A Crafty Dad
Stories
Object:
Contents
A Story to Live By: "A Crafty Dad"
Shining Moments: "A New Creation" by Debi Lyerly Lawson
Good Stories: "The White Buffalo People" (Part 3) by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "A Little Piece of Imago Dei" by Jim West
A Story to Live By
A Crafty Dad
So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.... [H]is father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
Luke 15:15-16, 20b
Actor Charlie Sheen, the star of Two and a Half Men, nearly died of a cocaine overdose in 1998. Sheen said, "I was no longer in control. I was abusing myself with no end in sight. My body was shutting down. My brain was addled. I felt such despair, such absolute hopelessness. I couldn't get high, and I couldn't get sober. I had hit bottom, and I was stuck. I was alone one night. I wanted to get really high, and I needed more and more cocaine to do it.... The first dose didn't work. I shot a second one. That was too much. My legs started to give way. Everything felt wrong. I was scared. A cocaine death is a very panicked one -- clutching your chest, fighting for breath. I knew I was dying."
Sheen's bodyguard got him to a hospital in time to save his life. He was then sent to a rehab facility, but promptly checked himself out. Charlie's father, Martin Sheen, who plays the President on The West Wing, "...went straight to the district attorney. He said, 'Here's where my son is at. Let's go get him.' " Charlie was arrested for a parole violation and given the choice of going to jail or returning to the rehab facility. He chose treatment.
Charlie said later, "I was really angry at my dad at first. That's how defiant I was, how strong addiction is. After awhile I realized how crafty Dad had been. He had used the law, the one thing I could not escape. He'd risked a lot because he loved me."
(Dotson Rader, Parade Magazine, October 5, 2003)
Shining Moments
A New Creation
by Debi Lyerly Lawson
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
2 Corinthians 5:17
I cannot remember a time when God wasn't the source of all that I am. I can recall the day I made my "official" commitment to the relationship my soul craved to have with the Almighty. It was an awesome April evening in 1983, in Orlando, Florida, at a Billy Graham crusade. I remember leaving my seat to go up to the giant stage with hundreds of others, all of us with one collective thought: to give our lives over to Christ. I also remember feeling God in everyone and everything in that stadium. When we have such wonderful spiritual epiphanies, we don't ever want to lose those moments.
Well, as I grew older, my relationship with the Father was a contented one. I had successes and failures like every other Christian. That was where my problem was. I felt like "every other Christian." The proverbial Fourth of July fireworks were not going off in my Godly world. Where were my miracles? Where was that sense of being able to conquer the whole universe just because I was a child of God? I truly felt like God was too busy to hear my prayers, let alone feel my need for some spectacular event to bring me closer to Him.
I sat on my bed one evening, feeling somewhat despondent and even a little abandoned, while flipping through television channels. Nothing was ever going to pull me out of this blue funk I was in. "God, where are You?" I thought. As I jumped from one channel to the next, I got my answer: there, on one of the Christian channels, was a Billy Graham crusade. But not just any Billy Graham crusade -- it was the one being held at the Tangerine Bowl in 1983 in Orlando, Florida. And there, among all of the hundreds of people going to the stage to give up their earthly lives for more promising, fulfilling spiritual ones, was a brown-haired girl named Debi Lyerly.
God did hear my prayers and He felt my needs deeper than I ever could have. He had brought me back to the place I had forgotten years ago. And at that moment, I could feel God in everything. As I watched myself being saved some twenty years ago, I realized that our most important accomplishments and greatest joys are also God's most important accomplishments and greatest joys. He too feels our happiness. And just as we struggle through our doubts and heartaches, our Heavenly Father suffers as well. I know now, as I have always truly known, that God never leaves us. He would never desert us. But mostly, He never ever stops listening to us or loving us.
Debi Lyerly Lawsonis the proud mother of two grown sons, Bill and B.J. She writes poetry and is a customer service associate for BellSouth Telecommunications. Debbie lives in Alabama with her husband Tom, two dogs, and a bunch of cats.
