Reason To Doubt
Stories
Object:
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Reason to Doubt"
Shining Moments: "Hoo" by Claire Clyburn
Good Stories: "When Peace Came" by Ken Lyerly
Scrap Pile: "The Girl the World Had Thrown Away" by Connie Schroeder
What's Up This Week
Jo's dad, Lester Perry, passed last week. We were expecting it, but not so soon. Word came just the week before that his kidneys were shutting down. We were able to spend time with him on the weekend.
Rod (Jo's older brother) said that he was probably met in heaven by about a thousand happy dogs. Lester loved his dogs. He said a house wasn't a home without a dog. His beloved Sam (Samantha) preceded him just a couple of months ago.
Lester was 93 and had been in the nursing home at Soldiers Grove. Jo's mom, Phyllis, is a longtime member of the Viola United Methodist Church in the Ocooch mountains on the Kickapoo river in southwest Wisconsin. Jo and I were married there in 1975.
Lester was a mechanic, gunsmith, carpenter, tinkerer, and inventor. If he couldn't find a part to fix something, he made it. Lester enjoyed making clocks for the past decade or so. Everyone in the family has a clock that Lester crafted hanging somewhere in their home. They all chime on the hour and the half-hour. Phyllis has several of them all around the house. The chiming of Pa's clocks will be our Easter song this year... and I expect for many years to come.
Please remember our family in your prayers.
A Story to Live By
Reason to Doubt
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
John 20:24-25
The story is told about a young soldier who lost his legs in battle. Something died within this young man when he found he would never walk again. He lay in his hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. He refused to talk to anyone who tried to help him. He refused to cooperate with the doctors or nurses who wanted to help him adjust.
One day another inmate of the hospital strolled in and sat down on a chair near the bed. He drew a harmonica from his pocket and began to play softly. The patient looked at him for a second, then back to the ceiling. That was all for that day. The next day, the player came again. For several days he continued to come and play quietly. One day he said, "Does my playing annoy you?" The patient said, "No, I guess I like it." They talked a little more each day.
One day the harmonica player was in a jovial mood. He played a sprightly tune and began to do a tap dance. The soldier looked on but was apparently unimpressed. "Hey, why don't you smile once and let the world know you're alive?" the dancer said with a friendly smile. But the legless soldier said, "I might as well be dead as in the fix I'm in."
"Okay," answered his happy friend, "so you're dead. But you're not as dead as a fellow who was crucified two thousand years ago, and He came out of it all right."
"Oh, it's easy for you to preach," replied the patient, "but if you were in my fix, you'd sing a different tune." With this the dancer stood up and pulled up his trouser legs, and the young man in the bed looked and saw two artificial limbs.
Shining Moments
Hoo
by Claire Clyburn
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:19-20
I went to visit my parents last year following our Easter worship service. They had a collection of old college yearbooks on the kitchen table, and I sat down to have a look. They were from the 1920s and were yearbooks from my grandparents' college years. I recognized my grandmother's picture in The Oak Leaves, Meredith College's annual. I tried to imagine her as a young woman, 19 years old, with a flapper haircut and stylish dresses. Her smile was demure, even as a young woman. For the first time I could see a little bit of my mother in her.
I found my grandfather's yearbooks -- The Howler from Wake Forest University. It only took a minute to find his portrait, class of 1926. I couldn't believe my eyes -- here was a handsome young man with a half-smile, round Harry Potter glasses, light brown hair, fit and trim, with his whole life ahead of him. There was an air of expectancy about him. I put those two pictures side by side, my grandfather's and my grandmother's, and wondered what had drawn them together a few years later when they were both teaching at the Morehead School for the Blind.
When my grandfather was in his sixties, he retired from teaching at UNC-Wilmington and spent the rest of his days on the sound. He made and mended nets during the day, fished in the early morning hours according to the tide, built houses or did other carpentry work as time allowed. Every afternoon he took a nap on the swing couch on his front porch. Though there was no air conditioning in the house, the constant breezes coming from the water had a natural cooling effect, and Granddaddy fell asleep curled up on his side with a gentle breeze wafting over him. When I think of him now, that is how I usually picture him -- curled up in a fetal position on that couch, like a tiger taking his noonday rest. As we grew, he took pride in teaching us the old ways, and he wanted to see our muscles, especially after spending a day working with him in the shop or on the boat. My brothers would make a fist with pride, and my cousin Laura and I also would flex our biceps, not knowing that it wasn't ladylike. He would feel our growing muscles, and we would beg him to do the same. At 60 and 70 years of age, he would flex his bicep -- and a muscle the size and hardness of a major league baseball would pop up without difficulty.
