Sr. Ann, the scheduled speaker for last night’s Witnesses to Hope, got stranded in New York due to a snowstorm, so Sr. Dorcee and Sr. Sarah teamed up to read out loud some of their favorite stories. Get yourself a cup of tea, snuggle up, and let yourself be read to. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and hopefully you’ll be inspired. Just click below.
.
I have been invited this morning to give a meditation to a group of teachers who are having an in-service on MLK Jr. Day. I used to teach at this school, and the last thing I would want on the morning of a holiday is to hear a meditation. So, what I’m going to do instead is read them some of my favorite inspirations stories. (Everyone loves to be read to. . . ) I’m going to share with them, among others, a few stories from Christopher de Vinck, one of the best story tellers I know (and an excellent poet). I posted this one four years ago, but it’s worth reading again. It’s from his book, Finding Heaven, Stories of Going Home.
A Prediction to Believe In
We are inundated with predictions these days. Political commentators predict the outcomes of elections before the final votes are tallied. Meteorologists predict snowstorms before even a single flake floats down from the mercurial sky. We rely on soothsayers and statisticians to determine the outcome of a football game and the behavior of the stock market. Some people in Japan claim that they can detect an illness before it strikes by scrutinizing the soles of people’s feet. There are those who fear that the world will end in 2012, because that’s when the Maya calendar runs out. People in India visit the town of Kanchipuram and pay to have their lives predicted by people who read palm leaves.
Sometimes it’s entertaining to see whether or not predictions come true. When I was fifteen years old, our black cat, Moses, deposited a wiggling, pink, four-legged newborn creature on the back porch. No one knew what type of animal it was, but everyone had an idea. My brother said it was a kitten. My sister said it would grow up to be a pig. “It’s a rat,” I announced with confidence. My mother looked down with concern. “Well, whatever it is,” she said, “it’s hungry.”
I quickly found a new eyedropper in the medicine cabinet, heated some milk on the stove, and tried feeding the mysterious animal. “Whatever it is,” I said, “it sure can drink.” We fed it day after day until, slowly, the hairless animal developed fur, wide eyes, and a long, full tail. A squirrel. Everyone’s guess was wrong.
Many predictions about the future are based on similar guesswork. We look at something, see some future shape in our imaginations, and confidently make a prediction. Often this imagined future is simply an extension of the past. The stock market will go up next month because it’s gone up for the last three. The Yankees will win the American League pennant because they’ve done so for th past three years. Our news agencies try to report stories before they happen.
It can be great fun when predictions fail. Schools in New Jersey were closed one recent winter day because meteorologists on television and on the radio predicted that we would experience one of the worst snowstorms in fifty years. They were wrong. Several inches of snow fell. I looked at my fifteen-year-old son as he entered the kitchen after sleeping until 8:30. “Why don’t you call some of your friends and go sledding? At least there is enough snow for that.”
Michael looked at me and said, “Hey, that’s a good idea.”
“I’ll pick everybody up,” I suggested, “and they can come back later for hot chocolate, and I’ll treat everyone to pizza.”
Michael logged on to AOL Instant Messenger and called friends on the phone at the same time. Within ten minutes, seven high school sophomores were all set to be picked up at 12:30. I predicted that they would have a great time. The prediction was correct.
The prediction of a catastrophic blizzard followed the pattern of many common prognostications. Something terrible is going to happen; evil will triumph as misfortune overtakes us. I think there’s a difference between predictions based on what has happened in the past or on pessimistic outlooks and predictions based on faith, hope, and goodness. I think predictions of evil are often wrong. Surely they are wrong in an ultimate sense.
I am a person of faith. My mother predicted that my brother Oliver would be the first person to greet me in heaven, and I can hold on to that prediction and believe in it because I have faith.
I say, listen carefully–and skeptically–to what the news organizations are telling you. Listen to CNN, and then look at your children being good. Read Newsweek, and then watch your loved ones live each day with stamina and courage. Don’t believe that news programs and newspapers always project what is really happening in the world, or what might happen. Do not be misled by their dire predictions. Understand that the media experts are trying to grab our attention. A fifteen year old who shoots thirteen people in a high school is terrible news. Goodness, like a rich autumn crop, is not news at all.
