Sign Me Up!
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Second Opinion" by Keith Hewitt
"Sign Me Up!" by Frank Ramirez
Second Opinion
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 4:14-21
The waiting room smelled of antiseptic--despite the fresh flower arrangements set strategically around the second-floor walkup. It always had, and Roscoe Miller couldn’t imagine that it would ever be any different; for thirty-odd years, as long as he could remember, the waiting room had smelled the same. And for thirty-odd years, the same clock had counted off the minutes and hours with the same monotonous tick...tick...tick. Most of the time it was just background noise, barely noticed at a conscious level, but today Roscoe couldn’t help but imagine that it was counting down the last hours of his life.
And that was different.
Until now, the room had been where he waited for vaccinations, boosters, the occasional physical exam, and the slightly more frequent shots of penicillin, which his mother insisted he get at the first sign of a cough or sore throat. Doctor Haugen had complied, good naturedly joking that she must own stock in the drug company, but it was always his prune-faced, white-haired nurse that actually gave him the shot, directly into his butt. When he started high school, he tried to convince her to give it to him in the arm, but she just scowled at him and made a motion with her hand that he should turn around.
He did. He was a little afraid of her.
But now his problems were beyond penicillin, he was sure of that; there would be no need to face the harpoon-sized hypodermic today. No antibiotic could fix the pain in his chest, or make up for the shortness of breath he experienced now after the slightest exertion.
His wife had convinced him that he needed to see Dr. Haugen now--as she said, “before you end up having a heart attack.” Sure that he already had, but unwilling to say it to her, he meekly agreed to see the doctor. He had that first visit, had a few tests, and now he sat, listening to the clock mark seconds off his life while he waited for results.
The nurse--Old Prune Face--appeared in the waiting room door, surveyed the room, then picked him out and crooked a finger. “This way, Mister Miller. The Doctor will see you now. Down this way,” she added, pointing to a room at the end of the hall. He went in, sat down, thought about making conversation--and decided not to. The nurse did not seem bothered by his lack of effort; she jotted a few notes on a chart sitting on the counter, closed the file, and left without another word.
The wait was shorter, this time, barely giving him time to study--once more--the mounted swordfish on the wall above the exam table. By his standards, it was a monster; even arched, as though it were forever jumping, it was as long as the table--not including the sword-like proboscis. It was a souvenir of Doc Haugen’s time at Eglin Air Force Base, during the war.
He was pondering the fish when someone entered the room. Startled--there had been no knock--he turned to ask the doctor about the fish...and stopped.
Kindly, white haired Dr. Haugen was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found himself nose-to-chest with a woman wearing a white lab coat. Quickly, he raised his eyes to look at her face--and hesitated. She was youngish--his age, he guessed--with short dark hair, blue eyes, and a delicately shaped face that looked vaguely familiar. “Roscoe Miller?” she asked, her voice brisk, professional.
“Yes, that’s right,” he agreed, looking past her, now. “Is the doctor coming? I really wanted to talk to him about the results.”
She smiled, and at another time it would have been a disarming smile; today, it confused him. “I beg your--oh. Right. The doctor is here, Mister Miller.” With one hand, she touched the stethoscope draped around her neck. “I’m working with Dr. Haugen, and he asked me to talk to you about your tests.”
He shifted around, started to speak, then stopped and finally said, “I’m sorry, nurse, but I really would rather hear this from the doctor.”
Another smile--this one a little pained. “Mister Miller, you are hearing it from the doctor. I’m Doctor Lydell.”
There was a long pause, then, and he finally said, “Oh. I guess I didn’t realize Doctor Haugen had a--a--“
“Woman working with him?” she finished helpfully.
“A partner,” he corrected her. “I didn’t know he had a partner.”
“Well, that’s because he doesn’t. I’m a consultant, I guess you’d say--a cardiologist. Doctor Haugen wanted me to review your test results, and then talk to you about a couple of possible courses of action. Now, the first test we did--“ she began.
“You’re Poopy--uh, Poppy--Krause, aren’t you? You went to Benjamin Franklin Elementary School,” Miller said, as though he was recounting a great discovery, a hidden mystery of the ages.
She raised an eyebrow. “Krause was my maiden name. Do I know you?”
“Yes--well, no. I guess not. I was three grades ahead of you, but I remember you--Poppy Krause. My sister is Rose Miller. She was in Mr. Russov’s class with you.”
“Right, I remember. Rose. Sweet kid.”
He shrugged. “She was all right, for a sister. Went off and joined a commune a few years ago. But you, I remember you well.”
“That’s very nice, maybe we can talk about this another time. But right now, I want to tell you about what I saw in your x rays--“ She stopped short, realized he wasn’t paying attention. “Mister Miller?”
