Bathed in Purity

I had the privilege of attending graduation ceremonies for the Margaret B. Rost school on Saturday evening. To my shame I had no intention of attending. I had dropped off my daughter and a friend who would be singing in a choir during the graduation. I walked into the rehearsal room to sit through the choir warm up thinking I would wait there about an hour until the performance finished, and then I would take the kids home. I cracked open the laptop and tried to start getting some work done.

Then the students started to walk in. With bells on, so proud of the way they looked. And excited mothers primping and cajoling them to do their best. I was distracted at this point and decided I needed to simply take the evening in. I walked out into the gymnasium where earlier in the day the teachers decorated and created the perfect graduation atmosphere. I grabbed a seat in a plastic chair and watched the families pour in over the next few minutes. Enthusiasm was in the air.

Then the graduates began to walk down the aisle one by one accompanied by what I thought was a relative but quickly realized was a teacher who took personal responsibility for their student. I found myself in a difficult spot trying to hold back the tears. These students could not graduate on their own. Not now. Not ever. And here were individuals giving themselves wholly to the best interest of their students. Oh, they get paid, but these teachers are priceless.

The school graduated 7 individuals with families cheering and supporting each other the entire evening. There were no color lines. No hatred. No Osama Bin Laden. No tsunamis or earthquakes. Nothing more than a number of families whose lives had been turned upside down and who willingly saw to it that their children never understood the sacrifice. I could not have paid enough to experience humanity that way. These kids only saw the good and wanted only the best for those around them. For them, that's the way life should be. No one ever told them there was another way.

 


Statements from the 2011 HOPE worldwide Global Summit that Made Me Think

"I see a lot of people in conferences, I don't see them in slums" - Padma Venkatraman, daughter of former Indian President Mr. R.Venkataraman, about seeing HOPE worldwide volunteers helping in the leper colonies. The photo above ran in the Saturday, May 14th edition of The Wall St. Journal and it reminded me of Padma's statement. And there I was. In a conference.

  • Every human being cherishes love and respect
  • What seems like a curse is God's way of blessing
  • We spend our time running away from pain. Sometimes the rainbow is right on the other side of the mountain, but was work so hard running away from the mountain.
  • On working intimately with the poor in the Village of HOPE. The residents would bicker and make the job of the caregivers difficult.

Caregiver: "We have come to help you, why are you fighting with us?"

Resident: "The reason we fight with you is that we consider you family. If we thought you were our guests we would treat you like a guest."

  • India has more cell phones than toilets.
  • They've come from dirt and squalor and not having toilets to learning computers and English. The Village of HOPE is now buzzing with cell phones. They have even setup a website for themselves. http://www.leprosychildren.com/index.html
  • When things seem really tight and you don't want to talk anymore, that's probably the time to have one more conversation.
  • Mother Teresa - "I am but a pencil in the hand of God"
  • If God's got you in pain, he's using a can opener on you.
  • Compassion: 2 Cor 1:3-5, Lk 15:20-21, Mk 1:41-42
  • 23,000,000 in Africa with AIDS
  • 150,000 deaths a month in Africa - that's a tsunami every month that we'll never see on the news.
  • 1 of every 4 children is an orphan - a new one every 14 seconds. 16,000,000 AIDS orphans currently. Even if AIDS stopped today, the number of orphans grow for the next 20 years.
  • "Children just need a little hope and just need someone to help them find their way home"
  • The plight of these orphans has fallen off the map. Don't let them fall off your heart.
  • This comment is having the most profound effect on me because I'm selfish and self-seeking. Bud Chiles on having a vision much larger than just giving kids shots: "We had much greater and grander worldly vision than helping kids get immunized. But we learned."
  • God serves us with inspiration as we serve others.
  • Dt 10:18, Js 1:27 - Do I look at this literally?
  • Peter stopped and looked him in the eye. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to do with the poor - look them in the eye.
  • When Moses passed to Joshua they didn't take a break.

Dr. Gary Jacques - who always seems to have an alternative perspective

  • Lk 11:39-40
  • Jesus healed because he lived. He had the opportunity, ability, and compassion to heal.
  • SROI - social return on investment. The benefit to society based on a certain investment. It's not simple to calculate. Let's give it a try with Jesus.
  • Cost of 3 year ministry
  • cheap, no place to lay his head. Not that expensive.
  • Calculate all the life-years saved
  • The return to productivity of a leper who is cured
  • Over 20 centuries Jesus' life inspired millions of people to live a live of sacrifice. Over 50% of the world's poor are educated in faith-based schools, healed in faith-based clinics, most advocates for social justice, the MLKs, are people of faith.
  • Give the inside of the cup. Your heart your mind your effort your time. Jesus said give it to the poor. It's a social return on investment, the spiritual return on investment is that everything will be clean for you.


On Having Daughters

Some great strategies to get through life. And parenthood. With daughters.


I Love You

To my wife on her birthday.

