue. His investment strategy has been deceptively simple and spectacularly successful - buy stock in those well-managed companies that do a good job of producing basic products, and keep it forever.
By the time he graduated from high school in 1947, Buffet had earned the equivalent of $42,610, delivering newspapers. In 1989 Warren’s equity in Berkshire Hathaway was worth $3.8 billion. In 2006 his positions were worth an estimated $46 billion. He still lives an unassuming life style in Omaha. As one observer points out, “This billionaire doesn't even have a chauffeur - he drives himself around in a 2006 Cadillac DTS, recently purchased after he auctioned off his old Lincoln Town Car, which was famous for its Thrifty license plate. And no, he does not want a yacht or many mansions. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy a good football game in his sweat suit on a big screen television - with popcorn.”
Matel Dawson, Jr, was a forklift operator at Ford Motor Company. Dawson, born in Shreveport, LA, quit school in the ninth grade. In 1940, moving to Detroit, he began working at Ford's Rouge complex in Dearborn, staying there more than sixty years. A hard worker who often worked double shifts, Dawson seldom took a vacation and came to work two hours before his shift started. He maintained his grueling work schedule into his eighties, well past retirement age. He lived simply in a dingy one-bedroom apartment in a rough suburb of Detroit, Michigan and drove a used car without hubcaps, thanks to neighborhood thieves.
He told a reporter at Jet magazine why he felt compelled to work so hard. "I need money to make me happy. It makes me happy to give money away. It gives me a good feeling." In 1991, after decades of investing in Ford’s employee stock purchase program, Dawson began donating heavily to educational programs and universities and by the time of his death in 2002, had given away over one million dollars. Having dropped out of school at a young age in order to work, Dawson was committed to seeing no one was denied an education because of lack of money. "I advise kids to get a good education," he told Ebony magazine. "I have more than what I need, and I'm sharing it with them." He funded two scholarship programs and donated extensively to the United Negro College Fund.
He walked into the UNCF office in overalls and rubber fisherman's boots up to his knees," the UNCF director recalled to Ebony. "In his hand he held a paper bag, and in that bag was a check for $30,000." It was the largest individual gift ever made to the Michigan telethon and it left UNCF staff speechless. Soon the story of the blue-collar philanthropist was making headlines. However, Dawson remained modest, driving his 1985 Ford Escort to the factory before dawn each morning as he had done nearly all his life. "The first time I realized what he was doing, I heard it on the radio," Dawson's supervisor told Ebony. In an interview with Time, Dawson said, "If I was to do anything with my money other than help some of these kids begging to go to school, I'd be throwing it away." A board member of Wayne State University told the Detroit Free Press, "He planted a seed with his generosity and a harvest for all of us."
Grace Groner was an unassuming secretary working in the warrens of corporate America. According to the Chicago Tribune, “she got her clothes from rummage sales. She walked everywhere rather than buy a car. And her one-bedroom house in Lake Forest held little more than a few plain pieces of furniture, some mismatched dishes and a hulking TV set that appeared left over from the Johnson administration.” Orphaned at age twelve, she never married nor had children.
Like Warren Buffet, Grace Groner bought three shares of stock in the 1930s, only she held onto her three shares of Abbott Labs. Over seven decades those shares split countless times and she reinvested all the dividends.
She died at 100 years on January 19, 2010. The president of Lake Forest College received a phone call informing him she had made a surprise bequest of $7 million, funding a scholarship foundation. “The foundation's millions should generate more than $300,000 a year for the college, enabling dozens more students to travel and pursue internships. Many probably wouldn't be able to pursue those opportunities without a scholarship: 75 percent of the student body receives financial aid.” according to the college’s president Stephen Schutt. One student, nearly in tears said, “It’s giving hope to people to allow them to live a little big bigger than they might have.”
"She did not have the material needs that other people have," said William Marlatt, her attorney and longtime friend. "She could have lived in any house in Lake Forest but she chose not to. She enjoyed other people, and every friend she had was a friend for who she was. They weren't friends for what she had."
The Tribune reports “The study and internship program is not the end of Groner's legacy. She left that small house to the college, too. It will be turned into living quarters for women who receive foundation scholarships, and perhaps something more: an enduring symbol that money can buy far more than mansions.”
Three lives, three stories, three legacies, three individuals with vision for building community for the long term, enabling others to reach their fullest potentials, to build a better world. Three ordinary people of commonplace means with extraordinary vision set out on journeys spanning many decades, taking countless others to the places of their dreams.
One life, one story, one legacy. Show me your check book register and I will show you the extent of your legacy.