He lived to be 89, and worked every day but Sunday all of his life. He neither smoked nor drank alcohol; ate the freshest foods he could find, what he caught from the sound and what he got from the garden; drank mostly water, huge glasses on the table at every meal, and a cup of coffee in the morning. He loved coconut cake, but otherwise ate few sweets, even on holidays.
Grandma taught first grade for over 30 years before she retired. Once she retired her time was taken up caring for a granddaughter who lived nearby. I never saw her walk anywhere; she scurried and hurried like a mouse from the stove to the sink to the porch to the laundry to the bathroom to the living room. When she needed Granddaddy she went to the front door and yelled "Adrian!" "Hoo!" he would call back. She worked sunup till sundown as well, and she couldn't stand the idea that you might do something for her so that she could sit down and rest. He went to bed no later than 9:00 p.m., no matter where he was. She stayed up to read, her one passion.
I remember one of the last times I saw them before Granddaddy's failing health landed him in the hospital for the last three days of his long life. It was over New Year's near his birthday, and my brother and I went to see them for the day. We brought a meal with us so that neither of them would feel obliged to cook. The year before we had taken a Christmas tree to decorate so that Grandmama would have one in her home. I have a photo of the two of them, married over 50 years, sitting on their couch, and the couch nearly swallowing them whole. I remember distinctly how long it took them to stand up from a sitting position, how many times he would start up with his arms, like they were propellers giving him extra momentum, until he could halfway stand in a bent-over position. Two or three more pumps with his arms and he would be upright, his breath punctuated with snorts and grunts as his legs limbered up and he tried to walk.
I put these images together -- this 20-year-old young man in fighting trim, the 60-year-old man whose bicep would have given Arnold Schwarzenegger a fright, and this 89-year-old man whose body was beginning to fail him. Old age, says my dad, isn't for sissies.
He was lying on his side in a fetal position when I saw him last. If it weren't for the fact that we were in a hospital, it could have been another sunny day on the front porch, him taking a nap under the shade and breeze. He was in pain as his kidneys began to shut down and didn't have much energy for words. "I love you, Granddaddy." "Hoo."
Seeing him dead, that bicep no longer flexed, those bright studious eyes forever closed, the half-smile drawn and mercilessly still, I gave thanks for my Christian faith, which teaches me to believe in a resurrection of the body.
I often wonder how I will recognize my grandfather when I see him again. Will it be by his bicep? His half-smile? Will he be curled up on a couch where the breeze comes off the sound? Will I call him and hear him answer "Hoo!"?
Claire Clyburn is pastor of Calvary Memorial United Methodist Church in Snow Hill, North Carolina. She co-edited Here I Am, Lord, a collection of essays by pastors describing the various ways God called them into ministry, and has published sermons in an edition of the Abingdon Preachers Manual.
Good Stories
When Peace Came
by Ken Lyerly
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
John 20:19
The day my brother-in-law Dick died, we were all gathered around the hospital bed. His children had arrived, and when they had said their good-byes and he was at peace with himself, Dick died very quickly and quietly. His struggle with heart and lung disease had been long and painful, but he was prepared to die: more prepared, one of the nuns said, than she had ever seen anyone. And I knew the day his peace of mind and acceptance had begun.
For more than a week, my wife Betty and I had been making daily trips from Kenosha to Milwaukee to visit Dick during his final stay in the hospital. Over the years he had gone through heart bypass surgery, a valve replacement, and a pacemaker implant, but his condition, complicated even further by asbestosis, continued to deteriorate. His system reacted against the volumes of medication he was required to take, and he was hospitalized again and again to regulate it. Part of our reason for returning to Wisconsin from Alabama was the knowledge that he didn't have much longer to live. We wanted to be close enough to see him regularly -- to be there for him and Betty's sister, Virginia. But that particular day Betty and I were both very tired after work, and we couldn't face the drive to Milwaukee. We decided that we would rest up and visit again the next day.
After dinner I began to feel a strong sense of needing to go see Dick. I didn't hear any voices speaking to me, but something inside was urging me to see him. Betty was surprised when I told her we were going after all, but never questioned the urge. I just said we needed to go.
When we walked into the hospital, we met Virginia coming down from Dick's room, and she was very upset. We spent some time with her in the chapel, and she let down her defenses and cried. Virginia is a very strong person, and that was the first time she had leaned on us for support. Then we went up to Dick's room.