Good Stories
The White Buffalo People: A Covenant Trilogy (Part 3)
by John Sumwalt
The New Covenant
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
2 Corinthians 5:19
Joshua took a stick and dug a fire pit. When he was finished, he stood at the edge of the pit and spoke to the people in a solemn voice.
"Go with your tribes into the forest and find caves to live in and food to eat. In seven years we will return to this place and renew the covenant with Yah. Each tribe will bring a sacred log for the fire. The tribe of Bullah will have the special responsibility of finding a white buffalo for the covenant ceremony."
So the tribes went out into the forest, found caves, food, water, and game like they had never had before, but there were no buffalo. The tribes of Bullah looked far and wide, but there were none to be found. No one heard so much as the gentle lowing of a buffalo calf in the entire land.
Seven years passed, and Joshua waited by the sacred fire pit for the Nation to gather. No one came. Not one person came to renew the covenant.
And so Joshua went out into the forest to speak to the people. He found that they had returned to their old ways. They were burning more timber than they needed and they were dancing and drinking around their fires with no thought for the morrow.
When Joshua asked them why they had not come to renew the covenant, they replied, "There are no buffalo. How can we renew the covenant without a white buffalo? The tribe of Bullah looked everywhere and could not find even a brown one. Surely Yah has deserted us."
Joshua was greatly troubled by what the people said. So he picked twelve faithful people, one from each tribe, and went into the desert to pray. They lived in the desert at the edge of the prairie for three years. While they were there Joshua taught them the ways of Yah.
On the last night of the third year, just before they were to return to the forest, Joshua called them all together around the sacred fire. He asked them all to raise their arms to the sky. Then he marched around the fire chanting:
Fire, fire, breath of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
The grass is green, the sky is blue,
The Buffalo people depend on you.
Then Joshua took a knife and cut crossing lines on his wrist, and as the blood trickled down his arm he said, "I am the White Buffalo. Through my blood Yah will give you a new covenant." Then he dipped his fingers into the blood and he touched each faithful follower on the forehead, saying, "Blood brother, remember the covenant. Blood sister, remember the covenant."
When the fire burned down, Joshua turned and began walking toward the forest. One by one the faithful followers turned and walked with him. As they were walking Marlah began to sing the sacred fire song:
Buffalo, Come and sing your song.
We are here to greet you son of Yah.
Consecrate the covenant,
Green grass, blue skies ever.
Praise to Yah, Praise to Yah,
Our almighty protector, Yah.
While Joshua was away in the wilderness, things had begun to change in the forest. The grass turned brown and the sky became overcast and gray. No rain fell, and the people became thirsty and hungry. No one knew what to do. At last an old priest named Eliah came forward to lead. He gathered all of the people together at the sacred fire pit. He built a roaring fire and then he marched around it, chanting:
Fire, fire, spirit of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
Then he turned and addressed the people in a gruff voice, saying, "I have heard that the one called Joshua, who lives in the wilderness with a ragged band of followers, claims that a new covenant will come through him. He says that he is the White Buffalo."
"No! No!" the people cried. "There are no White Buffalo."
"Joshua," Eliah said, "is the cause of all of our problems. His blasphemy has turned the grass brown and the sky gray."
Just then the voices of Joshua and the faithful followers were heard above the din of the gathering. They were still singing the sacred fire song as they marched toward the people.
When the people saw Joshua, they grabbed him and dragged him to the center of the gathering in front of the sacred fire. He stood there silently while they cursed him and shouted insults.
Then Eliah raised his arms and silenced the people. He turned to Joshua and said, "It has been heard in the land that you claim to be the White Buffalo. Are you the White Buffalo?" At first Joshua didn't say anything, and then, slowly, he began to march around the fire chanting:
Fire, fire, breath of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
The grass is green, the sky is blue,
The Buffalo people depend on you.
Then he raised his arms and bellowed into the night. His voice was so loud that the earth trembled beneath their feet. It echoed through the forest and over the plain, and reverberated to the farthest room in the back of the cave. Boulders rolled in an avalanche from the top of the cliff over the cave, and rubble filled its mouth.
Just as the sound trailed away, Eliah raised his spear and thrust it deep into Joshua's heart, and he fell down dead. The people picked up his body and tossed it into the fire.
