Late For Her Own Funeral
Stories
Object:
A Story to Live By
Late For Her Own Funeral
by John Sumwalt
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Psalm 42:11
I just completed a whirlwind five-day storytelling tour with Rosmarie Trapp of the famed von Trapp Family Singers (whose story was told in The Sound of Music). We traveled 800 miles, were on three radio programs, and spoke live to over 800 people in five Wisconsin communities. Rosmarie is the first-born child of the Captain and Maria. She has seven older and two younger siblings, five of whom are still living. The von Trapps escaped from Austria when the Nazis came in 1938. Rosmarie said her parents had a vision like Abraham to go to a new land that God would show them, a decision, she said, that saved their lives. She was 9 years old when they arrived in "Amerika" and settled on a farm in Stowe, Vermont, where The von Trapp Family Lodge is located today. They slept in a haymow in a barn the first summer while their home was being built.
The von Trapp Family Singers offered concerts all over the world in the 1940s and '50s: "Tiny one-horse towns and big cities, we went everywhere -- every state in the US except Alaska, Canada, Mexico, South America, and New Zealand," Rosmarie said. When we passed Kohler, Wisconsin, on our way from a book signing in Plymouth to a church event in Sheboygan on Wednesday night, she exclaimed, "Oh, we played here in the 1940s." She remembered touring the factory where the Kohler tubs, sinks, and other bathroom accessories are still made.
I opened each program with vision stories from the three books in the vision series (Rosmarie has a personal story in each one), and after I had warmed up the crowd Rosmarie would come on and tell the stories behind the story of The Sound of Music: what really happened and what was just "Hollywood." She said it was true that the captain had a whistle, but he was not a soldier and did not teach the children to march. He had a whistle because he had been a submarine captain -- it was the only way to get the sailors' attention over the noisy engines. She told about appearing briefly as an extra with her mother and a niece in one scene during the filming of the movie. It was in Salzburg, their former home, as Julie Andrews sang "I Have Confidence" under an arch. After ten takes she was glad that that was the beginning and the end of her movie career.
Wherever we went Rosmarie witnessed to her faith, played guitar, and led people in singing favorite songs from The Sound of Music: "Do-Re-Mi," "My Favorite Things," "Edelweiss," "Climb Every Mountain," and "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music." The tunes are still ringing in my head. Rosmarie always invited the children to come up and sing with her. At one event there was a developmentally disabled girl who was singing loudly and off-key. Rosmarie invited her up on stage and had her sit by her side and sing with her during the rest of the performance.
I heard new stories each time Rosmarie spoke. On the last night, she told about a sister who was always late. They used to tease her, telling her that she would be late for her own funeral. When she died, her body was sent by mistake to Waterbury, Connecticut, instead of Waterbury, Vermont. They had to start the funeral without her, and when the casket arrived about halfway through the service, everyone had a good laugh. "It was the best funeral we ever had," Rosmarie said.
Rosmarie Trapp belongs to "The Community of the Crucified One." She can be reached at 428 Guild Hill Road, Waterbury Center, Vermont, 05677, and at the Trapp Family Lodge (Phone: 800-826-7000), where she leads singalongs and tells stories every Thursday.
Shining Moments
Stranger on a Fence Post
by Bonnie Compton Hanson
Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat."
1 Kings 19:5b
Pulling his coat tight against the bitter wind, the old man stopped at the crest of Blue Bank Hill, near Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Above him, the winter sky pinked with the first blush of dawn: a blush reflected in the snow all around him and in the treacherous ice beneath his feet.
Just in front of him, the road dropped off like a roller coaster -- a roller coaster coated with deadly ice! Beside him, his weary mules chomped at their bits, their warm breath forming instant puffs in the freezing air. Behind them loomed the wagonload of railroad ties they had been pulling ever since four o'clock that morning along twisting, unpaved eastern Kentucky mountain roads. They were ties that he himself had logged and dressed from his own forest, for although he was already 75, Reason ("Reece") Hinton was still as strong and ramrod-straight as a man half his age.
But was he strong enough to make it down that hill without losing his load, his mules, or even his own life? If only he had known about this ice when he left home! Then he could have asked one of his sons or grandsons to come along -- though they probably would have had the sense not to in such weather. Unfortunately, Reece Hinton was a stubborn man, to his usual regret. But somehow God always managed to come through to help him out of all of his difficulties.
For instance, when he was very small, his beloved mother Clarinda had died. But God had brought a new mother into his life, who he had come to love just as deeply. Then, after he was grown and married, and the children came one after another -- eight in all -- his wife Laura Belle was always in poor health. Then he himself became so ill that the doctor feared for his life. "Dear God," he had prayed then, "please let me live long enough to raise all of these little ones. If you do, I will serve you with my whole life."
