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My friend--a pastor in Seattle--told me the story about a remarkable woman in his church. She was licensed by the state to be a foster-care home for children with special needs. This requires fortitude and resilience, not knowing how long the children will be with you (maybe days or perhaps weeks), or how many children you may have at one time (as many as six).
One year, at Christmas time, money was short. Not just for presents, but also for food. There was a knock at the door. The children answered. Standing outside were three men wearing red bandannas--as "masks"--on their face. At first the children were uneasy, but saw that all three were carrying sacks of groceries. And even they knew that people who rob you, usually don't bring groceries.
They went to get their "mother," and when she arrived at the door, on the stoop sat 13 sacks of groceries. At the curb, a 1959 Cadillac convertible, the top down, with two of the men sitting up on the back--as if they were in a parade--while at the wheel the third, all of them still wearing their red bandannas and doing the "queen's wave," shouting, "Hi-yo. Silver, away!"
On each one of the sacks of groceries was written in big black calligraphy, "God's desperadoes have been here." The children asked their mom if they could sleep with some of the sacks in their room, never having seen that much food before.
Can I tell you the rest of the story? To this day, no one knows who those three men are. The children don't know. The mother doesn't know. The pastor doesn't know. However, when he began to tell the story, the people who heard realized, "I am one of God's desperadoes."
Yes, I suppose it is that simple.
Easy? Probably not.
But we sure do make it complicated. The best way to kill a desperado endeavor is to send around "sign-up sheet." "Who wants to be one of God's desperadoes? First you have to go to desperado training, and then be certified, and maybe even serve on the desperado committee."
We're so focused on the wrong measurement or motivation or reward.
In a previous Sabbath Moment I referenced the documentary, From Mao to Mozart. It is about Isaac Stern's visit to China after the Cultural Revolution. With openness to western influence, Stern was invited to teach music. In China, he comes face to face with the clash between technical skill and artistic interpretation.
The soul of the documentary is the time Stern spends with young Chinese students, coaching, coaxing, teaching and encouraging. The level of their skill is exceptional, and. . .well, astonishing. A consummate teacher, Stern's task seems to be to inspire them to stop being merely technical masters, and to put their heart and emotion into their playing.
Oddly, we all get it.
We know that the power of life is wrapped in small gestures of compassion, and in the gifts that spill from the heart.
In the documentary, Stern tells his students that the violin bow is like a paintbrush. "It is free to give you many colors," he tells them, because music is never just black and white. He invites them to see that they will have "some colors even painters don't have."
Evidently, what we don't see is that this power resides inside of each of us. Right now.
And because I don't see it (acknowledge it or embrace it)...
...I can't access it.
...I can't let it spill.
...I can't give it away.
...and I discover that love, just like music, can never be forced.
I recently read another story, about a woman traveling alone--by train--who arrived in a new city. There was time until her next train connection, so she struck up a conversation with another traveler, a woman making a stopover in the midst of a very long journey. The traveler was tired, and the woman unthinkingly handed her a sandwich that she'd been saving for later. It began as a conversation, and become a friendship that lasted for twenty years.
After the woman died, her son happened upon a packet of his mother's correspondence. One thing particularly struck him. "There were so many letters from this woman she had met in the train station. And they all ended with the same words: 'I'll never forget that you fed me.'"
When we see blackberries on our Island, it tells us summer is almost over. This year, they are plentiful--profligate, profuse and sumptuous--munificent and unstinting in their offering. They are sweet on the tongue, and good for the heart. And a reminder that the greatest gift is not just what we possess, but who we are.
And the daylight grew heavy with thunder,
With the smell of the rain on the wind.
Ain't it just like a human.
Here comes that rainbow again.
Kris Kristofferson
(1) Story of the woman traveling adapted from the book, From Field Notes on the Compassionate Life, Marc Ian Barasch
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