The faithful followers were so frightened that they ran in every direction. Joshua was dead, and they didn't know what to do.
Three days passed and Marlah gathered them together in an abandoned cave on the edge of the forest. While they were eating supper, a huge white buffalo appeared at the mouth of the cave. They were about to run for their lives when the buffalo spoke, saying, "Don't be afraid. I am your friend." It was the voice of Joshua. Marlah ran and embraced him. They all hugged Joshua and rejoiced because he was alive.
Joshua said, "I cannot stay with you. I must go to be with Yah. But I will send someone to guide you. Go now, into all the forest and prairie, and tell my people of the new covenant in my blood. Mark them with my blood and bid them to remember the covenant."
With these words, Joshua turned and disappeared into the prairie at the edge of the forest. Marlah led the faithful followers out of the cave. They went into all the forest and prairie and told people about the new covenant. Wherever they went people listened and were marked by the sign of the new covenant. The sun came out, the skies turned blue, and green shoots sprang up everywhere among the old brown grasses.
One day, while Marlah was speaking to a large group of people in front of the cave where Joshua had bid them farewell, a sound came from the sky like the rush of a mighty wind, fire appeared and hovered over the heads of each one, and they were filled with the breath of Yah. Marlah said it was a sacred spirit, the one Joshua had promised would come to guide them.
Filled with the spirit, Marlah raised her arms and, looking out over all the people, bid them to join her in singing the words of the sacred fire song:
Buffalo, Come and sing your song.
We are here to greet you son of Yah.
Consecrate the covenant
Green grass, blue skies ever
Praise to Yah, Praise to Yah,
Our almighty protector, Yah.
(Write to us at jsumwalt@naspa.net if you would like us to fax the music to "The Sacred Fire Song.")
Scrap Pile
A Little Piece of Imago Dei
by Jim West
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
"The only thing we can offer to God of value is to give our love to people as unworthy of it as we are of God's love."
Catherine of Siena
I share my life with a cat I don't like, and the feeling is mutual. He came into our lives to replace a beloved pet whose death left a huge void in our hearts. He has filled that void to a certain extent, but he is certainly not the precious pet to me that his predecessor was. Nothing with this cat is ever easy, and he makes me work for everything that I get from him.
For one thing, he can't stand the sight of me. When I wake up in the morning and get out of bed, I always seem to terrify this cat beyond all reason. Now, I know that I am not at my best the first thing in the morning as I stumble to the kitchen in search of coffee, but I have never attempted to kill the miserable creature in gruesome and painful ways. That is what he appears to see as my main goal when he bolts away from me in abject terror morning after morning.
He does decide, on rare occasions, to grace my wife's lap with his presence, but unless I wear a pork chop tied around my neck, he doesn't have anything to do with me. Speaking of pork chops, this cat may not be a cat at all. I think he might be a genetically altered pot-bellied pig. The only time he shows any interest in me is when I am cooking or trying to eat. Even though he has plenty of food and water waiting for him in the kitchen, he acts as though we have not fed him in days. His main accomplishment in the last four months is to eat about half of what I thought I had prepared for myself and my family and then double his body weight. My wife sometimes calls him the "fur pig." What I sometimes call him is unprintable.
He does not like to be stroked, picked up, held, patted, scratched, or subjected to any of the other minor annoyances that the previous cat suffered in comparatively gentle silence. We just don't like one another, he and I. My wife says it is because he had a really hard start in life, being a rescued cat and all, and I should just give him a break and cut him some slack. That's easy for HER to say. He doesn't use her hand as a chew toy.
And then, today, he ran away. I didn't worry too much when my wife said she was afraid he had slipped out of the garage door when she was going to the doctor's office early in the morning. He doesn't appear to know his name, or if he does he is certainly not interested in coming when called, and I figured he was just curled up asleep or perhaps giggling little kitty giggles to himself while I went through the house looking in closets and under beds and behind furniture. But as the day wore on, and it became obvious he was not in the house, I began to worry about the poor, fat, unpleasant thing, so unprepared to be on his own in the cold, wet rain. He doesn't go outside, so everything out there would be unfamiliar, and he hasn't had to hunt for food other than stealing it off my plate when my back is turned. And since he is declawed, he couldn't even get up in a tree if a dog were chasing him.