I liked watching that hairless animal develop into a fat, gray squirrel. I liked listening to my son’s teenage friends singing together over pizza and soda. I like thinking about dancing with my brother in heaven.
Should I listen to Dan Rather’s view of the world or my mother’s? That’s an easy choice.
This was written by a friend of mine, Chris de Vinck. (see “The Power of the Powerless”) He’s a great storyteller and whatever he writes is worth reading.
What is Your Name?
What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true? (Judges 13.17)
I heard a story about Berry. I do not know why she was called Berry, but this is what I heard about her. She was born in a trailer in South Dakota. Her father was a locksmith, and her mother worked in the post office.
After a terrible fire in the trailer, both the father and the mother perished. Berry sustained burns over eithgy percent of her body, was blinded for life, and become morose and unhappy.
Berry never married. She attended school up to the tenth grade, then she was taken north by her aunt, who had a flower business in New York State.
Berry spent many days in the florist shop, answering phones and dictating orders on a tape recorder that her aunt played back whenever she was able to catch up on business.
The children int he neighborhood teased Berry by calling her names such as “Alligator Lady,” or “Goofy Eyes.” At first these things hurt the young woman; then, one day, Berry just laughed and asked the children what their names were.
The local children soon became enchanted with this Miss Berry who laughed and knew the smell of every flower they brought her. One boy, who was particularly shy, fetched Miss Berry’s mail each day and read it to her.
Miss Berry learned braille, wrote letters to the newspaper about the pollution she smelled while sitting out back where the maple tree grew. And to the boy who brought the mail she began to read stories about pirates, airplanes, and secret spies who rescued people from terrible fates by hiding them in the mountains of Europe.
Miss Berry stayed with her aunt until the aunt died. She attended college, received her degree in law, and became a public defender for abused children.
When Miss Berry died, she had no family. A young man from the old neighborhood read int he papers that Miss Berry had died, so he went over and said that he would like to make a contribution.
Before she died, the only thing that Miss Berry didn’t tend to herself was a headstone, so the young man paid for the headstone. When he was asked what he would like to have engraved on the stone, he thought for some time, then wrote a few words on a piece of paper and handed it to the stonecutter.
The stonecutter read the words and smiled: “I also knew her. These words will suit her just fine: Miss Berry: She Loved All the Flowers and All the Children.”
When we human beings are confronted with something we do not understand, we become suspicious, just as the children were when they first met Miss Berry. We need to have answers. We need to know. And if we do not understand something, as the children didn’t at first understand Miss Berry, we become afraid, or we make jokes, or we push for answers.
During the time of Christ, people were puzzled about a man who was baptizing. They wanted to know if he was Jesus. John the Baptist confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”
They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling int he desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord'” (John 1.20-23).
One of the most significant things we can do is answer to God, “What do you say about yourself?”
I think Miss Berry would simply laugh and say, “Well, the children call me Alligator Woman; I became a lawyer; I like flowers; and there was a boy who read my mail to me each day for eight years. I learned to read because of him.”
Who we are is connected to those we love and to those who have influenced us toward goodness. John the Baptist loved Jesus and was influenced by His words. John was never the same because of Jesus’ spiritual intervention.
The small boy who read to Miss Berry intervened in her spirit, and she was no longer the same person because of the child’s kindness.
We all have the potential to be the one who baptizes. We all have the potential to be moved to action. Today let us make straight the way of the Lord.
Laura died this past Saturday. I never really spent much time with her, but many of the women I live with did. Laura had been one of the first residents of one of our Emmanuel Houses and had been lovingly teaching all who volunteered there for the past fourteen years. Laura had lived with cerebral palsy in an institution until she was “rescued” by a priest who, along with others who befriended her, helped her to eventually live independently and get a college degree . . . by pecking out papers on a typewriter one key at a time, one hand stabilizing the other. Eventually Laura had a stroke and was no longer able to live on her own and became a gift to those who serve at Emmanuel House. It was very hard to understand Laura’s speech, but she spoke volumes nonetheless. Trapped in her body, she still shone forth. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the women I live with speak of how much they were learning from Laura.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I am re-reading a book by Christopher de Vinck, The Power of the Powerlessness. He tells a similar story about his brother, Oliver. The main reason I mention all of this right now is not just for the sake of underlining the dignity of all those in such powerless situations, but also to remind each of us of our own dignity when we confront our own powerlessness, when we feel trapped in ourselves. Laura had the ability to make a daily choice about how to respond to hers. May we do the same and shine forth as she did. Lent is a time for doing just that.
