Faith Like A Lion
Stories
And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets -- who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
Hebrews 11:32-34
An elder of one Masai tribe was talking with a well-meaning American missionary about faith. "Faith," said the elder, "is like a lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelops it in his arms, pulls it to himself, and makes it a part of himself. That is the way a lion is. This is what faith is."
The missionary was stunned. He had glimpsed for the first time something that was so much more than just agreeing to certain doctrinal statements. But the elder hadn't finished.
"We did not search you out," he continued. "We did not even want you to come to us. You searched us out. You followed us away from your house into the bush, into the plains, into the steppes where our cattle are, into the hills where we take our cattle for water, into our villages, into our homes. You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God."
(Vincent Donovan, "On Faith with the Masai," Christianity Rediscovered, Orbis Books)
Shining Moments
Lorina
by Steve Taylor
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
Psalm 80:19
Her name was Lorina. She was only 22 years old, yet somehow she seemed to be carrying far too much sorrow for someone who had seen so few years. I met her at Gary and Rosa's home. Gary, who was one of our pastors, and Rosa, also an ordained minister, had begun a Bible study for young adults. And in our military community, on another continent far from home, there were certainly hundreds of young, single adults. Though I was almost 40 years old, my wife had recently returned to the United States, and, at least for the moment, I qualified as being "temporarily single." So Rosa had invited me to the Bible study, probably more out of sympathy and a desire to keep me out of trouble than out of any sense that I might somehow be helpful in the endeavor.
It was not much different from many Bible studies I have attended. It was interesting and enlightening, and Rosa did a good job with the Book of Numbers, but the real reason for being there was not evident until after the evening study was complete. At that time, we joined together in a circle and we began to pray, each person as they felt led. As these young people prayed, I began to understand why many of them were here. Their prayers were filled with cries to God to enter into their lives and take away their pain: emotional and spiritual pain that had cut deep into their beings. The pain of being alone and afraid. The pain of being disconnected from family and community and home.
After we closed the prayer, I noticed that many of the younger folks gravitated toward some of us older folks. They began to talk. They spoke of their joy and their pain. They spoke of the loneliness of being away from home, and they talked about their hopes for the future. Lorina was sitting next to me and we entered into small talk -- the kind you make when you are not quite sure what to say -- until I asked her about her dreams for the future. Then, ever so softly, she began to cry. Through the tears and the silent sobs, she told me she had no dreams. She spoke of a tragic past that had swept away her dreams. She spoke about the death of her mother and the sexual abuse from her father. She talked about how she was often afraid, and that she had considered suicide -- for certainly, death could not be any worse than the emotional hell in which she lived.
I must admit, I felt almost overwhelmed by the horror and intensity of her story. Yet as she talked, the Holy Spirit began to work and a very strange idea began to grow. I thought, "I know, I will ask her to come visit a refugee camp." And after I verbalized this idea, she sat and stared deeply into my eyes for a long time. I almost felt as if I could reach right down into her and touch her soul. It was a very real moment, one of those times when you know that something profound is happening. Slowly she nodded her head "yes."
The next Saturday, she was there at our appointed meeting place. I was a bit surprised that she had joined us. I honestly had not expected her to show. During the ride to the camp, another friend and I talked about how we would often see God at work in the camps, even in the midst of so much suffering. We admitted that, though it might seem strange, the light of God would shine there in ways that it would never shine back in the relative comfort and safety of our daily lives.
Lorina listened, but didn't respond much. We entered the camp and went about our various tasks of delivering food, medicine, and school supplies. I was very busy and soon lost track of Lorina. After a while, I saw her again.
There she was, sitting on a log bench, surrounded by maybe a dozen children. She was touching their faces, caressing their hair, and talking to them, giving herself to each one around her. And as I looked into her face, it was absolutely radiant. I was so shocked that I almost staggered. There, in the person of this tortured young girl, was the person of Jesus, surrounded by lonely and damaged children, sharing their pain and showing his love.
During the day I saw her several more times, moving through the camp, always surrounded by dozens of children, sometimes with as many as eight or nine holding her hands.