I walked all over the neighborhood in the rain looking for him. I went to the animal shelter to see if he had been found and brought there. I even retraced my wife's drive to the doctor that morning, on the faint hope that he might have crawled up inside the motor of her car and then hopped out when the car stopped. I had visions that he might be found sitting, scowling, on the doctor's steps waiting for us to bring a nice hot catered meal. I checked the front, back, and garage doors a dozen times during the day, and worried and prayed and shed some tears for his safe return.
And then, just like that, he was home again. He sauntered in through the door, late in the afternoon, ate every scrap of food that was placed in front of him, had a nice long civilized "rest" in his litter box, and bit me when I tried to pick him up and love on him.
So much for the feline heart growing fonder in his absence.
But you know what? I discovered something. Somehow, in spite of all the difficulties, he has managed to slip into my heart. I am truly thankful for prayers that were answered, and I am glad to find a little piece of the Imago Dei, the image of God, in which we were created, within my heart that allows me to love an imperfect and often times unlovely creature. It must be like the way that God is able to love me with all my unlovely actions, annoying habits, and bad behavior.
I am happy he is at home, but I still need a bandage for my badly bitten finger.
Jim West has been the pastor of the Marvin Park United Methodist Church in Saint Louis, Missouri, for the past four years. He has pastored in Missouri for the last 31 years. He is married to the Rev. Brenda West, also a United Methodist pastor, and they are the parents of a son, Jay, and a daughter-in-law, Meg, and have a six-year-old grandson, Joel. They also have two cats, the above mentioned, still rotund BJ, and the infinitely more civilized Cleo.
**********************************************
New Book
The second volume in the vision series, Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences, is available from CSS Publishing Company. For more information about the book visit the CSS website at http://www.csspub.com. You can order any of our books on the CSS website (see the complete list below); they are also available from www.amazon.com and at many Christian bookstores. Or simply e-mail your order to orders@csspub.com or phone 1-800-241-4056. (If you live outside the U.S., phone 419-227-1818.)
Books by John & Jo Sumwalt
Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels, and Holy Coincidences
Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, and Healing Miracles
Life Stories: A Study in Christian Decision Making
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
**************
StoryShare, March 21, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
A Story to Live By: "A Crafty Dad"
Shining Moments: "A New Creation" by Debi Lyerly Lawson
Good Stories: "The White Buffalo People" (Part 3) by John Sumwalt
Scrap Pile: "A Little Piece of Imago Dei" by Jim West
A Story to Live By
A Crafty Dad
So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.... [H]is father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
Luke 15:15-16, 20b
Actor Charlie Sheen, the star of Two and a Half Men, nearly died of a cocaine overdose in 1998. Sheen said, "I was no longer in control. I was abusing myself with no end in sight. My body was shutting down. My brain was addled. I felt such despair, such absolute hopelessness. I couldn't get high, and I couldn't get sober. I had hit bottom, and I was stuck. I was alone one night. I wanted to get really high, and I needed more and more cocaine to do it.... The first dose didn't work. I shot a second one. That was too much. My legs started to give way. Everything felt wrong. I was scared. A cocaine death is a very panicked one -- clutching your chest, fighting for breath. I knew I was dying."
Sheen's bodyguard got him to a hospital in time to save his life. He was then sent to a rehab facility, but promptly checked himself out. Charlie's father, Martin Sheen, who plays the President on The West Wing, "...went straight to the district attorney. He said, 'Here's where my son is at. Let's go get him.' " Charlie was arrested for a parole violation and given the choice of going to jail or returning to the rehab facility. He chose treatment.
Charlie said later, "I was really angry at my dad at first. That's how defiant I was, how strong addiction is. After awhile I realized how crafty Dad had been. He had used the law, the one thing I could not escape. He'd risked a lot because he loved me."
