Dead Duck
Stories
Contents
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Dead Duck"
Shining Moments: "Feeling God's Peace" by Penny McCanles
Good Stories: "God of the Living"
Scrap Pile: "Report from New Orleans" / "Urban Myth" / "Flu Vaccine Snafu"
What's Up This Week
A good way to introduce a sermon on this week's Gospel passage (Luke 20:27-38) is to relate a ridiculous story, like the one the Sadducees bring to Jesus about the seven brothers who successively marry one woman and then all die -- raising the burning question "Whose wife will she be in heaven?" I plan to begin my sermon with the "Dead Duck" story which appears in this week's Story to Live By. There are many other stories and bad jokes which will do as well. Some commentators have suggested that the brothers story is a first-century joke, used by the Sadducees to make a point about their belief that there is no resurrection of the dead. Jesus responds with a well-chosen scriptural story, and a declaration about life on the other side which suggests that he has inside knowledge on the subject:
"Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Luke 20:34-35).
This is a not-so-subtle dig at the Sadducees, suggesting that they might not be considered worthy in the age to come. And Jesus points to a mystery that takes them beyond the ridiculous question posed to a more serious question that they have been unwilling to consider. If God is the God of the living and not the God of the dead, then the dead still live and the living on earth also have a relationship with them. He invites the Sadducees to see themselves as eternal spirits, eternally cherished by God, who live temporarily in a body before moving on to the next "age." This is a concept that is not only foreign to many in the church today, it is one that a good number of modern Christians, the same ones who pack the pews on Easter Sunday, decry as ridiculous.
Harold Sherman, a medium who has written about conversations with souls in heaven in his book The Dead Are Alive, reports this exchange from the writings of his English friend Gladys Childs:
"While attending an out-of-state wedding, RM, a longtime American friend, was killed instantly when a car hit her as she started to cross the road. I attended her funeral. We were members of the same church. Seated with me were my former editor and his wife, a mutual friend.... Before the service started for RM, I was suddenly aware of her spirit before the pew in front of me, and this is what she said: 'Gladys, I am glad you are here. I did not see the car when it hit me. I am glad I don't have to spend another night in that house alone. [She was a widow and had lived by herself.] Tell A and J [her daughters] there is no death.' " (Harold Sherman, The Dead Are Alive, Fawcett, 1981, p. 72)
Such reports are treated like stories in the tabloid press by most modern disciples of Jesus. We can believe that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his followers in a number of different ways in the first century, but refuse to consider the possibility that the millions of people who have experienced the presence of loved ones who have passed over are anything but deluded crackpots. (See the nearly 100 testimonies that we have recorded in our vision books.)
Is the church full of the modern-day equivalent of the Sadducees?
Harry Scott Holland, canon of St. Paul's Cathedral in London in the early 20th century, wrote a definition of death that is still read at funerals today:
"Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolutely unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well."
A Story to Live By
Dead Duck
"Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."
Luke 20:29-33
A man brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgery clinic. As he placed his pet on the table, the vet pulled out her stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook her head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your duck has passed away."
The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," she replied.
"How can you be so sure?" he protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled her eyes, turned around, and left the room. She returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on its hind legs, put its front paws on the examination table, and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. The dog then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook its head. The vet patted the dog on the head and led it out of the room.
A few minutes later, she returned with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and sniffed delicately at the bird. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the man and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% a dead duck."
"Well, I suppose," said the owner. "How much do I owe you?"
"$300," said the vet.
"$300!" gasped the owner. "$300 just to tell me my duck is dead?!"
The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it the first time, the bill would have been $30. But with the lab report and the cat scan, it's now $300."
