Hippos, Hands, And Feet
Stories
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Contents
"Hippos, Hands, and Feet" by Keith Hewitt
"Interesting Times" by C. David McKirachan
"Hard Work" by C. David McKirachan
* * * * * * * *
Hippos, Hands, and Feet
by Keith Hewitt
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
"Do you know where my toy animals went? The plastic ones?"
The idea that had been flitting around the edges of her thoughts flew away, and Maggie Randall-Todd blinked at the suddenness of its departure. Oh, well, if it was worthwhile it'll come back, she thought and looked up from her book. Johnny stood in the doorway, caught between the need to locate his plastic animals and the knowledge that unless it involved blood or smoke, Mom was not to be disturbed when she was working. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, folded her hands across the flat of her stomach. "I don't know, Johnny. The last time I played with them, I put them back where they belonged."
He smiled mirthlessly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Mom, that answer never gets old. Seriously, do you know? I haven't seen them in a long time. Did you throw them out or give them away?"
"I don't think so. They're probably packed away with your other things, from the last move, in the garage. I don't think you've had them out since then."
"Do you know which box?"
She shook her head, added, "Why the sudden interest in those things? I'm not sure of the last time you played with them before the move."
He walked into the study, then, and dropped down in the chair next to her desk. His expression was an interesting blend of disgust and frustration, with a light dusting of anxiety. "I need them for my Natural Science project. You know, my project on African wildlife."
Maggie raised an eyebrow. "You said you were done. I specifically asked, last week, and you said you were done. You showed me the paper."
"I was done. It's a group project, and my job was to write the paper. I did."
She frowned. "Okay, then?"
"And now I need to do a diorama."
"Why?"
"Because Amy Brown and Chuck Finley are jerks." His voice conveyed a tone of judgment that was not satisfied with the mere epithet of "jerks," but he could not summon up a better word. Not in front of his mother, anyway. When she just looked at him expectantly, made a slight gesture of encouragement with her hand, he added, "The project is due tomorrow, and they haven't done anything with the diorama. That's their part of the project. Amy was going to make some animals, and Chuck was going to make the box and the scenery."
"I see."
"So I need my animals, so I can make the diorama."
"I see. Why don't you just make the animals, the way Amy was going to?" she asked, stalling as she pondered the situation.
Johnny looked down at his hands, opened a fist and raised that hand to reveal a small clay figurine. He didn't make eye contact with his mother, but looked away.
Maggie took the stubby figure out of his hand gently, examined it by turning it over and studying it from all angles. "I think it's a very nice giraffe," she said encouragingly.
His eyes swiveled to hers. "It's a hippopotamus."
"That would have been my other guess," she lied and handed it back. "But, listen, I think you're going about this the wrong way. Sure, you might be disappointed in Amy and Chuck right now --"
" 'Cause their jerks," he interjected.
"-- but did they specifically tell you they weren't going to be done? Or are you just assuming that, because they hadn't done any other work?"
He shrugged. "Just assuming."
"Then I think you need to give them a chance. I understand it's not the way you would do the project, but when you're part of a team that means things aren't always going to be done just the way you want them to be done."
"But I'm right!" he insisted.
"And I'm not going to argue that. I like the fact that you got to work on the project early and that you turned in your piece of it early. That's wonderful, that's great -- but it's not all about you. It's about your team, and how all of you function together. I know Chuck is good with miniatures -- you told me that he has quite a model railroad setup, right?"
Johnny nodded.
"And I'm assuming Amy's good with this kind of art, at least. Making clay animals?"
Johnny nodded again, his expression still vexed.
"And you're a really good writer and researcher. I know that. So you all have different things that you do well, you were all given different gifts and abilities -- and they all go toward getting this project done as a team, cooperating. None of you has a job that's more important than the other, Johnny. I know their way isn't the way you would do it, but you all just have to work together to get it done. I'm going to guess that Amy and Chuck are doing that right now."
He frowned again. "I hope so. This project is really important. Mister Young said so."
"I understand that, Johnny, and I hope Amy and Chuck understand too. But the thing is, since you've all got these great gifts, and you're working on the same project, then you've got to give them the chance to do what they know how to do... the same way they gave you your chance. You can't -- well, you shouldn't -- jump in and take over and do it yourself, because you don't like the way the rest of the team is doing it."
She leaned forward, patted him on the knee, and smiled. "It's like Paul told the Corinthians -- you're all kind of like different parts of the same body... head, foot, hand... the body needs all of you, working together, to function right. No one of you is more important or is able to just take off and leave the others in the lurch. And just because you're the foot doesn't mean you know how to run the whole body. Understand?"
Johnny considered this silently for a few moments, then shrugged and nodded reluctantly. He looked her in the eye and said, "I guess you're right -- but it's not easy."