Your bathrobe tie dropped into the toilet, the computer is taking forEVer, the telephone is ringing again, and you still don’t know what you’re making for dinner tonight. . . . and it’s only the beginning of Lent! Read Christopher deVinck’s story below to remind you of a very, very important principle:
One spring afternoon my five-year-old son, David, and I were planting raspberry bushes along the side of the garage. He liked to bring the hose and spray the freshly covered roots and drooping leaves.
A neighbor joined us for a few moments and there we stood, my son David, the neighbor and I. We probably discussed how much water a raspberry plant could possibly endure when David placed the hose down and pointed to the ground. “Look, Daddy!”
If a wasp enters the house, I show my three children, David, Karen and Michael, how I catch the insect with a glass and a piece of thick paper. I wait for the wasp to stop its frantic thumping and buzzing against the windowpane, then I place the open drinking glass over the creature and trap it. Then, without pinching the wasp, I slowly slide the thick paper under the glass, and there I have it.
I invite the children to take a close look. They like to see the wasp’s think wings; then all four of us leave the house through the front door for the release.
The children, standing back a little, like to watch as I remove the paper from the top of the glass. They like to watch the rescued wasp slowly walk to the rim of the glass, extend its wings, and fly off into the garden. We all clap, David, Karen, Michael and I.
When David was two he climbed the top of the small blue slide one afternoon in our backyard, and just before he zoomed down, he saw a few ants crawling around on the smooth metal. “Daddy! Ants!”
We stopped and crouched down to see if we could count how many legs ants have (six); then I gently brushed the ants off the slide and David shot down with glee.
I choose to watch the wasp and count the legs of an ant.
“Look, Daddy! What’s that?” I stopped talking with my neighbor and looked down.
“A beetle,” I said.
David was impressed and pleased with the discovery of this fancy, colorful creature.
My neighbor lifted his foot and stepped on the insect giving his shoe an extra twist in the dirt.
“That ought to do it,” he laughed.
David looked up at me, waiting for an explanation, a reason. I did not wish to embarrass my neighbor, but then David turned, picked up the hose and continued spraying the raspberries.
That night, just before I turned off the lights in his bedroom, David whispered, “I liked that beetle, Daddy.”
“I did too,” I whispered back.
We have the power to choose.
Next time the computer freezes, your bathrobe tie falls in the toilet, and the phone rings again, remember you have the power to choose how to respond. And maybe, just maybe, you could also choose to clap. Let’s pray for each other this Lent.
P.S. If you’ve never read Chris deVinck’s The Power of the Powerless, from which this excerpt was drawn, do so. You won’t regret it.
A few weeks ago I posted a selection from Christopher de Vinck’s The Power of the Powerless. Since then I’ve been dipping into other books of his, including Finding Heaven, Stories of Going Home. Here’s a selection from that book:
A Prediction to Believe In
We are inundated with predictions these days. Political commentators predict the outcomes of elections before the final votes are tallied. Meteorologists predict snowstorms before even a single flake floats down from the mercurial sky. We rely on soothsayers and statisticians to determine the outcome of a football game and the behavior of the stock market. Some people in Japan claim that they can detect an illness before it strikes by scrutinizing the soles of people’s feet. There are those who fear that the world will end in 2012, because that’s when the Maya calendar runs out. People in India visit the town of Kanchipuram and pay to have their lives predicted by people who read palm leaves.
Sometimes it’s entertaining to see whether or not predictions come true. When I was fifteen years old, our black cat, Moses, deposited a wiggling, pink, four-legged newborn creature on the back porch. No one knew what type of animal it was, but everyone had an idea. My brother said it was a kitten. My sister said it would grow up to be a pig. “It’s a rat,” I announced with confidence. My mother looked down with concern. “Well, whatever it is,” she said, “it’s hungry.”
