The night Demar Hamlin’s heart stopped no one asked each other which God they were praying to, or what words they were saying, or who they voted for. We all just prayed, begged, stormed the throne room of grace pleading for Demar. Friends hugged each other, strangers comforted strangers. We fell asleep praying, woke in the middle of night searching for updates, and fell asleep again praying.
Humans have a very short memory. We don’t easily apply what we learn in one situation to other situations. So the next day humans ridicule each other and neglect to put aside petty opinions for the greater good. We witness USA lawmakers arguing, road rage, impatience with family. We ridicule, hold onto hurts. We form opinions based on who we vote for.
But once in a while, the best of our humanness breaks through and we unite our thoughts, and prayers and opinions. Humans being the best of humans.
Recently I read a preview copy of How to Human by Carlos Whittaker @loswhit on Instagram.
An incident he relates in the book has stuck in my mind, and watching people unite to pray and cheer Damar on reminds me again how important it is to ‘do’ human.
Can we string a few of those kinds of human reactions together, back to back, day by day, harmonizing in our humanness? Maybe some day. Let’s pray for that.
Grief is stealthy. It doesn’t usually attack head on. It prefers to sneak up on me when my guard is down.
It very effectively did that yesterday, one day short of a year from my sister’s diagnosis of stage 2 ovarian cancer. But the realization of that isn’t what caught me off guard.
My brother wrote that he’d been in contact with a friend of my sister. The friend wrote that the last time he spoke with Helen, a couple of weeks before she died, she had asked for 2 of her own recipes which she had misplaced. He attached the recipes in the email.
The email didn’t hit bother me even though I immediately remembered overhearing that phone call.
That memory didn’t bother me.
I opened the attachment and there it was; the sucker punch, grieve’s modus operandi. The recipes were written in my sister’s handwriting. I wasn’t expecting her actual handwriting, which like a thumbprint, is unique to all of us.
My feelings started with just a gasp, but rose quickly from the void recently created by her death.
A gasp, a sigh, a groan, then deep silent sobs, and finally audible sobs, which summoned my husband to my side with a ready embrace.
Grief is never finished with its ambush of me until it reminds me it will compound my loss again someday when I lose another loved one. Grief reminds me how fragile my loved-ones’ lives are. How fast and fleeting is mine.
But grief, where is your victory? By reminding me of the fleetingness of life you remind me to treasure each moment, to store up memories in my heart, which you can not destroy.
Grief retreated. I know it will sabotage me again. But it can not win the day. I have a Savior Who has overcome death.
“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”
I generally don’t admit to shopping in Walmart, but I was on a hunt for some recently elusive items only Walmart seems to have. As I scanned the shelves in the paper goods aisle, a fellow shopper took my cart and started to walk away. I heard a woman say, with a certain urgency,
“That’s not our cart, that’s not our cart.”
The urgency in her voice caught my attention, and I turned and saw my cart leaving the aisle assisted by a young boy.
“You can take my groceries, but you’ll have to pay for them,” I said.
Then it occurred to me the child was black, and what I said could sound accusatory because he might not know that my middle name is ‘defuse the situation with cheer.’
It was two days after George Floyd was killed.
His father graciously apologized, bowed his head, and raised his hands as we do sometimes as we apologize. And he apologized again. And again. I glanced around and realized this was family: husband, wife, and a couple of children. The children watched. Being a teacher, I always notice an audience of children and check for attentiveness. The oldest was wide-eyed, intensely watching his dad.
“No problem,” I said, “I’ve done it myself. I walked off with a woman’s cart once and her handbag was in it! I had it quite a few aisles before I heard an announcement over the PA asking for the cart to be returned. I was so embarrassed, and that woman was really irritated with me.”
The wife chuckled a bit and we went on our way, but as I turned down the next aisle it struck me hard how different the outcome might have been for that boy if HE had mistakenly walked off with the woman’s cart, handbag and all.
When I first heard the term white privilege, I was offended and countered that I was not racist. It took months for me to realize the term isn’t related to white supremacy and I suspect many white people might think they are being accused of being a white supremacist when they hear the term white privilege. I do not condone white supremacy, but I do unwittingly experience white privilege.
When I don’t hear from my son for a day or two, I pray he is not sick or had a car accident, but when my black friend doesn’t hear from her son, she prays he wasn’t arrested or worse. That’s white privilege. I don’t automatically think my son was arrested and abused or killed in the process.
