The Mother Lode
Stories
Object:
Contents
"The Mother Lode" by Frank Ramirez
"A Hostage Repents" by Richard Jensen
* * * * * * * *
The Mother Lode
Frank Ramirez
Malachi 3:1-4
For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver...
-- Malachi 3:2-3
The Prophet Malachi seems to be familiar with the method of refining silver to remove impurities. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, knew something about that procedure as well from his sojourn out west. But it wasn't the refining that was his problem. It was the finding of it in the first place.
Twain lived for a time in Virginia City, the capital of the territory of Nevada, for several reasons. First of all, he was out west avoiding the Civil War. Twain served only briefly in the Confederate army before giving it up as a bad job. But he was also out west on the coattails of his brother Orion who had been appointed private secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada.
Most of all, he was probably escaping his own guilt. Twain had been a successful steamboat captain on the Mississippi and had encouraged his younger brother Henry to find work on the river, serving together on the Pennsylvania. One day in 1858 Twain was fired and was therefore not on board when the ship's boiler exploded, killing 120 people, including his brother. Twain always felt guilty about his brother's death, believing it was his fault for getting Henry interested in life on the river.
Once out west Twain, like so many others, tried his hand at mining, sure that here was the way to make his fortune. Twain's stories about useless deeds, fruitless claims, and camps filled with "bloated millionaires" with barely two nickels to rub together eventually found their way into his book Roughing It.
"I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying all over the ground," Twain wrote in that book. He figured that within a couple of weeks he'd be a wealthy man, "and so my fancy was already busy with plans for spending this money."
At first that's exactly what seemed to happen. He no sooner commenced to mining that he decided he'd hit pay dirt. "The more I examined the fragment the more I was convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and carried away my specimen." Later he showed off the silver and gold nuggets to a grizzled prospector, asking him what he thought of it.
"Think of it?" he replied. "I think it is nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents an acre!"
"So I learned then," Twain concluded, "once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter."
Then the real backbreaking work began. With a partner Twain would drive an iron drill into the solid stone. It took a couple of exhausting hours before there was a large enough hole to drop a charge of gunpowder, but after the explosion the results were disappointing. Digging tunnels proved no easier. There was one disappointment after another, to say nothing of being driven off claims by desperadoes, extremes of blazing heat and bitter cold, inedible food, worthless claims, and constant misfortune.
If there was any treasure to be had out west, for Twain it was in the stories he told, which slowly brought him attention. His words, refined until they were shining like silver, brought joy to his readers.
Then he struck gold with his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which when printed back east brought him national attention and opened doors to the great success he was to find as a writer, lecturer, and storyteller.
We are all fortunate that Twain was an absolute failure as a miner, because in the end it forced him to follow a career path as a journalist. Refined by his difficult experiences, he was proved to be pure silver and gold, remembered as perhaps the great American novelist. Perhaps for all of us the true treasure can only be revealed by the prophet time, as the refinement of hard knocks and tough experiences pares away the dross and reveals who we really are.
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 in Bethlehem (Christmas 2012).
A Hostage Repents
Richard A. Jensen
Luke 3:1-6
Terry Anderson is probably the best known of the American hostages kept in Lebanon. Anderson, an Associated Press journalist, was held hostage for 2,454 days! His ordeal began innocently enough on March 16, 1985. As he dropped off his tennis partner after a morning match he noticed a green Mercedes pulled up just ahead of where he was stopped. Suddenly three young men came charging out of the car. Each had a 9-mm pistol hanging loosely on their hip. In a flash they were at Anderson's car window. ''Get out,'' one of the men shouted. ''I will shoot.'' Anderson got out. He was pressed into the backseat of the Mercedes and whisked away. The hostage ordeal for Terry Anderson had begun.
Anderson's first days of captivity were appalling. He was blindfolded most of the time, held in chains, and interrogated roughly. His mind did not know how to react. Anderson realized that he was on the edge of madness. He was losing control of his capacity to think. ''I can't do this anymore,'' he finally told his captors. ''You can't treat me like an animal. I am a human being.'' When asked what he wanted he replied that he wanted a Bible. Not long afterward a heavy object landed on his bed. He pulled down his blindfold. It was a Bible. He began to read. In Genesis!
Terry Anderson had been raised in the Catholic church. Even though he had not been a practicing Catholic for years, however, the Bible came to him as a gift from heaven. He read. He pondered his life. He had lots of time to ponder his life -- too much time to ponder his life. He began a litany of confession in his mind. He confessed that he had hurt his first wife and daughter. He had made many mistakes. He had been a very arrogant person. He wasn't sure that people liked him much. He wasn't sure he liked himself very much.
Later in the first year of his captivity Anderson became aware of the fact that other hostages were living next door. One was a priest. Father Lawrence Jenco. He asked his captors if he could see the priest. ''I am a Catholic,'' he told them. ''I want to make a confession.''
His wish was granted. Father Jenco came to his room. They both took off their blindfolds. Anderson hardly knew where to begin. It had been 25 years since he had last made confession. Father Jenco was encouraging. Anderson began reciting to this priest the sins he had been reflecting upon. There was much to confess: a bad marriage, chasing women, drinking. Anderson found it a very emotional experience. When he finished both he and Father Jenco were in tears. Father Jenco then laid his right hand upon Anderson's head. ''In the name of a gentle, loving God, you are forgiven,'' the priest proclaimed.
Terry Anderson's faith deepened immensely in his hostage years. This moment of confession with Father Jenco, however, was his first formal step back into the church. Self-reflection had grown within him out of the darkness of his hostage encounter. It was time to face the light. It was time in his life for a turn around.
from Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, 57 Stories for Cycle C (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), pp. 15-16.
*****************************************
StoryShare, December 9, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 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.