Shining Moments
Feeling God's Peace
by Penny McCanles
On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
Psalm 145:5
I have a place I think of when I meditate. I'm on the pier at the cottage where we spent many summer vacations over the course of nearly 25 years. I am lying on my stomach on the warm wood and the water beneath the pier is sloshing gently, the sound reverberating in the wood. If I look down between the planks I can see a school of minnows swim past, then reverse directions suddenly and swim just as fast in the opposite direction. A spider is weaving its intricate web between one of the planks and the support post. Turning my head a bit, I see the leaves on the big aspen flutter, silvery, in the breeze. A hummingbird is poised before the feeder that hangs in the tree. It moves forward an inch or two, sips, and darts off. Suddenly the quiet is broken by the chatter of a mother mallard as she leads her brood past the pier and into the patches of purple iris growing along the shore. I smile as I observe the downy babies upend themselves as they dive for water bugs or perhaps young shoots. In a few moments, the mother duck rounds them up and leads her little parade farther down the shore. Now the sun is high. The birds are still. Nature is silent, waiting. I wait, too, feeling God's peace.
Penny McCanles is a member of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. She operates a home-based business as a communications consultant, but her real love is creative writing, especially poetry.
Good Stories
God of the Living
"And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."
Luke 20:37-38
The Lincoln family was inconsolable. Their 11-year-old Willie had died in the White House on February 20, 1862. Twelve years earlier they had lost Eddie. The personal sorrow, combined with the weight of national tragedy, plunged the president into a deep depression. He seemed beyond help. Finally, a visitor made a lasting difference. Dr. Francis Vinton, an Episcopal rector in New York City, reminded the Lincolns that God's loving care continues beyond the grave. He cited Jesus' words in Luke 20:38: "Now God is not God of the dead, but of the living...." Confidently the pastor affirmed, "Your son is alive!" and hope was rekindled once more.
(Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish, Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 29-30)
Scrap Pile
Report from New Orleans
by John Sumwalt
Jo and I just returned from five wonderful days at the national Christian Educators Fellowship conference in New Orleans. It was a time of spiritual renewal and relaxation.
Of course, we also had time to eat lots of the best seafood I have ever tasted and to take in the unique cultural offerings of the city. We enjoyed a bus tour of the metro area including a stop at a cemetery, and a walking tour of the French Quarter with its beautiful Spanish architecture, balcony gardens with a multitude of blooming flowers, and courtyards with banana and grapefruit trees. There was a night of original New Orleans jazz at Preservation Hall. What a treat. And on Sunday evening I walked five blocks from our hotel to the Superdome and managed to wangle a cheap ticket from a scalper for the Saints-Vikings game. I sat 27 seats up in one of the end zones with a number of wired Viking fans. I cheered for the Saints (even Mike McKenzie, who just defected from my beloved Green Bay Packers) along with most of the 82,000 fans. It was a great game, except for the fact that the Vikings won (apologies to our Minnesota readers).
Grace Imathiu, a United Methodist pastor from Kenya who is an internationally known author and preacher, was our speaker each morning of the conference. Her keen insights into scripture and delightful storytelling will nourish my soul for a long time. The other conference highlight for me was a lecture by Dr. Jim Fleming of the Biblical Resource Center in Jerusalem. He is a biblical archaeologist who has been studying and teaching in Israel for over 30 years. He shared a number of mind-boggling things that I have never read in biblical commentaries, some of which have just been discovered in recent years. He also helped me to better understand the religious and political conflicts in the Middle East.
Dr. Fleming said: "The main thought I want to convey in this lecture is that the Arab-Israel problem is not a 'right and a wrong.' It is two 'rights.' Some mentalities cannot entertain this concept. A fundamentalist Jew and a fundamentalist Muslim will say, 'The arguments I use to justify my side I will not allow you to use to justify your side. Only I have a historical argument for the land.' Our war is with an enemy called 'intolerance.' 'Only I can make these arguments. Only my tradition is right and everyone else is an infidel, an enemy of God' " (Biblical Issues & Conflict in the Middle East, p. 17). Transcripts of this lecture and books which include other lectures by Dr. Fleming are available at http://www.biblicalresources.net or from Biblical Resources, P.O. Box 1970, Bellaire, TX 77402; phone 713-827-8001; e-mail brusa@flash.net. We suggest writing to them for a brochure about their books and various ministries in Jerusalem.