We don't always love, or even like, those people who become a part of our family through marriage. But Dick and I always got along, and he had become especially important to me when my son John was having some problems. I took John for counseling, and the psychologist suggested that we needed some time apart. He asked if there was anyone we knew who lived on a farm where John might stay for a while, so I called Dick and he took him in for a few months. I had a great fear at that time that I might lose John to him, but Dick in his loving way returned John to me. It made a great difference in the relationship between John and all of our family, and I never forgot Dick's willingness to help.
In spite of our special relationship, walking into his hospital room that night was very difficult. I didn't really want to be there. My father had died of emphysema the year before, and Dick was required to inhale the same kind of medication Dad had been on as he lay dying. Just the smell of it made me want to turn around and leave. But when Dick saw us come through the door he said he'd been praying all day that I would come.
As I sat there listening while Dick spoke of his impending death for the first time, there was a part of me that wanted to run, and I might have if Dick hadn't been holding my hand. It must have showed, because I remember Betty asking if I was OK, and I knew I was, in spite of everything. I was very much aware that I wasn't there by my own choice or my own decision-making, but because Dick needed me. Dealing with people in grief is part of my job as a counselor, but I wasn't there to counsel Dick. I was there because I loved him, and because I had obeyed the sense of urgency I felt. He needed someone to hear his thoughts on death, and he trusted me to be that person. I don't see having gone as a choice. I didn't want to be there, in that room, with the smell of medication that reminded me of my father's death. Maybe I even feared that Dick might die while I held his hand, as my father had. And yet their deaths were so very different. Dad fought death as long as he could. He wasn't prepared to die. Dick met his death, dealt with it, and died ready, with a grace and peace I'll never forget.
Dick clearly entered a new stage in his development and his relationship to others when he talked about his death that night. And it affected me, too. In his dying, Dick gave me a most unexpected gift: a peace that will stay with me as long as I live.
Kenneth Lyerly is a local pastor serving the United Methodist church in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. This story is shared in loving memory of Dick Hill.
Scrap Pile
The Girl the World Had Thrown Away
by Connie Schroeder
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you." As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble, in whom is all my delight.
Psalm 16:1-3
She was tired, profoundly tired: tired of moving; tired of starting over; tired of life being so hard and so painful. Past mistakes seemed to leer at her, scoff at her, scorn her. She looked around at the apartment she found in the basement of Ada Gray's house. It was tidy enough, but not much light crept in through the windows. She knew the woman who lived in the house above her was an alcoholic. Small towns were all alike. The gossip spread like wildfire. If one person knew your secret, the whole town knew it. She had tried to be careful when she left Calverton, longing to leave the whispers and the secrets behind her, but she knew that the old stuff never really left. You could move a thousand times, but you couldn't run away from yourself. They would find out eventually. That's the way it always happened.
Every time she looked in the mirror she didn't just see the woman, she saw a little girl, bruised from beatings; she saw a teenager, dressed in ragged clothing, left out of the group; she saw the young woman who tried at first, but eventually gave up and gave in, using her body to get what she wanted, growing cynical about this thing some people called love. There didn't seem to be much left now. Grey hair, wrinkles, and lines that told the story of her life better than she could with words. She had some money in the bank. It was enough. She didn't need to work. But she hoped to find a job, just to take away the monotony of a meaningless life. Her family had disowned her long ago. She didn't make friends. They never stayed around. She kept to herself mostly. She felt as though her life was being erased, as year after year passed with no hope. There was a bottle of pills in her bedside table: painkillers for her back that she rarely used. They were her escape. If she couldn't make it work this time, there were always the pills.
The boxes in her apartment really didn't amount to much of anything, just the necessities. If she died and they came to clean out her house, they would find little to tell her story. There was an old picture of an uncle she loved because he was kind to her. There was an old Bible she had received at her confirmation. Truth be told, it had rarely been opened. She fingered the leather cover, unsmiling, not feeling as she opened it and looked at a passage: God has chosen the foolish of the world, to shame those who are wise. She laughed without mirth. "Well, if God has chosen the foolish, then I certainly must be one of God's chosen. Ding, isn't this the part where Monica the angel shows up, glowing, to give me a message from God? Nope, not for this sinner." And she placed the Bible in the back of a drawer.