But lay up for yourselves treasure in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Full Service Good Samaritan 3-4-10
Anderson, South Carolina
During forty years in the Church I have seen a preoccupation of clergy and writers to describe God’s hand in the lives of people; now dead for twenty to forty centuries. Rarely do we hear of numinous encounters in the lives of people still above ground. Here in the post-modern secular era we desperately need to hear stories of God’s hand moving in the lives of those around us. In a world where insecurity and uncertainty are universal and media has the capability of telling us in real time of every calamity, small and catastrophic, we need even more to know that there is goodness in the world, that Someone is in charge. As I write, media is keeping me well apprised in graphic detail of the tendrils of dust still rising above the remains of a two nations devastated by cataclysmic earthquakes.
The emotional angst many of us experience with holographic reality checks of a world gone amok is often overwhelming. It does little good to know how people living thirty centuries ago experienced God’s provision if we never hear about how, or if, He does this in a very different era. Present day conversations of God’s working in our lives are often limited to hoped for interventions in catastrophic medical challenges. Occasionally we hear of someone being delivered out of the jaws of an odious financial or relational scenario. It’s much rarer to hear of someone being delivered from medical free-fall.
Recently I heard a Good Samaritan story every bit the equal to the familiar one found in the New Testament, this one also involving travellers. If one were still allowed to add stories to the New Testament I would be adding this one, post haste.
In ancient Palestine travel was hazardous at best and pilgrims often walked labyrinths as a symbolic pilgrimage rather than risk travel on bandit-infested roads in torrid deserts. The familiar story tells of a traveller who was robbed, beaten and left for dead. A Samaritan man came along the dangerous road and gathered up the battered bleeding form of the comatose traveller and took him to an inn and saw to his care, paying the innkeeper to see him through to recovery. Twenty centuries later his kindness is recorded in the best seller of all time, yet we don’t even know his name.
As it turns out I know the name of a Good Samaritan and she is above ground, alive and living out her faith in a way I find simply stunning. Unlike the familiar man of the New Testament with his bag of gold coins, this Samaritan has essentially nothing. Donita has life-threatening catastrophic illness that will never go away, let her live free of pain, or allow her to work, unless the hand of God moves in an extraordinary way in this post-modern era of materialism.
She is a single mother of three small children, two mentally disabled boys, a daughter severely challenged by her uncertain life circumstances. Perhaps twice a month Callie is farmed out some place while Mom is in the hospital. The boys get farmed out as well but their disability shields them from full awareness of just how uncertain life can be.
This family’s financial survival is precariously dependent on several disability payments, ones officials are considering for termination. Medical bills to date are close to $2 million. Despite these most precarious of personal circumstances in what has been named an All-America city in the richest country on earth, Donita has reached deeper than most of us could ever fathom in her efforts to help others.
Last week as Donita was driving into her street from the main commercial highway, she saw a battered disintegrating van in the parking lot of a now abandoned gas station. One of our myriad police was making it very clear to the very heavy, dirty, distressed woman and her four children that they must shove on and get out of town. His intent was to follow her to the interstate to make sure our All-American city didn’t have another problem to deal with. No matter the woman and her kids had not eaten in a couple of days and had no money to buy gas to continue their flight from a hideously abusive father/husband. The officer demanded they move on. It was at this moment Donita turned the corner and heard this confrontation.
Donita has no problem getting right in someone’s face. She didn’t this time, pulling into a weed-infested asphalt wasteland, asking the officer what the problem was. He told her this woman was loitering and needed to shove on. It didn’t matter she was in tears, pleading for assistance. Donita challenged the sergeant on why he hadn’t told her of the various agencies in town that could have helped her. “Why didn’t you offer her something that could have given her even a small bit of hope?” “She has to move on”, he repeated yet again. The officer couldn’t be bothered telling this woman where our women’s shelters are located. Perhaps He doesn’t even know.
One has to know Donita to understand her incredible ability to get what she wants, especially if she is on the side of someone who has been kicked in the teeth. Donita negotiated with the officer to let this woman and her four kids stay right where they were for ten minutes while she went home and got some bags of food and brought them back to the abandoned Exxon. She then negotiated for the cop to stay with the van and the four kids while Donita took the woman across the street to an ATM and pulled the last $40 from her account. She gave the woman the money and told her it would buy her two tanks of gas. She could make it to her parents’ house in south Florida if she didn’t spend money on anything but gas. They re-crossed the highway and returned to a progressively more impatient cop, who was intent on preserving the wholesomeness of our All-America city.
By this time a second enforcer of the peace had appeared and he was decidedly less patient or civil than the first insurer of our suburban wholesomeness. Donita was street-smart by the time she was fourteen, by then living on her own. She knew the street to be less dangerous than staying at home. Time proved her right.
Going against everything she had learned about staying street smart, she negotiated with both cops to allow her to take this woman and the kids to her house a block away. And we thought it was only in the Soviet bloc where one had to get police permission to move freely in a city? This mother in flight had no outstanding warrants or ‘paperwork’ against her. Why should she have to get permission to visit someone’s house? George Orwell may have been right after all, just off in his timing. 1984 is just a bit late this year.