We left the camp that day more reflective than usual. Normally everyone would be talkative and expressive, but this day there was an uncharacteristic silence. After a while, I looked at Lorina and asked her, "Well, what do you think?"
Often, when asked of folks experiencing the camp for the first time, this question would elicit a whole host of comments, from discussing the camp conditions to discussing the theological implications for the church. Answers would almost always be punctuated with an excited mannerism. Yet when Lorina answered, it was with three simple words -- three simple words expressed out of heartfelt conviction and from a deeply scarred soul: three simple words on which her hope now hung, and which her life, on this day, had expressed. She quietly said, "God is good...."
God is good....
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Lorina, hurt, violated, damaged, and lonely, had been entered by the Holy Spirit and had moved through that place and expressed the glory of the Lord. She had not done it on her own. She had been touched by the other and then given herself over to the one who was also broken and violated.
When Lorina moved through that camp, it was not as a perfect creature, it was not as someone who was finally "right." She was still deeply traumatized, she was still deeply brutalized, and she still carried the scars of her horrible childhood with her. Indeed, she will probably undergo much counseling, and it is doubtful if she will ever be truly healed, if being healed means she will not bear the scars of her personal nightmare.
Yet it was there, in her own brokenness and pain, and in her desire to go to the refugee camp, that God was able to enter her life and shine out on all who came in contact with her that day. She, in seeking to love God's people, had experienced the love of God in return. She, in being willing to touch the lives of those who were in pain, experienced the healing hand of God herself.
Steve Taylor is Director of Missions Development for the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. A commissioned missionary of the United Methodist Church, Steve has worked in refugee relief in Slovenia and Croatia. He has also served with Habitat for Humanity International, leading work teams in Vaz, Adony, and Budapest, Hungary. A twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Steve is now an advocate for peacemaking and non-violence. Steve is a frequent contributor to Desperate Preacher's Site, a web-based community of preachers and teachers.
(A shorter version of this story appeared in the Transfiguration Sunday edition of StoryShare for March 2, 2003.)
Good Stories
Company Policy
What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
Isaiah 5:4
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result -- all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water.
Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not?
Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.
And that is how congregational policy begins. It is also how religious dogma starts and truth dies.
This story appears on many websites and has been around for many years. Some sites say that the Marine Corps uses it in officer training.
Scrap Pile
My Letter to the Editor
by John Sumwalt
"Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!"
Luke 12:51
Dear Editor [of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel],
Willow Creek runs through our small farm near Loyd, two miles upstream from the spot where "massive fish kills" have been reported (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sunday, August 1, 2004). The tragedy of the fish kill was made even more painful when I learned that it was alleged to have been caused by manure runoff from the field of a childhood friend. He and I went to church and school together. When my father was seriously injured in a tractor rollover, his father came with a host of other neighbors to harvest our crops. He is a dairy farmer who loves the land and who would never do anything to harm the environment.
This farmer did not break any rules in spreading manure on his field as the headline "farm manure spills blamed in massive fish kills" in the Sunday Journal-Sentinel suggests. There was no "spill" into Willow Creek. Indeed, despite premature conclusions in a number of media reports, it is not clear that the "manure runoff" was the only cause of the fish kill. We may discover when all the studies have been completed (if the Department of Natural Resources is willing to study all of the possibilities) that this was one more natural disaster which resulted from the unusual number of "massive" thunderstorms this summer. It is just too easy to blame the farmer when this kind of incident occurs.
I grew up on Willow "crick," as we called it, and I hunted along its banks, learned to swim in the deep holes, and fished for trout every spring. Opening day of trout season was one of the highest holy days of the year, second only to Christmas and just ahead of opening day at County Stadium. Willow poles were cut, peeled, and cured months ahead, and night crawlers were captured the evening before. My brothers and I were up at 4:30 and had our lines in the water the minute the first rays of sun broke over the horizon. Catching a 15-inch "rainbow" was one of the great thrills of my youth.
