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It Is Always Possible
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
The Dalai Lama
My husband saw a license plate frame last week that said “Be courageous. Be kind. Be awesome.” I love it!
Kindness takes many forms and comes in various sizes and shapes. It can be performed by anyone of any age. Witness two sweet stories I’ve read recently, both involving the extremes on the age spectrum: an older man and a young boy.
In September of last year, in Turkey, a boy who looks to be about 12 hit a stranger’s car on his bicycle, due to the fact that he had no working brakes. The young man, and the community in which he lived, were stunned when, a few days later, the man who’d suffered injury to his vehicle turned up in the neighborhood looking for the boy. It wasn’t the visit that was surprising – after all, the boy had done damage to his property. What shocked everyone was what followed. When located, the youngster was presented with a brand-new red bike, one he could ride safely and that would serve him reliably for years to come. The picture shows the pair and the bike. The unexpected gift, and the clemency that accompanied it, brought the boy to tears.
The man whose car was struck and harmed could have reacted very differently than he did, demanding justice and reparation. Many in his circumstances would have. This man, however, smiling and gracious, changed the young fellow’s life, and for the better.
There’s no indication anywhere that I can see of whether or not the man is a Christian, but for sure he manifested a quality in this instance that one would hope to see in every follower of Christ. Jesus said, in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Would that I would respond as this good man did in a similar situation.
In the other instance, a boy out shopping with his aunt became aware of an elderly man who was so stooped over that he couldn’t look up or around and thus was having the greatest difficulty securing, or even locating, what he needed.
The boy, Lakken, asked his aunt if he could go help, to which request she gladly and readily gave assent. He took off, surprising and encouraging the old gentleman who told him no one had offered him help in years. He was thrilled to have it now.
Lakken found and picked up everything the man wanted, helped him check out and bag his purchases, and had the store call the bus for his ride home.
Lakken, too, displayed a Christ-like character. He seems to have been raised well and to have learned some lessons early about how we should be treating one another. Kindness makes it easier on all of us. Mercy goes a long way toward smoothing the lives of others. And our own.
I’m with the Dalai Lama, the Turkish gentleman, and Lakken. If we can be kind we should be kind. It is always possible.
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Never
“Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way.”
John Muir
“Our beds provide a safe place for your cat to relax in; with the raised rim, ultra soft padding and covers, it allows them to mimic being hugged by their mother.” So says the advertisement for the plush, round kitty bed we got for our Dusty. Now doesn’t that sound inviting? Who, of any species, wouldn’t love to be hugged by their mother?
Dusty, apparently. She wanted nothing to do with the thing.
Two winters ago, my husband bought me a large, soft, heavy-weight robe/blanket affair for Christmas. I loved it. And the first time I used it so did Dusty. I took it off for what I thought would be a brief moment only while I went into the next room. I threw it higgledy-piggledy onto the sofa. When I returned, Dusty was burrowed right in, mostly covered. I couldn’t bring myself to remove her from it, she looked so very comfortable and pleased. She co-opted my robe at that moment; it became hers.
I mulled it over for the next year, watching jealously as she enjoyed what had been my gift. But spring, then summer, came, and I didn’t need it for awhile. She retained and took great pleasure in it year-round. I considered, come fall, getting a second one so we each would have one for the upcoming winter. And then I decided to try something else: something much smaller but made of similar material, something more manageable and much less of an eyesore than the huge bundle the robe made on our sofa. That’s when I found and ordered the “Marshmallow,” a plush and fluffy bed made for cats.
It’s been over a year and she’s never willingly gotten into it. I made the mistake, early on, of placing her in it myself. I won’t be misjudging a situation that badly ever again.
I’ve had it everywhere in the house at various times, pulling it out every few months, spraying it anew with a cat-attracting substance, sometimes applying catnip. She steadfastly ignores it. My most recent – and, I believe, my last – attempt was to place it in yet another of her favorite sleeping locations under a desk in the bedroom. It’s near a heater vent and she loves it there. You can see (picture) what happened. She managed to make herself a small space right next to it, where she could sleep in comfort. She did not get in.
Dusty makes us laugh all the time. Her crazy, quirky, but ever-sweet disposition has endeared her to us. We don’t really mind much that she won’t sleep where we want her to. We’re just so glad she’s ours.
God created the animals for us to love, interact with, and take care of. On day six of the creation week they were produced, as was man. “Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2:19, NIV). “You made him (man) lord over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, as well as animals in the wild, birds of the sky, and fish of the sea passing through the currents of the seas” (Psalm 8:6-8, HCSB).