Donita, successfully negotiating with the Establishment, took this mother and her four kids to her house where she proceeded to wash all their clothes, feed them a spaghetti dinner, and give them showers. From what I have been told these were not lovely people to the five senses in any way. My Samaritan friend saw beyond the foul odors, filth, and rough edges into their souls. This morbidly obese mother in flight told Donita, “No one has ever loved me before.” Donita told her “You are loveable.”
This family in distress went on its way, knowing that God does still move in the lives of people that haven’t been dead for twenty or forty centuries. The Establishment waited at the end of the block for the family and made sure they went to the on-ramp of the Interstate without passing Go. It didn’t matter; Donita had already given them their Go money and the hotels on Park Place and Board Walk, rent-free.
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
During forty years in the Church I have seen a preoccupation of clergy and writers to describe God’s hand in the lives of people; now dead for twenty to forty centuries. Rarely do we hear of numinous encounters in the lives of people still above ground. Here in the post-modern secular era we desperately need to hear stories of God’s hand moving in the lives of those around us. In a world where insecurity and uncertainty are universal and media has the capability of telling us in real time of every calamity, small and catastrophic, we need even more to know that there is goodness in the world, that Someone is in charge. As I write, media is keeping me well apprised in graphic detail of the tendrils of dust still rising above the remains of a two nations devastated by cataclysmic earthquakes.
The emotional angst many of us experience with holographic reality checks of a world gone amok is often overwhelming. It does little good to know how people living thirty centuries ago experienced God’s provision if we never hear about how, or if, He does this in a very different era. Present day conversations of God’s working in our lives are often limited to hoped for interventions in catastrophic medical challenges. Occasionally we hear of someone being delivered out of the jaws of an odious financial or relational scenario. It’s much rarer to hear of someone being delivered from medical free-fall.
Recently I heard a Good Samaritan story every bit the equal to the familiar one found in the New Testament, this one also involving travellers. If one were still allowed to add stories to the New Testament I would be adding this one, post haste.
In ancient Palestine travel was hazardous at best and pilgrims often walked labyrinths as a symbolic pilgrimage rather than risk travel on bandit-infested roads in torrid deserts. The familiar story tells of a traveller who was robbed, beaten and left for dead. A Samaritan man came along the dangerous road and gathered up the battered bleeding form of the comatose traveller and took him to an inn and saw to his care, paying the innkeeper to see him through to recovery. Twenty centuries later his kindness is recorded in the best seller of all time, yet we don’t even know his name.
As it turns out I know the name of a Good Samaritan and she is above ground, alive and living out her faith in a way I find simply stunning. Unlike the familiar man of the New Testament with his bag of gold coins, this Samaritan has essentially nothing. Donita has life-threatening catastrophic illness that will never go away, let her live free of pain, or allow her to work, unless the hand of God moves in an extraordinary way in this post-modern era of materialism.
She is a single mother of three small children, two mentally disabled boys, a daughter severely challenged by her uncertain life circumstances. Perhaps twice a month Callie is farmed out some place while Mom is in the hospital. The boys get farmed out as well but their disability shields them from full awareness of just how uncertain life can be.
This family’s financial survival is precariously dependent on several disability payments, ones officials are considering for termination. Medical bills to date are close to $2 million. Despite these most precarious of personal circumstances in what has been named an All-America city in the richest country on earth, Donita has reached deeper than most of us could ever fathom in her efforts to help others.
Last week as Donita was driving into her street from the main commercial highway, she saw a battered disintegrating van in the parking lot of a now abandoned gas station. One of our myriad police was making it very clear to the very heavy, dirty, distressed woman and her four children that they must shove on and get out of town. His intent was to follow her to the interstate to make sure our All-American city didn’t have another problem to deal with. No matter the woman and her kids had not eaten in a couple of days and had no money to buy gas to continue their flight from a hideously abusive father/husband. The officer demanded they move on. It was at this moment Donita turned the corner and heard this confrontation.
Donita has no problem getting right in someone’s face. She didn’t this time, pulling into a weed-infested asphalt wasteland, asking the officer what the problem was. He told her this woman was loitering and needed to shove on. It didn’t matter she was in tears, pleading for assistance. Donita challenged the sergeant on why he hadn’t told her of the various agencies in town that could have helped her. “Why didn’t you offer her something that could have given her even a small bit of hope?” “She has to move on”, he repeated yet again. The officer couldn’t be bothered telling this woman where our women’s shelters are located. Perhaps He doesn’t even know.
One has to know Donita to understand her incredible ability to get what she wants, especially if she is on the side of someone who has been kicked in the teeth. Donita negotiated with the officer to let this woman and her four kids stay right where they were for ten minutes while she went home and got some bags of food and brought them back to the abandoned Exxon. She then negotiated for the cop to stay with the van and the four kids while Donita took the woman across the street to an ATM and pulled the last $40 from her account. She gave the woman the money and told her it would buy her two tanks of gas. She could make it to her parents’ house in south Florida if she didn’t spend money on anything but gas. They re-crossed the highway and returned to a progressively more impatient cop, who was intent on preserving the wholesomeness of our All-America city.
