Editorial: "Within a yard of Hell"

C. T. Studd (1860-1931) was an English missionary to China, India, and Africa. He is quoted with:

Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.

That sounds Wesleyan.

There are many directions Studd’s quote can lead you, but permit us just one.

Would Wesley be on TV? was a question that got asked in a meeting not too long ago. The question didn’t get an answer.

We’ve been talking at great lengths lately about taking our faith “to the street.” That’s good talk; it’s better action. And it’s even better action when we really understand the full meaning of “street.”

There is an important concept of “street” that always gets ignored. Whether we like the idea or not, television is considered "communication Main Street." That’s still true, even with the web and all kinds of electronic trinkets.

Unfortunately, the Christian church has a bit of egg on it’s face when it comes to broadcasting, television in particular.

II Timothy 4:3 says, “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.”

If you want a demonstration of that verse, watch and listen to much of what is purported to be Christian programming and see for yourself.

Be careful, however. It’s one thing to be upset with shallow, "consumerist" doctrine that sells well, it’s quite another thing to accept some of the responsibility.

Let’s fact it, Wesleyan doctrine is generally absent from communication Main Street and Wesley’s people called Methodists share part of the responsibility.

Somehow, and with some isolated exceptions, religious communities that see through the Wesleyan lens have relinquished the airwaves to “itching ears” doctrine. The subversion and misrepresentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a blemish, not only on the hucksters, but on ourselves as well.

“We’ve a story to tell to the nations,” as the song goes, but we don’t seem to want to get the story dirty or something.

So let’s be presumptuous enough to say that, indeed, Wesley would be preaching on television, just as surely as he preached in a pasture to be chased by a bull.

Commentary: Fixin' stinkin' thinkin'

In my years I’ve seen quite a few political campaigns come and go. Thankfully, I can’t remember one campaign that didn’t do both. My skin crawls when they come, and I take a deep breath of clean air when they go.

I’m certain there is a better way to do what we do every two, or four, years, but George, Thomas, Ben, and all the other sweaty guys in powdered wigs in Philly didn’t come up with one. We don’t seem to be improving on it either. So, we’ve got what we’ve got, and it’s best to be thankful.

I have to work on myself in every political campaign not to fall into stinkin’ thinkin.’ It’s so easy to get sucked in to the mire. Stinkin’ thinkin’ is seductive.

Want an example?

I recently passed a display of all kinds of political paraphanelia. Some items were good-natured fun. Most were demeaning to persons. I thought those were pretty funny, so I laughed heartily.

And then came “the voice inside.” Inwardly, I apologized. I should have done so outwardly.

Three thought-problems come to mind in political campaigns that take a lot of energy from me to avoid:

1. Expedient thought. I might find a candidate that comes close to my set of beliefs, and then I adopt all the candidates beliefs as my own to get “my person” elected. That really amounts to prostitution of my beliefs.

2. Hate thought and speech. It’s more true than ever that political campaigns are eventually fueled by hatred of persons, rather than civil disagreement.I need to be an honest Christian. I don’t find license anywhere in the teachings of my faith for “Bill-bashing” or “George-bashing.” It’s OK to bash Bill’s and George’s ideas; it’s not OK to bash Bill and George. In fact, the Scriptures ask me to pray for both.

3. Thought and speech that ignors important information. I’m wise to gather all the facts I can before I decide anything. It’s dangerous to follow someone who just gives me the part that “tinkles their bell.” If candidates can’t level with me on the stump, they will surely hoodwink me in Washington, Harrisburg, or wherever.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Listen up!

I was born before television, so I have a special affection for radio, especially as it lived out its “golden years.”

Radio stations used to take pride in a wide range of programming. Today, radio stations boast a very narrow area of interest. It’s “all talk,” “all country,” “all news,” or whatever. There is one niche radio market that has never been filled and I’m here to fill it. I haven’t approached the FCC about call letters nor frequency. Neither is consequential. I do know my station’s programming however.In the middle of the “all-talk, all-country, all-news” world of radio is my station - “all-silence.”