God answered that prayer beyond all expectation. Indeed, Reece hadn't been sick a day since. In gratitude, he vowed to spend his life learning the scriptures and praising God. Eventually he committed whole chapters of the Bible to memory. He also used the beautiful voice God had given him to sing God's praises everywhere he went, including hymns he composed himself.
Even as he stood in his current predicament, "O God,Our Help in Ages Past" burst into his mind, begging to be sung. But he needed every ounce of energy possible to keep his wagon from careening out of control on the way down that hill. Not enough brake action could cause a wild (and possibly deadly) plunge; too much could lock the wheels, jerking them sideways and pitching those heavy logs forward onto his helpless mules.
Still praying, he spoke encouragingly to the protesting animals, then clicked the reins. As they lunged, he jerked the wooden brake stick back and forth to maintain control. Inch by inch, they moved forward. Then, suddenly, the wagon began gaining momentum while the mules fought in vain for footing on the glass-slick ice.
Desperate now, Reece fought with the brake, his fingers almost frozen from the cold and the effort. But between the ice and the downslope, and with the rapidly increasing speed, he was quickly losing the battle.
"Dear God!" he prayed out loud, "if you're going to help me, please do it quick!"
"Hey there, mister, could you-all use an extra hand?"
Jerking around, Reece saw a farmer sitting on a fence post beside the road. Not even stopping to wonder why anyone would be out there this bitterly cold morning, Reece yelled back, "Sure could, son."
In a moment the stranger had reached him. "Can't blame you. This hill is almost impossible when it's iced up like this. Headed into town?"
"Right. Got to deliver this load of ties. Sure glad to see a friendly face."
Reece expected the man to help with the reins up front, or to pull back on the wagon from behind. Instead, the stranger just put his hand on the wagon's side and walked companionably alongside it in the snow. But something remarkable happened. Instantly the mules stopped sliding; the wagon stopped skidding. They could have been traveling on flat ground!
The two men continued talking about mules and lumber and things of the Lord all the way down the hill. At the bottom, the stranger said, "Well, guess I'd better go now."
The old man reached for his new friend's hand. "You'll never know how much I've appreciated your help, son. You-all from around here? Sorry, I didn't get your name. You know how us old men forget to..." He stopped. There was no one there. Now that all the danger was past, the stranger had simply vanished into thin air.
As soon as he returned home to his farm in Muses Mills late that night, Reece told his daughter Alice and his granddaughter Ruby about this wonderful stranger. And he continued to talk about him until his death at 80, insisting that God had sent a Heavenly Being to help him that bitter, icy morning.
My great-grandpa never stopped thanking God for it, either!
Bonnie Compton Hanson is the author of the "Ponytail Girls" books for girls, plus other books, poems, stories, and articles, including stories in three "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books. Write to her at: 3330 S. Lowell St., Santa Ana, California 92707. Phone 714-751-7824; e-mail bonnieh1@worldnet.att.net.
Good Stories
The Demon
by Connie Schroeder
Then the people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.
Luke 8:35-36
"Anyone who hates his brother, does not know God..." (1 John 4:20)
The words were as plain as day, no escaping them. I was consumed with hatred, with anger, with rage. One person in particular had caused me more pain than I had ever imagined myself capable of enduring. I had spent years (quite literally) struggling to find healing for my poor body, mind, and spirit. Sexual abuse does damage to the whole, and the damage in my life felt infinite. I could not believe there would ever be wholeness in my life. The pain was so overwhelming, I wanted to hurt my body, just to take my mind off the emotional pain. It is difficult to explain the years of waking to screams in the night, only to discover they were my own. Barely eking out a living, unable to find anything good in myself, anything worthy, anything that anyone would want, my existence was a nightmare.
It was the anger which drove me to confront him. I tried to do it without attacking him. He denied it all. It didn't end there. I lost my entire family to the whole thing. They all believed him: they said I was making it up to get attention. At one point I recanted, hoping that I could find my way back into my family, but it didn't matter now. The damage was done. And I couldn't lie about it anyway. It had happened.
Years of therapy. Endless tears. Begging God to heal me. I was the demoniac. Alone. In such pain I would do harm to my poor body. Shame. Guilt. "Maybe it was really all my fault...." And then this cruel verse from 1 John. How could I not hate him? I didn't know how to fix this awful mess that had left me suffering and alone in the world.
Christ knew.