By this time a second enforcer of the peace had appeared and he was decidedly less patient or civil than the first insurer of our suburban wholesomeness. Donita was street-smart by the time she was fourteen, by then living on her own. She knew the street to be less dangerous than staying at home. Time proved her right.
Going against everything she had learned about staying street smart, she negotiated with both cops to allow her to take this woman and the kids to her house a block away. And we thought it was only in the Soviet bloc where one had to get police permission to move freely in a city? This mother in flight had no outstanding warrants or ‘paperwork’ against her. Why should she have to get permission to visit someone’s house? George Orwell may have been right after all, just off in his timing. 1984 is just a bit late this year.
Donita, successfully negotiating with the Establishment, took this mother and her four kids to her house where she proceeded to wash all their clothes, feed them a spaghetti dinner, and give them showers. From what I have been told these were not lovely people to the five senses in any way. My Samaritan friend saw beyond the foul odors, filth, and rough edges into their souls. This morbidly obese mother in flight told Donita, “No one has ever loved me before.” Donita told her “You are loveable.”
This family in distress went on its way, knowing that God does still move in the lives of people that haven’t been dead for twenty or forty centuries. The Establishment waited at the end of the block for the family and made sure they went to the on-ramp of the Interstate without passing Go. It didn’t matter; Donita had already given them their Go money and the hotels on Park Place and Board Walk, rent-free.
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.
Cosmic Good Luck or the Love of God? 3-3-10
Anderson, South Carolina
While watching an inspiring meteor shower early one morning recently I realized that it is nothing short of a profound miracle for any kind of life to be extant on our world. With these heavenly stones crashing into the atmosphere every second, one quickly gains a sense of our planet being involved in a very high-stakes cosmic billiard game. The tiny grain-sized meteors that flashed across the sky at 165,000 miles an hour left impressive iridescent contrails of fire in the upper atmosphere. If these tiny particles leave such spectacular calling cards, one can only imagine what something of any significant size would leave. As it turns out, one only has to look at those worlds devoid of significant atmosphere to get a most disquieting answer. Mercury, Mars, our moon, and the larger satellites of the gas giant planets clearly reveal them to have been heavily battered by cosmic billiard balls for a very long time.
Professional astrophysicists have well proven that even one very large meteor or a modest asteroid colliding with our world would produce what is called an extinction-level event, one destroying essentially all significant forms of life on earth. A so-called cosmic winter would shut out solar warmth and cast the earth into a frozen wasteland. Hollywood has capitalized heavily on the spectacularly destructive results that would accrue if we did become a victim of a dead-on shot by one of these sinister cue balls. NASA and other agencies make it their business to track a significant catalog of hazards that are careening around us at speeds beyond imagination. These agencies make it their business to speculate about the results from a rock one mile in diameter landing on our world at one hundred times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet.
As it is, we live on a sapphire orb that is a stunning oasis of warmth, beauty, and life in a vast frigid vacuum fraught with immense dangers. Yet, this precarious world has proven to be a long-term shelter of safety and an incubator for abundant life in all its impossibly diverse and magnificent forms.
For me, it is a great stretch to think that this life-giving oasis is some kind of stochastic accident on the carpet of the universe. It’s no more rational to believe this than for me to blow up an old fashion print shop a thousand million times, hoping the widely scattered moveable cold type would reassemble itself into the complete works of Shakespeare.
Johannes Gutenburg printed the very first books on this world with moveable type, beginning the age of the printed book. One of these printed in 1451 indicates the world itself is compelling evidence for the existence of a Creator. This very same Creator knows too well about extinction-level events and sent his Son so we could have eternal life and avoid the ultimate form of extinction - the eternal separation of our souls from the heart of God. Even asteroids cannot separate us from the love of God but so far He has seen fit to keep them out of our hair.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.
While watching an inspiring meteor shower early one morning recently I realized that it is nothing short of a profound miracle for any kind of life to be extant on our world. With these heavenly stones crashing into the atmosphere every second, one quickly gains a sense of our planet being involved in a very high-stakes cosmic billiard game. The tiny grain-sized meteors that flashed across the sky at 165,000 miles an hour left impressive iridescent contrails of fire in the upper atmosphere. If these tiny particles leave such spectacular calling cards, one can only imagine what something of any significant size would leave. As it turns out, one only has to look at those worlds devoid of significant atmosphere to get a most disquieting answer. Mercury, Mars, our moon, and the larger satellites of the gas giant planets clearly reveal them to have been heavily battered by cosmic billiard balls for a very long time.