R. Grace Imathiu's book Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace is filled with tellable, preachable stories. It's available from True North Publishers, Box 65, 98260, Porjus, Sweden. Look for more information on the web at http://www.worksofgrace.org, or write to yourgrace@lycos.com, dhayjones@yahoo.com, and g47@mailcity.com. Imathiu was born in Kenya and grew up in the city of Nairobi. She is an ordained elder in the Methodist Church in Kenya and has served congregations in Kenya and the U.S. (Washington, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin). As a preacher, Grace is in demand all over the world. She has ministered in Germany, Denmark, the Bahamas, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, and England. Grace was educated in Kenya, the U.S., Israel, and at England's Cambridge University. She is the pastor of Brown Deer United Methodist Church in Wisconsin, and is completing studies for a Ph.D. in New Testament at Vanderbilt University.
Another Urban Myth Debunked
A number of parishioners have sent us a copy of the following plea, which is again making the rounds of the internet. This is how it begins: "I hope you will take a few minutes to read this message about removing Sunday worship services, Christmas programs, and Christmas carols from the airwaves. Many people, especially those that are shut-ins, rely on these programs... and we all enjoy the many holiday programs each year. Please follow the instructions at the end, sign your name, and forward to your friends asking them to do the same." The appeal invites people to sign an online petition and includes a claim that Dr. James Dobson is the originator of this campaign.
This is a new version of an old "urban myth" which has been around for over 25 years. A check of www.snopes.com (the urban legends reference pages website) reveals the following.
Nothing else at the FCC rivals this rumor, in both its longevity and its bizarre ability to withstand the commission's repeated attempts to convey the truth. Every year around Christmas and Easter, something breathes new life into it.... It's nothing short of exasperating for K. Dane Snowden, who heads the FCC's consumer bureau and wishes he could finally dispel the rumor. "It is one of the most fascinating urban myths that continues to grow. The FCC has no authority to ban religious programming. It literally is a myth," he said.
The latest version of this hoax has invoked the name of James Dobson. "Despite such e-mails' claims that Dr. Dobson is soliciting Christians to sign a petition to counter RM-2493, he has denied any involvement with this." (For more information about this and many other urban myths, click on http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/fcc.htm.)
Flu Vaccine Snafu
Dr. Steven Dykstra, a child psychologist for Milwaukee County and a member of the Wauwatosa Avenue congregation we serve, wrote an insightful letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the shortage of flu vaccine:
We have shortage of flu vaccine because vaccines are a commodity and vulnerable to market forces. The profit margin in the vaccine industry is low and the risk is high. As a result, manufacturers have dwindled.
Remarkably, this commodity receives no government subsidy, no price guarantee. Vaccines and their manufacturers are at the full mercy of market forces. Maybe that's how it should be in a capitalist economy.
But consider: About the same time our vaccine supply was coming up short, our government was voting to subsidize another commodity. Congress, under considerable pressure from the White House and others, voted for more than $10 billion in tobacco subsidies. It seems tobacco can't be expected to weather market forces, lest we find our supply dips too low.
Steven Dykstra is a child psychologist with the Milwaukee County Child and Adolescent Treatment Center. He is an advanced certified lay speaker and teaches a Disciple Bible class at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This letter to the editor appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on October 25, 2004.
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Jodie Felton, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. Click on the title above for information about how to order. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A, which begins in December.
Other 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 A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; 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.)
**************
StoryShare, November 7, 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.
