The Art of Caring

Mr. Alter’s fifth grade class at Lake Elementary School in Oceanside, California included 14 boys who had no hair. But only one had no choice in the matter.

Ian O’Gorman was one of Mr. Alter’s 5th grade boys with no hair. In the spring, Ian was undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma. The brutal medicines were so harsh that he began to lose his hair. First, his hair loss was gradual. Then it began to fall out in small clumps. A little later in his treatments, he woke up in the mornings to find larger tuffs of blond hair covering his pillow. That’s when Ian went to his barber to get his head shaved. The next day the other 13 boys in his class went to their barbers and got their heads shaved too. They did not want Ian to feel alone and out of place with his shaved head.

Ten-year-old Kyle Hanslik started it all. He talked to some of the other boys and, before long, they were all at the barbershop getting their heads shaved. In an interview, Kyle said, “The last thing Ian would want is to not fit in – we just wanted to do something to make him feel better.” His classmates could not cure his cancer; they could not eradicate the lymphoma from his body, but they made him feel better.

The Apostle Paul instructs us in the book of Galatians, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Jesus Christ.” The law of Christ reminds us, “to love our neighbor as our self.” We are also reminded that, “The GOD of all comfort comforts us in all of our troubles so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort which we have received from GOD.” (2nd Cor. 13-4). In Mr. Alter’s 5th grade class at Lake Elementary School of Oceanside, California, those students showed us the art of caring as they demonstrated a new way to carry someone’s burden. There are other ways, like sitting in a funeral home and visiting with a grieving family. Sending cards and notes to neighbors shut in their homes by illness is a way we can show care. Then there is the way the late Sam Rayburn, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, showed the way he cared.

Sam Rayburn heard that the daughter of one of his friends was critically injured in a traffic accident far from home. Early the next morning, Mr. Rayburn went to his friend’s house and knocked on the front door. He said, “I just came by to see what I could do for you.”

The father replied that there was really nothing anyone can do – all we are doing is waiting.”

“Well,” Rayburn said, “have you had your morning coffee yet?”

The man shook his head saying that they just had did not feel like making breakfast.
“Well, then,” Rayburn said, “I’ll make some coffee for us.” With that, Rayburn went to work in the kitchen. While he was working in the kitchen, his friend asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be having breakfast with the President at the White House this morning?”

“I was,” Rayburn said, “but I called the President and told him I had a friend who was in need and that I could not come to the White House this morning.”

We can make a big difference in our world by acting more caring toward others. We can make a difference to our community if we take time to be with people who are in pain. We can have an impact on someone’s life by just taking time to be with them.

One cold Chicago night after a basketball game, Chicago Bulls’ super star, Michael Jordan, headed through a large crowd of fans toward his waiting car. As he opened the car door, Jordan noticed a youngster in a wheelchair some 20 feet away. The boy’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle; his eyes could not look directly forward. Jordan walked over to the boy and knelt down beside him. The youngster was so excited that he began to rise up out of the wheelchair. Jordan comforted him, talking softly to him, while putting his arm around the boy’s frail shoulder.
The boy’s father tried to snap a picture, but the camera did not work. Jordan noticed. Without being asked, he continued to kneel at the boy’s side until the father was able to take the picture. Only then did Jordan slowly rise and return to his car.

The boy’s eyes were glistening with tears. His dad was talking with his son about how Michael Jordan took time to come over to him. If nothing else, that boy will always remember the night Michael Jordan cared enough to include him in his world.

Is there someone you need to make time for and include in your world? How can you help to bear someone’s burden and so fulfill the law of Christ? And when we do, we can Jesus whispering in our ear, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Endings & Beginnings

Scheherazade was perhaps the best storyteller ever. She became the best storyteller out of necessity. Marriage to King Shahryar, the sultan, was not an easy life, but it was always a short life. The king, governing an unnamed island between India and China, believed he had been betrayed by his wife and so had her executed. Ever since that day, the king would marry a new woman in the evening and have her executed at dawn. This way, he thought, he could never be betrayed again. Now Scheherazade became his bride. And in the evening, she began telling him a story, a story filled with intrigue and mystery, a story that had no real ending, a story that went on and on until dawn. For the next 1001 nights, she told king Shahryar stories, spinning yarns until he fell in love with her and realized she would never betray him.

I like the Scheherazade stories. I like how one story ends with the beginning of a new one. 1001 Arabian Nights, known in Arabic as Alf Layla wa Layla, is a extraordinary collection of fables, tales, and stories which appear to reach an ending only to commence again. I like the stories because they remind me of this time of year, which is so filled with endings and beginnings. For us, sometimes the endings and beginnings are so closely linked together that while an apparent ending is taking place, a new beginning is starting up.

This week our youngest child moved back to college and began his sophomore year at WVU, ending a summer of working in the community library. Today our oldest daughter is moving back to law school after returning from summer study in Israel. Both are leaving their summer's behind and are returning to their school which is familiar to them. And yet, it unfamiliar as well, since each is starting a brand new beginning. Matt has ever been a sophomore at WVU and Sarah has never been a second year law student in Ada, Ohio. Each is now exploring uncharted waters. The unknown can be so scary.

While new beginnings are truly new to us, GOD’s love for us is not new. GOD has promised that He has a plan for us. The prophet, Jeremiah, addressing a group of scared and frightened people reminded them that GOD has a plan for them. In Jeremiah 29:11 it is recorded, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” The prophetic words of Jeremiah are not just for the hurting people of Israel, but for all our graduates. These are also powerful words for every one of us. Every evening puts an end to an old day and each morning brings a new beginning, a new day filled with promise, a new day filled with hope. All this is because GOD has a plan for each of us - a plan to prosper us, a plan to give us hope. God has a plan for our future.

Back in 1978, a video series was produced by the United Methodist Church, titled Begin with Goodbye. This series talked about saying goodbye to one area of your life before beginning another. A family moving away from their old, familiar home, a construction worker laid off, a teacher retiring, a wife grieving the loss of husband, a student graduating from school, are all situations where we must say goodbye before we can move on. We celebrate the past and we move confidently and joyfully into the future God has prepared for us.