Mar
23
An Appropriate Story for Easter
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Normally I don’t do stuff like this. But…
It’s Easter, Russell Shaw’s post on confronting death got me thinking and the Randy Pausch Last Lecture video that Russel Shaw shared really messed me up. So it’s kind of inevitable that I’m feeling this way. And wanting to share a little good cheer. And hope.
You might have heard the following story. I believe it’s been circulating the Internet. Somebody sent it to me and I found it a staggeringly good story. Let me know what you think. Hold conclusions until you are finished.
An Appropriate Story for Easter
She jumped up as soon as she saw the surgeon come out of the operating room. She said: ‘How is my little boy? Is he going to be all right? When can I see him?’
The surgeon said, “I’m sorry. We did all we could, but your boy didn’t make it.”
Sally said, “Why do little children get cancer? Doesn’t God care any more? Where were you, God, when my son needed you?”
he surgeon asked, “Would you like some time alone with your son? One of the nurses will be out in a few minutes, before he’s transported to the university.”
Sally asked the nurse to stay with her while she said good bye to son. Sally ran her fingers lovingly through his thick red curly hair.
“Would you like a lock of his hair?” the nurse asked. Sally nodded yes. The nurse cut a lock of the boy’s hair, put it in a plastic bag and handed it to Sally.
Sally said, “It was Jimmy’s idea to donate his body to the University for study. He said it might help somebody else. I said no at first, but Jimmy said, ‘Mom, I won’t be using it after I die. Maybe it will help some other little boy spend one more day with his Mom.’”
Sally went on, ‘My Jimmy had a heart of gold. Always thinking of someone else. Always wanting to help others if he could.”
Sally walked out of Children’s Mercy Hospital for the last time, after spending most of the last six months there. She put the bag with Jimmy’s belongings on the seat beside her in the car.
The drive home was difficult. It was even harder to enter the empty house. She carried Jimmy’s belongings, and the plastic bag with the lock of his hair to her son’s room.
She started placing the model cars and other personal things back in his room exactly where he had always kept them. She lay down across his bed and, hugging his pillow, cried herself to sleep.
It was around midnight when Sally awoke. Lying beside her on the bed was a folded letter. The letter said :
Dear Mom, I know you’re going to miss me; but don’t think that I will ever forget you, or stop loving you, just ’cause I’m not around to say ‘I Love You’.
I will always love you, Mom, even more with each day. Someday we will see each other again.
Until then, if you want to adopt a little boy so you won’t be so lonely, that’s okay with me. He can have my room and old stuff to play with. But, if you decide to get a girl instead, she probably wouldn’t like the same things us boys do. You’ll have to buy her dolls and stuff girls like, you know.Don’t be sad thinking about me.
This really is a neat place. Grandma and Grandpa met me as soon as I got here and showed me around some, but it will take a long time to see everything.
The angels are so cool. I love to watch them fly. And, you know what? Jesus doesn’t look like any of his pictures. Yet, when I saw Him, I knew it was Him.
Jesus himself took me to see GOD! And guess what, Mom? I got to sit on God’s knee and talk to Him, like I was somebody important. That’s when I told Him that I wanted to write you a letter, to tell you good bye and everything. But I already knew that wasn’t allowed.
Well, you know what Mom? God handed me some paper and His own personal pen to write you this letter. I think Gabriel is the name of the angel who is going to drop this letter off to you.
God said for me to give you the answer to one of the questions you asked Him ‘Where was He when I needed him?’
‘God said He was in the same place with me, as when His son Jesus was on the cross. He was right there, as He always is with all His children.’
Oh, by the way, Mom, no one else can see what I’ve written except you. To everyone else this is just a blank piece of paper. Isn’t that cool? I have to give God His pen back now He needs it to write some more names in the Book of Life.
Tonight I get to sit at the table with Jesus for supper. I’m sure the food will be great.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I don’t hurt anymore the cancer is all gone. I’m glad because I couldn’t stand that pain anymore and God couldn’t stand to see me hurt so much, either. That’s when He sent The Angel of Mercy to come get me.
The Angel said I was a Special Delivery! How about that?
Signed with Love from God, Jesus & Me.