When a black man of my acquaintance drives home from work he is careful to take the long way home to avoid a neighborhood where a man of color would ‘stand out.’ I am NEVER afraid I would arouse suspicion by my presence. That’s not something I asked for, it’s just something that comes to me by virtue of my birth in a world where people of color continue to dig out of mistreatment.
I am not racist, but I know now that is not enough.
I need to be Anti-racist: aware of veiled racist statements people make and pointing them out, examining my own knee jerk thoughts and bringing them captive. I dare say we are not even aware of some of the things we think or act on without thinking. We all have assumptions we carry with us that we view the world through.
Some are seem truly innocent but are wrong.
Some are hurtful.
Some are truly vile.
We all have assumptions we carry with us that we view the world through.
As I left work one St Patrick’s day, a colleague said with all sincerity that she assumed I would come to work the next day with a hangover or not at all. With my heart pounding, my heart breaking, I explained that not all Irish are drunks, that in fact I am a ‘tea-totaler’ and that the real story of Patrick and the hard times the Irish lived through has been clouded by plastic hats and green beer.
When I told my friend, who is black, about that incident and my angst, she said simply, “Yep. I have that feeling you had, but every day.”
We all need to remember that scriptural warning that the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure—and ask God to root out thoughts that have grown deeply, to help each other by pointing them out, and admitting there is a better way of thinking. Some of our neighbors are still waiting to be loved as we love ourselves.
As I planted my freshly purchased annuals I wondered which flower was giving off such a sweet aroma.
I sniffed each one just before I dropped them into their new mud homes, but I never found that lovely spring messenger.
My work finally done, my grass-stained knees creaking, I gathered my shovels and wandered over to a bed I had not tended. I wanted to at least peak at it, my project for another day.
Tucked in among the Hostas, that plant that can overpower a garden, were some tenacious Lillies of the Valley.
Sweetly peeking out from among the Hostas, they stood unassuming and small, but sent out a fragrance as a message of their presence.
I want to have a fragrance not my own that sends out a message of hope and peace, even if I am nestled in among giants who have none.
Giants who can overwhelm. Like the lilies I want to be unassuming and make no excuse except that the hope is not my doing, and that anyone can have that same hope.
I pushed the Hosta leaves aside, cupped the little flowers in my hands and breathed in deeply, in no rush to leave them.
Yes. I want to be like them: with a fragrance of hope that draws people closer and makes them want to tarry.
When I think of God’s overwhelming, never ending love I can’t add the adjective ‘reckless.‘
I just can’t.
Have you ever been in a car when the driver was driving recklessly? I have. There was no love motivating that thoughtless endangerment of lives.
Is God, as reckless is defined, without thinking or caring about the consequences?
Never.
He is always thinking, ALWAYS caring about circumstances.
Did He sing over me before I spoke a word?
Did He breath life into me?
Does He chase me, fight for me, pay the cost for me?
Yes
Is there a wall He won’t scale, a mountain He won’t climb? A debt He won’t pay?
No
God cares and watches and thinks and counts the cost of His Son’s sacrifice.
Does that sound reckless?
The verse of a very presently popular song tells me He is reckless. Although it fits well into the cadence of the song, I can’t utter the words, but these I can:
Oh the Overwhelming, sacrificial, endless love of God.
The thoughtful sacrifice of Jesus is redemptive, not a reckless one.
One word change and I can get behind it. Reckless? Not God
Now you know what a no good dirty rotten sinner I am. She was sitting in front of me at the Marlboro music festival and I was sitting next to a cute lady from the “Greatest Generation” who was sporting a darling page boy hair cut. The lady in front of me was sporting an attitude.
She turned to the lady during the intermission and told her to stop crinkling her program. “You are so rude,”she told the ‘page boy’d-anyone-would-want-as-a-grandma’ next to me.
My sweet aisle mate lowered her head and put the program down in her lap. What Grace under fire. I wanted to shout, “She is not shredding the NY times, for pity’s sake!” But instead, the thought of those summer flies that bite viciously- and help me understand why deer are so skittish-came to mind.
I know it was wrong, but the thought grew and I began glancing hopefully around the concert barn after intermission. I did not wish her harm so much as I wished she would have to react to the bite and live out being truly “rude” during a concert.
I managed to calm down and even apologized to God for such thoughts. I thanked him for Grace, sitting next to me, who sat stone still for the rest of the concert and modeled for me such gracious acquiescence.
The concert ended and Grace stood to applaud the very deserving young genius musicians. Ms. Attitude stood and left, never putting her hands together even once for the musicians. The picture of one large ugly deer fly, right on the nape of her neck came back to my mind again. There goes the halo slipping again.
I Once Was Lost And Found 