Weeks passed. It was a cold, snowy day, but she ventured out as she was feeling as though cabin fever was setting in. No one else was about, or so it seemed. In the silence, she could hear the crunch of the snow beneath her boots. It was the evergreen tree on the edge of the park, heavy with snow, where she saw the girl, shivering and alone. The girl must have been about 15, but as she looked in her face, she saw that the girl had Down's Syndrome. There was something familiar about her. Perhaps it was the bruises on her face, one eye almost swollen shut. Unthinking, the woman reached out a hand to touch that face, and the girl flinched. In gentle tones, most unfamiliar to the woman, she spoke to the girl. "I won't hurt you. Would you like to come to my house for some hot chocolate?"
There was such a hunger in the girl's eyes. Her body was thin, too thin beneath the threadbare coat she was wearing. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"OK, well, my name is Janet. What's yours?"
"Bell."
"Now we aren't strangers anymore." Where were all the gossips when you needed one?
"Come warm up at my house. It's just around the corner."
"OK, Janet, but you better not do anything bad to me."
"I promise I won't. I'll give you hot chocolate to drink, and maybe some breakfast."
"Breakfast?"
"Are you hungry?"
And so the salvation of Janet, the lost, began. Bell became her teacher, and Janet learned about love. Bell's father really wasn't interested in taking care of the girl, and so Janet and Bell became family. Bell insisted that on Sunday mornings they go to the little community church on the corner "where they were nice, and coffee hour was the best!" Bell loved the music, and said "Amen" from time to time when the preacher was preaching. And Janet learned about God from a girl the world had thrown away. She dug out her Bible one day, and read that passage again: God has chosen the weak to shame the strong.
"Whatchya doin', Janet?"
"Reading about how God chooses those of us who are foolish or weak. I guess God has chosen me after all."
"How about some hot chocolate, Janet? I'll make it for you this time."
Connie Schroeder is a writer, singer/songwriter, sometime preacher, retreat facilitator, companion, friend, storyteller, and dreamer. She holds a B.A. degree in educational services and an M.Div. degree. She writes a weekly "Reflection for Creative Souls." Subscriptions are free. Just drop an e-mail with your request to csturtleconnie@yahoo.com.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
How do I get a free sample of StoryShare?
Discover for yourself the real value of StoryShare. Click here http://www.csspub.com/storysample1.lasso to see some of our weekly editions.
How do I subscribe to StoryShare?
Subscribing online is convenient using our secure server -- or you can all CSS toll-free at (800) 537-1030 Monday - Friday from 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM (Eastern Time) or send an e-mail to orders@csspub.com, and our customer service team will be happy to assist you. Subscribers receive weekly installments of StoryShare -- plus full access to the StoryShare archives -- for an annual subscription rate of only $19.95. A two-year subscription is available for only $34.95. We think this is the best value in preaching, teaching, and devotional resources available anywhere. If you don't agree we will refund the balance of your subscription payment. To subscribe online, click here.
We invite you to forward this offer to all of your friends who are looking for good stories.
**************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. (Click on the title for information about how to order.) Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Anne Sunday, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)
**************
About the Editors
John E. Sumwalt is the pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, and is the author of eight books for CSS. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), John received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for Parish Ministry from UDTS in 1997. John is known in the Milwaukee area for his one-minute radio spots which always include a brief story. He concludes each spot by saying, "I'm John Sumwalt with 'A Story to Live By' from Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church."
John has done numerous storytelling events for civic, school, and church groups, as well as on radio and television. He has performed at a number of fundraisers for the homeless, the hungry, Habitat for Humanity, and women's shelters. Since the fall of 1999, when he began working on the Vision Stories series, he has led seminars and retreats around the themes "A Safe Place to Tell Visions," "Vision Stories in the Bible and Today," and coming this spring: "Soul Growth: Discovering Lost Spiritual Dimensions." To schedule a seminar or a retreat, write to jsumwalt@naspa.net or phone 414-257-1228.
Joanne Perry-Sumwalt is director of Christian Education at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. Jo is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, with a degree in English and writing. She has co-authored two books with John, Life Stories: A Study In Christian Decision Making and Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit: 62 Stories For Cycle B. Jo writes original curriculum for church classes. She also serves as the secretary of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship (CEF), and is a member of the National CEF.
Jo and John have been married since 1975. They have two grown children, Kathryn and Orrin. They both love reading, movies, long walks with Chloe (their West Highland Terrier), and working on their old farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin.
**********************************************
StoryShare, April 3, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Reason to Doubt"
Shining Moments: "Hoo" by Claire Clyburn
Good Stories: "When Peace Came" by Ken Lyerly
Scrap Pile: "The Girl the World Had Thrown Away" by Connie Schroeder
What's Up This Week
Jo's dad, Lester Perry, passed last week. We were expecting it, but not so soon. Word came just the week before that his kidneys were shutting down. We were able to spend time with him on the weekend.
