Game Changer
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Game Changer" by Frank Ramirez
"The Gift" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
Game Changer
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 55:1-9
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
-- Isaiah 55:2
While there are plenty of folks who enjoy a little hunting and fishing, and who also enjoy what follows -- a good meal hot and fresh -- it's a rare person in our industrialized societies who depends on daily hunting and fishing to provide for one's daily bread. If the fish aren't biting or if the deer or wild turkey are just a little craftier, what does it really matter? You can always slip into the drive-through lane of the local fast food joint and take home hamburgers, tacos, or a fresh order of onions rings.
For real Hunter-Gatherer societies, it can be a matter of life and death. They put a lot of effort and hard work into procuring a daily meal, and when, whether through lack of skill or luck, the hunters fail or the gatherers find nothing, people go hungry. That's certainly a great incentive to be on the move, looking for the great herds, or following the seasons for the harvests of wild produce. If much of ancient human history is still murky, and in the process of being uncovered, it's fairly certain that humanity, centered in Africa, was always on the move and that sooner or later those moves brought humans to the Atlantic coast.
That's when everything changed!
There are some who think they might know one of the exact spots where humanity first discovered the Atlantic Ocean, and therefore a whole new way of life. It's a place called Pinnacle Point on the west coast of South Africa. Curtis Marean, a researcher from Arizona State University, had thought long and hard about the question of the ocean and humanity and decided it was likely that somewhere along the southern coast of South Africa, in a series of nearly inaccessible caves overlooking the ocean just south of the modern town of Mossel Bay, he would find signs of ancient human habitation. What he knew of the history of the glaciers advancing and receding suggested that at one point humanity would have found itself on the coastlines where the warmer waters from Madagascar would provide a temperate climate and food.
Marean found that evidence he was looking for and since 1999 he and an international team of scientists have been studying the remains of the ashes from their ancient fires, the shells from the many different shellfish they ate, and intriguing chunks of red ocher that might be the first signs of communication.
The shell fish were deposited into the tidal pools every day by, well, the tides! Suddenly there was a daily renewal of abundant food with the action of the tides. It was not necessary to work nearly so hard in order to be able to eat. For Hunter Gatherers used to struggling for existence, without any security, it must have seemed like manna from heaven.
People could settle into one place and not have to be on the move all the time. This meant the people would have more time! More time for all sorts of things. There would be more time to organize into a stable society. There would be more time to use the red ochre to mark territory and tide pools, which some people think was the precursor to writing. More time to be fully human.
The prophet Isaiah was not speaking to a Hunter Gatherer society when he asks why we're willing to pay good money for food when we can have it for free, but life was certainly a daily struggle for the people in his time. His images of food given away in a market place filled with stalls of folks hollering out the prices of their goods has to be attractive to anyone who has struggled to make ends meet. What we need, what we want, is there for the having, and taking advantage of this will make it easier to live a righteous life. Certainly we know that living free from want removes for many any temptation to take advantage of others. The ministry of Jesus, like the call of the prophets, is toward a more equitable society based on justice and basic care for all. All of which gives us more time to become more fully Christian.
(Want to know more? Google Pinnacle Point or read Atlantic by Simon Winchester, pp 57-60)
Both are about eating and the food coming to them free -- Isaiah in the marketplace, Paul remembering the manna.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street (Christmas 2012).
The Gift
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 13:1-9
Room 309, Bed 1.
The figure on the bed nearest the window was not dead... not strictly speaking. The heart beat slowly, its languid efforts sketched by electrons on the small green screen of a box that sat on a shelf next to the bed, and if you watched closely you could see the subtle rise and fall of a thin white blanket, marking out a slow rhythm of respiration. But the skin had the waxy pallor of a mannequin or a sub-par effort at embalming. Where hands and face showed, the skin was tight, as though vacuum packing the skeleton beneath. The eyes were half-open slits, windows on an empty building.
The only sound in the room was the quiet voice of the woman in the chair next to the bed, reading softly. At every turn of the page, she would glance over at the bed... she could no longer say, quite, why. There had been no reaction, no expression, no movement, for a very long time.