I quickly found a new eyedropper in the medicine cabinet, heated some milk on the stove, and tried feeding the mysterious animal. “Whatever it is,” I said, “it sure can drink.” We fed it day after day until, slowly, the hairless animal developed fur, wide eyes, and a long, full tail. A squirrel. Everyone’s guess was wrong.
Many predictions about the future are based on similar guesswork. We look at something, see some future shape in our imaginations, and confidently make a prediction. Often this imagined future is simply an extension of the past. The stock market will go up next month because it’s gone up for the last three. The Yankees will win the American League pennant because they’ve done so for th past three years. Our news agencies try to report stories before they happen.
It can be great fun when predictions fail. Schools in New Jersey were closed one recent winter day because meteorologists on television and on the radio predicted that we would experience one of the worst snowstorms in fifty years. They were wrong. Several inches of snow fell. I looked at my fifteen-year-old son as he entered the kitchen after sleeping until 8:30. “Why don’t you call some of your friends and go sledding? At least there is enough snow for that.”
Michael looked at me and said, “Hey, that’s a good idea.”
“I’ll pick everybody up,” I suggested, “and they can come back later for hot chocolate, and I’ll treat everyone to pizza.”
Michael logged on to AOL Instant Messenger and called friends on the phone at the same time. Within ten minutes, seven high school sophomores were all set to be picked up at 12:30. I predicted that they would have a great time. The prediction was correct.
The prediction of a catastrophic blizzard followed the pattern of many common prognostications. Something terrible is going to happen; evil will triumph as misfortune overtakes us. I think there’s a difference between predictions based on what has happened in the past or on pessimistic outlooks and predictions based on faith, hope, and goodness. I think predictions of evil are often wrong. Surely they are wrong in an ultimate sense.
I am a person of faith. My mother predicted that my brother Oliver would be the first person to greet me in heaven, and I can hold on to that prediction and believe in it because I have faith.
I say, listen carefully–and skeptically–to what the news organizations are telling you. Listen to CNN, and then look at your children being good. Read Newsweek, and then watch your loved ones live each day with stamina and courage. Don’t believe that news programs and newspapers always project what is really happening in the world, or what might happen. Do not be misled by their dire predictions. Understand that the media experts are trying to grab our attention. A fifteen year old who shoots thirteen people in a high school is terrible news. Goodness, like a rich autumn crop, is not news at all.
I liked watching that hairless animal develop into a fat, gray squirrel. I liked listening to my son’s teenage friends singing together over pizza and soda. I like thinking about dancing with my brother in heaven.
Should I listen to Dan Rather’s view of the world or my mother’s? That’s an easy choice.
My new favorite, must-read, book is The Power of the Powerless, by Christopher de Vinck. Perhaps you’ve heard of this book already–published in 1988. I just stumbled upon it recently. In his book, Christopher recounts the powerful impact his blind, mute, brain-damaged older brother had on his life, his brother, Oliver, who could do absolutely nothing for himself except to teach Christopher how to love. You can dip into the book yourself here. It’s one of those books that permanently brands your life upon reading. A very important book for our-lack-of-respect-for-life times.
Today I am an English teacher, and each time I introduce my class to the play about Helen Keller, The Miracle Worker, I tell my students the story about Oliver.
One day, during my first year of teaching, I was trying to describe Oliver’s lack of response, how he had been spoon-fed every morsel he ever ate, how he never spoke. A boy in the last row raised his hand and said, “Oh, Mr. de Vinck. You mean he was a vegetable.”
I stammered for a few seconds. My family and I fed Oliver. We changed his diapers, hung his clothes and bed linens on the basement line in the winter, and spread them out white and clean to dry on the lawn in the summer. I always liked to watch the grasshoppers jump on the pillowcases.
We bathed Oliver, tickled his chest to make him laugh. Sometimes we left the radio on in his room. We pulled the shade down on the window over his bed in the morning to keep the sun from burning his tender skin. We listened to him laugh as we watched television downstairs. We listened to him rock his arms up and down to make the bed squeak. We listened to him cough in the middle of the night.
“Well, I guess you could call him a vegetable. I called him Oliver, my brother. You would have loved him.”
Witnesses to Hope 