skip to main |
skip to sidebar
This is a joke I received in an email last week. I thought it was humorous!
DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER
A plane leaves Los Angeles airport under the control of a Jewish captain. His copilot is Chinese. It's the first time they've flown together, and an awkward silence between the two seems to indicate
a mutual dislike.
Once they reach cruising altitude, the Jewish captainactivates the Auto-pilot, leans back in his seat, and mutters, 'I don't like Chinese.'
'No rike Chinese?' asks the copilot, '....why not?'
'You people bombed Pearl Harbor , that's why!'
'No, no,' the co-pilot protests, 'Chinese not bomb Peahl Hahbah! That Japanese, not Chinese.'
'Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese... doesn't matter, you're all alike!'
There's a few minutes of silence.
'I no rike Jews either!' the copilot suddenly announces.
'Oh yeah, why not?' asks the captain.
'Jews sink Titanic.'
'What? That's insane! Jews didn't sink the Titanic!' exclaims the Captain, 'It was an iceberg!'
'Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg, Rosenberg , ...no mattah... all same!'
Last week my life was consumed with making a video for the end of Frank's sermon. His text for the day was the story of Cain and Abel. His illustration throughout was the mirror window principle, which has its origin from the book Good To Great by Jim Collins (a must read in my opinion). The idea is that when bad happens, we should look at ourselves in the mirror and do some self evaluation. The opposite would be looking through the window at others in the situation and putting the blame/issue on them. This is what Cain did with his brother. Rather than deal with the fact that he brought a poor offering--that his issue was between him and God, he got jealous of his brother and killed him. When good things happen, we look through window, giving others some responsibility, grace, and what not for allowing the good to happen. We see this all throughout the life of Joseph at the end of Genesis.
To close his sermon, Frank talked about us being our Brother's Keeper, at which point, we showed the video I built with the background music being Brother's Keeper by Rich Mullins.
But that's not the point of this post. As I was scouring the internet for images to put with the brilliant words of Rich Mullins, I came upon this flickr photostream of a guy who found healing from his wife's death by spending time with the homeless. I was so moved by his pictures and by his story, because they were so good, that there are three or four in the video. You should go read his story and then look at his amazing images.
Oh, here's my interpretation of Brother's Keeper (its 21megs--if you have a slow connection you may be waiting awhile)
One note on the video. . . those of you who aren't a part of South won't get the last image. This past February, our church collected peanut butter for Northwest Haiti Christian Mission. It became a huge thing--other staff vs senior minister. We collected over 5,000 jars of peanut butter--4 tons worth. That was a huge learning moment for us as we become our Brother's Keeper.
May you be your Brother's Keeper today.
Its been a good day. We got up, had some brunch, and worked on the house. I got more trim done. I was supposed to go to the steam show in Mason, but did not make it. I'll hopefully pop in their tomorrow to take in some nostalgic coal smell and ash as I take in the old time tractors and steam engines. It will bring back memories of my earlier days when I used to go with our family neighbor Calvin to the Steam Show in Dover, OH. Those were the days of helping grind corn at the stone mill, messing with the Ford 8N tractor, and so on. Here is a pic of Calvin and his wife, Berince, (Couple on the left) with Calvin's brother and his wife.
Calvin was like a grandfather to me. He and Bernice lived just up the road from when I was growing up. I used to mow his lawn. My family would help him bale hay, shuck corn (yes, I said shuck corn), and so on, along with feeding his cows when they were away on vacation. Any time we had something break, we'd take it up to Calvin's for a little welding job or what have you. It was the old days then. We'd help out when he needed our younger energies and in return, he'd plow our garden in the spring and our driveway in the winter. And, he'd always give us apple butter when they made some or meat when they would butcher a cow. We always got the liver--Calvin hated liver. Helping Calvin also gave us free reign on his sledding hill. It was a great hill. It set just right so that the snow would drift over the top 15 feet or so. You could make great tunnels and so on in the snow. It also gave us extra resources for the sled jumps we would build. It's a wonder I didn't end up paralyzed.
Two of my fondest memories of Calvin both involve animals. In addition to raising cows, Calvin and Bernice would get chickens from time to time. He'd build a pen in his garage, complete with heat lamps for the newly hatched chicks. As they grew, they'd move outside to a bigger pen. When they were fully grown, they would butcher them. Calvin was proud and boastful of some contraption he had made that would behead a chicken with "control". I say "control", because if you've ever butchered chickens, they are hardly easy to control, both with their heads and without. He would always let one go after whacking it to laugh and watch it run around the yard for awhile. Remember, it was the old days, back when you did such things and it was normal.
The other memory involves evenings under Calvin's pavilion. Every night after a hard days work of whatever, Calvin and Bernice would take their place on the swing under the pavilion. Sometimes there was lemonade, sometimes bread and apple butter. Every couple of days or so, my family would walk up to their place and relax in the cool of the evening. It was always a great time. In the spring and early summer, Calvin would watch for groundhogs in his field while they relaxed. If one was dumb enough to come out of the ground, Calvin would head inside for his gun. Within minutes, there would be a huge crack of the gun and more often than not, another dead groundhog to bury. Calvin took pride in being able to shoot a groundhog at probably 200 or more yards with his 22-250 rifle.
Calvin taught me a lot about doing things right. He helped me begin to learn about having honor and an ethic that was inherit in men and women of his era. He taught me about doing hard work and learning to enjoy it--about doing what needed to be done so you could sit under the pavilion and take in the coolness of the evening. He taught us about caring for your neighbor.
When I started this post, I was simply going to talk about being able to sit by the front window in my living room and listen to the bugs of the night and feel the coolness of the air coming in the window. That was over an hour ago. Since then, I've spent time reminiscing about the steam show and even greater, my time as an early teen back home in East Canton. I sometimes really forget how much my childhood and teen years really shaped me. Sometimes I get caught up in the learning I've done and what experiences God has given me to put me where I am. Then, to keep me grounded, I somehow always come across something that takes me back to then, when life was much simpler and slower. Sometimes its the call of a redwing blackbird or the chirp of a spring peeper. Sometimes its the flicker of a lightning bug or the taste of good, homemade jam. Tomorrow, lord willing, it will be the smell of coal and wood smoke and the chug, chug, chug of a steam engine hard at work.
Currently I'm sitting backstage at Rock Lake Christian Assembly. It's the first morning of camp. I've been up for awhile now, drinking coffee, journaling, and preparing for the day. It's going to be a great day in God's presence here. We're talking about our place with God in worship--that he is creator/savior and that we are created/saved. With this perspective about God in the right place, everything else becomes clearer to me. Its like having the right glasses on to see 20/20.
Camp is always a good time for me. It encourages my soul and hope in God because I get to see students and fellow ministry partners step away from the normalcy of life and reflect on God for a week. Amazing things happen when we step away from life and chew on God for any amount of time. This week will be a little different. My friend Eric isn't here. He's off with another group of students at Wolverine Christian Camp. Eric and I have been doing this camp thing every summer together since the summer of 1994. We've learned to read one another, to feed on one another, to do ministry together like a married couple, which at times is amazing, and other times comical.
This week is going to be like wearing a new pair of shoes. They'll get the job done and it will be fine. It just won't be the same as the old sneakers that are formed and shaped to my feet, that have been with me every step of the way. God will fill in the gap, I'm sure. It just won't be the same.
Be in prayer for Eric and his crew at Wolverine, along with the high school weeks of camp at Michiana and Lake James Christian Assembly. We're all ministering to high school students this week. It's a great privilege and a huge challenge. Help us to be confident and bold for God. Pray that God fills in our many gaps and deficiencies as we serve.