No sign of life, save that death was absent...
"-- and he roared his terrible roar," she read, "and he gnashed his terrible teeth..." She paused, glanced up, suddenly aware of another presence in the room. She smiled, then, and set the book on the window sill, still open. "Doctor Rawls, good evening. How are you tonight?"
Doctor Rawls smiled briefly as he scanned the chart in his hands -- no change; there never was -- then looked back to her, his expression changing; the smile was still there, but his eyes were different, the wrinkles around them changing shape to alter the expression from greeting to sympathy. "I'm doing okay, Mrs. Jones, but it's been a long day. How are you?"
She shrugged, a slight motion of shoulders barely visible beneath her wrinkled sweater. "Okay, doctor. Same as always."
"Right." He glanced down at the chart again, though he didn't need to, then toward the patient. "How long has it been, Mrs. Jones?"
She glanced at the bed. "I think you know as well as I do, doctor. Seven months, and two days."
"Right, just about seven months since we got Kelsey stabilized and able to breathe without support. It's been that long since there's been any change in condition. No motor activity, no apparent neurological activity. We've done several scans, tested with various stimuli, and nothing seems to trigger any responses." He paused, then took the plunge. "Mrs. Jones, there is no sign of brain activity -- no sign of any higher functions. Kelsey's brain stem is able to maintain respiration and a heartbeat, but that's it."
Mrs. Jones rested her hand on Kelsey's, looked up at Dr. Rawls steadily. "What are you trying to say, doctor?"
"I think you know," he said gently, and from the look in her eyes he knew he was right. It was not the first time the discussion had come up -- there had been a nasty infection about five weeks prior, and he had made a case to Mr. and Mrs. Jones for letting Kelsey slip away in the arms of sepsis. It was not too bad a way to go -- not that it mattered to Kelsey, the lack of "suffering" was more a concern for the parents. They had insisted on treatment, however, and the infection had been turned back, the battle won... or lost, depending on your point of view.
"Without feeding, and hydrating, and other supportive care, Kelsey would just... drift away in a week or so," the doctor explained, repeating his earlier argument almost verbatim. All that changed was the time frame -- succumbing to infection would have been faster. He sometimes wondered, when he lay awake in the middle of the night, whether he should have even given Kelsey's parents the option... or if he should have just done them a favor, and let nature take its course. They weren't the suing kind, it would not have been a problem... except for the fact that he would know.
Hippocrates didn't have these kinds of problems -- lucky man.
"So you want us to say it's okay to take Kelsey's life?" Mrs. Jones asked slowly.
"Not really. Kelsey hasn't been alive in any meaningful sense for seven months. What we're doing, here, with the IVs and the other care is just keeping the motor turning over... it's all mechanical. The life -- the spark that made Kelsey Kelsey -- is gone, and it's not coming back."
"So you want us to just turn our backs?"
"I want you to get your own lives back, Mrs. Jones. You're here every night, after school. Your husband is here in the mornings, on his way to work. Your weekends are spent here. Kelsey's life ended... that doesn't mean yours should too."
She was silent, then, for a long time. Finally, she patted Kelsey's hand and said, "Do you have any children, doctor?"
"Two, Mrs. Jones. But I don't see --"
"You would, if Kelsey was one of yours. A child is part of you -- a little spark, a little package in which you invest your hopes and your dreams... all of the good things that you think might happen. A child is like a little piece of the future, given to you to nurture. And from the moment you have that gift, that responsibility, put in your hands, you do everything you can to make things right. All the worries, all the anxiety, all the frustration and teaching..." She trailed off, lost in a wilderness of memories.
"I understand, Mrs. Jones. I really do. But if Kelsey were my child --"
"I think you really do understand, doctor, and I respect you. And if it were your child lying there -- God forbid -- I expect you might make a sound, rational decision. You might make a logical, reasonable argument for doing what you are asking us to do, and then do it. And that would be your choice, certainly. But this is not about logic and reason, doctor -- it's about love, and faith, and hope."