“I’m sorry, but--don’t take this wrong--but I really don’t want you to tell me what you saw in my x rays. I would like Doctor Haugen to tell me.”
She sighed. “Mister Miller, I am a doctor--a cardiologist. I graduated in the top ten percent of my class at the University of Wisconsin. I interned at the Mayo Clinic, worked at Marshfield Clinic--I’m quite capable of telling you what I found.”
He looked pained. “Yes, but you’re...Poopy Krause. You’re my sister’s friend. I’ve known you since you were a kid. I can’t take this kind of information from you.”
“I’m only three years younger than you.”
“Yes, but you’re still that kid, to me.”
“I’m qualified. I’m fully qualified. I know more about your heart, and what’s wrong, and how we can fix it than anybody else in the state. In the world.” When he didn’t answer, she started to explain, again--and stopped. His eyes were looking toward her, but not seeing her. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Look, Mister Miller, you have a pretty serious problem. I really think we need to talk about it now, and start taking the next steps as soon as possible.”
“Right, right--I understand. But can you please get Doctor Haugen in here to tell me? Or to be here when you tell me, if you think you have to do it?”
“Mister Miller, I know you still see me as a child--but you’re the one being childish, here. But, if you insist, I will go and speak to Doctor Haugen. But we probably won’t get to see you until the end of the day.”
“That’s fine. I can wait.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. But it’s your choice.”
She left, leaving him alone with the swordfish and some childhood memories.
She’d done her best to scare him, he thought, and smiled. It would take more than that to scare him. She was a kid from the neighborhood, what could she know?
It was a bit of irony that by the time he found out, it would no longer matter...
Nothing would...
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Sign Me Up!
by Frank Ramirez
Luke 4:14-21
And (Jesus) rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down (Luke 4:20).
Much has been learned about the ancient world because of two-thousand -year-old scraps of papyrus that have been been rescued from the trash heaps that the dry climate of that region have preserved.
So much has been learned from these government documents, personal letters, business receipts, as well as insight into the language of the New Testament and evidence of Christian life! Yet as much as has been learned about ordinary life it can be very frustrating because in many cases only scraps remain.
That’s why a recent discovery in the dry deserts of Egypt was even more astounding -- rolls of papyrus from 4600 years ago, more than twice as old as the important papyrus discoveries of the past -- in nearly perfect condition, written by people who were in charge of various aspects of construction -- construction, as a matter of fact, of nothing less than the Great Pyramid!
The pyramids are among the great wonders of the world. The largest of them, often referred to as the Great Pyramid of Giza, was completed around the year 2560 BC, and stood 481 feet tall. It was the world’s largest building for more than 3800 years.
How was it built? People wondered how were over two million blocks transported to this site far from any water. How did the Egyptians transport around five and a half million tons of limestone and a half-million tons of mortar across the desert?
Perhaps because of the experience of the Hebrew slaves centuries later that we read about in the book of Exodus many historians assumed that the building of the Great Pyramids was accomplished on the backs of innumerable throwaway slaves. The Greek historians said this as well. Sometimes it is forgotten they wrote centuries after the building of the pyramids, and didn’t always think highly of any society other than their own.
Then there were those bizarre theories held by those who believed great tasks were impossible for the ancients and credited the great monuments to aliens from other worlds,
But already over the past few decades discoveries like a cemetery for those who worked on the pyramids, hardly something that would have been provided for slaves, suggesting the workers who constructed the pyramids might have been an honored, professional class. Experiments and theories began to emerge suggesting that far fewer were needed for the building of these monuments than originally thought. Some suggested that volunteers worked on the pyramids on a seasonal basis.
Then, in 2011 the Egyptian archaeologist Pierre Tallet, integrating a report from a 19th century traveler with observations by French pilots back in the 50’s, found those papyrus scrolls consisting of journals written by individuals personally involved in overseeing pyramid construction. The scrolls, along with hard archealogical work, demonstrated that a series of canals, no longer in existence, brought the massive blocks of stone to the work sites, that it was a great privilege to work on the monumental tombs of the Pharaohs, that workers were well-fed (indeed, better fed than most people in that era), and that though the there was nothing simple about building a pyramid, those who worked believed they were working on something not only massive, but spiritually significant.
The unrolling of these scrolls, as they are translated and published, will certainly tell us more about the great task by those who took part. But we are also called to a great task with the unrolling of a scroll by Jesus. We are called, like the builders of the pyramids, to be part of something that is greater than ourselves, and will outlast even the Great Pyramids, the great task of bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, nothing less than the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor!
(Want to know more? See “Egypt: The Power and the Glory,” by Alexander Stille, in the October 2015 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, pp 26-37).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 24, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2015 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.
