Who Cares - What Matters
The Story’s been told many times, in many different ways. It still asks the same question, though:
ARE YOU A CRACKED POT?
Okay, you caught me. It’s an entirely rhetorical question and the answer is completely true:
YES!
The story is really simple but it’s moral is even more simple and engaging–if only recongized!
There’s such a very huge distance between Looking and Seeing.
When’s the last time you, you just didn’t look but actually saw what’s behind the eyes, the face of everyone you meet?
Granted, we’re all very busy and it would be just so much easier if we could wear a special set of glasses that would identify the pain of each person, known and unknown to us in a very specific way–taking out all of the guess work.
It must have made a big impression. I heard the story a very long time ago. A tale about Death.
It involves five brothers, Princes exiled from their kingdom, wandering through the forest and finding themselves thirsty. The youngest goes for water and discovers an inviting lake with a white crane standing at the edge. He sprints for the lake and the Crane speaks right before he dives in for a big gulp.
“STOP!” it cries. “This is my lake. If you touch this water without answering my questions, you will die.”
Desperate, the young man ignores the warning. He bends to drink his fill and falls dead by the water’s edge.
In a few moments the next brother comes in search of the first. He’s really thirsty too and he bends down at the lake’s edge to drink. Just as he is about to quench his thirst, the Crane shouts out to him, “STOP! If you touch this water without answering my questions, you will die.” But even though the young prince sees his brother lying dead nearby, he is so thirsty he can’t help himself. He goes to cup the water in his hands for a full gulp and falls dead at the side of his brother.
Well, do you or don’t you?
I don’t!
I’m not a list maker to begin with. . .my sticky notes never stay stuck, and if they do, it’s usually something I didn’t intend them to get stuck to and they end up getting lost, forgotten, well–you get the picture.
I adamantly Resolve N O T to Resolve!
Hard to believe isn’t it?
GREATNESS meets us face to face and we Recognized it N O T more times than we actually ever do!
In fact, by now you actually know The Story:
A man sat a metro station in Washington, DC and started playing the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. No one actually stopped. A few slowed their paces; some children paused and had to be pulled away by their parents but no one really stopped, lingered, L I S T E N E D.
Guess what? It’s only 363 days away. Are you excited? What’s your plans? Where are you going to meet with family and friends? Are there any White Elephant Gift Collections, office parties, get-togethers? Have the requests been made, the shopping lists compiled? Come on. . .it’s going to be here before we know it!
Can you remember?
Have you heard the story? Ok, maybe it’s more of a legend…but it’s really a timeless legend, now of OUR Time.
It was Christmas Eve 1818 and a small church in Austria had gathered together for their Candle light services. Tragedy struck. The organ was broken. It was discovered that, Church mice, literally had eaten through the bellows the organ and it was rendered useless.
No Music on Christmas Eve Candle light services?
Seriously. . .Whatever it is that causes you to break out, to Flash Mob in Song, may it happen unexpectedly and repeatedly and more, May you BE the Cause of IT to happen Unexpectedly and Repeatedly (For) to Others.
Discover your very best is so much more than a Season or an event, or an occurrence–a Happening!
So many, many things can happen in just one simple, significant second.
I almost learned immediately in 1994 when I became a Chaplain for Hospice that folks who were in my care would often use me as a mirror.
I really feel that when we undeniably know that we are NOT going to live forever, that in fact, we’ve all been born with a lethal sexually transmitted disease called, LIFE, that we have very basic, essential fears that set in like a disease itself. A fear like, “What about my appearance? What am I going to end up looking like as DISease DISsembles my body?”
It amazes me how people use US as their mirrors. They don’t have to look in a mirror to see what they look like, they just have to watch our expressions when we walk in the room and see them. Amazing still how it just might not be ‘the sick’ who use the mirror trick.
We all look for recognition and acceptance in the eyes of those who look upon us!
So…be the eye, the camera, the mirror that Accepts, Acknowledges, Affirms, Authorizes another.
What does it take to do so?
How much Money is involved and needs exchanged?
How long does it take?
A Second. . .a simple, sincere second.
Psssssst: Don’t give it a Second Look!
(Give it Always/ALL Ways Unlimited Looks)
First time for me in 33 years of Ministry. A double-wedding ceremony.
It took place at the David Simpson Hospice House in Cleveland around 10:15 a.m. on 12/11/13.
Their mother is very sick and is declining rather quickly. “THEY” wanted to do something about as special as a son and a daughter can do for an ailing mother. Take her to a wedding: THEIR’S!
With a small amount of family and friends gathered into The Mediation Room that overlooked an angry Lake Erie on a dishwater gray Winter morning, they wheeled the bed of their mother into that small gathering.
I told them as we began the service, that no matter what Cathedral or highly adorned Sanctuary they’d ever find themselves, it would never be any more sacred than the walls of family and friends that surrounded them right then.