Choose Life
Stories
Object:
Contents
"Choose Life" by C. David McKirachan
"Using the Time Wisely" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * *
Choose Life
C. David McKirachan
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
I was offered crisis intervention and suicide prevention as a course in seminary. It went into a good amount of theory but it was a nuts and bolts course that developed an awareness of the do's and don'ts in dealing with an individual in crisis, how to effectively intervene. We also learned about the dark night of suicide. We also learned how to determine the level of lethality from which the person spoke. This analytical instrument had been developed by studying individuals who had committed suicide and looking at the most common elements in their lives.
During this study it became clear that commonalities were not sophisticated dynamics, but simple lifestyle issues that in combination created a lethal pattern in the individual. Simple things like health, not serious illness, but any kind of sickness including the common cold could make a person more vulnerable. Did the person have access to a friend, a person who they could count on to listen to them, to care about them? Did the person have a stable place to live, or was their environment chaotic?
It occurred to me that an awful lot of the religious rules or laws that we teach and preach about and offer as guides for people were down to earth practical guidelines for living. Just about that time the teacher offered this passage, "See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil." The teacher warned us not to try to use religion in trying to help the tortured souls that were teetering on the knife edge of life and death. Religion may have been part of what had isolated and hurt them. But he went on to say faith that is worth anything, faith that can in any way be called good news, offers empathy rather than judgment and more the possibility for a person to make a choice for a life that can flourish, even in difficult circumstances.
I learned a lot in that course. I ended up on a suicide hotline for two years. The lessons went beyond my participation in that experience. I learned that we tend to get in the way of the rules of life. In our rush to solve people's issues, we forget that life is a gift of God and that the simple capability that rests in each of us can do wonders. Our job as helpers is to allow the person to access their own capability to choose life, and even abundant life.
I also came in contact with people who lost their way, for whom the balance tipped toward darkness. It was sad, frightening, and forced me to deliberately hold on to the rules of life, the good news that I claimed as the core of my life. There, in those moments we were encouraged to stay close to each other, to reach out and touch each other. I discovered the importance of honesty and intimacy in building a healthy life.
Somebody said something about that once, "Love one another as I have loved you." Good rule for life.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Using the Time Wisely
Frank Ramirez
Matthew 5:21-37; Psalm 119:1-8
Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
-- Matthew 5:26
One of the customs brought over from England to the New World was the idea of the debtor's prison. The concept was simple -- but baffling. If you could not satisfy your creditors by paying your debts you were thrown into prison until you discharged them. Except that it was very difficult to make money to pay off those debts if you were in debtor's prison because you couldn't work.
Still, the threat of going to such a place was evidently enough to make people try to pay off their debts. The prisons were full of rats and disease, and while the jailers fed the criminals in the jails, and provided their bedding, the debtors had to rely on family and friends for basic necessities, or else they starved. Debtor's prisons were not abolished in America until the 1830s. In Great Britain the practice continued until 1869.
One person, at least, did his best to use his time in debtor's prison as wisely as possible. According to the article "I.O.U." by Jill Lepore a man named John Pintard read more than a hundred books during the year he spent in debtor's prison in Newark, New Jersey, beginning in 1797. That included Samuel Johnson's dictionary from A to Z. He also walked up and down the halls of the prison 113,984 times, the equivalent of more than a thousand miles.
Pintard, like many of those thrown into prison, was a respectable businessman. He had been elected to the New York state legislature in 1790, and founded an investment firm with a partner. When the investments failed, he fell deeply into debt. He was released only on a technicality. In 1798 the New Jersey legislature passed a law requiring creditors to pay four shillings a week upkeep to prevent debtors from starving, and when the creditors missed a payment, Pintard was released.
Upon his release Pintard did his best to help improve society and the lot of others. He tirelessly worked for many charitable organizations. He said, "We all owe a debt to Society as well as to God, and I mean to discharge my share." One of the organizations he worked for provided food for those incarcerated. He was never a rich man, but he worked diligently for the poor. He set up an almshouse for the poor next to the debtor's prison. And to help keep people out of debt he established a savings bank. In order to create more commerce and therefore more jobs he encouraged investment toward and the building of the Erie Canal, and was honored at its opening by being allowed to carry a bottle of water from Lake Erie to pour into the Atlantic.
Pintard died at the age of 85 in 1844. The motto he created for his family crest was Never Despair.
Debtor's prisons were known in Jesus' day. Today's scripture talks about a different kind of debt -- the debt we owe each other to forgive and be reconciled. Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny" (Matthew 5:26). He uses the harsh language of the debtor's prison to express the urgency we need to go about the business of living the kingdom. Sometimes we're tempted to ignore the clause from the Lord's Prayer, where we ask God to forgive our debts "as we have also forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12 NRSV). But certainly, like Pintard, if we have escaped our debts with God, we should be quick to release others from what they owe us as sinners, and seek to make good the debts we owe as sinners to others.
