To Bind Up The Brokenhearted
Stories
Object:
Sharing Visions: "To Bind Up the Brokenhearted" by Roy Nelson
Good Stories: "A Voice in the Wilderness" by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
John's Scrap Pile: "A Safe Place to Tell Visions"
Sharing Visions
To Bind Up the Brokenhearted
by Roy Nelson (as told to John Sumwalt)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners... to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion -- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
Isaiah 61:1-3b
Roy Nelson, an attorney who is a member of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church next door to the church I serve in Wauwatosa, told me of the unrelenting grief and depression he experienced after his wife's death from cancer at the age of 33. They had been married 11 years, and she was center of his universe. For months after Gail's death in July of 1993, Roy felt numb and empty. He was seeing a pastoral counselor twice a week, but nothing seemed to help. Following Christmas, Roy said, he sank even lower, and wondered, "What is going to become of me?"
Then, he said, "One night as I knelt beside my bed, thinking that nothing really mattered and believing I could not bear the crushing burden of my grief, the thought came to me, 'If I ask God to carry my burden, God will.' I admitted to God I couldn't do it on my own and called on God to take up my burden of grief and sorrow, and carry it for me so that I could get out from under it. My arms were lifted up to the sides and slightly in front. It wasn't voluntary. I did not do it. It wasn't any effort to hold them there. I felt something like electricity flowing from my heart, out of my chest, up through my arms, out my fingertips, and even out of the top of my head. I thought I must be deceiving myself. I thought, 'This can't really be happening.' Then a voice way in the back of my head said, 'Don't doubt now, because this really is happening.' I caught myself saying out loud, 'God, I do believe. I know it's you doing this. I know you are helping me; you are doing what I asked you to do. I do believe! I don't doubt!' And this process continued, this sensation of electricity coming out of my fingertips and out of the top of my head. I felt the burden being lifted. It didn't take very long, five minutes or so, and then my arms were lowered back down. I knelt there awestruck, absolutely awestruck that God cared so much about me, individually, that he would take my burden from me. The heaviness of the grief and depression was gone. I then felt something I had never felt in my life before: a peace and contentment being poured down through my head and filling my chest, filling my heart. I thought, 'This must be the peace of God. Thank you, God.' "
Roy says he still asks God to lift his burdens from time to time, and God does. Shortly after his healing experience, Roy met a marvelous woman who was singing in their church choir. Roy and MaryJean were married in August of 1994, and have two children. Roy is preparing to enter seminary.
From Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 20-21.
Good Stories
A Voice in the Wilderness
by Jo Perry-Sumwalt
"I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord.' "
John 1:23
Margaret told herself that she should feel very pleased with her Christmas preparations. The fresh, perfectly shaped balsam tree was trimmed, the outdoor lights and garlands had been tastefully strung, the house had been lavishly decked with wreaths, holly, tinsel, and her ever-growing collection of quaint craft decorations. The Christmas cards had gone out early, along with invitations to all of her closest friends to attend a Christmas Eve dinner. The shopping had been completed and gifts lay beautifully wrapped and beribboned beneath the tree, awaiting the modest protestations and delighted squeals of her children and grandchildren. Everything was ready, just as she had planned it. Now she traveled restlessly to the mall, seeking some elusive, last-minute "perfect touches" and the rush that bustling pre-Christmas crowds always gave her.
It didn't seem quite fair, then, that one song from two ragged-looking street kids should ruin her holiday spirit. They stood near the entrance of the mall, looking underdressed for the weather in their denim jackets and jeans. The girl wore earmuffs, a crocheted scarf, and mittens as she played her tambourine, but the boy had merely turned up his collar against the lightly falling snow as he strummed his guitar. Perhaps they expected their enthusiasm to keep them warm.
The song wasn't anything Margaret would have associated with Christmas. Instead of the gentle, quiet strains of "Silent Night," or the old-fashioned beat of "Jingle Bells," it was some rock and roll rhythm. The boy danced about, the bobbing of his head throwing his long, greasy-looking hair into his eyes. He had an earring in his nose. The girl kept time with the jangling beat of the tambourine as they sang together. The guitar case lay open at the players' feet with a sign propped inside that said, "Hoping to go home for the holidays. God bless you for your help." There were a few coins and one or two dollar bills scattered on the tattered red velvet lining, which now sported a dusting of snow. Most passersby ignored them, and the Salvation Army bell-ringer kept throwing them dirty looks, but they sang on, with youthful energy, that disconcerting tune:
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
"Didn't the mall have policies against panhandling?" she wondered as she neared. Where was security? As she passed them, trying not to look them in the eye, and yet looking them over, Margaret noticed how tattered their clothing was. The girl was very obviously pregnant, her denim jacket not nearly coming closed over her large middle. The guitar player was still wearing sandals, and though he had heavy sport socks underneath, one of them had a large hole in the toe.