Maggie thought about the church meetings, and the projects, and the conferences... and smiled gently, shook her head. "No, it's not," she admitted. "But it's what we're supposed to do. I have to remember that sometimes too."
Johnny smiled, then, stood up, and hugged her briefly. "I know you know what to do, Mom. You don't have to worry about that hand and foot stuff, do you?"
"Every day," she answered truthfully and patted him on the back. "Every day."
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
Interesting Times
by C. David McKirachan
Luke 4:14-21
Somewhere in the mists of my past, I read that there is a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." I was adolescent at the time, yearning for anything that would make my life interesting. How could this be a curse? But the longer I considered where this aphoristic jab pointed, the more sense it made. It came clear that I wanted to do interesting things. But "interesting times" would complicate any agenda I had. I would no longer be in control. I'd be reacting to whatever was demanding my attention.
Over time I began to realize that I wasn't as in control as I thought I could be. And more and more I realized that all times were "interesting." I realized that if I chose to do just about anything, I would be confronted with complications and issues that would make my times anything but boring. Circumstances have a bad habit of grinding our plans to sausage when we wanted steak and sometimes put us in the middle of a stampede instead of a butcher's shop.
Another aphorism I picked up was "the only thing you can control is yourself." I never believed that one. But I put a disclaimer into it and it made more sense. "The only thing you have any hope of controlling a little bit is yourself, and that's momentary at best." It's easy to see I learned my limits early. But I saw little to be gained by living within them. I guess it made more sense to me to make my times more interesting by rattling the cages of those committed to fooling themselves that life could ever be anything but fascinating. You'd think I'd learn consequences or at least get swatted like a gnat for bothering people.
Jesus had a bad habit of dropping rocks into still ponds. His purposes were prophetic. His perspective was larger, wider, and deeper than the nice, convenient, comfortable attitudes that surrounded him. He wanted others to see, feel, and live. He wanted them to know that they were living. He wanted them to realize that they had more to do than hold it together until they died. He wanted them to participate in a miracle. Did it work? I don't think he cared that much. He was doing what made sense. His logic for living was based on something more powerful and beautiful than any of the aphorisms that surrounded him.
We truly live in interesting times. We are not cursed. We are blessed. Our times are portals of opportunity to shine with the light of eternity, or we can be safe. The odds may be against us, but I'm telling you that claiming these interesting times is a lot more fun.
Hard Work
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 19
Preaching for me is a frightening endeavor. Part of it is research of what was, part of it is consideration of what is happening in the world, and part of it is remembering what issues are working in the community of faith. But that makes up less than half of what happens in this holy moment.
I remember my father working on sermons. He'd close the French doors that sealed off his study like some wizard in his tower. If I stood at the right angle, I could watch him working, hunched over the desk that was covered with volumes of commentaries. After hours, these would be replaced with a Hebrew or Greek text and an English text. Then there would be times of elbow supported head holding. I never saw him all the way through his process, because I had other things to do like trees to climb and things to imagine. But many times when I came back from my excursions, he was still there.
Years later I'd been taught to use those magical tomes. I was now the wizard, I had my own tower. And I came to realize that all the incantations within the tomes, all the ingredients I could gather from the wide and local world meant nothing. They were dry weeds and empty words. And I remembered him, elbows planted, holding his head. I came to realize that he'd been praying, praying for the lightning, praying for the spirit that altered these bits of news and scholarship, transformed them with the breath of the eternal into a living and breathing moment of God's touch.
He did that. He opened the pipes for people to be touched with a sense of more. Everything else he did for and with and in the churches that he ran and administered and pastored may have been important to the world and to the people, but it was all secondary to those moments of touch. Because then and there, God was present.
I also came to realize over time that all the preparation in the universe couldn't open any pipes, because the Lord of all time tends to work in the present tense. That time of preaching is consecrated, set aside. It is a place of glory and of storm. It is full of hope and fear. It is full of darkness and light. And I remembered the prayer he said each Sunday, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer."
Then I realized and have ever since that this whole thing is not about producing some sort of presentation or even achieving a result to be measured by categories of success or failure. It is an act of prayer. It is about placing everything one can gather, every bit of wisdom and perspective before the living Lord as a sacrifice, to be used by that Lord as he wills. It needs to be acceptable in no one's sight except his. And that net is thrown over the entire congregation. We're all confronted by the measure of the God of all that is, was, and will be. So, why aren't we simply terrified? Because, as we pray, we also claim this Lord as our "rock and our redeemer." We preachers open ourselves in humility and confidence, we claim this Lord as our own.
No wonder my father held his head in his hands. In the midst of all the other stuff he had to do, keeping his own valves open wasn't easy. And sometimes I wish I was still outside watching my father struggle. It's hard work. But then you know that, don't you?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 27, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Hippos, Hands, and Feet" by Keith Hewitt
"Interesting Times" by C. David McKirachan
"Hard Work" by C. David McKirachan
* * * * * * * *
Hippos, Hands, and Feet
by Keith Hewitt
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
"Do you know where my toy animals went? The plastic ones?"