(Dotson Rader, Parade Magazine, October 5, 2003)
Shining Moments
A New Creation
by Debi Lyerly Lawson
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
2 Corinthians 5:17
I cannot remember a time when God wasn't the source of all that I am. I can recall the day I made my "official" commitment to the relationship my soul craved to have with the Almighty. It was an awesome April evening in 1983, in Orlando, Florida, at a Billy Graham crusade. I remember leaving my seat to go up to the giant stage with hundreds of others, all of us with one collective thought: to give our lives over to Christ. I also remember feeling God in everyone and everything in that stadium. When we have such wonderful spiritual epiphanies, we don't ever want to lose those moments.
Well, as I grew older, my relationship with the Father was a contented one. I had successes and failures like every other Christian. That was where my problem was. I felt like "every other Christian." The proverbial Fourth of July fireworks were not going off in my Godly world. Where were my miracles? Where was that sense of being able to conquer the whole universe just because I was a child of God? I truly felt like God was too busy to hear my prayers, let alone feel my need for some spectacular event to bring me closer to Him.
I sat on my bed one evening, feeling somewhat despondent and even a little abandoned, while flipping through television channels. Nothing was ever going to pull me out of this blue funk I was in. "God, where are You?" I thought. As I jumped from one channel to the next, I got my answer: there, on one of the Christian channels, was a Billy Graham crusade. But not just any Billy Graham crusade -- it was the one being held at the Tangerine Bowl in 1983 in Orlando, Florida. And there, among all of the hundreds of people going to the stage to give up their earthly lives for more promising, fulfilling spiritual ones, was a brown-haired girl named Debi Lyerly.
God did hear my prayers and He felt my needs deeper than I ever could have. He had brought me back to the place I had forgotten years ago. And at that moment, I could feel God in everything. As I watched myself being saved some twenty years ago, I realized that our most important accomplishments and greatest joys are also God's most important accomplishments and greatest joys. He too feels our happiness. And just as we struggle through our doubts and heartaches, our Heavenly Father suffers as well. I know now, as I have always truly known, that God never leaves us. He would never desert us. But mostly, He never ever stops listening to us or loving us.
Debi Lyerly Lawsonis the proud mother of two grown sons, Bill and B.J. She writes poetry and is a customer service associate for BellSouth Telecommunications. Debbie lives in Alabama with her husband Tom, two dogs, and a bunch of cats.
Good Stories
The White Buffalo People: A Covenant Trilogy (Part 3)
by John Sumwalt
The New Covenant
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
2 Corinthians 5:19
Joshua took a stick and dug a fire pit. When he was finished, he stood at the edge of the pit and spoke to the people in a solemn voice.
"Go with your tribes into the forest and find caves to live in and food to eat. In seven years we will return to this place and renew the covenant with Yah. Each tribe will bring a sacred log for the fire. The tribe of Bullah will have the special responsibility of finding a white buffalo for the covenant ceremony."
So the tribes went out into the forest, found caves, food, water, and game like they had never had before, but there were no buffalo. The tribes of Bullah looked far and wide, but there were none to be found. No one heard so much as the gentle lowing of a buffalo calf in the entire land.
Seven years passed, and Joshua waited by the sacred fire pit for the Nation to gather. No one came. Not one person came to renew the covenant.
And so Joshua went out into the forest to speak to the people. He found that they had returned to their old ways. They were burning more timber than they needed and they were dancing and drinking around their fires with no thought for the morrow.
When Joshua asked them why they had not come to renew the covenant, they replied, "There are no buffalo. How can we renew the covenant without a white buffalo? The tribe of Bullah looked everywhere and could not find even a brown one. Surely Yah has deserted us."
Joshua was greatly troubled by what the people said. So he picked twelve faithful people, one from each tribe, and went into the desert to pray. They lived in the desert at the edge of the prairie for three years. While they were there Joshua taught them the ways of Yah.
On the last night of the third year, just before they were to return to the forest, Joshua called them all together around the sacred fire. He asked them all to raise their arms to the sky. Then he marched around the fire chanting:
Fire, fire, breath of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
The grass is green, the sky is blue,
The Buffalo people depend on you.
Then Joshua took a knife and cut crossing lines on his wrist, and as the blood trickled down his arm he said, "I am the White Buffalo. Through my blood Yah will give you a new covenant." Then he dipped his fingers into the blood and he touched each faithful follower on the forehead, saying, "Blood brother, remember the covenant. Blood sister, remember the covenant."
