Had to share this, 'coz it cracked me up so!

I came across the following quote on my brother Steve's blog (http://www.familymanlibrarian.com/); to say the least it gave me the giggles! I can picture my nephew, Keegan, saying this very soberly, then breaking out into his quirky grin for the last part.

"A donkey doesn't even know it has a tail until it's bit!" Wise words from Keegan, followed by: "Man, I should be a fortune cooker writer!"

Of course, you need to know Keegan and what a great kid he is, with what a silly sense of humor he has, to really enjoy it.

Ray's Story

I’ve been thinking lately about a child I took care of when I was working as a Pediatric ICU nurse in the Chicago-area a few years ago. “Ray” (a made up name to protect his confidentiality) was 22 months old and had suffered severe abuse.

“Ray” was being baby-sat by an aunt/cousin who decided he was old enough to be potty-trained. After “Ray” had had two accidents (after all it WAS his first day in training), the baby-sitter became so enraged, she ran a bath with scalding hot water and placed him in it. He suffered severe second-degree burns (the most painful kind of burns because they burn through to the nerve layer) of his lower legs and privates. When his dad (who was working two jobs despite being only 19yo) came to pick him up after work, the aunt blamed the child, saying he’d run the water and then climbed into the tub. This is, of course, ridiculous but it’s a frequent tactic by the abuser to blame the victim. Even though a child might run hot water in a tub, they would not deliberately sit down in it. It was obvious, from the burn pattern, “Ray” had been placed into the water; all of the burns were below the waist.

“Ray’s” dad brought him immediately to the nearest ER where he was admitted to the PICU for evaluation and treatment. Initially, sad to say just because “Ray’s” dad was sole-caregiver, he was suspected of the abuse, especially when the aunt stated the child had arrived at her home that morning with the burns! Fortunately, it was obvious the burns had occurred more recently than that and the only person who could have done it was the aunt. Despite days of accusations and being suspected of such a heinous crime, “Ray’s” dad just quietly and patiently stayed by his bedside, day and night, caring for him.

The incident I want to write of occurred one night when I was caring for “Ray”. By this time, he was in what’s called the Step-Down Unit (an area of the hospital where the child is too sick for the regular unit but not sick enough to be in ICU). When I went in on my nightly rounds, I found “Ray” had a dirty diaper. His dad who was deeply asleep in a chair by the bedside, had had to quit his job by then because he couldn’t stand for any other family members to care for “Ray” (who can blame him). As I reached for a clean diaper, “Ray’s” dad awoke and stood by the bedside watching me. When I went to clean “Ray” with a baby wipe, his dad stopped me and said, “Let me do it, please.” He took the wipe in his hand and held it until it was completely warmed through before using it to clean “Ray’s” terribly burned bottom. It was one of the sweetest and most loving gestures I’ve ever seen.

It probably seems silly in some ways for me to be so touched by this small gesture of love on the part of a teen-age dad, yet it was profoundly moving. All this dad cared about was that his son not experience any more suffering, even the touch of a cold wipe on his skin.

I think the reason I've had this memory on my mind is it reminds me of the love of our Heavenly Father Who is concerned His children not have to go through suffering and loss resulting from sin (whether our own sin or the sin’s of others upon us), and has provided the way of escape through His Son, Jesus Christ. This escape comes about only because His precious Son was willing to sacrifice His life so that we might have eternal life and to know His nearness in His Kingdom today. Because this world is such a broken, sin-filled place we can never completely escape suffering while living in it (much as our Abba wants us to be free of distress), but when we know Jesus as Lord, we always have the Comforter, the blessed Holy Spirit, on which to call.

It’s hard to sit by and watch family members experiencing suffering, especially when they are so undeserving of it, and have already suffered through extensive illness through this past year. It’s my prayer that they may know the nearness of our Father’s love and the Comfort of the Holy Spirit as they pass through this period of affliction. May it be your prayer, too.

Michele & Steve

Michele & Steve are really poorly. I know they'd appreciate your prayers (whoever out there is reading this(?)). Steven called tonight to say they are both suffering from what the doctors think is food poisoning, on top of Michele's worsening neurological problems. Michele may be able to get into see a Neurosurgeon (or Neurologist-->I'm not sure which) in Indianapolis tomorrow because she is getting so much worse; she has almost constant tremoring now, as well as slurred and shaking speech. Obviously it is terribly frightening for them both, and to be sick with this severe stomach ailment on top of things is overwhelming!

