When I served as a youth worker back in California, we asked the kids at our church to give a Saturday a month to serve at a convalescent home. We’d scatter through the hallways, going into the rooms of the elderly, sitting down next to their beds and listening to their stories. We’d often strum our guitars and sing for them.
Out of all the men and women we met on those Saturdays, one person in particular etched a permanent groove in my memory. I never knew the man’s name, but I can still hear his voice sounding like tires crunching gravel. His faded, grey eyes still contained enough hope to reveal a few ounces of determination. He said, “Push me over there.” I happily wheeled him down the white tiled corridor. We came to the end of another hallway. Again, he said, “Turn here.” After a minute, I realized that for him, this wasn’t just a joy ride. He had a destination in mind. “Now, left here.” Soon we found ourselves at the back of the Convalescent Home. We approached the end of a narrow hallway. A sign revealed that this was an emergency exit. Before us were the words, “ALARM WILL SOUND.”
“Okay. Now please just push that door open for me.”
“What?”
“I’m not strong enough to get the door open! Please, help me. Quickly!” Speaking with determination, he twisted around in his wheelchair and forcefully gripped my hand, “Please! I can’t stand it in here! I don’t want to die in here. They won’t let me out. I want to see the sky. Please let me see the grass and smell the flowers again.”
His eyes bored into mine and he gripped my hand even harder.
“But I can’t just open the emergency exit door!”
When I got home that afternoon, I couldn’t get the man’s voice out of my ears. This week I remembered again the feeling I had that day as I apologized to that man for not being willing to help him escape his dungeon of despair. Having just “celebrated” my 43rd birthday, I am aware that birthdays don’t hold the same excitement as they used to. They are now reminders of the brevity and fragility of my existence. Ah, forty-three. It feels like I’m on top of the mountain. I can see for miles from up here. But there’s only one direction, and that’s down. My life is now on a clear trajectory of demise. No matter how fast I peddle my bicycle, I will never be able to silence the drum beat of time. The stuff I value the most will be torn out of my grasp. My ability to see the faces of the people I love will dim. My ability to listen to birds chirping in the branches of trees will fade. Walking will become more painful with age. There is no escaping it. This dreadful feeling of being chained to time is the reason why society is so obsessed with youth. Look all around. Face lifts. Hair coloring. Anti wrinkle creams. We can’t stand the thought of growing old. Youth is a religion.
Living in Asia for the last eleven years has taught me many, many lessons. Paramount among these lessons is the Asian way of celebrating the aging process. Here, people more naturally embrace all stages of life. With age, most people are not clamoring to reverse the effects of time. The older a person becomes, the more respect is afforded by society. The elderly are honored and celebrated rather than stuffed away into convalescent homes. Their voices matter. They are cherished as vessels of wisdom, vital to the health of the community.
This, to me, feels right.
Kierkegaard writes about living with courage to embrace the fragility and brevity of this life. He sees this courage as the evidence of faith. “The lily’s coming into being becomes its destruction, indeed it seems as if it came into existence and became beautiful only to be destroyed—yet the obedient lily obediently submits to this, it knows that such is God's will, and it shoots up…. A man, or we men, in the situation of the lily would be in despair at the thought that coming into existence and destruction was one thing, and therefore would prevent ourselves by despair from becoming what we might become, though it were but for an instant. With the lily it is otherwise. It was absolutely obedient, hence it became itself in its beauty, it became actually its whole possibility, undisturbed, absolutely undisturbed by the thought that the same instant was its death."
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN EMBARRASSED to hear yourself laughing exactly like a good friend laughs? Our voices often imitate someone we love and admire. This is because God has created us, his image bearers, to adopt the mannerisms of the objects of our worship. The Creator designed us to be worshiping beings. We simply can’t
Read MoreTHIS WEEK OVER FOUR HUNDRED children and youth from around our city converged on our school Charis. And so, a new academic year begins. Over 400 stories being created in the fusion of our CREATOR, his creativity, and his creation. Every sentence spoken, every kick of a ball, every conversation, and warm greeting another stroke of holy ink scrolled across the Creator’s canvas.
Read MoreIn 1985, hundreds of parents in the remote Borneo village of Kaladan longed for a junior high school for their children. At the time, there were three Christian families living in this village of approximately 10,000 people. One of these individuals had heard of an organization named Mustard Seed International, which builds Christian schools, youth ministries and orphanages, and trains national teachers to serve in impoverished and unreached communities. Mustard Seed leaders were sent to visit Kaladan. At the time, Kaladan was dominated by two religions; Islam and Keharingan. Keharingan is a mixture of Animism and Hinduism. Many of the people in Kaladan worshipped the bones of their ancestors, and paid homage to monkey spirits who controlled their village.
Read MoreYears ago, I was exchanging emails with a coworker regarding some important decisions in the organization where we both served. This friend and I did not live with the same aspirations for the organization, and our communication was deteriorating from friendly warm to irritatingly chilly; icy enough, that is, to burn a permanent scar into the landscape of our friendship. Feeling nervous about this downward spin, I went to my brother Steve for help. Steve is one of those rare individuals who consistently offer beneficial advice. His counsel was simple, penetrating and life altering.
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All American writers since the mid 20th century stand in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway. Known for punchy sentences and muscular verbs, Hemingway established the standard for American story telling. He wrote, “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.” Leery of adjectives, Hemingway was a minimalist who dragged paragraphs through fire until the cheese melted.
The result? Stainless steel sentences. When challenged to write a story with six words, Hemingway responded with:
For sale: baby shoes, never used.
Minimalism is more than a method of writing. It is the relentless seeking for truth in a smoke and mirrors generation. It is the way of genuine freedom.
Minimalism and integrity somehow seem like they are related. If I am a story, make me a short story. I crave simplicity. Carve away my empty words. Sweep away my vanity. Give me someone to love, and something to die for and I will be content. Yes, I think I am becoming a minimalist. When the chaff has finally drifted away, and I breathe one last time, what else will matter but that which crosses the threshold into forever?
“Each one’s work will become clear; for the DAY will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work.”
I Corinthians 3:13
By Paul Richardson To me, wine tastes about as delicious as gasoline. Yet, having been a waiter for six years, I understand the wine drinking ethos. Most folks who order a glass of wine with dinner are simply casual wine drinkers. Their motivation is to impress their dinner companions, and they really don’t have a clue as to whether they are drinking something exquisite or worthless. Some rare people, though, don’t just casually drink wine. They are actual connoisseurs. Now, I must point out that you should not be allowed to say the word connoisseur unless you can pronounce it with a French accent, which counts me out. Wine snobs … I mean, connoisseurs, don’t just put wine in their mouths and guzzle it down like a dog standing over its dish. For wine connoisseurs, drinking wine is really more of an experience. Skipping stones is sort of like this.
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IN THE SUMMER of my 21st birthday, I adventured to the damp outpost of Koropun, in the magnificent highlands of Irian Jaya. Those were the most significant two months of my entire life. Each morning, my friends and I rose up out of bed at 5 am, ate a quick breakfast and went outside to gawk at the towering, breath taking, rugged mountains and breathe in the crisp air. Our primary task was to complete the construction of a church. We had to work fast, knowing that at about noon, dark storm clouds would come rolling up the valley and bombard our village with intense rain, sending every one of us running indoors. The afternoon rain would often continue through the cold nights.
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