"Merry Christmas!" the girl said when their eyes accidentally met. Hers had teared from the cold, but she wore a joyful smile. She uttered her greeting at the end of one line in the song, then jumped right back in without missing a beat.
Margaret felt angry as she stepped inside the warm, glass-enclosed entryway. She looked at the lights, tinsel, trees, and beautiful displays in the store windows she passed, but she didn't feel the joy they always brought her. Hadn't she just been counting all of her Christmas blessings? She had come here to feel good, and just the opposite had happened. Christmas seemed ruined, just when everything was prepared....
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
The tune wouldn't leave her head, and when Margaret's eyes finally focused on the display in the window she was staring through, there was a tiny baby in a hay manger in a stable. His very young mother was looking at him in awe, and his father stood guard like a sentinel between him and the world outside the cattle stall.
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!
Margaret turned suddenly and hurried back toward the mall entrance. She was afraid that they had left when she neared the glass-enclosed entry without spotting the couple. But when she reached the door she could see that they had only sat down to rest. The boy had closed the guitar case and seated himself on it, and the girl was perched on his lap, strumming the guitar and singing sweetly:
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed
The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.
The stars in the sky looked down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
Margaret listened until the girl had finished the song and leaned back in the boy's arms, looking cold and dejected. She stepped out into the swirl of large, graceful snowflakes, stopped before the two, and held out her hand.
The young couple's eyes were wide with disbelief. There were two $100 bills in Margaret's hand. "Everyone should get to go home for Christmas," Margaret said. "Merry Christmas."
The girl took the bills. This time the tears in her eyes were not from the cold. "Thank you. And God bless you."
"God has," Margaret replied, with tears in her own eyes. "God has."
John's Scrap Pile
A Safe Place to Tell Visions
The call to collect vision stories came in the fall of 1999 after hearing Todd Chrisler (see last week's edition of Story Share) and Roy Nelson (see above) tell of dramatic experiences of God's presence. I remembered several other people who had told of such experiences over my thirty years of pastoral ministry. It occurred to me that there must be many others with such revelations to share, if only someone would ask. I started to ask everyone I saw. Many people nodded knowingly and told of the presence of God in their lives, of a vision, of a direct audible answer to prayer, of an aroma that could only have been from beyond, of a healing, of an angel visitation, of a dream or an appearance of a deceased loved one that brought comfort, indescribable joy, and peace. And I often heard the words, "I've never told anyone about this before."
We live in a culture that is not vision-friendly. Eddie Ensley, a Roman Catholic writer of Native American descent, writes in his book Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred: "Talk of visions went underground, at least in polite company, with the rise of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." Yet, he says, people have visions all the time. Ensley tells of a survey of 2,000 Christians in mainline churches in St. Cloud, Minnesota, which found that 30 percent had seen dramatic visions, heard heavenly voices, or experienced prophetic dreams. Ensley adds, "Almost everyone reports some partly remembered sacred moment -- once they feel secure enough to talk about it." 1
Many people have had this kind of life-changing experience, but have never felt safe enough to tell anyone. Susan Andrews, pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland, tells of a widowed parishioner whose eyes filled with tears as she spoke to her in the Fellowship Hall one Sunday after worship.
"Bob came back and crawled into bed with me. He didn't say a word. He just appeared -- and then faded away. I felt immediate peace and warmth and hope, and now I don't feel alone." Then glancing up in pink but eager embarrassment, she asked, "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?" 2
A few months after I had shared this story in a sermon, I went to the hospital to visit Mavis Meyer, a member of our church, who had received word the night before about the death of a favorite niece. I listened as she poured out her grief, and then as an afterthought, asked her if she had had any sense of her niece's presence since her passing. She looked at me knowingly and said, "Not yet, but after my husband died six years ago, he was often in my bedroom at night. One night, after I had been in bed for awhile, trying to sleep, I opened my eyes and there were my husband and my late stepson hovering over me. I was so startled that I exclaimed, 'Go away!' " We both laughed, and then she told me that she had never spoken of this to anyone before.
