Musings From The Pages Of My Journal:
A Nigerian woman who is a physician at a great teaching hospital in the United States came out of the crowd today to say something kind about the lecture I had just given. She introduced herself using an American name. “What’s your African name?” I asked. She immediately gave it to me, several syllables long with a musical sound to it. “What does the name mean?” I wondered.
She answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.'”
When I inquired as to why she would have been given this name, she said, “My parents had been forbidden by their parents to marry. But they loved each other so much that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me.”
It occurred to me that her name would be a suitable one for Jesus. He certainly knew how to sweep anger away.
I guess I would also like to be known as a person who sweeps anger away. Being a reconciler is pretty worthwhile personal mission. I recall Garrison Keillor once reflecting on the church of his youth: “We had a surplus of scholars and a deficit of peacemakers.” That ratio needs to be reworked.
Seen in the New York Times Arts Section:
Frank Gorshin, the actor who is currently appearing as George Burns in the Broadway play Say Goodnight, Gracie, comments on his obsession with work “The alternative—not working—is, of course, not an option. I have no leisure … I don’t play golf. I don’t play tennis. I don’t do anything. I need to work because I can’t deal with life. Getting up in the morning, trying to figure out what to do. I don’t want to do all that.”
I’ve met people who sound like Gorshin. I once came close to being one of them, and I have to keep a guard on myself lest, in my older years, I slip over into that kind of a groove for fear that I might become irrelevant. Crazy.
One can obviously crash his or her life by doing something evil; but, barring that, one can also crash life by becoming obsessed with work and never knowing when to let it go. Life is a lot bigger than just the work. There is a world of God’s splendor to discover: grandchildren who need to hear my story, a wife to cherish, an old book to read, a friend to laugh with. And lots more.
Comments From Old Guys (In This Case, Michelangelo):
There are sciences which demand the whole of a man, without leaving the least portion of his spirit free for other distractions; but you will be a better man and not a worse practitioner for an avocation. (I got this from somebody’s book; don’t ask me where.)
In Conversation With My Wife:
Gail reminded me of the story of the ten lepers who pleaded with Jesus for healing. He responded and sent them off to jump through the hoops of health re-certification at the synagogue. Only one, a Samaritan (which is a quiet hint as to what the others were), comes back to say thanks. “Where are other nine?” Jesus wonders.
“Is he,” Gail asks, “putting a premium on the discipline of appreciation? Is he telling modern people that a sign of overload and schedule-saturation is apparent when we take no time to write a thank you note, offer a warm word of thanks?”
She’s right, and I’m newly impressed with how easy it becomes to jump from one nice ministry-thing to another without taking the time to process what God has done and what people have done that needs to be honored and appreciated.
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