Rod (Jo's older brother) said that he was probably met in heaven by about a thousand happy dogs. Lester loved his dogs. He said a house wasn't a home without a dog. His beloved Sam (Samantha) preceded him just a couple of months ago.
Lester was 93 and had been in the nursing home at Soldiers Grove. Jo's mom, Phyllis, is a longtime member of the Viola United Methodist Church in the Ocooch mountains on the Kickapoo river in southwest Wisconsin. Jo and I were married there in 1975.
Lester was a mechanic, gunsmith, carpenter, tinkerer, and inventor. If he couldn't find a part to fix something, he made it. Lester enjoyed making clocks for the past decade or so. Everyone in the family has a clock that Lester crafted hanging somewhere in their home. They all chime on the hour and the half-hour. Phyllis has several of them all around the house. The chiming of Pa's clocks will be our Easter song this year... and I expect for many years to come.
Please remember our family in your prayers.
A Story to Live By
Reason to Doubt
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
John 20:24-25
The story is told about a young soldier who lost his legs in battle. Something died within this young man when he found he would never walk again. He lay in his hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. He refused to talk to anyone who tried to help him. He refused to cooperate with the doctors or nurses who wanted to help him adjust.
One day another inmate of the hospital strolled in and sat down on a chair near the bed. He drew a harmonica from his pocket and began to play softly. The patient looked at him for a second, then back to the ceiling. That was all for that day. The next day, the player came again. For several days he continued to come and play quietly. One day he said, "Does my playing annoy you?" The patient said, "No, I guess I like it." They talked a little more each day.
One day the harmonica player was in a jovial mood. He played a sprightly tune and began to do a tap dance. The soldier looked on but was apparently unimpressed. "Hey, why don't you smile once and let the world know you're alive?" the dancer said with a friendly smile. But the legless soldier said, "I might as well be dead as in the fix I'm in."
"Okay," answered his happy friend, "so you're dead. But you're not as dead as a fellow who was crucified two thousand years ago, and He came out of it all right."
"Oh, it's easy for you to preach," replied the patient, "but if you were in my fix, you'd sing a different tune." With this the dancer stood up and pulled up his trouser legs, and the young man in the bed looked and saw two artificial limbs.
Shining Moments
Hoo
by Claire Clyburn
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:19-20
I went to visit my parents last year following our Easter worship service. They had a collection of old college yearbooks on the kitchen table, and I sat down to have a look. They were from the 1920s and were yearbooks from my grandparents' college years. I recognized my grandmother's picture in The Oak Leaves, Meredith College's annual. I tried to imagine her as a young woman, 19 years old, with a flapper haircut and stylish dresses. Her smile was demure, even as a young woman. For the first time I could see a little bit of my mother in her.
I found my grandfather's yearbooks -- The Howler from Wake Forest University. It only took a minute to find his portrait, class of 1926. I couldn't believe my eyes -- here was a handsome young man with a half-smile, round Harry Potter glasses, light brown hair, fit and trim, with his whole life ahead of him. There was an air of expectancy about him. I put those two pictures side by side, my grandfather's and my grandmother's, and wondered what had drawn them together a few years later when they were both teaching at the Morehead School for the Blind.
When my grandfather was in his sixties, he retired from teaching at UNC-Wilmington and spent the rest of his days on the sound. He made and mended nets during the day, fished in the early morning hours according to the tide, built houses or did other carpentry work as time allowed. Every afternoon he took a nap on the swing couch on his front porch. Though there was no air conditioning in the house, the constant breezes coming from the water had a natural cooling effect, and Granddaddy fell asleep curled up on his side with a gentle breeze wafting over him. When I think of him now, that is how I usually picture him -- curled up in a fetal position on that couch, like a tiger taking his noonday rest. As we grew, he took pride in teaching us the old ways, and he wanted to see our muscles, especially after spending a day working with him in the shop or on the boat. My brothers would make a fist with pride, and my cousin Laura and I also would flex our biceps, not knowing that it wasn't ladylike. He would feel our growing muscles, and we would beg him to do the same. At 60 and 70 years of age, he would flex his bicep -- and a muscle the size and hardness of a major league baseball would pop up without difficulty.