I was heartsick when one of our farm neighbors told me about the fish kill last week. Our home is in Wauwatosa, two and a half hours from the farm and the half-mile of creek that runs through it. We go there now for vacations and occasional retreats from our busy city lives. I don't fish much anymore, but walking along the creek in the warm sun and listening to the music of the ripples from the bedroom window at night restores my soul; it helps me to get in touch again with the primeval mystery I first encountered when I splashed in those waters as a six-year-old. I knew something about myself then and the source of all things that I could never put into words. Seasoned fishermen experience this kind of knowing. It is what draws them back again and again to catch and release the big ones.
When I was a boy there were 35 small dairy farms within a three-mile radius of our farm. There are only five farmers milking cows today. The village of Loyd, which was thriving with two gas stations, a grocery store, a cheese factory, a blacksmith shop, the town hall, a school, and a church, now has no businesses and only one public building remaining.
This is not a time to point fingers and choose up sides. Assessing stiff fines and passing stricter laws will only drive more small farmers out of business and result in ever-larger agribusiness ventures and more complicated waste disposal problems. All of us -- farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists -- depend on the rich land of Wisconsin for our life and livelihood. This is a time for neighbors to help neighbors. Let's work together to find better ways to protect this land we love.
John Sumwalt
Pastor, Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), will be released this month by 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.
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 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
You can order any of our books on the CSS website (http://www.csspub.com); 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.)
**************
Looking for just the right story for this Sunday's sermon or Sunday School class? There is a large selection of stories on the StoryShare website (http://www.csspub.com/story.lasso). Click on "samples" to see two of our weekly editions.
New subscribers receive a year of StoryShare plus full access to the StoryShare archives for just $19.95. Subscribing online is convenient using our secure server -- or you can all CSS toll-free at (800) 537-1030 Monday - Friday from 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM (Eastern Time) or send an e-mail to orders@csspub.com, and our customer service team will be happy to assist you.
We invite you to forward this offer to all of your friends who are looking for good stories.
**************
StoryShare, August 15, 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.
Hebrews 11:32-34
An elder of one Masai tribe was talking with a well-meaning American missionary about faith. "Faith," said the elder, "is like a lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelops it in his arms, pulls it to himself, and makes it a part of himself. That is the way a lion is. This is what faith is."
The missionary was stunned. He had glimpsed for the first time something that was so much more than just agreeing to certain doctrinal statements. But the elder hadn't finished.
"We did not search you out," he continued. "We did not even want you to come to us. You searched us out. You followed us away from your house into the bush, into the plains, into the steppes where our cattle are, into the hills where we take our cattle for water, into our villages, into our homes. You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God."
(Vincent Donovan, "On Faith with the Masai," Christianity Rediscovered, Orbis Books)
Shining Moments
Lorina
by Steve Taylor
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
Psalm 80:19
Her name was Lorina. She was only 22 years old, yet somehow she seemed to be carrying far too much sorrow for someone who had seen so few years. I met her at Gary and Rosa's home. Gary, who was one of our pastors, and Rosa, also an ordained minister, had begun a Bible study for young adults. And in our military community, on another continent far from home, there were certainly hundreds of young, single adults. Though I was almost 40 years old, my wife had recently returned to the United States, and, at least for the moment, I qualified as being "temporarily single." So Rosa had invited me to the Bible study, probably more out of sympathy and a desire to keep me out of trouble than out of any sense that I might somehow be helpful in the endeavor.
It was not much different from many Bible studies I have attended. It was interesting and enlightening, and Rosa did a good job with the Book of Numbers, but the real reason for being there was not evident until after the evening study was complete. At that time, we joined together in a circle and we began to pray, each person as they felt led. As these young people prayed, I began to understand why many of them were here. Their prayers were filled with cries to God to enter into their lives and take away their pain: emotional and spiritual pain that had cut deep into their beings. The pain of being alone and afraid. The pain of being disconnected from family and community and home.