The idea that had been flitting around the edges of her thoughts flew away, and Maggie Randall-Todd blinked at the suddenness of its departure. Oh, well, if it was worthwhile it'll come back, she thought and looked up from her book. Johnny stood in the doorway, caught between the need to locate his plastic animals and the knowledge that unless it involved blood or smoke, Mom was not to be disturbed when she was working. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, folded her hands across the flat of her stomach. "I don't know, Johnny. The last time I played with them, I put them back where they belonged."
He smiled mirthlessly and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Mom, that answer never gets old. Seriously, do you know? I haven't seen them in a long time. Did you throw them out or give them away?"
"I don't think so. They're probably packed away with your other things, from the last move, in the garage. I don't think you've had them out since then."
"Do you know which box?"
She shook her head, added, "Why the sudden interest in those things? I'm not sure of the last time you played with them before the move."
He walked into the study, then, and dropped down in the chair next to her desk. His expression was an interesting blend of disgust and frustration, with a light dusting of anxiety. "I need them for my Natural Science project. You know, my project on African wildlife."
Maggie raised an eyebrow. "You said you were done. I specifically asked, last week, and you said you were done. You showed me the paper."
"I was done. It's a group project, and my job was to write the paper. I did."
She frowned. "Okay, then?"
"And now I need to do a diorama."
"Why?"
"Because Amy Brown and Chuck Finley are jerks." His voice conveyed a tone of judgment that was not satisfied with the mere epithet of "jerks," but he could not summon up a better word. Not in front of his mother, anyway. When she just looked at him expectantly, made a slight gesture of encouragement with her hand, he added, "The project is due tomorrow, and they haven't done anything with the diorama. That's their part of the project. Amy was going to make some animals, and Chuck was going to make the box and the scenery."
"I see."
"So I need my animals, so I can make the diorama."
"I see. Why don't you just make the animals, the way Amy was going to?" she asked, stalling as she pondered the situation.
Johnny looked down at his hands, opened a fist and raised that hand to reveal a small clay figurine. He didn't make eye contact with his mother, but looked away.
Maggie took the stubby figure out of his hand gently, examined it by turning it over and studying it from all angles. "I think it's a very nice giraffe," she said encouragingly.
His eyes swiveled to hers. "It's a hippopotamus."
"That would have been my other guess," she lied and handed it back. "But, listen, I think you're going about this the wrong way. Sure, you might be disappointed in Amy and Chuck right now --"
" 'Cause their jerks," he interjected.
"-- but did they specifically tell you they weren't going to be done? Or are you just assuming that, because they hadn't done any other work?"
He shrugged. "Just assuming."
"Then I think you need to give them a chance. I understand it's not the way you would do the project, but when you're part of a team that means things aren't always going to be done just the way you want them to be done."
"But I'm right!" he insisted.
"And I'm not going to argue that. I like the fact that you got to work on the project early and that you turned in your piece of it early. That's wonderful, that's great -- but it's not all about you. It's about your team, and how all of you function together. I know Chuck is good with miniatures -- you told me that he has quite a model railroad setup, right?"
Johnny nodded.
"And I'm assuming Amy's good with this kind of art, at least. Making clay animals?"
Johnny nodded again, his expression still vexed.
"And you're a really good writer and researcher. I know that. So you all have different things that you do well, you were all given different gifts and abilities -- and they all go toward getting this project done as a team, cooperating. None of you has a job that's more important than the other, Johnny. I know their way isn't the way you would do it, but you all just have to work together to get it done. I'm going to guess that Amy and Chuck are doing that right now."
He frowned again. "I hope so. This project is really important. Mister Young said so."
"I understand that, Johnny, and I hope Amy and Chuck understand too. But the thing is, since you've all got these great gifts, and you're working on the same project, then you've got to give them the chance to do what they know how to do... the same way they gave you your chance. You can't -- well, you shouldn't -- jump in and take over and do it yourself, because you don't like the way the rest of the team is doing it."
She leaned forward, patted him on the knee, and smiled. "It's like Paul told the Corinthians -- you're all kind of like different parts of the same body... head, foot, hand... the body needs all of you, working together, to function right. No one of you is more important or is able to just take off and leave the others in the lurch. And just because you're the foot doesn't mean you know how to run the whole body. Understand?"
Johnny considered this silently for a few moments, then shrugged and nodded reluctantly. He looked her in the eye and said, "I guess you're right -- but it's not easy."
Maggie thought about the church meetings, and the projects, and the conferences... and smiled gently, shook her head. "No, it's not," she admitted. "But it's what we're supposed to do. I have to remember that sometimes too."