One day I sat, listening for God, and a scene unfolded before me. There I was, a child, dancing in a circle of light. Innocence and beauty sparkled there. Somehow I stumbled and fell, the darkness claimed me, and I was trapped. I could hardly breathe. I could not move, pinned to the ground by a heavy blanket of evil.
I could sense the others around me there in the dark, trapped beneath the evil, unable to move. I could hear someone walking in this strange land. The footsteps came closer, but I wasn't afraid. It was Jesus, reaching down to me with strong hands. I could see the scars on his wrists. I reached out and touched one with my hand, and suddenly terrible suffering and pain engulfed me. It was a fire consuming me. And then, just as suddenly, I was standing beside him. We were dancing there in the darkness together, and I was free. I could breathe. I could move!
There was work to do. There were all of the others who too were trapped beneath a terrible weight. And so we went about the work. Some refused help. But others touched the scars, shared in the suffering, and found freedom.
This felt like a promise to me. And so it was.
Gradually I began to reclaim my life, digging into my soul, doing the work of healing. I found myself facing even bigger demons within myself. I looked at my life with wide-open eyes. At first it seemed as though I couldn't bear to see the things I saw. The light of Christ penetrates our darkness, and like Gollum of The Hobbit, part of me wanted to slink away from that light. But another part of me wanted God, wanted love in my life, however impossible it seemed. So I kept at the work. And Christ came to me -- in my dreams, in my meditations, through friends who held me close -- and slowly the demons which had me in a death grip let go.
Several years ago, I woke up one morning and discovered the hatred was gone. When had it left? It is still a mystery to me. God had done the work. I am free. There is joy. And I have no doubt that I know more of God. There is still yet more to know. I abandon myself to the adventure, no longer clinging or striving -- just being here, in the heart of God: learning more about love for God, for myself, for others.
Connie Schroeder offers an online "Weekly Reflection for Creative Souls" based on one of the weekly lectionary texts. To subscribe to this free service, e-mail her at csturtleconnie@earthlink.net.
Scrap Pile
This is an essay I wrote in preparation for a workshop on visions that I led on June 5. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts about this, and any ideas you have about sharing visions.
The Healing Power of Visions
by John Sumwalt
Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" ...Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return your way to the wilderness of Damascus."
1 Kings 19:13b, 15a
I was at a clergy gathering recently when a colleague leaned over the table and told me about a person who had lost someone dear to suicide. Not long after, this person had a dream in which the lost loved one appeared to give assurance that everything was all right. The bereaved person could not accept the comfort offered in the dream. My colleague offered one of our vision books as a possible source of insight and comfort. The bereaved person read the book, was touched deeply, and came to trust the grace and love in the dream. She now plans to share copies of the book with friends who are also hurting.
My friends, this no small thing! We have a ministry that makes a saving difference in people's lives, that points to the presence of God and the healing power of Christ, and gives hope to suffering souls who are tempted to despair.
Knowing this, and seeing evidence of the power of these witnesses wherever I go, makes me wonder why there is so much apprehension, and sometimes downright hostility, to the sharing of visions. Do any of you experience this, or is it just me?
Not long ago, I heard a prominent church leader vehemently assert that "Jesus didn't call people to just have mystical experiences!" This is certainly true. But the tone of the remark suggested that anybody talking about visions at all is spouting pie in the sky.
How could a statement like this be made in a church whose life is guided by scriptures filled with the power-filled vision stories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Mary, Elizabeth, Joseph, Zechariah, Paul, Peter, Ananias, Cornelius, and John, who filled the book of Revelation with his sightings of the holy? How could such a thing be said in a church founded on mystical bedrock of "the resurrection," "the Holy Spirit," the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the promise of Jesus that "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Matthew 18:20)?
William Johnston wrote: "Assuredly, Western Christianity has a rich mystical tradition. But how often were mystics ignored or marginalized or persecuted by an establishment that put emphasis on words and letters, on doctrines and dogmas, on the strict observance of church law? ...The tragedy of Western Christianity is that there were, and are, so few mystics in the establishment." (Arise My Love: Mysticism For A New Era, Orbis Books, 2000, p. 138)
Phyllis Tickle speaks to this in a Christian Century article by Wendy Murray Zoba: "We are post-enlightenment, living in a kind of neo-medievalism.... The last time we believed in the mysterium -- things we cannot see and what we cannot hear -- was in the medieval times."