I don't know when I've been more frustrated; to have to sit here, a three and a half hour drive from them and not be able to help is really difficult. Am trying hard to leave matters in my Heavenly Father's hands, but am not as restful as I should be. I just want to help them so much. It broke my heart when Steve called tonight to ask if I (or Mother, or anyone else) could come over tonight, and I had to tell him that though I am working only part-time, I'm scheduled to work tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday. The desperation in his voice made me want to cry. Thankfully, Michele's Mom & Dad are going to drive over first thing in the AM to be with them. This will be good because they've only just spent a week with Michele's parents, so the kids are comfortable being with them, etc. It's been confusing and difficult for the children to see both parents so unwell, so please pray for them, as well (Keegan 13yo, Tristan 4yo, Brinley 2yo, and Cohen 1yo).

Pray especially that Michele (& Steve because he finds it so hard to watch her suffer) have a sense of the Father's arms of love enveloping them, and with that enveloping love, peace.

"To a Lady with Whom I've Been Intimate, Whose Name I Do Not Know" by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

Here’s the other story; it’s not well known (like “Ragman” is) but is as beautiful. Pastor Wangerin writes with such love and a perspective I'd like to one day know with my whole-heart. It's a state of being which can only be termed Christ-like. The story is especially precious because I can see myself in it…

"To a Lady with Whom I've Been Intimate,
Whose Name I Do Not Know"

You. I saw you in the Great Scot Supermarket tonight, and now I can't sleep on account of you--thinking that, perhaps, you're not sleeping either.

Ah, you! You count your coins with bitten nails, not once but again and again. This is the way you avoid the checker’s eyes, as though ashamed of the goods you buy, as though they declare your loneliness at midnight:

Two six-packs of Tab, because your buttocks, sheathed in shorts, are enormous and hump up your back as you shift your weight from foot to foot. You sigh. I think that you do not know how deeply you sigh, nor yet that I am behind you in the line.

Four frozen dinners whose cartons assure you that there is an apple dessert inside. Swiss steak, roast beef in gravy, chicken drumsticks, shrimp. Which one will you save for Sunday dinner? Do you dress up for Sunday dinner? Do you set the table neatly when the dinner thaws? Or do you eat alone, frowning?

Liquid breakfasts, a carton of Marlboros, five Hershey bars, Tampax, vitamins with iron, a People magazine, Ayds to fight an appetite, two large bags of potato chips. At the very last minute you toss a Harlequin paperback on the counter. Is this what you read at Sunday dinner? Is this your company?

What private wars are waged between your kitchen and your bathroom? Here I see an arsenal for both sides: the She who would lose weight against the She who asks, “Why?” and “So what?”—the She whose desires are fed too much, even while they are hardly fed at all. “It’s your own fault,” the first accuses; “two tons were never tons of love.” But the other cries, “If I were loved I would not need to eat.”

Ah, you.

Rubber thongs on your feet. The polish on your toenails has grown a quarter inch above the cuticle. I notice this because when the checker rings your bill, you drop a quarter which rolls behind me in the line. I stoop to pick it up. When I rise, your hand is already out and you are saying, “Thanks,” even before I returned it to you.

But I do a foolish thing, suddenly, for which I now ask your forgiveness. I didn’t know how dreadfully it would complicate your night.

I hold the quarter an instant in my hand; I look you in the eyes—grey eyes of an honest, charcoal emotion—and I say, “Hello.” And then I say, “How are you?” I truly meant that question. I’m sorry.

Shock hits your face. For one second you search my eyes; your cheeks slacken, then, as though they lost their restraint and might cry. That frightens me: what will I do if you cry? But then your lips curl inward; your nostrils flare; the grey eyes flash; and all at once you are very, very angry.

Like a snake your left hand strikes my wrist and holds it, while the right scrapes the quarter from my hand. I am astonished, both by your strength and by your passion.

You hissed when you hurt me. I heard it and remember it still. Then you paid, crunched the sacks against your breast, and walked out into the night, the thongs sadly slapping at your heels.

Ah, you. You.

How much I must have hurt you by my question. Was that mild commonplace too much a probe, too lethal, too threatening for the delicate balance your life has created for itself? Does kindness terrify you because then, perhaps, you would have to do more than imagine the Harlequin, but then would have to be?

I think so.