Professional astrophysicists have well proven that even one very large meteor or a modest asteroid colliding with our world would produce what is called an extinction-level event, one destroying essentially all significant forms of life on earth. A so-called cosmic winter would shut out solar warmth and cast the earth into a frozen wasteland. Hollywood has capitalized heavily on the spectacularly destructive results that would accrue if we did become a victim of a dead-on shot by one of these sinister cue balls. NASA and other agencies make it their business to track a significant catalog of hazards that are careening around us at speeds beyond imagination. These agencies make it their business to speculate about the results from a rock one mile in diameter landing on our world at one hundred times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet.
As it is, we live on a sapphire orb that is a stunning oasis of warmth, beauty, and life in a vast frigid vacuum fraught with immense dangers. Yet, this precarious world has proven to be a long-term shelter of safety and an incubator for abundant life in all its impossibly diverse and magnificent forms.
For me, it is a great stretch to think that this life-giving oasis is some kind of stochastic accident on the carpet of the universe. It’s no more rational to believe this than for me to blow up an old fashion print shop a thousand million times, hoping the widely scattered moveable cold type would reassemble itself into the complete works of Shakespeare.
Johannes Gutenburg printed the very first books on this world with moveable type, beginning the age of the printed book. One of these printed in 1451 indicates the world itself is compelling evidence for the existence of a Creator. This very same Creator knows too well about extinction-level events and sent his Son so we could have eternal life and avoid the ultimate form of extinction - the eternal separation of our souls from the heart of God. Even asteroids cannot separate us from the love of God but so far He has seen fit to keep them out of our hair.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.
For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Geography of Miracles 3-2-10
Anderson, South Carolina
Can a miracle really be a click away? With the advent of the Internet, high resolution satellite imaging of the entire world, and wireless digital communication of all kinds, distance has lost much of its meaning. Gone are the days when it took two years for a letter to be delivered by a ship’s captain to a recipient on the far side of the world. Now it takes but a fraction of a second for a long letter with photos to be sent to a thousand people simultaneously in dozens of countries. Our world seems far smaller than it once did. Recently it became even smaller to me in a numinous way. Sometimes God works in ways that defy explanation, even by systems network engineers.
For eight years I have been involved in an intercessory prayer project that is found in twenty four countries and as many American states. On Thursday night a large file is e-mailed to me. It contains Christian teachings, answers to prayers, and petitions for new prayer needs. Friday morning after editing it, I return it to the sender. On Saturday it is forwarded with photos to recipients in two dozen countries. As a result of this prayer network, six hundred children in Kenya are now getting an education that includes safe drinking water, sanitation, solar lighting, and school supplies. Kenyan men are gainfully employed cleaning banks and hospitals to augment their meager incomes as ministers. A young gospel singer in South Africa had life saving cancer surgery two years ago because of this network. A hundred orphans and leprous widows in India eat every day and have clean safe places to live because God is able to send his mercy through this worldwide congregation of intercessors. It goes on this way in twenty-four countries because one woman has a vision and reaches out and clicks others a lot - everyday.
A very different kind of network is in Atlanta, this one also discovered through an Internet link between two of God’s people on our Internet prayer team. Childspring International has special connections in a hundred countries. Children born with congenital defects or having experienced catastrophic injuries find their way into this network. It gives them a real chance at life through the miracle of reconstructive surgery offered to them at no cost. One hundred and fifty children a year come to America to receive extensive treatment and rehabilitation. Airlines, stewardesses, hospitals, physicians, and hundreds of volunteers donate their services to bring these miracles to pass for children who have drawn the short straw in life. Childspring International is a grass roots state department creating good will in dozens of nations every day.
A thirteen-year-old Bulgarian girl has retino-blastoma and it was only a matter of time before she would lose all of her eyesight. Attempts at treatment failed to arrest what is considered a progressive irreversible disease.
Two years ago I was asked to find some kind of facility that might be able to teach Kalina the life skills that would enable her to navigate in her growing darkness. I was asked to find one in the southeast United States, perhaps even in Georgia where Childspring has its offices. It is really important to be able to connect host families with these special needs children and a facility here in the southeast would make these logistics much easier. I am in South Carolina so was in the dark about what might be in the Atlanta area, if anything. Walgreen’s and CVS build pharmacies on every corner but benefactors don’t put up schools for the visually impaired on every corner, or even in every state. I was not optimistic but kept my thoughts to myself.
Clicking and drilling through the findings Google produced was hopeful. A highly rated residential school for the blind is in Alabama but it seemed one had to be a state resident to gain admittance. Another possibility was a couple hundred miles away. A thousand miles away was another option and an institute turned up in Canada. From the web sites it was difficult to determine if these schools could or would provide services to a foreigner and at what cost.
The Center for the Visually Impaired turned up on virtual radar. I had a subliminal feeling something important was about to happen. From the web site it was not possible to tell if the Center could help her or would, or at what cost. But I had a feeling our searching was over. Further research and contact with the gracious staff proved there would be a good fit for Kalina in this Center. It would be able to provide a full range of services at no cost. There are incredible benefactors who have made this magnificent program possible.