When the fire burned down, Joshua turned and began walking toward the forest. One by one the faithful followers turned and walked with him. As they were walking Marlah began to sing the sacred fire song:
Buffalo, Come and sing your song.
We are here to greet you son of Yah.
Consecrate the covenant,
Green grass, blue skies ever.
Praise to Yah, Praise to Yah,
Our almighty protector, Yah.
While Joshua was away in the wilderness, things had begun to change in the forest. The grass turned brown and the sky became overcast and gray. No rain fell, and the people became thirsty and hungry. No one knew what to do. At last an old priest named Eliah came forward to lead. He gathered all of the people together at the sacred fire pit. He built a roaring fire and then he marched around it, chanting:
Fire, fire, spirit of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
Then he turned and addressed the people in a gruff voice, saying, "I have heard that the one called Joshua, who lives in the wilderness with a ragged band of followers, claims that a new covenant will come through him. He says that he is the White Buffalo."
"No! No!" the people cried. "There are no White Buffalo."
"Joshua," Eliah said, "is the cause of all of our problems. His blasphemy has turned the grass brown and the sky gray."
Just then the voices of Joshua and the faithful followers were heard above the din of the gathering. They were still singing the sacred fire song as they marched toward the people.
When the people saw Joshua, they grabbed him and dragged him to the center of the gathering in front of the sacred fire. He stood there silently while they cursed him and shouted insults.
Then Eliah raised his arms and silenced the people. He turned to Joshua and said, "It has been heard in the land that you claim to be the White Buffalo. Are you the White Buffalo?" At first Joshua didn't say anything, and then, slowly, he began to march around the fire chanting:
Fire, fire, breath of Yah,
Burn, burn, reveal your power.
The grass is green, the sky is blue,
The Buffalo people depend on you.
Then he raised his arms and bellowed into the night. His voice was so loud that the earth trembled beneath their feet. It echoed through the forest and over the plain, and reverberated to the farthest room in the back of the cave. Boulders rolled in an avalanche from the top of the cliff over the cave, and rubble filled its mouth.
Just as the sound trailed away, Eliah raised his spear and thrust it deep into Joshua's heart, and he fell down dead. The people picked up his body and tossed it into the fire.
The faithful followers were so frightened that they ran in every direction. Joshua was dead, and they didn't know what to do.
Three days passed and Marlah gathered them together in an abandoned cave on the edge of the forest. While they were eating supper, a huge white buffalo appeared at the mouth of the cave. They were about to run for their lives when the buffalo spoke, saying, "Don't be afraid. I am your friend." It was the voice of Joshua. Marlah ran and embraced him. They all hugged Joshua and rejoiced because he was alive.
Joshua said, "I cannot stay with you. I must go to be with Yah. But I will send someone to guide you. Go now, into all the forest and prairie, and tell my people of the new covenant in my blood. Mark them with my blood and bid them to remember the covenant."
With these words, Joshua turned and disappeared into the prairie at the edge of the forest. Marlah led the faithful followers out of the cave. They went into all the forest and prairie and told people about the new covenant. Wherever they went people listened and were marked by the sign of the new covenant. The sun came out, the skies turned blue, and green shoots sprang up everywhere among the old brown grasses.
One day, while Marlah was speaking to a large group of people in front of the cave where Joshua had bid them farewell, a sound came from the sky like the rush of a mighty wind, fire appeared and hovered over the heads of each one, and they were filled with the breath of Yah. Marlah said it was a sacred spirit, the one Joshua had promised would come to guide them.
Filled with the spirit, Marlah raised her arms and, looking out over all the people, bid them to join her in singing the words of the sacred fire song:
Buffalo, Come and sing your song.
We are here to greet you son of Yah.
Consecrate the covenant
Green grass, blue skies ever
Praise to Yah, Praise to Yah,
Our almighty protector, Yah.
(Write to us at jsumwalt@naspa.net if you would like us to fax the music to "The Sacred Fire Song.")