We have a responsibility to the animals that share this planet with us. Their well-being depends upon our taking our caretaking duties seriously. And our pets even more so. We do for them, provide for them, make a safe place for them, and buy them things to improve their comfort.
But we’re never going to get Dusty into that bed.
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How Wonderful Some Folks Are!
“Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Philippians 2:4, NIV
One year ago this week the world shut down, more or less. And have we ever been on an extraordinary and terrible ride ever since. It’s one I believe not a single one of us would have signed on for if given any say in the matter at all. Rick and I had celebrated, with family and friends, the 100th birthday of my beloved Uncle Wayne. That was one year and two days ago. There was some harbinger talk by that time – we were hearing of a new, fast-moving, and potentially deadly disease making its way through the Far East. And I emphasize the word “far,” as it initially seemed such a distance from my loved ones and me as to be a likely non-threat to us. Oh, how sadly wrong I was!
Two days later, one year ago today, airports in the United States were being shut down, travel sharply curtailed, and advise given to observe strict – very strict – rules of hygiene even inside our own homes. We were to wash, often and thoroughly. We were to wear masks inside and out. We were to leave aged loved ones in other states, in nursing homes, or wherever they might be, alone. We were, in fact, urged to stay in altogether and not risk the environment outside our individual bubbles.
People started dying and the run on toilet paper began. And I don’t mean to compare death and the toilet paper fiasco in degrees of awfulness. It’s just that so much happened so fast and was so terrifying to so many that almost instantaneously everyone’s lives were turned upside-down and inside-out. All bets were off. Behaviors changed. Nothing was the same one day as it had been the day before.
Or was it?
How many of you have been on the receiving end of someone else’s generosity during this challenging time? And how many have been a blessing to others in some way(s) during this period?
Examples of watching out and doing for others in this past year are plenty. Here are two, experienced early on; you will know of others.
Stepanie Lux of New York writes, in an article in TheLily on March 26, 2020, where a woman named Nneka McGuire compiled several instances of benevolence: “A teenage boy in our church has been struggling with a brain tumor. He cannot have visitors, obviously. The members of our church and his friends in the community decided to show him love and support last night by doing a ‘drive-by.’ Hundreds of cars drove slowly past his house in the dark tooting their horns. How encouraging that we can still find creative ways to reach out to each other!”
And this one: “While having some routine bloodwork last week, my 96-year-old father-in-law mentioned to the nurse that he and his wife had only one roll of toilet paper left at home and could not find any in his neighborhood supermarket. He asked her if she knew of a place he might go to find some. She said she did not. That evening, just as he and his wife were finishing up dinner, there was a knock on the door. It was that same nurse with a large package of toilet paper. She and her friend searched at least 10 stores until they found what he needed, and would not take a penny for their troubles. How wonderful some folks are!”
Too true – how wonderful some folks are. We’re meant to step up to the plate as necessary. Some do and some don’t. When we become aware of another’s needs, we are to meet them if we can, the pandemic aside. Some did and some didn’t. But those who reacted as the people noted above probably did the same sort of things before the pandemic and will respond similarly after it ends.
I want to be one of those people – I hope I am one of those people. And I hope you are too.
“The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.”
Proverbs 11:25
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Fear Not
We live in truly perilous times. And some of my readers are in more peril than others.
We’re beset on all sides by a variety of painful challenges: illness, civil unrest, injury, death, separation, troubled relationships, financial catastrophe, broken dreams, weather dangers, confusion, anxiety, depression, spiritual difficulties, and more. There are pressures on us all that threaten to sink us, figuratively and literally. Some among us are, in fact, dying.
Should we despair? Have we despaired? Oh, friends, how I hope not! There are promises and there is hope; we may, if we choose, look fear in the eye and refuse it entrance.
You may have heard that there are 365 iterations of the phrase “Fear not” in the Bible, and it’s true. One for every day of the year. This ought to encourage us, because where there’s an injunction, there’s always a promise. Most of them come in the same breath – the injunction and the promise. I’m going to share a couple of them with you.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9, NIV).
And this one: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10, NIV).
My friends, we needn’t be fearful and, in fact, shouldn’t be. Our all-powerful God is with us at all times; there’s nothing He can’t save us from and nowhere He lets us go by ourselves.
Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in three different cells in South African prisons, and later became President of that same country, said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” We do that through our trust in the Lord. He enables that faith and it grows as we experience what He does with and for and in and through us over the course of time. Facing our fears, with Him at our sides, becomes easier as we move through life, though not generally particularly pleasant.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ “
You can’t do that alone, but you don’t have to. God is with us in the flood and fire (see Isaiah 43:1-5); in illness and civil unrest; in injury, death, separation, troubled relationships, financial catastrophe, broken dreams, weather threats, confusion, anxiety, depression, spiritual difficulties, and all the rest.
That’s a promise. Three hundred and sixty-five promises, to be more precise. Claim them.
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Joy Comes in the Morning
This recent past has held an excess of painful news. In the last half week alone I’ve been notified of several deaths of friends or of friends’ loved ones. There have been serious accidents, unexpected illnesses uncovered, surgeries hurriedly scheduled and/or performed.
The young are not spared. I know of critical depression occurring in all age groups. There have been falls off ladders, COVID strikes, two brothers of one friend lost in two months, a 61-year-old with a serious stroke, dementia horrors, hospice placement, an inherited disorder afflicting nearly an entire family of “kids” I grew up with, a woman who lost both her parents of unrelated causes within a two-hour span. It doesn’t seem to end and, in fact, feels like it’s ramping up. And this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
My prayer list is long and getting longer by the day. Probably yours is too.
What is happening? Why is it happening? Is there hope for any of us?
We do have an enemy, as every Christian is well aware. We’re told by Peter, in 1 Peter 5:8, that this adversary “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (NIV). That seems an apt description to me. It feels like a devouring is taking place in these various attacks on us and those we love.
It’s felt that way to believers (and, I suppose, to non-believers as well) through the ages. Life is short and brutal in the larger scheme of things. David said, “Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow” (Psalm 144:4, NIV). Several centuries later James, in James 4:14, said of us, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (NIV).
Many have voiced that same sentiment in the 2,000-plus years since. But this isn’t the way things were meant to be, and it isn’t the way they will remain.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning,” said David (Psalm 30:5, AMPC). We can count on that – it’s a promise. The day will come when all will be well again, all will have been restored; we’ll no longer face the horrors of illness, death, separation, pain, inequity, fear, loss, uncertainty. Speaking of that day John, quoting . . . God (?), said, ” ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’ ” (Revelation 21:3, 4; NIV).
Won’t that be the day?! I can hardly wait. We’ll see our departed loved ones again. We will never break a leg, experience cancer, have an accident or an argument, make a mistake, become estranged from those we care about. We’ll not grow old and there will be no death.
So . . . we’ll see you again, Mom, Kathy, Martin, Brian, and Tim. You will be well, Tara, Louise, Bill, Marsha, Ed, Mark, Dan, Linda, and Dad. Your injuries will be a thing of the past, Casey and Al.
Joy is coming in the morning.
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On Having Birthdays, Part Two
I hadn’t planned to revisit the subject of birthdays quite so soon, but kind of have to. My dad turned 93 on Friday. It’s not been an easy aging for him or us, and it isn’t for most folks. He has, however, attained that quite advanced age with a certain amount of flair and style.
My sister and I like to think he remains very handsome, and apparently others think so too, or at least say so. He looks like his father’s side of the family, a very good-looking and, for the most part, long-lived bunch. My sister takes after him and them.
At any rate, several of us gathered to celebrate his special day with him. There was singing, a favorite meal, and cake. But most of all there was talk. And at least a dozen and a half times during the course of the conversation, Dad said, “I sure wish we lived closer together. I’d like to have my family around me.”
My sister lives less than two minutes from Dad and sees him nearly every day. She has him in her home regularly for chats and meals and family time. She takes him to all his appointments and visits with him in the facility where he lives. I live a few hours away but see him every couple of months myself. He does, in fact, have family close by and readily available to him.
At about the 15th or so repeat of this desire, as I was inwardly rolling my eyes, it finally dawned on my obtuse mind that what he was really saying was, “I wish things were like they used to be. I wish we all still lived together like we did. I wish your mother was still with us. I wish I was young again, beginning and not just about to finish the course. I wish I could turn back the clock, reverse the sands of time.” That’s what he was really saying.
It stopped me in my tracks. Isn’t that what we’d all prefer, at least those of us in or approaching the winter of our lives? We’d like to live again in earlier, better, healthier, happier, more promising times. Times in which our lives spread out before us in a seemingly endless stretch of prospect and possibility.