Marjorie Thompson writes about a woman she knows who had a profound encounter with the holy when she was fourteen.
The voice said, "You are my beloved child; walk with me, and you will heal many people." She felt flooded with a sense of well-being and peace and was powerfully moved to serve God. Yet until we met, she had never felt free to share her experience with anyone in her family or church. 3
Who would you tell if this happened to you? Would you feel safe telling your family or your friends at work? Could you confide in your physician, your pastor, or the people you worship with at church? In spite of the many mystical stories we know in scripture, and over two centuries of mystic lore handed down by a multitude of saints and sinners, we moderns do not feel comfortable telling about such visitations in church or anywhere else. We live in an age in which most of us have been schooled to be skeptical of anything that cannot be verified scientifically. This means many of us keep silent about some of the most profound experiences of our lives, lest we be accused of being delusional.
Ross Oestreich, a clergy colleague who was on a board responsible for interviewing seminarians seeking ordination in our denomination, remembers a student who fled the meeting when pressed for more candor about his call to ministry. Ross said, "When I found him later, in the basement of one of the dormitories, he told me he dared not tell of his experience with God, because we would think he was crazy. I invited him to try sharing with me. I did not think he was crazy. I resonated with some of his experiences. He had a masters degree in psychology and had been an instructor in that field in a small college before entering seminary." Ross said, "What I found troubling was his assumption that a group of clergy would think he was crazy for having spiritual experiences. I could understand his fear to tell such experiences in a group of persons in the field of psychology. Why was it not safe to tell clergy? Thirty years later, I am still troubled by his comments."
What if Moses had never told anyone about the burning bush? What if Samuel had not run to someone who understood that it was God who was calling his name? What if Paul had kept quiet about his vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, or if John had never written a word of what he saw during his exile on the island of Patmos? Much of our Christian heritage comes from the told visions of faithful followers of Jesus who were willing to risk ridicule, and in some cases persecution and death, to give witness to the presence of God in their lives. What if, after reading this, you are visited by an angel or a loved one who comes to bring you a blessing from heaven? Who are you going tell?
Renita Weems tells how fortunate she was to have had someone to tell who understood the strange night vision she experienced in her bedroom at the age of seventeen. Two people appeared and sat on the empty bed across the room, whispering to each other and noisily thumbing through the pages of a book. They never looked at her, but communicated with her all the while they were there. Weems ran downstairs and woke her stepmother:
She heard me out... and without appearing the least bit surprised or flabbergasted by the dream, assured me that the people in my dream were probably angels coming to tell me something. 4
In March of 2001, I offered a series of five Lenten classes at our church, entitled "A Safe Place to Tell Visions." Each week, I gave a reading assignment which included vision stories from scripture, selected chapters from Eddie Ensley's book Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred and Jacquelyn Oliveira's book The Case for Life Beyond Death. 5 I also showed very brief excerpts from movies that include visions. Among these were The Messenger (the story of Joan of Arc), The House of Spirits (based on Isabelle Allende's novel of the same title), The Milagro Beanfield Wars, Field of Dreams, What Dreams May Come, and Always.
Near the end of each class, I announced a time for telling visions. Some of the stories that will be featured in StoryShare were revealed during this time. I have discovered over the years that, wherever eight to ten people are gathered and a vision story is told, two or three others in the group will tell a similar story. Almost everyone has a personal vision story to tell, or knows the story of a friend, and will share it if they know that the sacredness of the story will be honored. It is my hope that, as the stories in this newsletter are read and told, many more faithful souls will find a safe place to tell their visions.
Notes
1. Ensley, Eddie. Visions: The Soul's Path to the Sacred (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2000), pp. 12-13.
2. Andrews, Susan R. "Jesus Appears," The Christian Century, March 1999, p. 341.
3. Thompson, Marjorie J. Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 4.
4. Weems, Renita J. Listening for God: A Minister's Journey Through Silence and Doubt (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 99.
5. Jacquelyn Oliveira's book The Case for Life Beyond Death can be ordered from William Laughton Publishers, P.O. Box 588, Elm Grove, WI 53122-0588. Phone 1-800-686-1250.
From Vision Stories: True Accounts Of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles, compiled and edited by John E. Sumwalt (CSS Publishing Company, 2002), pp. 9, 12-17.