Tickle, known for her series of devotional books The Divine Hours, tells in her book The Shaping of a Life about a transforming near-death experience she had after a miscarriage:
"I was up in the corner of the room just above my bed.... My back was curved and my legs drawn up in front of me and my chin was resting on my fists.... Something had caused me to move to my right: and there in the spot where there should have been more ceiling there was only light.... I thought to myself it was like a glowing culvert between two meadows...."
Tickle says an experience like this "irrevocably changes you. There is no way to undo the experience. By the time you come back it is too real and too integrated into every fiber of your belief system. The end result is you simply aren't afraid anymore...." ("Literary Agent," The Christian Century, May 18, 2004, pp. 20-22)
Do you suppose anyone would ever accuse Phyllis Tickle of "just wanting to have mystical experiences?" I have never met anyone who just wanted to have mystical experiences. I have met many people who were humbled, overwhelmed, astonished, healed, empowered, or filled with peace by an experience of the holy, but not one of them gave any indication of needing a regular mystical fix. What all of them did long for was an opportunity to share the experience. And I have met countless persons who have had these experiences and never told anyone because they feared rejection and ridicule.
Marcus Borg writes in his book The God We Never Knew: "In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God, and if so, to share them in small groups. On average 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it."
Dorothee Soelle, who once taught at a theological seminary in New York, tells how the students responded when asked to talk about their religious experience. "There was an embarrassed silence; it was as if we had asked our grandmothers to talk about their sex lives." Then, she says, one brave young woman spoke of a wonderful moment of happiness she had one night while looking at the stars, "a feeling of overwhelming clarity, of being sheltered and carried." Soelle adds, "Suppose that young woman had lived in fourteenth-century Flanders; she would have had at her disposal other traditions of language allowing her to say, 'I heard a voice,' or 'I saw a light.' Our culture confines her to sobriety, self-restriction, and scholarly manners of expression. How she fought these constraints and the very fact that she did makes her unforgettable." (The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Fortress Press, 2001, pp. 195-196)
Leonard Sweet gave me some insight into this cultural and church hierarchical resistance to testimonies to visions in an address I was privileged to hear at the American Baptist Assembly in Green Lake last week. He said, "The modern heresy is the belief that the most powerful forces in the universe are physical, material." For Sweet this is tantamount to saying "the tree moves the wind. Spiritual leaders must understand the power of the wind to move all things, must live a spirit-blown life. Mastery of the spirit is the essence of spiritual leadership. Someone who is living a wind-blown life is unpredictable." (I am paraphrasing what he said from very rough notes -- and I apologize to Leonard if I have misrepresented him.)
It is this unpredictability that is so disconcerting to church leaders, who prefer approved doctrines and staid canonical teachings to fresh reports of the Spirit's movement. But the "Wind" is relentless. It will move the tree; God will move and work in our lives, in spite of our determined resistance, until we are fully awake to all that we are created to be.
Alice Walker, the award-winning author of The Color Purple, tells of a time in the 1990s when she gave up writing for good. "I began to feel that writing was wonderful, but I was once removed from everything I experienced," she says. "I wanted just to show up at places and with people as nothing but myself, not as a writer." For three years she didn't write a word. "Then one day, I was walking through this house and started feeling very strange. I sat on a bench in the sunroom and I felt as though I was being physically informed that I didn't get to decide when I stop [writing]. Who informed me, I couldn't say. But I felt it. I nodded, went to Mexico, and every morning I wrote poems. I haven't stopped writing since." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, May 24, 2004)
The Spirit will also bring comfort to the comfortless, sometimes against all odds. Keith R. Eytcheson Sr. tells about an unexpected visitation while driving one day. His nephew, who had committed suicide, "appeared in front of the car, seemingly suspended in mid-air. I stared in shock as he said to me, 'Tell them I'm OK.' Then he disappeared." Keith writes: "I drove ahead, pulled the car over, and began to weep." (Vision Stories, CSS Publishing, 2002, p. 77)
In his book Angels in Red Suspenders, Ralph Milton describes the peace that came in the aftermath of his son Lloyd's suicide in 1997. At the memorial service for Lloyd, his twin sister Grace told of a dream in which her brother had been sitting with her on the edge of her bed and had given her a big hug. "Then he said, 'I have found our father.' At first I thought he meant our birth father. Then I realized he meant God."
Ralph tells that the dream ministered to their whole family: "We ache with the loss of our son, and wish he could have changed his last and final choice. But it was his. And we know that Lloyd had learned how to love, and that he had found God.... We are in pain, but we are at peace." (Angels in Red Suspenders, Northstone Publishing, 1998, pp. 282-283)
There is healing in the telling of visions for both tellers and hearers. Praise God!
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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 in June 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, 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.)