No, I’m not kidding. This is front-edge programming. It’s high-tech, too. This is silence from the far flung corners of the world, collected by satellite and beamed to your boom box, car radio, or your pocket radio; silence from the Middle East, silence from Moscow, Peking; long periods of silence from London, Paris, you-name-it.There is late-breaking local silence at 11. Silence wrap-ups, drive-time silence, silence spots from local businesses, nationally-syndicated Hush Limbaugh from noon to 3, and Dr. Lull from 3 to 6. There is an early-morning silent team to offer inaudible quips, jokes, and trivia.

Weekends there’s “Top 40 With The Mute Button,” for the kids. Saturday mornings there are gardening shows with recordings of growing plants. There are innumerable erased recordings of commentaries from experts of all kinds and interviews with celebrities and politicians - all suffering with laryngitis. There is even a special call-in show for computer geeks - with no phone number. Oh, and let’s not forget the award-winning “Washington Clam-up.”

Now before you run for the net to throw over me and haul me away, hear me out.We humans are rather poor at this thing called silence. God knew it and had to reprimand us, “Be still and know that I am God.” It’s a polite, biblical way of saying, “ Shut up and listen.” Our lives are so full of prattle and dim-witted noise that we can’t hear a horn, siren, or sonic boom anymore, let alone the voice of God.

I sometimes hear persons moan about the fact that God “seems so silent in my life.” The fact is that God has been using a megaphone but simply can’t get through.

Tune in to my radio station and I promise you: (1) a measure of peace and tranquility that you haven’t known for a long time, (2) new ideas that you never knew you had in you, and (3) a spiritual center with a sense of God’s presence and voice that you never thought possible. Glad we could get together.

Commentary: The little girl at Keilah

Not far from St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai there is a small oasis where the ancient city of Keilah was located according to 1 Samuel 23. David, along with six hundred of his men, fled from there after being warned by the Lord that Saul “was plotting evil against him.” Our caravan across the Sinai Desert pulled to the side of the road at Keilah on our recent tour of Egypt.

As with all our stops on the Sinai, we were suddenly surrounded by Bedouin boys selling trinkets. On this stop, however, there was a young girl moving quietly among the tourists of our caravan.

Alongside the road in front of me she spread a dirty blanket on which she emptied a ragged bag of trinkets.

She pointed at the trinkets and pointed at me.

I shook my head. (I didn’t need any more trinkets.)

I opened my hand and held out a dollar bill, pointing at my camera lens and then at her.

She took my dollar and shyly smiled her approval.

Click.

She left me pondering.

In many parts of the Middle East, women are remarkably invisible. Up to this point on our trip we were approached only by very noisy Bedouin boys selling their wares.

Why was this young girl here? Was she off-limits? Would her presence here be unacceptible to the traditions of her world? What ancient code would demand that she be invisible?

I wondered.

Glad we could get together.

Editorial: It's time to talk about honesty

The headlines these days paint a rather dismal scene of our understanding of honesty. Lying, cheating, and stealing in high places (and all the rest of the places) are taking a high toll on our lives. We are locking doors as we’ve never locked them before. New security measures are costing billions.George Barna in his book “Real Teens” claims that 66 percent of teens agree that “to get by these days, sometimes you have to bend the rules for your own benefit.” Fifty-nine percent agree that “the way things are these days, lying is sometimes necessary.”

There will be any number of explanations of “how we got here,” but for starters, if you examine closely, you won’t find many places where basic principles of honesty are taught. It’s understandable to be concerned about “establishment” issues in public schools; but if it’s not permissible to have “Thou shalt not steal” on the wall, where is the moral code or compass to take its place?

If I’m the typical young person in the U.S. where do I find out that it’s harmful to me and everyone else when I tell a lie, cheat on my examination, or steal someone else’s Nikes?

It’s a question for which we’d better find an answer and rather quickly. In the church we’ve shied away from “moralizing,” assuming that everyone can figure out moral issues on their own without any “commandments” as such. The cost of that is becoming oppressive.

In whatever ways we can find, by sermon and example, we will need to teach honesty: What does the Bible say about honesty? How can we practice a lifestyle of truth and integrity? What are the dire consequences of being dishonest?

Editorial: Keep politics out of the pulpit

It has become an annual warning, or at least a bi-annual warning, from the General Counsel of the United Methodist Council on Finance and Administration to restrain ourselves in endorsing political candidates from our pulpits. “Churches should take stands on appropriate issues, but it cannot be a substantial part of their ministry," Jim Allen told Linda Green, in a recent United Methodist News Service article.