As it turns out, this fine facility is located a mere ten blocks from the Childspring offices. I can walk from one office to the other in twenty minutes or less. I started out hoping to find something in the western hemisphere and ended up finding the best possible answer, within walking distance. An advertising slogan for the yellow pages says, “Let your fingers do the walking.” In this case the slogan ought to read, “Let your God do the clicking.” Perhaps apt also is, “We get God’s best when we let him do the choosing.”
I am in South Carolina and was asked by an agency in another state to find very specialized resources for a child from Bulgaria, resources about which I knew nothing. I was asked to find services anywhere. She ended up in the neighborhood, just down the street.
Kalina was able to enter Atlanta’s Center for the Visually Impaired and learn those skills so essential to her having a full and meaningful life. This Center proves to be a premier facility at teaching independence skills to the visually impaired. In fact, this is the primary mission of the facility. Kalina lost her remaining vision and she graduated from this program on a Friday almost two years ago, along with fifteen other children who make their life journeys in physical darkness. However, they travel in the brilliance of the love of God and those generous benefactors who made this opportunity possible. I was invited into this sacred space to see the baton of God’s love handed to these children by volunteers and staff who have found a consuming passion. Watching this graduation program in the basement of a building in downtown Atlanta was every bit the equal of any of my awe-inspiring experiences in the great cathedrals of Europe. I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday.
If one is uncertain if the world is a warm friendly place, then one merely needs to visit Childspring International or the Center for the Visually Impaired and watch the volunteer staff work with these children. There are people in America doing grand things and not getting paid for it with the currency of this realm. They are piling up their treasures in other places.
Kalina will make the journey back from Bulgaria this month to be with us in Atlanta as our ‘poster child’ for Childspring’s annual black-tie fund raiser at the Georgia Aquarium. Five hundred well-wishers will be there to greet her. Kalina will demonstrate the vision of her benefactors was more than enough for her to see the Way into successful living; that the universe is a friendly place after all. Perhaps I can even beg a dance from her.
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Can a miracle really be a click away? With the advent of the Internet, high resolution satellite imaging of the entire world, and wireless digital communication of all kinds, distance has lost much of its meaning. Gone are the days when it took two years for a letter to be delivered by a ship’s captain to a recipient on the far side of the world. Now it takes but a fraction of a second for a long letter with photos to be sent to a thousand people simultaneously in dozens of countries. Our world seems far smaller than it once did. Recently it became even smaller to me in a numinous way. Sometimes God works in ways that defy explanation, even by systems network engineers.
For eight years I have been involved in an intercessory prayer project that is found in twenty four countries and as many American states. On Thursday night a large file is e-mailed to me. It contains Christian teachings, answers to prayers, and petitions for new prayer needs. Friday morning after editing it, I return it to the sender. On Saturday it is forwarded with photos to recipients in two dozen countries. As a result of this prayer network, six hundred children in Kenya are now getting an education that includes safe drinking water, sanitation, solar lighting, and school supplies. Kenyan men are gainfully employed cleaning banks and hospitals to augment their meager incomes as ministers. A young gospel singer in South Africa had life saving cancer surgery two years ago because of this network. A hundred orphans and leprous widows in India eat every day and have clean safe places to live because God is able to send his mercy through this worldwide congregation of intercessors. It goes on this way in twenty-four countries because one woman has a vision and reaches out and clicks others a lot - everyday.
A very different kind of network is in Atlanta, this one also discovered through an Internet link between two of God’s people on our Internet prayer team. Childspring International has special connections in a hundred countries. Children born with congenital defects or having experienced catastrophic injuries find their way into this network. It gives them a real chance at life through the miracle of reconstructive surgery offered to them at no cost. One hundred and fifty children a year come to America to receive extensive treatment and rehabilitation. Airlines, stewardesses, hospitals, physicians, and hundreds of volunteers donate their services to bring these miracles to pass for children who have drawn the short straw in life. Childspring International is a grass roots state department creating good will in dozens of nations every day.
A thirteen-year-old Bulgarian girl has retino-blastoma and it was only a matter of time before she would lose all of her eyesight. Attempts at treatment failed to arrest what is considered a progressive irreversible disease.
Two years ago I was asked to find some kind of facility that might be able to teach Kalina the life skills that would enable her to navigate in her growing darkness. I was asked to find one in the southeast United States, perhaps even in Georgia where Childspring has its offices. It is really important to be able to connect host families with these special needs children and a facility here in the southeast would make these logistics much easier. I am in South Carolina so was in the dark about what might be in the Atlanta area, if anything. Walgreen’s and CVS build pharmacies on every corner but benefactors don’t put up schools for the visually impaired on every corner, or even in every state. I was not optimistic but kept my thoughts to myself.
Clicking and drilling through the findings Google produced was hopeful. A highly rated residential school for the blind is in Alabama but it seemed one had to be a state resident to gain admittance. Another possibility was a couple hundred miles away. A thousand miles away was another option and an institute turned up in Canada. From the web sites it was difficult to determine if these schools could or would provide services to a foreigner and at what cost.