Well, if we’re fortunate, we’ll keep having birthdays like my dad is doing. We, too, will, it is hoped, reach an advanced old age with some semblance of grace. And if we think he/we are advancing alone, we’re mistaken. Our cry may echo David’s in Psalm 71:9: “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone” (NIV). And the answer comes: “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4, NIV).
Happy Birthday, Dad.
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On Having Birthdays
Mercy me, I’ve just had another one! These birthdays seem to be arriving ever more rapidly. I remember as a kid so looking forward to the things. In fact, once I was reasonably close to the next one – say, three months – I occasionally claimed that upcoming age if asked how old I was. Not anymore.
I almost stopped having birthdays at age nine and a half. In July of the year I turned that age, I drowned in a community swimming pool and was only just barely brought back. It took a full 24 hours for it to be apparent I would make it and, when I finally awakened, that I hadn’t suffered grievous harm to my brain (some might argue that I did). But every single birthday since then has been a bonus for which I’m extremely grateful.
And that holds true for this most recent one. Though I’m not as spry as I once was, as sharp, as quick, as physically strong, as capable in some areas, I remain engaged and interested and eager and desirous of learning new things, trying new things, and seeing new places as ever.
My time was clearly not up yet at age nine and a half; there were other plans for my life. One of my favorite Bible verses as an adult has been this one: ” ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’ ” (Jeremiah 29:11, NLT).
On July 4, 1961, my future was very nearly cancelled, to say nothing of hope. If the Lord had not intervened, I have no doubt it would all have ended for me right there, right then.
But it didn’t.
And on this birthday, as on all others, I thanked God for my continued presence on this earth. I have no clue as to how many more I might be granted, but I am grateful beyond measure for the 69 I have had.
God is so good. And I love having birthdays!
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Catch, Anyone?
Frank Miller, aged 74, from Dallas, Texas, was itching to throw a baseball again early this month. He’d pitched in high school and college and recently read a book on pitching that had rewhetted his appetite. But who to pitch to?
His wife Alice stepped in. She put up a post on Nextdoor, the neighborhood app. It read like this: “My 74 year old husband would like to have a partner to throw the ball with. He is a former high school and college pitcher and is looking for a catcher or someone who knows how to throw a baseball. He is in good shape and loves baseball.”
They had no idea what to expect. And then the responses began rolling in. Nearly 80, in fact, and a date, time, and place was set for meeting. It appeared that a chord had been struck.
On the appointed day Frank took a new glove, a year-old Christmas gift barely used; four new baseballs; two old baseballs; and a 60-year-old catcher’s mitt bought that many decades ago and patched that very morning with Gorilla Glue.
Three dozen people showed up, among them a bearded 32-year-old, three high school boys, a 73-year-old who hadn’t thrown in 35 years, and a 26-year-old urged to be there by his mother. They threw for an hour, decades separating several of the partnered pairs. Frank and his new friend totaled, between them, 147 years in age. No spring chickens, these two.
Connections were made and promises to meet again were extended. A new date was set. Everyone was glad they attended.
I was touched by the story. I played some serious fastpitch softball at one time, and will never forget those days, the emotions evoked, the friends I made. I won’t forget the endless hours of catch I played with my dad and others, but mostly my dad. Or the development and progress of my pitching abilities under his tutelage. He himself had been a catcher as a younger man and possessed some considerable pitching knowledge as well.
And I love the idea of what this guy did: he chose a special interest of his and invited others to join him in celebrating and enjoying it. It did two things for me: it reminded me of what’s possible, even in (maybe especially in) difficult circumstances; and it got me hungering to get my own glove and ball out and begin doing some throwing.
Others are lonely like you are. Others have interests similar to your own. Many are not fully occupied at present – they’re retired, between jobs, waiting for a job or school to start up again, and so on – and are available. Maybe we should be considering how we might get our own needs met and others’ into the bargain. We’re not getting any younger and neither are they. If not now, when?
Anyone up for a game of catch?
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I’m Practicing!
My name is Carolyn and I’m a bookaholic. This is true, though the proper term is bibliophile, a sobriquet that also describes many of you. The word is taken from two Greek words: biblio (book) and phile (lover of). Book lover. That’s me!
