Preparing for this weekend’s sermon about finding certainty in the midst of chaos– that’s what faith can help us with– I suddenly remembered the incident from a few years ago where a young woman (a single mother) was held hostage in her own home. Brian Nichols had escaped from the courthouse in Atlanta, killing several people in his wake, and sought shelter by holding Ashley Smith at gunpoint in her own apartment. What struck me at the time was the woman’s calm and resolve in the face of danger. In a book she wrote later, she revealed that she was struggling with addiction to drugs at the time of the incident, and even offered methamphetamine to the killer in her home. But she was clearly a person seeking to grow in faith–she had read to him from the Bible and pastor Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life. She reacted and responded to her horrifying situation with a great deal of grace.
Doing an internet search, I found video that she recorded with local news immediately after her return to safety. Looking at the transcripts of the video, I notice that some of it was left out, including this pivotal interaction between the kidnapper and the woman of faith. She had chatted with him about her young daughter whom she was planning to see the next morning at 10 a.m. She had lost custody of her daughter because of the drug issues, and worried about her little girl who’s father had been killed a few years before:
So we went back to my house and got in the house. And he was hungry, so I cooked him breakfast. He was overwhelmed with–”Wow,” he said, “real butter, pancakes?”
And I just talked with him a little more, just about–about–we pretty much talked about God . . . what his reason was, why he made it out of there.
I said, “Do you believe in miracles? Because if you don’t believe in miracles–you are here for a reason. You’re here in my apartment for some reason. You got out of that courthouse with police everywhere, and you don’t think that’s a miracle? You don’t think you’re supposed to be sitting here right in front of me listening to me tell you, you know, your reason here?”
I said, “You know, your miracle could be that you need to–you need to be caught for this. You need to go to prison and you need to share the word of God with them, with all the prisoners there.”
Then 9 came. He said, “What time do you have to leave?”
I’m going to condense the story for the sermon, but here is her amazing tale:
I love these short films that are shot with tilt-shift focus. This one features New York City, filmed with a very narrow band of focus that fools the eye into seeing miniatures.
Grandma Walters used to say “the older you get, the faster time flies”. She usually followed her statement with a deep sigh. I find myself sighing more often these days.
I remember being thirteen and thinking that my fourteenth birthday would never arrive. I don’t know why 14 was so important, but it seemed like a major milestone at the time. Now 48 turns into 53 in the blink of an eye, to the point where I sometimes struggle to remember if I’m 52 or 53 this year. I guess the answer’s pretty obvious if I can’t remember.
Have you noticed…that when you recall your first kisses, early birthdays, your earliest summer vacations, they seem to be in slow motion?
That’s because when it’s the “first”, there are so many things to remember. The list of encoded memories is so dense, reading them back gives you a feeling that they must have taken forever. But that’s an illusion. “It’s a construction of the brain,” says [neuroscientist David] Eagleman. “The more memory you have of something, you think, ‘Wow, that really took a long time!’
It used to take a full year–three hundred and sixty five days–to go from Christmas to Christmas. Now I put the decorations away and it seems like I’m getting them out again in just a few months. Who shortened the year?
And didn’t we just celebrate the turn of the century?
I consider myself to be a somewhat non-competitive guy. I like to win, to persuade, to be on top of any issue, but not at the expense of another. Football has never been of much interest to me since it seems to require one team to physically beat the stink out of another team in order to win. That, and I grew up around the New Orleans Saints…who never had the slightest chance of winning anything, anyway.
Saints fans are ‘Aints fans, the people who wear paper bags over their heads but go to the Superdome to watch them play. Saints fans always felt lucky to even have a pro football team, given the smaller size of the city. But even the grumpy fans bought tickets, gathered faithfully around the TV, and bought the merchandise to keep their beloved and beleagured team in place.
I’m thrilled for the Saints to win the Super Bowl, even though Peyton Manning is a class act and the Colts are a great team and organization. Maybe it was the sheer willpower of the Louisiana fans, the underdog status of the Saints and the collective sympathy of the nation that made it happen. I’m happy for the emotional victory it symbolizes for my hometown that has been so deeply burdened since Katrina.
No question–I’m celebrating the win! I just wish life weren’t so competitive in ways that require winners and losers. If you look beyond competition, there’s usually something good to celebrate even in “losers”. And Jesus certainly was one who rooted for–and spoke with courage on behalf of–the “losers” of society. I wonder how different the world could be if Christians were as passionate about faith as we are about football, baseball, basketball or soccer.
I suppose competition is part of human nature. We feel better about ourselves if we win and you lose. So maybe football is a reasonable metaphor for life. We are competitive beings. We need goals to strive for. We succeed when we build strong teams. Let’s just tone down the “I win, you lose” rhetoric.
Wind turbines mounted on roadway lights, powered by the wind of cars rushing past.