The Center for the Visually Impaired turned up on virtual radar. I had a subliminal feeling something important was about to happen. From the web site it was not possible to tell if the Center could help her or would, or at what cost. But I had a feeling our searching was over. Further research and contact with the gracious staff proved there would be a good fit for Kalina in this Center. It would be able to provide a full range of services at no cost. There are incredible benefactors who have made this magnificent program possible.
As it turns out, this fine facility is located a mere ten blocks from the Childspring offices. I can walk from one office to the other in twenty minutes or less. I started out hoping to find something in the western hemisphere and ended up finding the best possible answer, within walking distance. An advertising slogan for the yellow pages says, “Let your fingers do the walking.” In this case the slogan ought to read, “Let your God do the clicking.” Perhaps apt also is, “We get God’s best when we let him do the choosing.”
I am in South Carolina and was asked by an agency in another state to find very specialized resources for a child from Bulgaria, resources about which I knew nothing. I was asked to find services anywhere. She ended up in the neighborhood, just down the street.
Kalina was able to enter Atlanta’s Center for the Visually Impaired and learn those skills so essential to her having a full and meaningful life. This Center proves to be a premier facility at teaching independence skills to the visually impaired. In fact, this is the primary mission of the facility. Kalina lost her remaining vision and she graduated from this program on a Friday almost two years ago, along with fifteen other children who make their life journeys in physical darkness. However, they travel in the brilliance of the love of God and those generous benefactors who made this opportunity possible. I was invited into this sacred space to see the baton of God’s love handed to these children by volunteers and staff who have found a consuming passion. Watching this graduation program in the basement of a building in downtown Atlanta was every bit the equal of any of my awe-inspiring experiences in the great cathedrals of Europe. I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday.
If one is uncertain if the world is a warm friendly place, then one merely needs to visit Childspring International or the Center for the Visually Impaired and watch the volunteer staff work with these children. There are people in America doing grand things and not getting paid for it with the currency of this realm. They are piling up their treasures in other places.
Kalina will make the journey back from Bulgaria this month to be with us in Atlanta as our ‘poster child’ for Childspring’s annual black-tie fund raiser at the Georgia Aquarium. Five hundred well-wishers will be there to greet her. Kalina will demonstrate the vision of her benefactors was more than enough for her to see the Way into successful living; that the universe is a friendly place after all. Perhaps I can even beg a dance from her.
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Magic of Aging 3-1-10
Anderson, South Carolina
Living in the American culture, in which aging is seen as a harsh diminishment of our personhood and something to be avoided at all costs, observing birthdays can be a mixed blessing. There is something objective, indisputable, and perhaps distasteful about marking off another year on one’s journey through our youth-oriented culture. In our society we tend to view older people with less honor and dignity than those in the prime of life. We don’t want to think of the inevitable outcomes of life.
In many other lands, birthdays are actually seen as blessings of the highest order. People of seniority are seen as having ever-increasing wisdom and stature among those of lesser years. Younger people will seek out their platinum-haired elders for counsel and advice. These elders readily accept the ultimate outcome of having lived. They understand that being born is a terminal event and part of the natural order of things.
I have a really good deal going here in our youth-oriented culture. My birthday celebrations have become progressively more creative and memorable, primarily because of the efforts of a dear friend I always refer to as MQ, short for Magic Queen. I started calling her Magic Queen because of the amazing way she has of improving the confidence and self-esteem in frightened at-risk school children. I am finding that she is actually doing the same things in me, yet I am nearly half a century past elementary school.
One of the ways she makes me feel like vintage wine that gets better with each year is to create surprise birthday observances for me. One year she simply invited a number of my favorite people to her house for dinner and then told me to show up. I entered a room overflowing with affirmation, seasoned with fine dining in the company of my best friends. This was cathartic and validating to someone that has often seen birthdays pass by unnoticed.
The next year MQ did something rather surreal and creative. She covertly managed to acquire my address book and e-mail directory and proceeded to create a virtual birthday party. Perhaps seventy-five people in these two sources were contacted and asked to send a card or letter with some kind of affirmation in it. I knew nothing of this until I showed up at the appointed time for dinner with MQ. Spread across the Queen Anne dining table were cards and small gifts from an assortment of people spanning the globe. The next hour or more was given to opening all of these beautiful cards and thoughtful gifts. I basked in the aureate light of the setting sun as well as the precious good wishes and love of people spanning the world and the past forty years of my life. It was truly an amazing experience to feel the presence of seventy-five people while dining with but one.
Two years ago the community theater was having one of its opening night receptions. MQ and I have attended many of these but this one had a good bit of magic tossed in. The reception following the play became a birthday party for me. MQ had managed to insert a very large birthday cake into the festivities. Suddenly, there really were seventy-five people dining with me, sharing cake and fine foods, laughing and enjoying life fully. It has always been a bit of mystery to me as to how MQ pulls off the logistics of such events. But one is not supposed to ask magicians how they do their tricks.