Scrap Pile
A Little Piece of Imago Dei
by Jim West
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
"The only thing we can offer to God of value is to give our love to people as unworthy of it as we are of God's love."
Catherine of Siena
I share my life with a cat I don't like, and the feeling is mutual. He came into our lives to replace a beloved pet whose death left a huge void in our hearts. He has filled that void to a certain extent, but he is certainly not the precious pet to me that his predecessor was. Nothing with this cat is ever easy, and he makes me work for everything that I get from him.
For one thing, he can't stand the sight of me. When I wake up in the morning and get out of bed, I always seem to terrify this cat beyond all reason. Now, I know that I am not at my best the first thing in the morning as I stumble to the kitchen in search of coffee, but I have never attempted to kill the miserable creature in gruesome and painful ways. That is what he appears to see as my main goal when he bolts away from me in abject terror morning after morning.
He does decide, on rare occasions, to grace my wife's lap with his presence, but unless I wear a pork chop tied around my neck, he doesn't have anything to do with me. Speaking of pork chops, this cat may not be a cat at all. I think he might be a genetically altered pot-bellied pig. The only time he shows any interest in me is when I am cooking or trying to eat. Even though he has plenty of food and water waiting for him in the kitchen, he acts as though we have not fed him in days. His main accomplishment in the last four months is to eat about half of what I thought I had prepared for myself and my family and then double his body weight. My wife sometimes calls him the "fur pig." What I sometimes call him is unprintable.
He does not like to be stroked, picked up, held, patted, scratched, or subjected to any of the other minor annoyances that the previous cat suffered in comparatively gentle silence. We just don't like one another, he and I. My wife says it is because he had a really hard start in life, being a rescued cat and all, and I should just give him a break and cut him some slack. That's easy for HER to say. He doesn't use her hand as a chew toy.
And then, today, he ran away. I didn't worry too much when my wife said she was afraid he had slipped out of the garage door when she was going to the doctor's office early in the morning. He doesn't appear to know his name, or if he does he is certainly not interested in coming when called, and I figured he was just curled up asleep or perhaps giggling little kitty giggles to himself while I went through the house looking in closets and under beds and behind furniture. But as the day wore on, and it became obvious he was not in the house, I began to worry about the poor, fat, unpleasant thing, so unprepared to be on his own in the cold, wet rain. He doesn't go outside, so everything out there would be unfamiliar, and he hasn't had to hunt for food other than stealing it off my plate when my back is turned. And since he is declawed, he couldn't even get up in a tree if a dog were chasing him.
I walked all over the neighborhood in the rain looking for him. I went to the animal shelter to see if he had been found and brought there. I even retraced my wife's drive to the doctor that morning, on the faint hope that he might have crawled up inside the motor of her car and then hopped out when the car stopped. I had visions that he might be found sitting, scowling, on the doctor's steps waiting for us to bring a nice hot catered meal. I checked the front, back, and garage doors a dozen times during the day, and worried and prayed and shed some tears for his safe return.
And then, just like that, he was home again. He sauntered in through the door, late in the afternoon, ate every scrap of food that was placed in front of him, had a nice long civilized "rest" in his litter box, and bit me when I tried to pick him up and love on him.
So much for the feline heart growing fonder in his absence.
But you know what? I discovered something. Somehow, in spite of all the difficulties, he has managed to slip into my heart. I am truly thankful for prayers that were answered, and I am glad to find a little piece of the Imago Dei, the image of God, in which we were created, within my heart that allows me to love an imperfect and often times unlovely creature. It must be like the way that God is able to love me with all my unlovely actions, annoying habits, and bad behavior.
I am happy he is at home, but I still need a bandage for my badly bitten finger.
Jim West has been the pastor of the Marvin Park United Methodist Church in Saint Louis, Missouri, for the past four years. He has pastored in Missouri for the last 31 years. He is married to the Rev. Brenda West, also a United Methodist pastor, and they are the parents of a son, Jay, and a daughter-in-law, Meg, and have a six-year-old grandson, Joel. They also have two cats, the above mentioned, still rotund BJ, and the infinitely more civilized Cleo.
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Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle A
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Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
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StoryShare, March 21, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 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., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