After we closed the prayer, I noticed that many of the younger folks gravitated toward some of us older folks. They began to talk. They spoke of their joy and their pain. They spoke of the loneliness of being away from home, and they talked about their hopes for the future. Lorina was sitting next to me and we entered into small talk -- the kind you make when you are not quite sure what to say -- until I asked her about her dreams for the future. Then, ever so softly, she began to cry. Through the tears and the silent sobs, she told me she had no dreams. She spoke of a tragic past that had swept away her dreams. She spoke about the death of her mother and the sexual abuse from her father. She talked about how she was often afraid, and that she had considered suicide -- for certainly, death could not be any worse than the emotional hell in which she lived.
I must admit, I felt almost overwhelmed by the horror and intensity of her story. Yet as she talked, the Holy Spirit began to work and a very strange idea began to grow. I thought, "I know, I will ask her to come visit a refugee camp." And after I verbalized this idea, she sat and stared deeply into my eyes for a long time. I almost felt as if I could reach right down into her and touch her soul. It was a very real moment, one of those times when you know that something profound is happening. Slowly she nodded her head "yes."
The next Saturday, she was there at our appointed meeting place. I was a bit surprised that she had joined us. I honestly had not expected her to show. During the ride to the camp, another friend and I talked about how we would often see God at work in the camps, even in the midst of so much suffering. We admitted that, though it might seem strange, the light of God would shine there in ways that it would never shine back in the relative comfort and safety of our daily lives.
Lorina listened, but didn't respond much. We entered the camp and went about our various tasks of delivering food, medicine, and school supplies. I was very busy and soon lost track of Lorina. After a while, I saw her again.
There she was, sitting on a log bench, surrounded by maybe a dozen children. She was touching their faces, caressing their hair, and talking to them, giving herself to each one around her. And as I looked into her face, it was absolutely radiant. I was so shocked that I almost staggered. There, in the person of this tortured young girl, was the person of Jesus, surrounded by lonely and damaged children, sharing their pain and showing his love.
During the day I saw her several more times, moving through the camp, always surrounded by dozens of children, sometimes with as many as eight or nine holding her hands.
We left the camp that day more reflective than usual. Normally everyone would be talkative and expressive, but this day there was an uncharacteristic silence. After a while, I looked at Lorina and asked her, "Well, what do you think?"
Often, when asked of folks experiencing the camp for the first time, this question would elicit a whole host of comments, from discussing the camp conditions to discussing the theological implications for the church. Answers would almost always be punctuated with an excited mannerism. Yet when Lorina answered, it was with three simple words -- three simple words expressed out of heartfelt conviction and from a deeply scarred soul: three simple words on which her hope now hung, and which her life, on this day, had expressed. She quietly said, "God is good...."
God is good....
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Lorina, hurt, violated, damaged, and lonely, had been entered by the Holy Spirit and had moved through that place and expressed the glory of the Lord. She had not done it on her own. She had been touched by the other and then given herself over to the one who was also broken and violated.
When Lorina moved through that camp, it was not as a perfect creature, it was not as someone who was finally "right." She was still deeply traumatized, she was still deeply brutalized, and she still carried the scars of her horrible childhood with her. Indeed, she will probably undergo much counseling, and it is doubtful if she will ever be truly healed, if being healed means she will not bear the scars of her personal nightmare.
Yet it was there, in her own brokenness and pain, and in her desire to go to the refugee camp, that God was able to enter her life and shine out on all who came in contact with her that day. She, in seeking to love God's people, had experienced the love of God in return. She, in being willing to touch the lives of those who were in pain, experienced the healing hand of God herself.
Steve Taylor is Director of Missions Development for the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. A commissioned missionary of the United Methodist Church, Steve has worked in refugee relief in Slovenia and Croatia. He has also served with Habitat for Humanity International, leading work teams in Vaz, Adony, and Budapest, Hungary. A twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Steve is now an advocate for peacemaking and non-violence. Steve is a frequent contributor to Desperate Preacher's Site, a web-based community of preachers and teachers.
(A shorter version of this story appeared in the Transfiguration Sunday edition of StoryShare for March 2, 2003.)