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StoryShare, June 20, 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.
Late For Her Own Funeral
by John Sumwalt
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
Psalm 42:11
I just completed a whirlwind five-day storytelling tour with Rosmarie Trapp of the famed von Trapp Family Singers (whose story was told in The Sound of Music). We traveled 800 miles, were on three radio programs, and spoke live to over 800 people in five Wisconsin communities. Rosmarie is the first-born child of the Captain and Maria. She has seven older and two younger siblings, five of whom are still living. The von Trapps escaped from Austria when the Nazis came in 1938. Rosmarie said her parents had a vision like Abraham to go to a new land that God would show them, a decision, she said, that saved their lives. She was 9 years old when they arrived in "Amerika" and settled on a farm in Stowe, Vermont, where The von Trapp Family Lodge is located today. They slept in a haymow in a barn the first summer while their home was being built.
The von Trapp Family Singers offered concerts all over the world in the 1940s and '50s: "Tiny one-horse towns and big cities, we went everywhere -- every state in the US except Alaska, Canada, Mexico, South America, and New Zealand," Rosmarie said. When we passed Kohler, Wisconsin, on our way from a book signing in Plymouth to a church event in Sheboygan on Wednesday night, she exclaimed, "Oh, we played here in the 1940s." She remembered touring the factory where the Kohler tubs, sinks, and other bathroom accessories are still made.
I opened each program with vision stories from the three books in the vision series (Rosmarie has a personal story in each one), and after I had warmed up the crowd Rosmarie would come on and tell the stories behind the story of The Sound of Music: what really happened and what was just "Hollywood." She said it was true that the captain had a whistle, but he was not a soldier and did not teach the children to march. He had a whistle because he had been a submarine captain -- it was the only way to get the sailors' attention over the noisy engines. She told about appearing briefly as an extra with her mother and a niece in one scene during the filming of the movie. It was in Salzburg, their former home, as Julie Andrews sang "I Have Confidence" under an arch. After ten takes she was glad that that was the beginning and the end of her movie career.
Wherever we went Rosmarie witnessed to her faith, played guitar, and led people in singing favorite songs from The Sound of Music: "Do-Re-Mi," "My Favorite Things," "Edelweiss," "Climb Every Mountain," and "The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music." The tunes are still ringing in my head. Rosmarie always invited the children to come up and sing with her. At one event there was a developmentally disabled girl who was singing loudly and off-key. Rosmarie invited her up on stage and had her sit by her side and sing with her during the rest of the performance.
I heard new stories each time Rosmarie spoke. On the last night, she told about a sister who was always late. They used to tease her, telling her that she would be late for her own funeral. When she died, her body was sent by mistake to Waterbury, Connecticut, instead of Waterbury, Vermont. They had to start the funeral without her, and when the casket arrived about halfway through the service, everyone had a good laugh. "It was the best funeral we ever had," Rosmarie said.
Rosmarie Trapp belongs to "The Community of the Crucified One." She can be reached at 428 Guild Hill Road, Waterbury Center, Vermont, 05677, and at the Trapp Family Lodge (Phone: 800-826-7000), where she leads singalongs and tells stories every Thursday.
Shining Moments
Stranger on a Fence Post
by Bonnie Compton Hanson
Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat."
1 Kings 19:5b
Pulling his coat tight against the bitter wind, the old man stopped at the crest of Blue Bank Hill, near Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Above him, the winter sky pinked with the first blush of dawn: a blush reflected in the snow all around him and in the treacherous ice beneath his feet.
Just in front of him, the road dropped off like a roller coaster -- a roller coaster coated with deadly ice! Beside him, his weary mules chomped at their bits, their warm breath forming instant puffs in the freezing air. Behind them loomed the wagonload of railroad ties they had been pulling ever since four o'clock that morning along twisting, unpaved eastern Kentucky mountain roads. They were ties that he himself had logged and dressed from his own forest, for although he was already 75, Reason ("Reece") Hinton was still as strong and ramrod-straight as a man half his age.
But was he strong enough to make it down that hill without losing his load, his mules, or even his own life? If only he had known about this ice when he left home! Then he could have asked one of his sons or grandsons to come along -- though they probably would have had the sense not to in such weather. Unfortunately, Reece Hinton was a stubborn man, to his usual regret. But somehow God always managed to come through to help him out of all of his difficulties.
For instance, when he was very small, his beloved mother Clarinda had died. But God had brought a new mother into his life, who he had come to love just as deeply. Then, after he was grown and married, and the children came one after another -- eight in all -- his wife Laura Belle was always in poor health. Then he himself became so ill that the doctor feared for his life. "Dear God," he had prayed then, "please let me live long enough to raise all of these little ones. If you do, I will serve you with my whole life."