What's Up This Week
A Story to Live By: "Dead Duck"
Shining Moments: "Feeling God's Peace" by Penny McCanles
Good Stories: "God of the Living"
Scrap Pile: "Report from New Orleans" / "Urban Myth" / "Flu Vaccine Snafu"
What's Up This Week
A good way to introduce a sermon on this week's Gospel passage (Luke 20:27-38) is to relate a ridiculous story, like the one the Sadducees bring to Jesus about the seven brothers who successively marry one woman and then all die -- raising the burning question "Whose wife will she be in heaven?" I plan to begin my sermon with the "Dead Duck" story which appears in this week's Story to Live By. There are many other stories and bad jokes which will do as well. Some commentators have suggested that the brothers story is a first-century joke, used by the Sadducees to make a point about their belief that there is no resurrection of the dead. Jesus responds with a well-chosen scriptural story, and a declaration about life on the other side which suggests that he has inside knowledge on the subject:
"Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Luke 20:34-35).
This is a not-so-subtle dig at the Sadducees, suggesting that they might not be considered worthy in the age to come. And Jesus points to a mystery that takes them beyond the ridiculous question posed to a more serious question that they have been unwilling to consider. If God is the God of the living and not the God of the dead, then the dead still live and the living on earth also have a relationship with them. He invites the Sadducees to see themselves as eternal spirits, eternally cherished by God, who live temporarily in a body before moving on to the next "age." This is a concept that is not only foreign to many in the church today, it is one that a good number of modern Christians, the same ones who pack the pews on Easter Sunday, decry as ridiculous.
Harold Sherman, a medium who has written about conversations with souls in heaven in his book The Dead Are Alive, reports this exchange from the writings of his English friend Gladys Childs:
"While attending an out-of-state wedding, RM, a longtime American friend, was killed instantly when a car hit her as she started to cross the road. I attended her funeral. We were members of the same church. Seated with me were my former editor and his wife, a mutual friend.... Before the service started for RM, I was suddenly aware of her spirit before the pew in front of me, and this is what she said: 'Gladys, I am glad you are here. I did not see the car when it hit me. I am glad I don't have to spend another night in that house alone. [She was a widow and had lived by herself.] Tell A and J [her daughters] there is no death.' " (Harold Sherman, The Dead Are Alive, Fawcett, 1981, p. 72)
Such reports are treated like stories in the tabloid press by most modern disciples of Jesus. We can believe that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his followers in a number of different ways in the first century, but refuse to consider the possibility that the millions of people who have experienced the presence of loved ones who have passed over are anything but deluded crackpots. (See the nearly 100 testimonies that we have recorded in our vision books.)
Is the church full of the modern-day equivalent of the Sadducees?
Harry Scott Holland, canon of St. Paul's Cathedral in London in the early 20th century, wrote a definition of death that is still read at funerals today:
"Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolutely unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well."
A Story to Live By
Dead Duck
"Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."
Luke 20:29-33
A man brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgery clinic. As he placed his pet on the table, the vet pulled out her stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook her head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, your duck has passed away."
The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," she replied.
"How can you be so sure?" he protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something."
The vet rolled her eyes, turned around, and left the room. She returned a few moments later with a black Labrador retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on its hind legs, put its front paws on the examination table, and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. The dog then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook its head. The vet patted the dog on the head and led it out of the room.
A few minutes later, she returned with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and sniffed delicately at the bird. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly, and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the man and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% a dead duck."
"Well, I suppose," said the owner. "How much do I owe you?"
"$300," said the vet.
"$300!" gasped the owner. "$300 just to tell me my duck is dead?!"
The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it the first time, the bill would have been $30. But with the lab report and the cat scan, it's now $300."