Johnny smiled, then, stood up, and hugged her briefly. "I know you know what to do, Mom. You don't have to worry about that hand and foot stuff, do you?"
"Every day," she answered truthfully and patted him on the back. "Every day."
Keith Hewitt is the author of three volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). He is a local pastor, former youth leader and Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He is currently serving as the pastor at Parkview UMC in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. Keith is married to a teacher, and they have two children and assorted dogs and cats.
Interesting Times
by C. David McKirachan
Luke 4:14-21
Somewhere in the mists of my past, I read that there is a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." I was adolescent at the time, yearning for anything that would make my life interesting. How could this be a curse? But the longer I considered where this aphoristic jab pointed, the more sense it made. It came clear that I wanted to do interesting things. But "interesting times" would complicate any agenda I had. I would no longer be in control. I'd be reacting to whatever was demanding my attention.
Over time I began to realize that I wasn't as in control as I thought I could be. And more and more I realized that all times were "interesting." I realized that if I chose to do just about anything, I would be confronted with complications and issues that would make my times anything but boring. Circumstances have a bad habit of grinding our plans to sausage when we wanted steak and sometimes put us in the middle of a stampede instead of a butcher's shop.
Another aphorism I picked up was "the only thing you can control is yourself." I never believed that one. But I put a disclaimer into it and it made more sense. "The only thing you have any hope of controlling a little bit is yourself, and that's momentary at best." It's easy to see I learned my limits early. But I saw little to be gained by living within them. I guess it made more sense to me to make my times more interesting by rattling the cages of those committed to fooling themselves that life could ever be anything but fascinating. You'd think I'd learn consequences or at least get swatted like a gnat for bothering people.
Jesus had a bad habit of dropping rocks into still ponds. His purposes were prophetic. His perspective was larger, wider, and deeper than the nice, convenient, comfortable attitudes that surrounded him. He wanted others to see, feel, and live. He wanted them to know that they were living. He wanted them to realize that they had more to do than hold it together until they died. He wanted them to participate in a miracle. Did it work? I don't think he cared that much. He was doing what made sense. His logic for living was based on something more powerful and beautiful than any of the aphorisms that surrounded him.
We truly live in interesting times. We are not cursed. We are blessed. Our times are portals of opportunity to shine with the light of eternity, or we can be safe. The odds may be against us, but I'm telling you that claiming these interesting times is a lot more fun.
Hard Work
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 19
Preaching for me is a frightening endeavor. Part of it is research of what was, part of it is consideration of what is happening in the world, and part of it is remembering what issues are working in the community of faith. But that makes up less than half of what happens in this holy moment.
I remember my father working on sermons. He'd close the French doors that sealed off his study like some wizard in his tower. If I stood at the right angle, I could watch him working, hunched over the desk that was covered with volumes of commentaries. After hours, these would be replaced with a Hebrew or Greek text and an English text. Then there would be times of elbow supported head holding. I never saw him all the way through his process, because I had other things to do like trees to climb and things to imagine. But many times when I came back from my excursions, he was still there.
Years later I'd been taught to use those magical tomes. I was now the wizard, I had my own tower. And I came to realize that all the incantations within the tomes, all the ingredients I could gather from the wide and local world meant nothing. They were dry weeds and empty words. And I remembered him, elbows planted, holding his head. I came to realize that he'd been praying, praying for the lightning, praying for the spirit that altered these bits of news and scholarship, transformed them with the breath of the eternal into a living and breathing moment of God's touch.
He did that. He opened the pipes for people to be touched with a sense of more. Everything else he did for and with and in the churches that he ran and administered and pastored may have been important to the world and to the people, but it was all secondary to those moments of touch. Because then and there, God was present.
I also came to realize over time that all the preparation in the universe couldn't open any pipes, because the Lord of all time tends to work in the present tense. That time of preaching is consecrated, set aside. It is a place of glory and of storm. It is full of hope and fear. It is full of darkness and light. And I remembered the prayer he said each Sunday, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer."
Then I realized and have ever since that this whole thing is not about producing some sort of presentation or even achieving a result to be measured by categories of success or failure. It is an act of prayer. It is about placing everything one can gather, every bit of wisdom and perspective before the living Lord as a sacrifice, to be used by that Lord as he wills. It needs to be acceptable in no one's sight except his. And that net is thrown over the entire congregation. We're all confronted by the measure of the God of all that is, was, and will be. So, why aren't we simply terrified? Because, as we pray, we also claim this Lord as our "rock and our redeemer." We preachers open ourselves in humility and confidence, we claim this Lord as our own.
No wonder my father held his head in his hands. In the midst of all the other stuff he had to do, keeping his own valves open wasn't easy. And sometimes I wish I was still outside watching my father struggle. It's hard work. But then you know that, don't you?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. McKirachan is the author of I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder (Westminster John Knox).
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 27, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