God answered that prayer beyond all expectation. Indeed, Reece hadn't been sick a day since. In gratitude, he vowed to spend his life learning the scriptures and praising God. Eventually he committed whole chapters of the Bible to memory. He also used the beautiful voice God had given him to sing God's praises everywhere he went, including hymns he composed himself.
Even as he stood in his current predicament, "O God,Our Help in Ages Past" burst into his mind, begging to be sung. But he needed every ounce of energy possible to keep his wagon from careening out of control on the way down that hill. Not enough brake action could cause a wild (and possibly deadly) plunge; too much could lock the wheels, jerking them sideways and pitching those heavy logs forward onto his helpless mules.
Still praying, he spoke encouragingly to the protesting animals, then clicked the reins. As they lunged, he jerked the wooden brake stick back and forth to maintain control. Inch by inch, they moved forward. Then, suddenly, the wagon began gaining momentum while the mules fought in vain for footing on the glass-slick ice.
Desperate now, Reece fought with the brake, his fingers almost frozen from the cold and the effort. But between the ice and the downslope, and with the rapidly increasing speed, he was quickly losing the battle.
"Dear God!" he prayed out loud, "if you're going to help me, please do it quick!"
"Hey there, mister, could you-all use an extra hand?"
Jerking around, Reece saw a farmer sitting on a fence post beside the road. Not even stopping to wonder why anyone would be out there this bitterly cold morning, Reece yelled back, "Sure could, son."
In a moment the stranger had reached him. "Can't blame you. This hill is almost impossible when it's iced up like this. Headed into town?"
"Right. Got to deliver this load of ties. Sure glad to see a friendly face."
Reece expected the man to help with the reins up front, or to pull back on the wagon from behind. Instead, the stranger just put his hand on the wagon's side and walked companionably alongside it in the snow. But something remarkable happened. Instantly the mules stopped sliding; the wagon stopped skidding. They could have been traveling on flat ground!
The two men continued talking about mules and lumber and things of the Lord all the way down the hill. At the bottom, the stranger said, "Well, guess I'd better go now."
The old man reached for his new friend's hand. "You'll never know how much I've appreciated your help, son. You-all from around here? Sorry, I didn't get your name. You know how us old men forget to..." He stopped. There was no one there. Now that all the danger was past, the stranger had simply vanished into thin air.
As soon as he returned home to his farm in Muses Mills late that night, Reece told his daughter Alice and his granddaughter Ruby about this wonderful stranger. And he continued to talk about him until his death at 80, insisting that God had sent a Heavenly Being to help him that bitter, icy morning.
My great-grandpa never stopped thanking God for it, either!
Bonnie Compton Hanson is the author of the "Ponytail Girls" books for girls, plus other books, poems, stories, and articles, including stories in three "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books. Write to her at: 3330 S. Lowell St., Santa Ana, California 92707. Phone 714-751-7824; e-mail bonnieh1@worldnet.att.net.
Good Stories
The Demon
by Connie Schroeder
Then the people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.
Luke 8:35-36
"Anyone who hates his brother, does not know God..." (1 John 4:20)
The words were as plain as day, no escaping them. I was consumed with hatred, with anger, with rage. One person in particular had caused me more pain than I had ever imagined myself capable of enduring. I had spent years (quite literally) struggling to find healing for my poor body, mind, and spirit. Sexual abuse does damage to the whole, and the damage in my life felt infinite. I could not believe there would ever be wholeness in my life. The pain was so overwhelming, I wanted to hurt my body, just to take my mind off the emotional pain. It is difficult to explain the years of waking to screams in the night, only to discover they were my own. Barely eking out a living, unable to find anything good in myself, anything worthy, anything that anyone would want, my existence was a nightmare.
It was the anger which drove me to confront him. I tried to do it without attacking him. He denied it all. It didn't end there. I lost my entire family to the whole thing. They all believed him: they said I was making it up to get attention. At one point I recanted, hoping that I could find my way back into my family, but it didn't matter now. The damage was done. And I couldn't lie about it anyway. It had happened.
Years of therapy. Endless tears. Begging God to heal me. I was the demoniac. Alone. In such pain I would do harm to my poor body. Shame. Guilt. "Maybe it was really all my fault...." And then this cruel verse from 1 John. How could I not hate him? I didn't know how to fix this awful mess that had left me suffering and alone in the world.
Christ knew.