Last year’s birthday caper was even more devious. MQ manages to covertly figure out when I am going to be in large groups and insert decorated cakes into their midst. Last year was no exception. One of my ‘hobbies’ is building real houses for Habitat for Humanity. We build dreams for people that have forgotten how to dream. As it so happened, we were dedicating one of these houses on my birthday in another small city to the east of here. MQ managed to not only find out when this dedication was taking place but where. She also managed to find out who was in charge of the ceremonies. In ways, still murky to me, she managed to again arrange for the insertion of a grand cake into that crowd of fifty people at this dedication, which suddenly became yet another one of my happy markers of time.
I should point out that MQ is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to drive. What makes all of these magic tricks more impressive is that she had to do them all by remote control from her house. I was just eating a fine dinner at her table when she asked me about my upcoming birthday in four weeks. She asked me if I wanted her to keep her doings a surprise. I made certain that I wanted no advance intelligence on this action. The element of surprise can be truly delicious.
The illusion that our culture has gone down the tubes and isolated all of us has been shattered by the reality that love and friendship increase in value over time, as does good wine.
Living in the American culture, in which aging is seen as a harsh diminishment of our personhood and something to be avoided at all costs, observing birthdays can be a mixed blessing. There is something objective, indisputable, and perhaps distasteful about marking off another year on one’s journey through our youth-oriented culture. In our society we tend to view older people with less honor and dignity than those in the prime of life. We don’t want to think of the inevitable outcomes of life.
In many other lands, birthdays are actually seen as blessings of the highest order. People of seniority are seen as having ever-increasing wisdom and stature among those of lesser years. Younger people will seek out their platinum-haired elders for counsel and advice. These elders readily accept the ultimate outcome of having lived. They understand that being born is a terminal event and part of the natural order of things.
I have a really good deal going here in our youth-oriented culture. My birthday celebrations have become progressively more creative and memorable, primarily because of the efforts of a dear friend I always refer to as MQ, short for Magic Queen. I started calling her Magic Queen because of the amazing way she has of improving the confidence and self-esteem in frightened at-risk school children. I am finding that she is actually doing the same things in me, yet I am nearly half a century past elementary school.
One of the ways she makes me feel like vintage wine that gets better with each year is to create surprise birthday observances for me. One year she simply invited a number of my favorite people to her house for dinner and then told me to show up. I entered a room overflowing with affirmation, seasoned with fine dining in the company of my best friends. This was cathartic and validating to someone that has often seen birthdays pass by unnoticed.
The next year MQ did something rather surreal and creative. She covertly managed to acquire my address book and e-mail directory and proceeded to create a virtual birthday party. Perhaps seventy-five people in these two sources were contacted and asked to send a card or letter with some kind of affirmation in it. I knew nothing of this until I showed up at the appointed time for dinner with MQ. Spread across the Queen Anne dining table were cards and small gifts from an assortment of people spanning the globe. The next hour or more was given to opening all of these beautiful cards and thoughtful gifts. I basked in the aureate light of the setting sun as well as the precious good wishes and love of people spanning the world and the past forty years of my life. It was truly an amazing experience to feel the presence of seventy-five people while dining with but one.
Two years ago the community theater was having one of its opening night receptions. MQ and I have attended many of these but this one had a good bit of magic tossed in. The reception following the play became a birthday party for me. MQ had managed to insert a very large birthday cake into the festivities. Suddenly, there really were seventy-five people dining with me, sharing cake and fine foods, laughing and enjoying life fully. It has always been a bit of mystery to me as to how MQ pulls off the logistics of such events. But one is not supposed to ask magicians how they do their tricks.
Last year’s birthday caper was even more devious. MQ manages to covertly figure out when I am going to be in large groups and insert decorated cakes into their midst. Last year was no exception. One of my ‘hobbies’ is building real houses for Habitat for Humanity. We build dreams for people that have forgotten how to dream. As it so happened, we were dedicating one of these houses on my birthday in another small city to the east of here. MQ managed to not only find out when this dedication was taking place but where. She also managed to find out who was in charge of the ceremonies. In ways, still murky to me, she managed to again arrange for the insertion of a grand cake into that crowd of fifty people at this dedication, which suddenly became yet another one of my happy markers of time.
I should point out that MQ is confined to a wheelchair and is unable to drive. What makes all of these magic tricks more impressive is that she had to do them all by remote control from her house. I was just eating a fine dinner at her table when she asked me about my upcoming birthday in four weeks. She asked me if I wanted her to keep her doings a surprise. I made certain that I wanted no advance intelligence on this action. The element of surprise can be truly delicious.
The illusion that our culture has gone down the tubes and isolated all of us has been shattered by the reality that love and friendship increase in value over time, as does good wine.
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