Good Stories
Company Policy
What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
Isaiah 5:4
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result -- all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water.
Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not?
Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.
And that is how congregational policy begins. It is also how religious dogma starts and truth dies.
This story appears on many websites and has been around for many years. Some sites say that the Marine Corps uses it in officer training.
Scrap Pile
My Letter to the Editor
by John Sumwalt
"Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!"
Luke 12:51
Dear Editor [of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel],
Willow Creek runs through our small farm near Loyd, two miles upstream from the spot where "massive fish kills" have been reported (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Sunday, August 1, 2004). The tragedy of the fish kill was made even more painful when I learned that it was alleged to have been caused by manure runoff from the field of a childhood friend. He and I went to church and school together. When my father was seriously injured in a tractor rollover, his father came with a host of other neighbors to harvest our crops. He is a dairy farmer who loves the land and who would never do anything to harm the environment.
This farmer did not break any rules in spreading manure on his field as the headline "farm manure spills blamed in massive fish kills" in the Sunday Journal-Sentinel suggests. There was no "spill" into Willow Creek. Indeed, despite premature conclusions in a number of media reports, it is not clear that the "manure runoff" was the only cause of the fish kill. We may discover when all the studies have been completed (if the Department of Natural Resources is willing to study all of the possibilities) that this was one more natural disaster which resulted from the unusual number of "massive" thunderstorms this summer. It is just too easy to blame the farmer when this kind of incident occurs.
I grew up on Willow "crick," as we called it, and I hunted along its banks, learned to swim in the deep holes, and fished for trout every spring. Opening day of trout season was one of the highest holy days of the year, second only to Christmas and just ahead of opening day at County Stadium. Willow poles were cut, peeled, and cured months ahead, and night crawlers were captured the evening before. My brothers and I were up at 4:30 and had our lines in the water the minute the first rays of sun broke over the horizon. Catching a 15-inch "rainbow" was one of the great thrills of my youth.
I was heartsick when one of our farm neighbors told me about the fish kill last week. Our home is in Wauwatosa, two and a half hours from the farm and the half-mile of creek that runs through it. We go there now for vacations and occasional retreats from our busy city lives. I don't fish much anymore, but walking along the creek in the warm sun and listening to the music of the ripples from the bedroom window at night restores my soul; it helps me to get in touch again with the primeval mystery I first encountered when I splashed in those waters as a six-year-old. I knew something about myself then and the source of all things that I could never put into words. Seasoned fishermen experience this kind of knowing. It is what draws them back again and again to catch and release the big ones.
When I was a boy there were 35 small dairy farms within a three-mile radius of our farm. There are only five farmers milking cows today. The village of Loyd, which was thriving with two gas stations, a grocery store, a cheese factory, a blacksmith shop, the town hall, a school, and a church, now has no businesses and only one public building remaining.
This is not a time to point fingers and choose up sides. Assessing stiff fines and passing stricter laws will only drive more small farmers out of business and result in ever-larger agribusiness ventures and more complicated waste disposal problems. All of us -- farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists -- depend on the rich land of Wisconsin for our life and livelihood. This is a time for neighbors to help neighbors. Let's work together to find better ways to protect this land we love.
John Sumwalt
Pastor, Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church
**********************************************
New Book
The third book in the vision series, Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives (edited by John Sumwalt), will be released this month by 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.
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 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
You can order any of our books on the CSS website (http://www.csspub.com); 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.)
**************
Looking for just the right story for this Sunday's sermon or Sunday School class? There is a large selection of stories on the StoryShare website (http://www.csspub.com/story.lasso). Click on "samples" to see two of our weekly editions.
New subscribers receive a year of StoryShare plus full access to the StoryShare archives for just $19.95. Subscribing online is convenient using our secure server -- or you can all CSS toll-free at (800) 537-1030 Monday - Friday from 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM (Eastern Time) or send an e-mail to orders@csspub.com, and our customer service team will be happy to assist you.
We invite you to forward this offer to all of your friends who are looking for good stories.
**************
StoryShare, August 15, 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.