One day I sat, listening for God, and a scene unfolded before me. There I was, a child, dancing in a circle of light. Innocence and beauty sparkled there. Somehow I stumbled and fell, the darkness claimed me, and I was trapped. I could hardly breathe. I could not move, pinned to the ground by a heavy blanket of evil.
I could sense the others around me there in the dark, trapped beneath the evil, unable to move. I could hear someone walking in this strange land. The footsteps came closer, but I wasn't afraid. It was Jesus, reaching down to me with strong hands. I could see the scars on his wrists. I reached out and touched one with my hand, and suddenly terrible suffering and pain engulfed me. It was a fire consuming me. And then, just as suddenly, I was standing beside him. We were dancing there in the darkness together, and I was free. I could breathe. I could move!
There was work to do. There were all of the others who too were trapped beneath a terrible weight. And so we went about the work. Some refused help. But others touched the scars, shared in the suffering, and found freedom.
This felt like a promise to me. And so it was.
Gradually I began to reclaim my life, digging into my soul, doing the work of healing. I found myself facing even bigger demons within myself. I looked at my life with wide-open eyes. At first it seemed as though I couldn't bear to see the things I saw. The light of Christ penetrates our darkness, and like Gollum of The Hobbit, part of me wanted to slink away from that light. But another part of me wanted God, wanted love in my life, however impossible it seemed. So I kept at the work. And Christ came to me -- in my dreams, in my meditations, through friends who held me close -- and slowly the demons which had me in a death grip let go.
Several years ago, I woke up one morning and discovered the hatred was gone. When had it left? It is still a mystery to me. God had done the work. I am free. There is joy. And I have no doubt that I know more of God. There is still yet more to know. I abandon myself to the adventure, no longer clinging or striving -- just being here, in the heart of God: learning more about love for God, for myself, for others.
Connie Schroeder offers an online "Weekly Reflection for Creative Souls" based on one of the weekly lectionary texts. To subscribe to this free service, e-mail her at csturtleconnie@earthlink.net.
Scrap Pile
This is an essay I wrote in preparation for a workshop on visions that I led on June 5. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts about this, and any ideas you have about sharing visions.
The Healing Power of Visions
by John Sumwalt
Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" ...Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return your way to the wilderness of Damascus."
1 Kings 19:13b, 15a
I was at a clergy gathering recently when a colleague leaned over the table and told me about a person who had lost someone dear to suicide. Not long after, this person had a dream in which the lost loved one appeared to give assurance that everything was all right. The bereaved person could not accept the comfort offered in the dream. My colleague offered one of our vision books as a possible source of insight and comfort. The bereaved person read the book, was touched deeply, and came to trust the grace and love in the dream. She now plans to share copies of the book with friends who are also hurting.
My friends, this no small thing! We have a ministry that makes a saving difference in people's lives, that points to the presence of God and the healing power of Christ, and gives hope to suffering souls who are tempted to despair.
Knowing this, and seeing evidence of the power of these witnesses wherever I go, makes me wonder why there is so much apprehension, and sometimes downright hostility, to the sharing of visions. Do any of you experience this, or is it just me?
Not long ago, I heard a prominent church leader vehemently assert that "Jesus didn't call people to just have mystical experiences!" This is certainly true. But the tone of the remark suggested that anybody talking about visions at all is spouting pie in the sky.
How could a statement like this be made in a church whose life is guided by scriptures filled with the power-filled vision stories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Mary, Elizabeth, Joseph, Zechariah, Paul, Peter, Ananias, Cornelius, and John, who filled the book of Revelation with his sightings of the holy? How could such a thing be said in a church founded on mystical bedrock of "the resurrection," "the Holy Spirit," the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the promise of Jesus that "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Matthew 18:20)?
William Johnston wrote: "Assuredly, Western Christianity has a rich mystical tradition. But how often were mystics ignored or marginalized or persecuted by an establishment that put emphasis on words and letters, on doctrines and dogmas, on the strict observance of church law? ...The tragedy of Western Christianity is that there were, and are, so few mystics in the establishment." (Arise My Love: Mysticism For A New Era, Orbis Books, 2000, p. 138)
Phyllis Tickle speaks to this in a Christian Century article by Wendy Murray Zoba: "We are post-enlightenment, living in a kind of neo-medievalism.... The last time we believed in the mysterium -- things we cannot see and what we cannot hear -- was in the medieval times."
Tickle, known for her series of devotional books The Divine Hours, tells in her book The Shaping of a Life about a transforming near-death experience she had after a miscarriage:
"I was up in the corner of the room just above my bed.... My back was curved and my legs drawn up in front of me and my chin was resting on my fists.... Something had caused me to move to my right: and there in the spot where there should have been more ceiling there was only light.... I thought to myself it was like a glowing culvert between two meadows...."