I was on a stretch of highway late at night recently where the lights were not working. There was a snow storm, and I could hardly see beyond my dashboard. And yet, the power required to light roadways seems like such a waste of energy. So here’s a solution, at least in theory. Is there any downside, beside light pollution?
I learned to cook from watching–and later asking questions of–my mother and grandmothers, all excellent cooks. That, and a lot of trial-and-error. I’m no ‘gore-may’, but I can hold my own in the kitchen, and I’m certainly not lacking in caloric intake. My young-adult kids, however, seem afraid of the kitchen.
Actually, Rob, now living in his own apartment, is attempting more home cooking because he can’t afford to eat out as often. He’ll occasionally call with “how do I do this?” or “what ingredients do I need for…” Katie, I think, might starve without takeout. She has no interest in cooking anything beyond a grilled cheese sandwich.
I understand not feeling confident in the kitchen, but it’s really not hard to cook. It does take some time, but the effort and energy–and even the clean-up–are soooo worth it. Sure, I take shortcuts all the time. But the joy of pulling together a nice meal for family or friends is a wonderful thing.
On the right side of this blog page is a list of other blogs that I follow and recommend. My friend Bill Mills has started a blog that is sure to be an interesting read. He’s an Eastern Orthodox priest, author of several books (including one coming out next spring), and a wanna-be archeologist. His blog is called Walking with God, a title which reflects his expertise in Christian spirituality.
Bill became a good friend during my spring journey to the Holy Land. I joined a small group of travelers from our Holy Land pilgrimage who went with Bill to visit the Bet She’an National Park, an ancient Roman and Egyptian city. Bill’s enthusiasm for history greatly added to my experience there.
Check out his blogposts through the link provided here.
It’s my favorite brand of ground coffee, but I only buy it at Discount Drug Mart where the price is reasonable. (Now if only they had a fair-trade version.)
Public radio provides a wealth of stories that I enjoy and learn from. Some programs I download onto my iPod, but then I forget to listen to them later. I have many of those “driveway moments” that they always talk about during pledge drives, when I’m engrossed in a story and then I arrive home. It’s not uncommon for me to sit in the garage with the engine turned off to hear and absorb the end of the tale.
One of my favorite NPR spots is “This I Believe”, where people share poignant moments of life that lead them to decision points or places of understanding. It’s a very moving moment to hear someone share honestly their beliefs and values. Maybe our world would be more tolerant and accepting if we did this more often.
I just discovered that there’s a “This I Believe” website, where I can read or even listen to the episodes I’ve missed. Here’s a good one: Robbins Milbank shares a kernel of his life story, and offers encouragement for others who have experienced loss.
There are now more television sets than people in the United States of America. It’s true at my house, too, with my new empty-nest situation and 2 televisions for one person. I actually have three sets–one my son has left behind–but I don’t count it because it’s not connected to cable or rabbit ears. It just collects dust.
The main set, an older, clunky, pre-digital model, sits in the family room. That’s where I watch the evening news, PBS programs, Browns games, DVDs borrowed from the library, Rev Run on MTV, and the occasional HGTV home fix-up show. The upstairs TV, a new slim set, is in my bedroom and brings me Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and the first ten minutes of The Colbert Report before bed time, and sometimes a bit of The Today Show while I’m dressing in the morning.
When I was a kid, my parents had only one TV for the family. Our first set was black and white, and I was always jealous that my cousins had a color set–even though there were few color programs in the late ’50s. As we rolled into the 1960′s, we sometimes spent Sunday afternoons with extended family around that color set. With 10 to 15 of us on the sofas, chairs and floor around the room, we would watch the Saints lose, have leftovers for dinner, then watch Bonanza in the evening before we went back home. In a way, our family life was built around that tube in a box.
It’s easy to say that we, as a nation, watch too much TV. Anything in excess is too much, and there’s plenty of mindless junk to channel-surf through. But I do enjoy the variety of options we have today over the three channels we had when I was growing up. There are some really good examples of story-telling on the tube, great programs for children, and some wonderful documentaries, but you have to sift through the trash to find them. I guess I could say the same about a visit to the library.
Grandma Walters used to say “the older you get, the faster time flies”. She usually followed her statement with a deep sigh. I find myself sighing more often these days.
I learned to cook from watching–and later asking questions of–my mother and grandmothers, all excellent cooks. That, and a lot of trial-and-error. I’m no ‘gore-may’, but I can hold my own in the kitchen, and I’m certainly not lacking in caloric intake. My young-adult kids, however, seem afraid of the kitchen.
On the 
Public radio provides a wealth of stories that I enjoy and learn from. Some programs I download onto my iPod, but then I forget to listen to them later. I have many of those “driveway moments” that they always talk about during pledge drives, when I’m engrossed in a story and then I arrive home. It’s not uncommon for me to sit in the garage with the engine turned off to hear and absorb the end of the tale.