Dr. Rawls closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "I understand what you're saying, Mrs. Jones. But you know, it becomes a matter of resources, as well. For us to continue this care -- I can't in good conscience tell my administrators that it's a fair investment. Insurance only covers so much, and I know you and your husband will pay what you can, but --"
"But we're still taking the time of your staff," Kelsey's mother concluded. "Is that right?"
Dr. Rawls nodded unhappily.
"Then I'll tell you what, doctor. My husband and I, we'll take Kelsey home. We'll provide that care and take it out of your hands. And if, after a year, there's still no change... then maybe you were right. Maybe we'll talk, then." She patted Kelsey's hand again. "But my husband and I -- we're betting you're wrong."
He sighed. "Mrs. Jones, you don't know what you're getting yourself into. You spend so much time here, already, but it's just going to get that much worse. Kelsey requires around the clock, full time care. You'll have no life."
Kelsey's mother smiled tenderly, and glanced down at her sleeping child. "This is my life, doctor. If it means life for Kelsey, then I'll gladly give mine up. Any parent would."
Dr. Rawls shook his head, thought of several arguments to make, and realized none of them would matter. Finally, he extended his hand to her and said, "If that's really what you want to do, then we'll make the necessary arrangements. But I hope you know what you're sacrificing, Mrs. Jones."
She stood up, and took his hand between hers. "It's what we want to do," she confirmed. "But, doctor, you should know -- if you give something up for someone you love, it's not a sacrifice... it's a gift." She looked around for her purse, found it, and pulled out her phone. "And now, I think, I need to call my husband. I'll be right back," she said, addressing a mid-point between doctor and patient that covered both.
Dr. Rawls watched her leave, then stepped up to the bed and leaned down slightly, put his own hand on Kelsey's and squeezed it. "I don't really think you know what you're getting," he said softly. "But if you do, I sure hope you appreciate it."
And for a moment -- just for a moment -- he thought that maybe Kelsey had tried to squeeze his hand in return.
But that would be impossible...
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 3, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Game Changer" by Frank Ramirez
"The Gift" by Keith Hewitt
* * * * * * * *
Game Changer
by Frank Ramirez
Isaiah 55:1-9
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
-- Isaiah 55:2
While there are plenty of folks who enjoy a little hunting and fishing, and who also enjoy what follows -- a good meal hot and fresh -- it's a rare person in our industrialized societies who depends on daily hunting and fishing to provide for one's daily bread. If the fish aren't biting or if the deer or wild turkey are just a little craftier, what does it really matter? You can always slip into the drive-through lane of the local fast food joint and take home hamburgers, tacos, or a fresh order of onions rings.
For real Hunter-Gatherer societies, it can be a matter of life and death. They put a lot of effort and hard work into procuring a daily meal, and when, whether through lack of skill or luck, the hunters fail or the gatherers find nothing, people go hungry. That's certainly a great incentive to be on the move, looking for the great herds, or following the seasons for the harvests of wild produce. If much of ancient human history is still murky, and in the process of being uncovered, it's fairly certain that humanity, centered in Africa, was always on the move and that sooner or later those moves brought humans to the Atlantic coast.
That's when everything changed!
There are some who think they might know one of the exact spots where humanity first discovered the Atlantic Ocean, and therefore a whole new way of life. It's a place called Pinnacle Point on the west coast of South Africa. Curtis Marean, a researcher from Arizona State University, had thought long and hard about the question of the ocean and humanity and decided it was likely that somewhere along the southern coast of South Africa, in a series of nearly inaccessible caves overlooking the ocean just south of the modern town of Mossel Bay, he would find signs of ancient human habitation. What he knew of the history of the glaciers advancing and receding suggested that at one point humanity would have found itself on the coastlines where the warmer waters from Madagascar would provide a temperate climate and food.
Marean found that evidence he was looking for and since 1999 he and an international team of scientists have been studying the remains of the ashes from their ancient fires, the shells from the many different shellfish they ate, and intriguing chunks of red ocher that might be the first signs of communication.