I count books and my enjoyment of them one of God’s greatest gifts to me. I’ve been crazy about them since I was small, and couldn’t learn to read quickly enough. I learned early the truth of what the inestimable Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) posited:
I loved to go places, and I went. China, Africa, the Deep South, India, New York City, the sea islands, Japan, London, into others’ homes and cultures and belief systems, “out west,” Spain; heaven, the Garden of Eden, Babylon, Ninevah, Palestine, Thyatira, Jerusalem, Rome, Patmos, and “even unto the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
I’ve learned about people, governments, religious practices, foods, animals, sports, stars, trees, travel, the history of all seven continents, and a huge variety of perspectives on any number of subjects by reading books.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman statesman, famously said, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” That feels true for me. I love to walk into a home and find books. I make a straight beeline for them, always. What might there be I haven’t seen yet, seen but not yet read, read and, here, now, find someone with whom I might talk about them? “Have you read this? Did you like it? Tell me your thoughts. May I share mine?”
“The man (or woman) who does not read has no advantage over the man (or woman) who cannot read,” said Mark Twain. Besides that reading is so enjoyable, it also informs us. Be informed. That may be particularly important – even vital – in our current climate. We must all be mindful of the vast amount of disinformation and misinformation that is circulating. Read widely, check your facts, and proceed as best you can.
And remember that this world, as varied and fascinating, as disturbing and exciting, as we might find it to be, is not all there is. There’s more and better to come.
I met Jesus in a Book – the Book of Books, as many call the Bible – and I hope you have too. His is the most important acquaintance we’ll ever make. The information contained in the Bible about Him and what He means to us and for us is of paramount importance. I’ve always been intrigued by the last verse in the book of John, John 21:25. It says this: “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written” (NLT). Now that would be a lot of books, books I’d love to get my hands on!
So. Despite all the reading you or I have done and will yet do, there’s more. So much more. There’s more to learn about, look at, taste, explore, and experience than any of us can imagine. I really, really, really look forward to that.
Reading now is just practice.
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I Can See Clearly Now
Well, if I needed to be humbled, I guess I can say I have been.
I was all of 21, not even 1/3 of the age I am now. It was 1973 and I was in my first nursing job after getting my degree. I worked on a Med/Surg unit and one of my patients on that memorable day was an older woman. I don’t remember her name, her age (she may well have been younger than I am now), her diagnosis, or what she looked like. I remember only the humorous event that took place.
When I entered her room and asked her how she was doing and if there was anything she needed, she told me she thought she needed to get her eyes checked, that she was having some difficulty with her eyesight. “I think I need new glasses,” she said. “I can’t see out of these,” and she indicated them lying on her bedside table.
“Oh, no,” I replied, and idly picked them up. Then I looked at them.
“Well!” I said in some surprise at their condition, and with great amusement, which I took pains to keep to myself, as I could see they were dirty in the extreme – no one could have seen through them. “Maybe I’ll just wash them up for you and we’ll see how they are then.” And that’s what I did.
“Here, have a look.” I returned them to her.
I can see!” she exclaimed with considerable enthusiasm. “What did you do to them, again?”
“Just rinsed them up,” I told her. “I’m so glad they’re OK.”
I was enormously entertained by this and related the incident with much laughter to my husband later that evening. We wondered aloud how anyone could allow their glasses to get so dirty and not be aware of it.
Fast forward to last week. Granting that my own vision isn’t what it once was, I can generally see pretty well. And I check my glasses regularly for smudges and streaks. On this day, though, I could hardly see out of them at all. “I need to have my eyes checked,” I thought to myself and took them off, fully expecting to find relatively clean lenses, maybe just a spot or two. It had to be my eyes, but how could they have gotten that bad?
Well, as it turns out, they haven’t. No, instead I found myself looking at a pitifully dirty pair of lenses, explaining everything.
That’s when I thought of my little old lady patient of some 47 years ago. “Well, there you go,” I thought. “You are now the little old lady unable to take care of her own spectacles.” I’d come full circle.
And it set me to thinking. I did not laugh in front of the woman of yesteryear over her unfortunate difficulty with her glasses, a problem easily fixed but beyond her at that moment. I did, however, laugh later, and I shared it, more than once, in the ensuing years. Though this may not have been wrong, exactly, it probably was not kind. And the older I get the more I realize that we’re all in the same boat and subject to the same challenges, though they may take slightly different forms. Or not, as my recent experience suggests. And what goes around comes around, as they say.
At any rate, kindness should always prevail, a lesson I’m still learning, it would appear. I hope one day to be able to say, “I can see clearly now.”