Shining Moments
Feeling God's Peace
by Penny McCanles
On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
Psalm 145:5
I have a place I think of when I meditate. I'm on the pier at the cottage where we spent many summer vacations over the course of nearly 25 years. I am lying on my stomach on the warm wood and the water beneath the pier is sloshing gently, the sound reverberating in the wood. If I look down between the planks I can see a school of minnows swim past, then reverse directions suddenly and swim just as fast in the opposite direction. A spider is weaving its intricate web between one of the planks and the support post. Turning my head a bit, I see the leaves on the big aspen flutter, silvery, in the breeze. A hummingbird is poised before the feeder that hangs in the tree. It moves forward an inch or two, sips, and darts off. Suddenly the quiet is broken by the chatter of a mother mallard as she leads her brood past the pier and into the patches of purple iris growing along the shore. I smile as I observe the downy babies upend themselves as they dive for water bugs or perhaps young shoots. In a few moments, the mother duck rounds them up and leads her little parade farther down the shore. Now the sun is high. The birds are still. Nature is silent, waiting. I wait, too, feeling God's peace.
Penny McCanles is a member of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. She operates a home-based business as a communications consultant, but her real love is creative writing, especially poetry.
Good Stories
God of the Living
"And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."
Luke 20:37-38
The Lincoln family was inconsolable. Their 11-year-old Willie had died in the White House on February 20, 1862. Twelve years earlier they had lost Eddie. The personal sorrow, combined with the weight of national tragedy, plunged the president into a deep depression. He seemed beyond help. Finally, a visitor made a lasting difference. Dr. Francis Vinton, an Episcopal rector in New York City, reminded the Lincolns that God's loving care continues beyond the grave. He cited Jesus' words in Luke 20:38: "Now God is not God of the dead, but of the living...." Confidently the pastor affirmed, "Your son is alive!" and hope was rekindled once more.
(Elton Trueblood, Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish, Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 29-30)
Scrap Pile
Report from New Orleans
by John Sumwalt
Jo and I just returned from five wonderful days at the national Christian Educators Fellowship conference in New Orleans. It was a time of spiritual renewal and relaxation.
Of course, we also had time to eat lots of the best seafood I have ever tasted and to take in the unique cultural offerings of the city. We enjoyed a bus tour of the metro area including a stop at a cemetery, and a walking tour of the French Quarter with its beautiful Spanish architecture, balcony gardens with a multitude of blooming flowers, and courtyards with banana and grapefruit trees. There was a night of original New Orleans jazz at Preservation Hall. What a treat. And on Sunday evening I walked five blocks from our hotel to the Superdome and managed to wangle a cheap ticket from a scalper for the Saints-Vikings game. I sat 27 seats up in one of the end zones with a number of wired Viking fans. I cheered for the Saints (even Mike McKenzie, who just defected from my beloved Green Bay Packers) along with most of the 82,000 fans. It was a great game, except for the fact that the Vikings won (apologies to our Minnesota readers).
Grace Imathiu, a United Methodist pastor from Kenya who is an internationally known author and preacher, was our speaker each morning of the conference. Her keen insights into scripture and delightful storytelling will nourish my soul for a long time. The other conference highlight for me was a lecture by Dr. Jim Fleming of the Biblical Resource Center in Jerusalem. He is a biblical archaeologist who has been studying and teaching in Israel for over 30 years. He shared a number of mind-boggling things that I have never read in biblical commentaries, some of which have just been discovered in recent years. He also helped me to better understand the religious and political conflicts in the Middle East.
Dr. Fleming said: "The main thought I want to convey in this lecture is that the Arab-Israel problem is not a 'right and a wrong.' It is two 'rights.' Some mentalities cannot entertain this concept. A fundamentalist Jew and a fundamentalist Muslim will say, 'The arguments I use to justify my side I will not allow you to use to justify your side. Only I have a historical argument for the land.' Our war is with an enemy called 'intolerance.' 'Only I can make these arguments. Only my tradition is right and everyone else is an infidel, an enemy of God' " (Biblical Issues & Conflict in the Middle East, p. 17). Transcripts of this lecture and books which include other lectures by Dr. Fleming are available at http://www.biblicalresources.net or from Biblical Resources, P.O. Box 1970, Bellaire, TX 77402; phone 713-827-8001; e-mail brusa@flash.net. We suggest writing to them for a brochure about their books and various ministries in Jerusalem.