To cross the gulf from Life Alone to Life Beloved—truly to be real, truly to be worthy in the eyes of another—means that you are no more your own possession. You give yourself away, and then games all come to an end. No longer can you pretend excuses or accusations against the world; nor can you imagine lies concerning your beauty, your gifts and possibilities. Everything becomes what it really is, for you are seen and you know it. “How are you” triggers “Who are you.” And it wasn’t so much that I said it, but rather that I meant it and that I awaited an answer, too—this caused the lonely She to know her loneliness, even in the moment when I offered you the other thing: friendship.

It’s frightening, isn’t it?

To be loved, dear lady, you must let all illusions die. And since, between the bathroom and the kitchen, between People magazine and the Harlequin, your Self was mostly illusion—at least the acceptable self—then to be loved meant that your very Self had to die—at least the acceptable self.

Instead, you attacked, and my wrist is still bruised tonight. Ah, you.

A rich young ruler came to Jesus, desiring eternal life. He announced that he had kept all the commandments and wondered whether that weren’t enough. But Jesus told him he lacked one thing. He ought, said Jesus, to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor. Upon these words, two were made sorrowful: the rich, because he could not lose his riches, which were his identity and his elf; he turned away. And Jesus, because he loved and would not love this man; but the man turned away.

Riches. O my dear and lonely lady, how rich are you in your illusions. Ironically, you cling to the very loneliness which you despise. It feels safe. But love—God’s love—always comes in light. That’s what scares you. Light illumines truth; obesity, the foolish game between Ayds and potato chips, between cigarettes and vitamins. These things are the truth. These you hide. Yet it is only truth that Jesus can love. He cannot love your imaginings, your riches. Sell all that you have. Undress—

Not me, after all. It is Jesus who asks, “How are you?” And if you would then sell the false self by which you sustain the contemptible Self and die; if you would answer truly, “I’m fat, helpless and alone, unlovely,” then he would love you. No: then you would know that he has loved you all along. To see one truth is to discover the other—which is that he loves you not because you are loveable, but because he is love. And here is the power of his love, that it makes ugliness beautiful! To be loved of God is to be lovely indeed.

All night long I keep a quarter back and ask, “How are you?” I can’t sleep, waiting for the truth: “I’m just terrible.” For then I would cry, “Good! Now there’s a confession I can love!”


And the mighty God, the trumpet-voiced, cries, “I love a child. But she is afraid of me. Then how can I come to her, to feed and to heal her by my love?—“
(Both “Ragman” and this story are taken from the book, “Ragman and Other Cries of Faith” by Walter Wangerin, Jr.)

"Ragman" by Walter Wangerin

Just wanted to share two of my all time favorite Walt Wangerin stories. I know I've been in a rut with his works but the Lord really has used them to help me to grow spiritually, especially into a deeper understanding of the love of God.

RAGMAN
(by Walt Wangerin)

I saw a strange sight, I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for.

Hush, child. Hush, now, and I will tell it to you.


Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: “Rags!” Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

“Rags! New rags or old! I take your tired rags! Rags!”

“Now, this is a wonder,” I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

“Give me your rag,” he said so gently, “and I’ll give you another.”

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.

“This is a wonder,” I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

“Give me your rag,” he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, “and I’ll give you mine.”

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood—his own!

“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.

“Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head.

The Ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”

“Are you crazy?” sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket—flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

“So,” said the Ragman. “Give me your jacket, and I’ll give you mine.”

Such quiet authority in his voice!

The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman—and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman’s arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

“Go to work,” he said.

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider’s legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman—he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. The he sighted. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.
Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope—because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know—how could I know?-that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night, too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.

Light—pure, hard, demanding light—slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice, “Dress me.”

He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him.

The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

Prayer

Please pray for my sister-at-heart, Michele. She and my brother Steve are the parents of four very active children and Michele has been going through a rough time. The hardest part is the doctors aren't sure what's wrong, except that a CT scan of her brain showed "shadows" that were worrisome, so she is to have an MRI on Friday.

Michele is one of the strongest persons I know, in every way. I think she'd laugh at me for saying that, but given all she's gone through in her life, she's stronger than she knows. In a way, this is what makes it so hard to hear of her suffering. I wish I could help in some way, but feel utterly helpless, living so far away.

Anyway, when I mentioned this morning that we had lots to worry about, my Mum said, "No, we have lots to PRAY about!" I think that says it all!!!