He lived to be 89, and worked every day but Sunday all of his life. He neither smoked nor drank alcohol; ate the freshest foods he could find, what he caught from the sound and what he got from the garden; drank mostly water, huge glasses on the table at every meal, and a cup of coffee in the morning. He loved coconut cake, but otherwise ate few sweets, even on holidays.
Grandma taught first grade for over 30 years before she retired. Once she retired her time was taken up caring for a granddaughter who lived nearby. I never saw her walk anywhere; she scurried and hurried like a mouse from the stove to the sink to the porch to the laundry to the bathroom to the living room. When she needed Granddaddy she went to the front door and yelled "Adrian!" "Hoo!" he would call back. She worked sunup till sundown as well, and she couldn't stand the idea that you might do something for her so that she could sit down and rest. He went to bed no later than 9:00 p.m., no matter where he was. She stayed up to read, her one passion.
I remember one of the last times I saw them before Granddaddy's failing health landed him in the hospital for the last three days of his long life. It was over New Year's near his birthday, and my brother and I went to see them for the day. We brought a meal with us so that neither of them would feel obliged to cook. The year before we had taken a Christmas tree to decorate so that Grandmama would have one in her home. I have a photo of the two of them, married over 50 years, sitting on their couch, and the couch nearly swallowing them whole. I remember distinctly how long it took them to stand up from a sitting position, how many times he would start up with his arms, like they were propellers giving him extra momentum, until he could halfway stand in a bent-over position. Two or three more pumps with his arms and he would be upright, his breath punctuated with snorts and grunts as his legs limbered up and he tried to walk.
I put these images together -- this 20-year-old young man in fighting trim, the 60-year-old man whose bicep would have given Arnold Schwarzenegger a fright, and this 89-year-old man whose body was beginning to fail him. Old age, says my dad, isn't for sissies.
He was lying on his side in a fetal position when I saw him last. If it weren't for the fact that we were in a hospital, it could have been another sunny day on the front porch, him taking a nap under the shade and breeze. He was in pain as his kidneys began to shut down and didn't have much energy for words. "I love you, Granddaddy." "Hoo."
Seeing him dead, that bicep no longer flexed, those bright studious eyes forever closed, the half-smile drawn and mercilessly still, I gave thanks for my Christian faith, which teaches me to believe in a resurrection of the body.
I often wonder how I will recognize my grandfather when I see him again. Will it be by his bicep? His half-smile? Will he be curled up on a couch where the breeze comes off the sound? Will I call him and hear him answer "Hoo!"?
Claire Clyburn is pastor of Calvary Memorial United Methodist Church in Snow Hill, North Carolina. She co-edited Here I Am, Lord, a collection of essays by pastors describing the various ways God called them into ministry, and has published sermons in an edition of the Abingdon Preachers Manual.
Good Stories
When Peace Came
by Ken Lyerly
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
John 20:19
The day my brother-in-law Dick died, we were all gathered around the hospital bed. His children had arrived, and when they had said their good-byes and he was at peace with himself, Dick died very quickly and quietly. His struggle with heart and lung disease had been long and painful, but he was prepared to die: more prepared, one of the nuns said, than she had ever seen anyone. And I knew the day his peace of mind and acceptance had begun.
For more than a week, my wife Betty and I had been making daily trips from Kenosha to Milwaukee to visit Dick during his final stay in the hospital. Over the years he had gone through heart bypass surgery, a valve replacement, and a pacemaker implant, but his condition, complicated even further by asbestosis, continued to deteriorate. His system reacted against the volumes of medication he was required to take, and he was hospitalized again and again to regulate it. Part of our reason for returning to Wisconsin from Alabama was the knowledge that he didn't have much longer to live. We wanted to be close enough to see him regularly -- to be there for him and Betty's sister, Virginia. But that particular day Betty and I were both very tired after work, and we couldn't face the drive to Milwaukee. We decided that we would rest up and visit again the next day.
After dinner I began to feel a strong sense of needing to go see Dick. I didn't hear any voices speaking to me, but something inside was urging me to see him. Betty was surprised when I told her we were going after all, but never questioned the urge. I just said we needed to go.
When we walked into the hospital, we met Virginia coming down from Dick's room, and she was very upset. We spent some time with her in the chapel, and she let down her defenses and cried. Virginia is a very strong person, and that was the first time she had leaned on us for support. Then we went up to Dick's room.
We don't always love, or even like, those people who become a part of our family through marriage. But Dick and I always got along, and he had become especially important to me when my son John was having some problems. I took John for counseling, and the psychologist suggested that we needed some time apart. He asked if there was anyone we knew who lived on a farm where John might stay for a while, so I called Dick and he took him in for a few months. I had a great fear at that time that I might lose John to him, but Dick in his loving way returned John to me. It made a great difference in the relationship between John and all of our family, and I never forgot Dick's willingness to help.