"The Mother Lode" by Frank Ramirez
"A Hostage Repents" by Richard Jensen
* * * * * * * *
The Mother Lode
Frank Ramirez
Malachi 3:1-4
For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver...
-- Malachi 3:2-3
The Prophet Malachi seems to be familiar with the method of refining silver to remove impurities. Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, knew something about that procedure as well from his sojourn out west. But it wasn't the refining that was his problem. It was the finding of it in the first place.
Twain lived for a time in Virginia City, the capital of the territory of Nevada, for several reasons. First of all, he was out west avoiding the Civil War. Twain served only briefly in the Confederate army before giving it up as a bad job. But he was also out west on the coattails of his brother Orion who had been appointed private secretary to the territorial governor of Nevada.
Most of all, he was probably escaping his own guilt. Twain had been a successful steamboat captain on the Mississippi and had encouraged his younger brother Henry to find work on the river, serving together on the Pennsylvania. One day in 1858 Twain was fired and was therefore not on board when the ship's boiler exploded, killing 120 people, including his brother. Twain always felt guilty about his brother's death, believing it was his fault for getting Henry interested in life on the river.
Once out west Twain, like so many others, tried his hand at mining, sure that here was the way to make his fortune. Twain's stories about useless deeds, fruitless claims, and camps filled with "bloated millionaires" with barely two nickels to rub together eventually found their way into his book Roughing It.
"I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying all over the ground," Twain wrote in that book. He figured that within a couple of weeks he'd be a wealthy man, "and so my fancy was already busy with plans for spending this money."
At first that's exactly what seemed to happen. He no sooner commenced to mining that he decided he'd hit pay dirt. "The more I examined the fragment the more I was convinced that I had found the door to fortune. I marked the spot and carried away my specimen." Later he showed off the silver and gold nuggets to a grizzled prospector, asking him what he thought of it.
"Think of it?" he replied. "I think it is nothing but a lot of granite rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't worth ten cents an acre!"
"So I learned then," Twain concluded, "once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter."
Then the real backbreaking work began. With a partner Twain would drive an iron drill into the solid stone. It took a couple of exhausting hours before there was a large enough hole to drop a charge of gunpowder, but after the explosion the results were disappointing. Digging tunnels proved no easier. There was one disappointment after another, to say nothing of being driven off claims by desperadoes, extremes of blazing heat and bitter cold, inedible food, worthless claims, and constant misfortune.
If there was any treasure to be had out west, for Twain it was in the stories he told, which slowly brought him attention. His words, refined until they were shining like silver, brought joy to his readers.
Then he struck gold with his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which when printed back east brought him national attention and opened doors to the great success he was to find as a writer, lecturer, and storyteller.
We are all fortunate that Twain was an absolute failure as a miner, because in the end it forced him to follow a career path as a journalist. Refined by his difficult experiences, he was proved to be pure silver and gold, remembered as perhaps the great American novelist. Perhaps for all of us the true treasure can only be revealed by the prophet time, as the refinement of hard knocks and tough experiences pares away the dross and reveals who we really are.
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 in Bethlehem (Christmas 2012).
A Hostage Repents
Richard A. Jensen
Luke 3:1-6
Terry Anderson is probably the best known of the American hostages kept in Lebanon. Anderson, an Associated Press journalist, was held hostage for 2,454 days! His ordeal began innocently enough on March 16, 1985. As he dropped off his tennis partner after a morning match he noticed a green Mercedes pulled up just ahead of where he was stopped. Suddenly three young men came charging out of the car. Each had a 9-mm pistol hanging loosely on their hip. In a flash they were at Anderson's car window. ''Get out,'' one of the men shouted. ''I will shoot.'' Anderson got out. He was pressed into the backseat of the Mercedes and whisked away. The hostage ordeal for Terry Anderson had begun.
Anderson's first days of captivity were appalling. He was blindfolded most of the time, held in chains, and interrogated roughly. His mind did not know how to react. Anderson realized that he was on the edge of madness. He was losing control of his capacity to think. ''I can't do this anymore,'' he finally told his captors. ''You can't treat me like an animal. I am a human being.'' When asked what he wanted he replied that he wanted a Bible. Not long afterward a heavy object landed on his bed. He pulled down his blindfold. It was a Bible. He began to read. In Genesis!
Terry Anderson had been raised in the Catholic church. Even though he had not been a practicing Catholic for years, however, the Bible came to him as a gift from heaven. He read. He pondered his life. He had lots of time to ponder his life -- too much time to ponder his life. He began a litany of confession in his mind. He confessed that he had hurt his first wife and daughter. He had made many mistakes. He had been a very arrogant person. He wasn't sure that people liked him much. He wasn't sure he liked himself very much.
Later in the first year of his captivity Anderson became aware of the fact that other hostages were living next door. One was a priest. Father Lawrence Jenco. He asked his captors if he could see the priest. ''I am a Catholic,'' he told them. ''I want to make a confession.''
His wish was granted. Father Jenco came to his room. They both took off their blindfolds. Anderson hardly knew where to begin. It had been 25 years since he had last made confession. Father Jenco was encouraging. Anderson began reciting to this priest the sins he had been reflecting upon. There was much to confess: a bad marriage, chasing women, drinking. Anderson found it a very emotional experience. When he finished both he and Father Jenco were in tears. Father Jenco then laid his right hand upon Anderson's head. ''In the name of a gentle, loving God, you are forgiven,'' the priest proclaimed.
Terry Anderson's faith deepened immensely in his hostage years. This moment of confession with Father Jenco, however, was his first formal step back into the church. Self-reflection had grown within him out of the darkness of his hostage encounter. It was time to face the light. It was time in his life for a turn around.
from Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, 57 Stories for Cycle C (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), pp. 15-16.
*****************************************
StoryShare, December 9, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 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.