The shell fish were deposited into the tidal pools every day by, well, the tides! Suddenly there was a daily renewal of abundant food with the action of the tides. It was not necessary to work nearly so hard in order to be able to eat. For Hunter Gatherers used to struggling for existence, without any security, it must have seemed like manna from heaven.
People could settle into one place and not have to be on the move all the time. This meant the people would have more time! More time for all sorts of things. There would be more time to organize into a stable society. There would be more time to use the red ochre to mark territory and tide pools, which some people think was the precursor to writing. More time to be fully human.
The prophet Isaiah was not speaking to a Hunter Gatherer society when he asks why we're willing to pay good money for food when we can have it for free, but life was certainly a daily struggle for the people in his time. His images of food given away in a market place filled with stalls of folks hollering out the prices of their goods has to be attractive to anyone who has struggled to make ends meet. What we need, what we want, is there for the having, and taking advantage of this will make it easier to live a righteous life. Certainly we know that living free from want removes for many any temptation to take advantage of others. The ministry of Jesus, like the call of the prophets, is toward a more equitable society based on justice and basic care for all. All of which gives us more time to become more fully Christian.
(Want to know more? Google Pinnacle Point or read Atlantic by Simon Winchester, pp 57-60)
Both are about eating and the food coming to them free -- Isaiah in the marketplace, Paul remembering the manna.
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids, and Breakdown on Bethlehem Street (Christmas 2012).
The Gift
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 13:1-9
Room 309, Bed 1.
The figure on the bed nearest the window was not dead... not strictly speaking. The heart beat slowly, its languid efforts sketched by electrons on the small green screen of a box that sat on a shelf next to the bed, and if you watched closely you could see the subtle rise and fall of a thin white blanket, marking out a slow rhythm of respiration. But the skin had the waxy pallor of a mannequin or a sub-par effort at embalming. Where hands and face showed, the skin was tight, as though vacuum packing the skeleton beneath. The eyes were half-open slits, windows on an empty building.
The only sound in the room was the quiet voice of the woman in the chair next to the bed, reading softly. At every turn of the page, she would glance over at the bed... she could no longer say, quite, why. There had been no reaction, no expression, no movement, for a very long time.
No sign of life, save that death was absent...
"-- and he roared his terrible roar," she read, "and he gnashed his terrible teeth..." She paused, glanced up, suddenly aware of another presence in the room. She smiled, then, and set the book on the window sill, still open. "Doctor Rawls, good evening. How are you tonight?"
Doctor Rawls smiled briefly as he scanned the chart in his hands -- no change; there never was -- then looked back to her, his expression changing; the smile was still there, but his eyes were different, the wrinkles around them changing shape to alter the expression from greeting to sympathy. "I'm doing okay, Mrs. Jones, but it's been a long day. How are you?"
She shrugged, a slight motion of shoulders barely visible beneath her wrinkled sweater. "Okay, doctor. Same as always."
"Right." He glanced down at the chart again, though he didn't need to, then toward the patient. "How long has it been, Mrs. Jones?"
She glanced at the bed. "I think you know as well as I do, doctor. Seven months, and two days."
"Right, just about seven months since we got Kelsey stabilized and able to breathe without support. It's been that long since there's been any change in condition. No motor activity, no apparent neurological activity. We've done several scans, tested with various stimuli, and nothing seems to trigger any responses." He paused, then took the plunge. "Mrs. Jones, there is no sign of brain activity -- no sign of any higher functions. Kelsey's brain stem is able to maintain respiration and a heartbeat, but that's it."
Mrs. Jones rested her hand on Kelsey's, looked up at Dr. Rawls steadily. "What are you trying to say, doctor?"
"I think you know," he said gently, and from the look in her eyes he knew he was right. It was not the first time the discussion had come up -- there had been a nasty infection about five weeks prior, and he had made a case to Mr. and Mrs. Jones for letting Kelsey slip away in the arms of sepsis. It was not too bad a way to go -- not that it mattered to Kelsey, the lack of "suffering" was more a concern for the parents. They had insisted on treatment, however, and the infection had been turned back, the battle won... or lost, depending on your point of view.