In spite of our special relationship, walking into his hospital room that night was very difficult. I didn't really want to be there. My father had died of emphysema the year before, and Dick was required to inhale the same kind of medication Dad had been on as he lay dying. Just the smell of it made me want to turn around and leave. But when Dick saw us come through the door he said he'd been praying all day that I would come.
As I sat there listening while Dick spoke of his impending death for the first time, there was a part of me that wanted to run, and I might have if Dick hadn't been holding my hand. It must have showed, because I remember Betty asking if I was OK, and I knew I was, in spite of everything. I was very much aware that I wasn't there by my own choice or my own decision-making, but because Dick needed me. Dealing with people in grief is part of my job as a counselor, but I wasn't there to counsel Dick. I was there because I loved him, and because I had obeyed the sense of urgency I felt. He needed someone to hear his thoughts on death, and he trusted me to be that person. I don't see having gone as a choice. I didn't want to be there, in that room, with the smell of medication that reminded me of my father's death. Maybe I even feared that Dick might die while I held his hand, as my father had. And yet their deaths were so very different. Dad fought death as long as he could. He wasn't prepared to die. Dick met his death, dealt with it, and died ready, with a grace and peace I'll never forget.
Dick clearly entered a new stage in his development and his relationship to others when he talked about his death that night. And it affected me, too. In his dying, Dick gave me a most unexpected gift: a peace that will stay with me as long as I live.
Kenneth Lyerly is a local pastor serving the United Methodist church in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. This story is shared in loving memory of Dick Hill.
Scrap Pile
The Girl the World Had Thrown Away
by Connie Schroeder
Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you." As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble, in whom is all my delight.
Psalm 16:1-3
She was tired, profoundly tired: tired of moving; tired of starting over; tired of life being so hard and so painful. Past mistakes seemed to leer at her, scoff at her, scorn her. She looked around at the apartment she found in the basement of Ada Gray's house. It was tidy enough, but not much light crept in through the windows. She knew the woman who lived in the house above her was an alcoholic. Small towns were all alike. The gossip spread like wildfire. If one person knew your secret, the whole town knew it. She had tried to be careful when she left Calverton, longing to leave the whispers and the secrets behind her, but she knew that the old stuff never really left. You could move a thousand times, but you couldn't run away from yourself. They would find out eventually. That's the way it always happened.
Every time she looked in the mirror she didn't just see the woman, she saw a little girl, bruised from beatings; she saw a teenager, dressed in ragged clothing, left out of the group; she saw the young woman who tried at first, but eventually gave up and gave in, using her body to get what she wanted, growing cynical about this thing some people called love. There didn't seem to be much left now. Grey hair, wrinkles, and lines that told the story of her life better than she could with words. She had some money in the bank. It was enough. She didn't need to work. But she hoped to find a job, just to take away the monotony of a meaningless life. Her family had disowned her long ago. She didn't make friends. They never stayed around. She kept to herself mostly. She felt as though her life was being erased, as year after year passed with no hope. There was a bottle of pills in her bedside table: painkillers for her back that she rarely used. They were her escape. If she couldn't make it work this time, there were always the pills.
The boxes in her apartment really didn't amount to much of anything, just the necessities. If she died and they came to clean out her house, they would find little to tell her story. There was an old picture of an uncle she loved because he was kind to her. There was an old Bible she had received at her confirmation. Truth be told, it had rarely been opened. She fingered the leather cover, unsmiling, not feeling as she opened it and looked at a passage: God has chosen the foolish of the world, to shame those who are wise. She laughed without mirth. "Well, if God has chosen the foolish, then I certainly must be one of God's chosen. Ding, isn't this the part where Monica the angel shows up, glowing, to give me a message from God? Nope, not for this sinner." And she placed the Bible in the back of a drawer.
Weeks passed. It was a cold, snowy day, but she ventured out as she was feeling as though cabin fever was setting in. No one else was about, or so it seemed. In the silence, she could hear the crunch of the snow beneath her boots. It was the evergreen tree on the edge of the park, heavy with snow, where she saw the girl, shivering and alone. The girl must have been about 15, but as she looked in her face, she saw that the girl had Down's Syndrome. There was something familiar about her. Perhaps it was the bruises on her face, one eye almost swollen shut. Unthinking, the woman reached out a hand to touch that face, and the girl flinched. In gentle tones, most unfamiliar to the woman, she spoke to the girl. "I won't hurt you. Would you like to come to my house for some hot chocolate?"