Tickle says an experience like this "irrevocably changes you. There is no way to undo the experience. By the time you come back it is too real and too integrated into every fiber of your belief system. The end result is you simply aren't afraid anymore...." ("Literary Agent," The Christian Century, May 18, 2004, pp. 20-22)
Do you suppose anyone would ever accuse Phyllis Tickle of "just wanting to have mystical experiences?" I have never met anyone who just wanted to have mystical experiences. I have met many people who were humbled, overwhelmed, astonished, healed, empowered, or filled with peace by an experience of the holy, but not one of them gave any indication of needing a regular mystical fix. What all of them did long for was an opportunity to share the experience. And I have met countless persons who have had these experiences and never told anyone because they feared rejection and ridicule.
Marcus Borg writes in his book The God We Never Knew: "In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God, and if so, to share them in small groups. On average 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it."
Dorothee Soelle, who once taught at a theological seminary in New York, tells how the students responded when asked to talk about their religious experience. "There was an embarrassed silence; it was as if we had asked our grandmothers to talk about their sex lives." Then, she says, one brave young woman spoke of a wonderful moment of happiness she had one night while looking at the stars, "a feeling of overwhelming clarity, of being sheltered and carried." Soelle adds, "Suppose that young woman had lived in fourteenth-century Flanders; she would have had at her disposal other traditions of language allowing her to say, 'I heard a voice,' or 'I saw a light.' Our culture confines her to sobriety, self-restriction, and scholarly manners of expression. How she fought these constraints and the very fact that she did makes her unforgettable." (The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance, Fortress Press, 2001, pp. 195-196)
Leonard Sweet gave me some insight into this cultural and church hierarchical resistance to testimonies to visions in an address I was privileged to hear at the American Baptist Assembly in Green Lake last week. He said, "The modern heresy is the belief that the most powerful forces in the universe are physical, material." For Sweet this is tantamount to saying "the tree moves the wind. Spiritual leaders must understand the power of the wind to move all things, must live a spirit-blown life. Mastery of the spirit is the essence of spiritual leadership. Someone who is living a wind-blown life is unpredictable." (I am paraphrasing what he said from very rough notes -- and I apologize to Leonard if I have misrepresented him.)
It is this unpredictability that is so disconcerting to church leaders, who prefer approved doctrines and staid canonical teachings to fresh reports of the Spirit's movement. But the "Wind" is relentless. It will move the tree; God will move and work in our lives, in spite of our determined resistance, until we are fully awake to all that we are created to be.
Alice Walker, the award-winning author of The Color Purple, tells of a time in the 1990s when she gave up writing for good. "I began to feel that writing was wonderful, but I was once removed from everything I experienced," she says. "I wanted just to show up at places and with people as nothing but myself, not as a writer." For three years she didn't write a word. "Then one day, I was walking through this house and started feeling very strange. I sat on a bench in the sunroom and I felt as though I was being physically informed that I didn't get to decide when I stop [writing]. Who informed me, I couldn't say. But I felt it. I nodded, went to Mexico, and every morning I wrote poems. I haven't stopped writing since." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, May 24, 2004)
The Spirit will also bring comfort to the comfortless, sometimes against all odds. Keith R. Eytcheson Sr. tells about an unexpected visitation while driving one day. His nephew, who had committed suicide, "appeared in front of the car, seemingly suspended in mid-air. I stared in shock as he said to me, 'Tell them I'm OK.' Then he disappeared." Keith writes: "I drove ahead, pulled the car over, and began to weep." (Vision Stories, CSS Publishing, 2002, p. 77)
In his book Angels in Red Suspenders, Ralph Milton describes the peace that came in the aftermath of his son Lloyd's suicide in 1997. At the memorial service for Lloyd, his twin sister Grace told of a dream in which her brother had been sitting with her on the edge of her bed and had given her a big hug. "Then he said, 'I have found our father.' At first I thought he meant our birth father. Then I realized he meant God."
Ralph tells that the dream ministered to their whole family: "We ache with the loss of our son, and wish he could have changed his last and final choice. But it was his. And we know that Lloyd had learned how to love, and that he had found God.... We are in pain, but we are at peace." (Angels in Red Suspenders, Northstone Publishing, 1998, pp. 282-283)
There is healing in the telling of visions for both tellers and hearers. Praise God!
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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 in June 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, 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.)
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StoryShare, June 20, 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.