R. Grace Imathiu's book Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace is filled with tellable, preachable stories. It's available from True North Publishers, Box 65, 98260, Porjus, Sweden. Look for more information on the web at http://www.worksofgrace.org, or write to yourgrace@lycos.com, dhayjones@yahoo.com, and g47@mailcity.com. Imathiu was born in Kenya and grew up in the city of Nairobi. She is an ordained elder in the Methodist Church in Kenya and has served congregations in Kenya and the U.S. (Washington, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin). As a preacher, Grace is in demand all over the world. She has ministered in Germany, Denmark, the Bahamas, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil, and England. Grace was educated in Kenya, the U.S., Israel, and at England's Cambridge University. She is the pastor of Brown Deer United Methodist Church in Wisconsin, and is completing studies for a Ph.D. in New Testament at Vanderbilt University.
Another Urban Myth Debunked
A number of parishioners have sent us a copy of the following plea, which is again making the rounds of the internet. This is how it begins: "I hope you will take a few minutes to read this message about removing Sunday worship services, Christmas programs, and Christmas carols from the airwaves. Many people, especially those that are shut-ins, rely on these programs... and we all enjoy the many holiday programs each year. Please follow the instructions at the end, sign your name, and forward to your friends asking them to do the same." The appeal invites people to sign an online petition and includes a claim that Dr. James Dobson is the originator of this campaign.
This is a new version of an old "urban myth" which has been around for over 25 years. A check of www.snopes.com (the urban legends reference pages website) reveals the following.
Nothing else at the FCC rivals this rumor, in both its longevity and its bizarre ability to withstand the commission's repeated attempts to convey the truth. Every year around Christmas and Easter, something breathes new life into it.... It's nothing short of exasperating for K. Dane Snowden, who heads the FCC's consumer bureau and wishes he could finally dispel the rumor. "It is one of the most fascinating urban myths that continues to grow. The FCC has no authority to ban religious programming. It literally is a myth," he said.
The latest version of this hoax has invoked the name of James Dobson. "Despite such e-mails' claims that Dr. Dobson is soliciting Christians to sign a petition to counter RM-2493, he has denied any involvement with this." (For more information about this and many other urban myths, click on http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/fcc.htm.)
Flu Vaccine Snafu
Dr. Steven Dykstra, a child psychologist for Milwaukee County and a member of the Wauwatosa Avenue congregation we serve, wrote an insightful letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the shortage of flu vaccine:
We have shortage of flu vaccine because vaccines are a commodity and vulnerable to market forces. The profit margin in the vaccine industry is low and the risk is high. As a result, manufacturers have dwindled.
Remarkably, this commodity receives no government subsidy, no price guarantee. Vaccines and their manufacturers are at the full mercy of market forces. Maybe that's how it should be in a capitalist economy.
But consider: About the same time our vaccine supply was coming up short, our government was voting to subsidize another commodity. Congress, under considerable pressure from the White House and others, voted for more than $10 billion in tobacco subsidies. It seems tobacco can't be expected to weather market forces, lest we find our supply dips too low.
Steven Dykstra is a child psychologist with the Milwaukee County Child and Adolescent Treatment Center. He is an advanced certified lay speaker and teaches a Disciple Bible class at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This letter to the editor appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on October 25, 2004.
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), is now available from CSS Publishing Company. Among the 60 contributing authors of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-like vignettes are Ralph Milton, Sandra Herrmann, Pamela J. Tinnin, Richard H. Gentzler Jr., David Michael Smith, Jodie Felton, Nancy Nichols, William Lee Rand, Gail Ingle, and Rosmarie Trapp, whose family story was told in the classic movie The Sound of Music. Click on the title above for information about how to order. The stories follow the lectionary for Cycle A, which begins in December.
Other 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 A
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle B
Lectionary Stories: Forty Tellable Tales for Cycle C
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit: 62 Stories for Cycle B
You can order any of our books on the CSS website; 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.)
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StoryShare, November 7, 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.