"Second Opinion" by Keith Hewitt
"Sign Me Up!" by Frank Ramirez
Second Opinion
by Keith Hewitt
Luke 4:14-21
The waiting room smelled of antiseptic--despite the fresh flower arrangements set strategically around the second-floor walkup. It always had, and Roscoe Miller couldn’t imagine that it would ever be any different; for thirty-odd years, as long as he could remember, the waiting room had smelled the same. And for thirty-odd years, the same clock had counted off the minutes and hours with the same monotonous tick...tick...tick. Most of the time it was just background noise, barely noticed at a conscious level, but today Roscoe couldn’t help but imagine that it was counting down the last hours of his life.
And that was different.
Until now, the room had been where he waited for vaccinations, boosters, the occasional physical exam, and the slightly more frequent shots of penicillin, which his mother insisted he get at the first sign of a cough or sore throat. Doctor Haugen had complied, good naturedly joking that she must own stock in the drug company, but it was always his prune-faced, white-haired nurse that actually gave him the shot, directly into his butt. When he started high school, he tried to convince her to give it to him in the arm, but she just scowled at him and made a motion with her hand that he should turn around.
He did. He was a little afraid of her.
But now his problems were beyond penicillin, he was sure of that; there would be no need to face the harpoon-sized hypodermic today. No antibiotic could fix the pain in his chest, or make up for the shortness of breath he experienced now after the slightest exertion.
His wife had convinced him that he needed to see Dr. Haugen now--as she said, “before you end up having a heart attack.” Sure that he already had, but unwilling to say it to her, he meekly agreed to see the doctor. He had that first visit, had a few tests, and now he sat, listening to the clock mark seconds off his life while he waited for results.
The nurse--Old Prune Face--appeared in the waiting room door, surveyed the room, then picked him out and crooked a finger. “This way, Mister Miller. The Doctor will see you now. Down this way,” she added, pointing to a room at the end of the hall. He went in, sat down, thought about making conversation--and decided not to. The nurse did not seem bothered by his lack of effort; she jotted a few notes on a chart sitting on the counter, closed the file, and left without another word.
The wait was shorter, this time, barely giving him time to study--once more--the mounted swordfish on the wall above the exam table. By his standards, it was a monster; even arched, as though it were forever jumping, it was as long as the table--not including the sword-like proboscis. It was a souvenir of Doc Haugen’s time at Eglin Air Force Base, during the war.
He was pondering the fish when someone entered the room. Startled--there had been no knock--he turned to ask the doctor about the fish...and stopped.
Kindly, white haired Dr. Haugen was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found himself nose-to-chest with a woman wearing a white lab coat. Quickly, he raised his eyes to look at her face--and hesitated. She was youngish--his age, he guessed--with short dark hair, blue eyes, and a delicately shaped face that looked vaguely familiar. “Roscoe Miller?” she asked, her voice brisk, professional.
“Yes, that’s right,” he agreed, looking past her, now. “Is the doctor coming? I really wanted to talk to him about the results.”
She smiled, and at another time it would have been a disarming smile; today, it confused him. “I beg your--oh. Right. The doctor is here, Mister Miller.” With one hand, she touched the stethoscope draped around her neck. “I’m working with Dr. Haugen, and he asked me to talk to you about your tests.”
He shifted around, started to speak, then stopped and finally said, “I’m sorry, nurse, but I really would rather hear this from the doctor.”
Another smile--this one a little pained. “Mister Miller, you are hearing it from the doctor. I’m Doctor Lydell.”
There was a long pause, then, and he finally said, “Oh. I guess I didn’t realize Doctor Haugen had a--a--“
“Woman working with him?” she finished helpfully.
“A partner,” he corrected her. “I didn’t know he had a partner.”
“Well, that’s because he doesn’t. I’m a consultant, I guess you’d say--a cardiologist. Doctor Haugen wanted me to review your test results, and then talk to you about a couple of possible courses of action. Now, the first test we did--“ she began.
“You’re Poopy--uh, Poppy--Krause, aren’t you? You went to Benjamin Franklin Elementary School,” Miller said, as though he was recounting a great discovery, a hidden mystery of the ages.
She raised an eyebrow. “Krause was my maiden name. Do I know you?”
“Yes--well, no. I guess not. I was three grades ahead of you, but I remember you--Poppy Krause. My sister is Rose Miller. She was in Mr. Russov’s class with you.”
“Right, I remember. Rose. Sweet kid.”
He shrugged. “She was all right, for a sister. Went off and joined a commune a few years ago. But you, I remember you well.”
“That’s very nice, maybe we can talk about this another time. But right now, I want to tell you about what I saw in your x rays--“ She stopped short, realized he wasn’t paying attention. “Mister Miller?”
“I’m sorry, but--don’t take this wrong--but I really don’t want you to tell me what you saw in my x rays. I would like Doctor Haugen to tell me.”