  • I love the way you curl up to read a good book
  • I love walking with you
  • Your desire to always work through the hard things with me inspires me
  • Your lists let me know you always consider our family
  • You make me smile as you stack the kids' cereal bowls on the counter for the next morning
  • I love the way you shiver when I kiss your neck
  • It's fun watching you put makeup on in the car
  • I appreciate how much studying you do to teach our children
  • You drive me wild when you wear pink
  • I watch in awe as you teach our children
  • I know I chose the right woman when you'll go camping once a year - just for us
  • I'm floored when you tell me, "You could probably fit in a bike ride"
  • I love that you found the library website all on your own
  • I'm so glad you don't feel like you have to be like everyone else
  • I'm amazed as I watch our children read
  • I'm honored that you put total confidence in me to take care of you and our family
  • Your feet on the dashboard make me smile
  • I'm grateful for your love for God
  • I love how much you enjoy life
  • I love sitting and talking with you
  • You make me laugh when you explain that vacation accommodations should be nicer than our home
  • You watch the Tour de France with me
  • I love that you call my mom to fill her in on the kids
  • I love your sauteed vegetables, roasted chicken, your gravy and mashed potatoes...
  • I'm so glad you love to pack
  • I sigh in relief watching you manage the bills
  • I secretly enjoy the fact that you hate to drive
  • With you it's always "yes"
  • I appreciate that you get embarrassed for me when I don't realize what I've said
  • I'm so grateful that you want to be my companion
  • I love kissing you
  • You don't mind that I laugh at myself
  • You encourage me when you don't take others' complaints personally
  • I smile when I see you in our girls' eyes
  • I enjoy going to the movies with you
  • Somehow I always find my socks matched rolled into balls
  • I'm so glad that you enjoy spending time with my family
  • No matter what you say about your weight, I think you're beautiful
  • I'm very encouraged that you figured out iTunes
  • I love watching you fight with your hair
  • I appreciate that you let me lead
  • I appreciate the solid foundation of our marriage
  • I could sit next to you in silence and wrap my arms around you, content for hours
  • I love the contrast of your blonde hair against a background of trees
  • I think it's fun watching you paint your toes in the car
  • I love the way you look with sunglasses on
  • I'm glad that you are such a good friend
  • I like your hair in a pony tail
  • I'm grateful that you put up with my storytelling
  • You patiently listen to my limited repertoire of humor
  • I love how far you stretch five dollars
  • I could watch you sit by the pool for hours
  • You watch what you eat, I know how difficult that is
  • I've enjoyed watching you take care of our flowers
  • I cannot believe the effort you exert to make my life easier
  • I'm reassured when our feet touch in bed
  • I love gazing into your eyes
  • I love that clean underwear magically appears in my drawer
  • I'm grateful that you unlock the best in me
  • What you did with our bedroom is amazing
  • I think it's fun that you know what ganache is
  • You know what a Colnago is
  • Your flowers provide color in our front yard
  • I love that you love my mom
  • I'm astounded by your ability to be in forty places at once
  • I'm so proud that you figured out email
  • I enjoy your cooking so much
  • I appreciate your insight into our children's character
  • I laugh when I think about you driving that huge Suburban
  • I think it's great that you want our home to be just right for guests
  • I love that you love New York Super Fudge Chunk
  • I love watching movies with you in bed
  • I cherish that we've only ever been with each other
  • I can't imagine myself with anyone else but you
  • I love you

Thank you for spending 17 years devoted to me! Happy Birthday Andrea!


It's About How They Want To Be Loved

It's easy for me to love people the way I want to love them. I want to look people in the eye and carefully listen to them. I want them to feel heard and valued. But what if the person I'm interacting with doesn't care that I listen carefully to them? In fact, I faced this issue with a good friend of mine. For a number of years he felt slighted by me as I didn't specifically walk over to him and address him when he walked into the room. For him, he felt love when someone immediately acknowledged him.

For what it's worth, and that's a lot in my book, Jesus changed the game for us on this one. We all know "love your neighbor as yourself." And as I stated above that's pretty straightforward. We all know how to love ourselves. But Jesus gave a new command to us when he said, "A new command I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Well that upends whatever I think about love, and love now becomes what the recipient defines as love and not necessarily the giver. Of course this is so much richer and deeper than my simple analysis, but it helps with my smaller point.

Denver Moore drives this home again for me in Same Kind of Different as Me. Denver was the black homeless man whom other homeless men avoided. Suddenly he's confronted with two suburban white affluent volunteers at the local soup kitchen.

Lemme tell you what homeless people think about folks that help homeless people: When you homeless, you wonder *why* certain volunteers do what they do. What do they want? Everybody want somethin. For instance, when that couple come to the mission, I thought the man looked like the law. The way he dressed, the way he acted. Too high-class. His wife, too, at first. The way she acted, the way she treated people...she just looked too sophisticated. Wadn't the way she dressed. It was just something about the way she carried herself. And both of em was askin way too many questions.

While everybody else was fallin in love with em, I was what you call skeptical. I wadn't thinkin nothin evil. It was just that they didn't look like the type to come in and mess with the homeless. People like that may not feel it within themselves that they're better than you, but when you the one that's homeless, *you* feel like they feel like they're better than you.

What struck me was how these folks, Ron and Debbie Hall, looked past themselves to try to learn and understand how to love the homeless on their terms - despite the awkwardness at first. A good lesson for me here.

But these folks was different. One reason was they didn't come just on holidays. Most people don't want the homeless close to em - think they're dirty, or got some kinda disease, or maybe they think that kind of troubled life gon' rub off on em. They come at Christmas and Easter and Thansgivin and give you a little turkey and lukewarm gravy. Then they go home and gather round their own table and forget about you till the next time come around where they start feelin a little guilty 'cause they got so much to be thankful for.