There was such a hunger in the girl's eyes. Her body was thin, too thin beneath the threadbare coat she was wearing. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."
"OK, well, my name is Janet. What's yours?"
"Bell."
"Now we aren't strangers anymore." Where were all the gossips when you needed one?
"Come warm up at my house. It's just around the corner."
"OK, Janet, but you better not do anything bad to me."
"I promise I won't. I'll give you hot chocolate to drink, and maybe some breakfast."
"Breakfast?"
"Are you hungry?"
And so the salvation of Janet, the lost, began. Bell became her teacher, and Janet learned about love. Bell's father really wasn't interested in taking care of the girl, and so Janet and Bell became family. Bell insisted that on Sunday mornings they go to the little community church on the corner "where they were nice, and coffee hour was the best!" Bell loved the music, and said "Amen" from time to time when the preacher was preaching. And Janet learned about God from a girl the world had thrown away. She dug out her Bible one day, and read that passage again: God has chosen the weak to shame the strong.
"Whatchya doin', Janet?"
"Reading about how God chooses those of us who are foolish or weak. I guess God has chosen me after all."
"How about some hot chocolate, Janet? I'll make it for you this time."
Connie Schroeder is a writer, singer/songwriter, sometime preacher, retreat facilitator, companion, friend, storyteller, and dreamer. She holds a B.A. degree in educational services and an M.Div. degree. She writes a weekly "Reflection for Creative Souls." Subscriptions are free. Just drop an e-mail with your request to csturtleconnie@yahoo.com.
**********************************************
How to Share Stories
You have good stories to share, probably more than you know: personal stories as well as stories from others that you have used over the years. If you have a story you like, whether fictional or "really happened," authored by you or a brief excerpt from a favorite book, send it to StoryShare for review. Simply click here share-a-story@csspub.com and e-mail the story to us.
How do I get a free sample of StoryShare?
Discover for yourself the real value of StoryShare. Click here http://www.csspub.com/storysample1.lasso to see some of our weekly editions.
How do I subscribe to StoryShare?
Subscribing online is convenient using our secure server -- or you can all CSS toll-free at (800) 537-1030 Monday - Friday from 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM (Eastern Time) or send an e-mail to orders@csspub.com, and our customer service team will be happy to assist you. Subscribers receive weekly installments of StoryShare -- plus full access to the StoryShare archives -- for an annual subscription rate of only $19.95. A two-year subscription is available for only $34.95. We think this is the best value in preaching, teaching, and devotional resources available anywhere. If you don't agree we will refund the balance of your subscription payment. To subscribe online, click here.
We invite you to forward this offer to all of your friends who are looking for good stories.
**************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. (Click on the title for information about how to order.) Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Anne Sunday, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A.
Other Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)
**************
About the Editors
John E. Sumwalt is the pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, and is the author of eight books for CSS. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (UDTS), John received the Herbert Manning Jr. award for Parish Ministry from UDTS in 1997. John is known in the Milwaukee area for his one-minute radio spots which always include a brief story. He concludes each spot by saying, "I'm John Sumwalt with 'A Story to Live By' from Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church."
John has done numerous storytelling events for civic, school, and church groups, as well as on radio and television. He has performed at a number of fundraisers for the homeless, the hungry, Habitat for Humanity, and women's shelters. Since the fall of 1999, when he began working on the Vision Stories series, he has led seminars and retreats around the themes "A Safe Place to Tell Visions," "Vision Stories in the Bible and Today," and coming this spring: "Soul Growth: Discovering Lost Spiritual Dimensions." To schedule a seminar or a retreat, write to jsumwalt@naspa.net or phone 414-257-1228.
Joanne Perry-Sumwalt is director of Christian Education at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. Jo is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, with a degree in English and writing. She has co-authored two books with John, Life Stories: A Study In Christian Decision Making and Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit: 62 Stories For Cycle B. Jo writes original curriculum for church classes. She also serves as the secretary of the Wisconsin chapter of the Christian Educators Fellowship (CEF), and is a member of the National CEF.
Jo and John have been married since 1975. They have two grown children, Kathryn and Orrin. They both love reading, movies, long walks with Chloe (their West Highland Terrier), and working on their old farmhouse in southwest Wisconsin.
**********************************************
StoryShare, April 3, 2005, issue.
Copyright 2005 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