She sighed. “Mister Miller, I am a doctor--a cardiologist. I graduated in the top ten percent of my class at the University of Wisconsin. I interned at the Mayo Clinic, worked at Marshfield Clinic--I’m quite capable of telling you what I found.”
He looked pained. “Yes, but you’re...Poopy Krause. You’re my sister’s friend. I’ve known you since you were a kid. I can’t take this kind of information from you.”
“I’m only three years younger than you.”
“Yes, but you’re still that kid, to me.”
“I’m qualified. I’m fully qualified. I know more about your heart, and what’s wrong, and how we can fix it than anybody else in the state. In the world.” When he didn’t answer, she started to explain, again--and stopped. His eyes were looking toward her, but not seeing her. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Look, Mister Miller, you have a pretty serious problem. I really think we need to talk about it now, and start taking the next steps as soon as possible.”
“Right, right--I understand. But can you please get Doctor Haugen in here to tell me? Or to be here when you tell me, if you think you have to do it?”
“Mister Miller, I know you still see me as a child--but you’re the one being childish, here. But, if you insist, I will go and speak to Doctor Haugen. But we probably won’t get to see you until the end of the day.”
“That’s fine. I can wait.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. But it’s your choice.”
She left, leaving him alone with the swordfish and some childhood memories.
She’d done her best to scare him, he thought, and smiled. It would take more than that to scare him. She was a kid from the neighborhood, what could she know?
It was a bit of irony that by the time he found out, it would no longer matter...
Nothing would...
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
Sign Me Up!
by Frank Ramirez
Luke 4:14-21
And (Jesus) rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down (Luke 4:20).
Much has been learned about the ancient world because of two-thousand -year-old scraps of papyrus that have been been rescued from the trash heaps that the dry climate of that region have preserved.
So much has been learned from these government documents, personal letters, business receipts, as well as insight into the language of the New Testament and evidence of Christian life! Yet as much as has been learned about ordinary life it can be very frustrating because in many cases only scraps remain.
That’s why a recent discovery in the dry deserts of Egypt was even more astounding -- rolls of papyrus from 4600 years ago, more than twice as old as the important papyrus discoveries of the past -- in nearly perfect condition, written by people who were in charge of various aspects of construction -- construction, as a matter of fact, of nothing less than the Great Pyramid!
The pyramids are among the great wonders of the world. The largest of them, often referred to as the Great Pyramid of Giza, was completed around the year 2560 BC, and stood 481 feet tall. It was the world’s largest building for more than 3800 years.
How was it built? People wondered how were over two million blocks transported to this site far from any water. How did the Egyptians transport around five and a half million tons of limestone and a half-million tons of mortar across the desert?
Perhaps because of the experience of the Hebrew slaves centuries later that we read about in the book of Exodus many historians assumed that the building of the Great Pyramids was accomplished on the backs of innumerable throwaway slaves. The Greek historians said this as well. Sometimes it is forgotten they wrote centuries after the building of the pyramids, and didn’t always think highly of any society other than their own.
Then there were those bizarre theories held by those who believed great tasks were impossible for the ancients and credited the great monuments to aliens from other worlds,
But already over the past few decades discoveries like a cemetery for those who worked on the pyramids, hardly something that would have been provided for slaves, suggesting the workers who constructed the pyramids might have been an honored, professional class. Experiments and theories began to emerge suggesting that far fewer were needed for the building of these monuments than originally thought. Some suggested that volunteers worked on the pyramids on a seasonal basis.
Then, in 2011 the Egyptian archaeologist Pierre Tallet, integrating a report from a 19th century traveler with observations by French pilots back in the 50’s, found those papyrus scrolls consisting of journals written by individuals personally involved in overseeing pyramid construction. The scrolls, along with hard archealogical work, demonstrated that a series of canals, no longer in existence, brought the massive blocks of stone to the work sites, that it was a great privilege to work on the monumental tombs of the Pharaohs, that workers were well-fed (indeed, better fed than most people in that era), and that though the there was nothing simple about building a pyramid, those who worked believed they were working on something not only massive, but spiritually significant.
The unrolling of these scrolls, as they are translated and published, will certainly tell us more about the great task by those who took part. But we are also called to a great task with the unrolling of a scroll by Jesus. We are called, like the builders of the pyramids, to be part of something that is greater than ourselves, and will outlast even the Great Pyramids, the great task of bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, nothing less than the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor!
(Want to know more? See “Egypt: The Power and the Glory,” by Alexander Stille, in the October 2015 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, pp 26-37).
Frank Ramirez is a native of Southern California and is the senior pastor of the Union Center Church of the Brethren near Nappanee, Indiana. Frank has served congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jennie share three adult children, all married, and three grandchildren. He enjoys writing, reading, exercise, and theater.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 24, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2015 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.