"Without feeding, and hydrating, and other supportive care, Kelsey would just... drift away in a week or so," the doctor explained, repeating his earlier argument almost verbatim. All that changed was the time frame -- succumbing to infection would have been faster. He sometimes wondered, when he lay awake in the middle of the night, whether he should have even given Kelsey's parents the option... or if he should have just done them a favor, and let nature take its course. They weren't the suing kind, it would not have been a problem... except for the fact that he would know.
Hippocrates didn't have these kinds of problems -- lucky man.
"So you want us to say it's okay to take Kelsey's life?" Mrs. Jones asked slowly.
"Not really. Kelsey hasn't been alive in any meaningful sense for seven months. What we're doing, here, with the IVs and the other care is just keeping the motor turning over... it's all mechanical. The life -- the spark that made Kelsey Kelsey -- is gone, and it's not coming back."
"So you want us to just turn our backs?"
"I want you to get your own lives back, Mrs. Jones. You're here every night, after school. Your husband is here in the mornings, on his way to work. Your weekends are spent here. Kelsey's life ended... that doesn't mean yours should too."
She was silent, then, for a long time. Finally, she patted Kelsey's hand and said, "Do you have any children, doctor?"
"Two, Mrs. Jones. But I don't see --"
"You would, if Kelsey was one of yours. A child is part of you -- a little spark, a little package in which you invest your hopes and your dreams... all of the good things that you think might happen. A child is like a little piece of the future, given to you to nurture. And from the moment you have that gift, that responsibility, put in your hands, you do everything you can to make things right. All the worries, all the anxiety, all the frustration and teaching..." She trailed off, lost in a wilderness of memories.
"I understand, Mrs. Jones. I really do. But if Kelsey were my child --"
"I think you really do understand, doctor, and I respect you. And if it were your child lying there -- God forbid -- I expect you might make a sound, rational decision. You might make a logical, reasonable argument for doing what you are asking us to do, and then do it. And that would be your choice, certainly. But this is not about logic and reason, doctor -- it's about love, and faith, and hope."
Dr. Rawls closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "I understand what you're saying, Mrs. Jones. But you know, it becomes a matter of resources, as well. For us to continue this care -- I can't in good conscience tell my administrators that it's a fair investment. Insurance only covers so much, and I know you and your husband will pay what you can, but --"
"But we're still taking the time of your staff," Kelsey's mother concluded. "Is that right?"
Dr. Rawls nodded unhappily.
"Then I'll tell you what, doctor. My husband and I, we'll take Kelsey home. We'll provide that care and take it out of your hands. And if, after a year, there's still no change... then maybe you were right. Maybe we'll talk, then." She patted Kelsey's hand again. "But my husband and I -- we're betting you're wrong."
He sighed. "Mrs. Jones, you don't know what you're getting yourself into. You spend so much time here, already, but it's just going to get that much worse. Kelsey requires around the clock, full time care. You'll have no life."
Kelsey's mother smiled tenderly, and glanced down at her sleeping child. "This is my life, doctor. If it means life for Kelsey, then I'll gladly give mine up. Any parent would."
Dr. Rawls shook his head, thought of several arguments to make, and realized none of them would matter. Finally, he extended his hand to her and said, "If that's really what you want to do, then we'll make the necessary arrangements. But I hope you know what you're sacrificing, Mrs. Jones."
She stood up, and took his hand between hers. "It's what we want to do," she confirmed. "But, doctor, you should know -- if you give something up for someone you love, it's not a sacrifice... it's a gift." She looked around for her purse, found it, and pulled out her phone. "And now, I think, I need to call my husband. I'll be right back," she said, addressing a mid-point between doctor and patient that covered both.
Dr. Rawls watched her leave, then stepped up to the bed and leaned down slightly, put his own hand on Kelsey's and squeezed it. "I don't really think you know what you're getting," he said softly. "But if you do, I sure hope you appreciate it."
And for a moment -- just for a moment -- he thought that maybe Kelsey had tried to squeeze his hand in return.
But that would be impossible...
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 3, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