Conclusion
Fundamentally the story males some leaps–like God having a knee–but the core of the story remains: death is not the end of the world as we know it. Resurrection. Life after death. This is the Easter Story as we know it.
I’d also like to share some videos of Easter messages from some of my favorite pastors.
I hope you enjoy. And feel free to share your thoughts with me. I’m open to any comments. Honestly.
Jan
11
A little girl strays from a party of sight-seers and becomes lost on a mountain, and immediately the whole mental perspective of the members of the party is changed.
Rapt admiration for the grandeur of nature gives way to acute distress for the lost child.
The group spreads out over the mountainside anxiously calling the child’s name and searching eagerly every secluded spot where the little one might chance to be hidden.
What brought about this sudden change?
The tree-clad mountain is still there towering into the clouds in breath-taking beauty…but no one notices it now.
All attention is focused upon the search for a curly-haired little girl not yet three years old and weighing less than thirty pounds.
Though so new and so small, she is precious to parents and friends than all the huge bulk of the vast and ancient mountain they had been admiring a few minutes before.
And in their judgement the whole civilized world concurs, for the little girl can love and laugh and speak and pray, and the mountain cannot.
It is the child’s quality of being that gives her worth. And it’s your client’s quality of being that give her worth.
It gives her worth over a Mercedes Benz, 35-foot yacht, snorkeling in Belize. It gives her worth even over a mortgage payment, a retirement fund or college savings.
Because she has her own mortgage to pay, her own savings to worry about. But it’s more than that. Deeper.
She’s got her host of fears, worries, anxieties. Personal failures to overcome, day-to-day battles to combat and a host of dreams she nurtures.
Just like a three year old girl. Which in some ways she still is. She just doesn’t trust nearly as many people she did before.
But there’s something more.
Hugh McLeod, in his Hughtrain Manifesto, said this:
We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary.
Last Sunday he went on to say this:
We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature. Some people find the whole “Marketing as Religion” angle a bit squeamish. Some people much prefer the straight-talking “This is what you get, this is how much it costs” way of doing business. I don’t see anything wrong with that, if it’s working for them.
But one thing I’ve noticed over time is, the search for personal meaning is a never-ending journey. It’s something that all normal, healthy people share. And the way said meaning is found is mostly through Love. And Love is found not just in the intoxicating blur of romantic, sexual love, but in an endless myriad of ways. Most of them pretty ordinary and everyday.
That search for meaning I call the “human condition.”
Religion and philosophy have been its main sources for an answer for thousands of years. 300 years ago philosophy dominated. Mid 18th Century, psychology emerged and peaked and now advertising reigns supreme at the 21st Century.
Advertising is the “new humanism”: The discipline to quiet that inner groaning.
We don’t turn out theologians or philosophers any more. Even psychologists are having a hard time. In fact psychologists are turning into advertisers.
We say “It’s all about you. How can we crack your code?”
Because it wants to be cracked, coddled and acknowledged.
We are here to find meaning. To help other people to do the same.
Can you change your vision so you no longer see the mountain but the little girl? No longer see wealth and power, but the customer?
Recognize the deeper need you can satisfy for someone–like trust or companionship or meaning–and you will become a well liked person. And business will be easy for you.
You have potential. I believe in you.
Aug
14
Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with real estate…but it does have to do with helping another person. So bear with me.
Recently I’ve been following the Grameen Foundation, and have had a profound interest in the organization and what they are doing to help the poor–especially woman: providing microloans to help these people defeat poverty and make better lives for their families.
Are you familiar with microloans or microfinance?
Muhammed Yunnus, the man behind Grameen, is called “the banker of the poor” and a “micro lending pioneer,” which earned him a Nobel Peace Prizelast year. He basically came up with the concept of microloans.
And he has a goal to reach 5 million new clients in 5 years.
The way I see it, that’s literally 5 million men or women who could provide appropriate food, shelter and clothing for their children.
And to me that is very exciting. And immensely rewarding to stay informed, spread the word and donate.
If you are interested in learning more about this effective poverty reduction strategy, visit the Grameen site.
And let me know what you think. I really am excited about this and would like to hear from you.