(Source: The New Yorker, April 13, 2009)
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 13, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Choose Life" by C. David McKirachan
"Using the Time Wisely" by Frank Ramirez
* * * * * * * *
Choose Life
C. David McKirachan
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
I was offered crisis intervention and suicide prevention as a course in seminary. It went into a good amount of theory but it was a nuts and bolts course that developed an awareness of the do's and don'ts in dealing with an individual in crisis, how to effectively intervene. We also learned about the dark night of suicide. We also learned how to determine the level of lethality from which the person spoke. This analytical instrument had been developed by studying individuals who had committed suicide and looking at the most common elements in their lives.
During this study it became clear that commonalities were not sophisticated dynamics, but simple lifestyle issues that in combination created a lethal pattern in the individual. Simple things like health, not serious illness, but any kind of sickness including the common cold could make a person more vulnerable. Did the person have access to a friend, a person who they could count on to listen to them, to care about them? Did the person have a stable place to live, or was their environment chaotic?
It occurred to me that an awful lot of the religious rules or laws that we teach and preach about and offer as guides for people were down to earth practical guidelines for living. Just about that time the teacher offered this passage, "See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil." The teacher warned us not to try to use religion in trying to help the tortured souls that were teetering on the knife edge of life and death. Religion may have been part of what had isolated and hurt them. But he went on to say faith that is worth anything, faith that can in any way be called good news, offers empathy rather than judgment and more the possibility for a person to make a choice for a life that can flourish, even in difficult circumstances.
I learned a lot in that course. I ended up on a suicide hotline for two years. The lessons went beyond my participation in that experience. I learned that we tend to get in the way of the rules of life. In our rush to solve people's issues, we forget that life is a gift of God and that the simple capability that rests in each of us can do wonders. Our job as helpers is to allow the person to access their own capability to choose life, and even abundant life.
I also came in contact with people who lost their way, for whom the balance tipped toward darkness. It was sad, frightening, and forced me to deliberately hold on to the rules of life, the good news that I claimed as the core of my life. There, in those moments we were encouraged to stay close to each other, to reach out and touch each other. I discovered the importance of honesty and intimacy in building a healthy life.
Somebody said something about that once, "Love one another as I have loved you." Good rule for life.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
Using the Time Wisely
Frank Ramirez
Matthew 5:21-37; Psalm 119:1-8
Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
-- Matthew 5:26
One of the customs brought over from England to the New World was the idea of the debtor's prison. The concept was simple -- but baffling. If you could not satisfy your creditors by paying your debts you were thrown into prison until you discharged them. Except that it was very difficult to make money to pay off those debts if you were in debtor's prison because you couldn't work.
Still, the threat of going to such a place was evidently enough to make people try to pay off their debts. The prisons were full of rats and disease, and while the jailers fed the criminals in the jails, and provided their bedding, the debtors had to rely on family and friends for basic necessities, or else they starved. Debtor's prisons were not abolished in America until the 1830s. In Great Britain the practice continued until 1869.
One person, at least, did his best to use his time in debtor's prison as wisely as possible. According to the article "I.O.U." by Jill Lepore a man named John Pintard read more than a hundred books during the year he spent in debtor's prison in Newark, New Jersey, beginning in 1797. That included Samuel Johnson's dictionary from A to Z. He also walked up and down the halls of the prison 113,984 times, the equivalent of more than a thousand miles.
Pintard, like many of those thrown into prison, was a respectable businessman. He had been elected to the New York state legislature in 1790, and founded an investment firm with a partner. When the investments failed, he fell deeply into debt. He was released only on a technicality. In 1798 the New Jersey legislature passed a law requiring creditors to pay four shillings a week upkeep to prevent debtors from starving, and when the creditors missed a payment, Pintard was released.
Upon his release Pintard did his best to help improve society and the lot of others. He tirelessly worked for many charitable organizations. He said, "We all owe a debt to Society as well as to God, and I mean to discharge my share." One of the organizations he worked for provided food for those incarcerated. He was never a rich man, but he worked diligently for the poor. He set up an almshouse for the poor next to the debtor's prison. And to help keep people out of debt he established a savings bank. In order to create more commerce and therefore more jobs he encouraged investment toward and the building of the Erie Canal, and was honored at its opening by being allowed to carry a bottle of water from Lake Erie to pour into the Atlantic.
Pintard died at the age of 85 in 1844. The motto he created for his family crest was Never Despair.
Debtor's prisons were known in Jesus' day. Today's scripture talks about a different kind of debt -- the debt we owe each other to forgive and be reconciled. Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny" (Matthew 5:26). He uses the harsh language of the debtor's prison to express the urgency we need to go about the business of living the kingdom. Sometimes we're tempted to ignore the clause from the Lord's Prayer, where we ask God to forgive our debts "as we have also forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12 NRSV). But certainly, like Pintard, if we have escaped our debts with God, we should be quick to release others from what they owe us as sinners, and seek to make good the debts we owe as sinners to others.
(Source: The New Yorker, April 13, 2009)
Frank Ramirez has served as a pastor for nearly 30 years in Church of the Brethren congregations in Los Angeles, California; Elkhart, Indiana; and Everett, Pennsylvania. A graduate of LaVerne College and Bethany Theological Seminary, Ramirez is the author of numerous books, articles, and short stories. His CSS titles include Partners in Healing, He Took a Towel, The Bee Attitudes, and three volumes of Lectionary Worship Aids.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 13, 2011, issue.
Copyright 2011 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