Every election year, blatant abuses of that admonition continue from “left, right, and middle.” Candidates from all political parties often are seen in pulpits or at church functions delivering their messages or seeking endorsements.

Numerous complaints of inappropriate political involvement by churches and other non-profits brought warnings in 2005 from the Internal Revenue Service that political campaign activism could endanger church tax-exempt status. Recently the IRS unveiled its Political Activity Compliance Initiative to expedite investigation of claims of improper campaigning in churches. Investigations have become more frequent. A 2006 IRS guide defines the role that churches, hospitals, universities and other entities can play in political matters. The guide also makes clear that, under 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, violating prohibitions "may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes."

The rules are fair. The church has asked for, and been granted, preferred status as it relates to a variety of taxes – local, state, and federal. The separation of church and state cuts both ways, however, and it will behoove us to keep our activity above board no matter how impassioned we may be about any issue.

It might also be said that a certain responsibility for inappropriate advantage taken of church and non-profit platforms, be born by persons running for public office. Politicians are in a position to know that such activity is illegal. It is a matter of impropriety and should be a blemish on the record of any candidate who requests an appearance at any church service or event.

Commentary: Come away to a deserted place

February 10, 2007, 3:30 p.m. found me in the back seat of a van next to daughter Tammy. Up front were my wife, daughter Trina, and our driver and guide for the past 24 hours. Behind me was an armed guard directed to us by the U.S. Embassy to look after us on our journey across the Sinai Peninsula.

Outside the windows was Cairo.

Cairo, Egypt! How do you describe it on a Friday afternoon?!

We were clawing our way to the Cairo Museum through a racket-symphony of horns, gunning engines, screeching tires, and assorted raised voices. Traffic lanes drawn as five were used more like eight. Most intersections were signal-less. An occasional police office made a futile attempt at order.

After awhile I needed a break and reached to the lower pocket of my cargo pants, pulled out my travel Bible, and began to thumb through the Gospels, red-letter-style, past the “woe to you” passages and finally to a single red line, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” It became the text of a Lenten messages I delivered a week later.

Not all that many hours before we were in the middle of the Sinai Desert where I took a photo. To fully appreciate the photo you must imagine no sound at all. Sinai silence is deafening.

There’s something about a deserted place like the Sinai that beckons, even seduces you away from the frenzy that has you standing there in your shoes – senses numbed, soul languishing in a spirit-less hole.

The deserted places must have been precious to Jesus. I’ve a feeling he had a mind-map of every deserted place to which he could occasionally escape ... to hear the voice of God ... to hear the murmerings of his own soul.

The invitation of Jesus to “come away to a deserted place” was especially poignant for his apostles who “had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:31)

And so for us.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Leap of faith

I’ve often pondered the lowly spider. I may alienate myself from some of my friends, but I admire those “crawley” little critters.

On more than one occasion I’ve found myself in some contorted position, watching the engineering spectacle of a spider spinning a web in order to snag some unsuspecting dinner.In the times I’ve watched that phenomenal display, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the spider stop to take a rest. It’s just a frantic scurry to get the web in place in time for a unwary culinary delight to fly by.

I’ve also wondered what goes through a spider’s tiny brain when the spider, by merely making an entrance, sends beings, thousands of times the spider’s size, screaming from the room. What power, what supremacy, what dominion the spider must feel by the experience.But I think the most profoundly I’ve been spoken to by a spider was recently. On a Saturday morning my wife and I were the first to enter the sanctuary of Camp Hill UMC. The first blinding rays of a spring sun were piercing the unlit space.

My wife pointed and said, “Look!”

Glistening in the sun was a tiny, silky, silver strand hanging from the very center of the ceiling to the carpet below.

I could only imagine the preceding night.

Somewhere in that sanctuary there must have been a little spider looking on at these two humans in awe of his nocturnal feat.

If you put the spider into perspective, and if my math is right, diving 40 feet for the spider is comparable to you and me diving 1,800 feet.

Hmmmmm!

Somehow, during the night a little spider, perched on the ceiling of the Camp Hill church, looked at the situation. There were three options: (1) stay on the ceiling and figure out the rest of life lived on the ceiling, (2) crawl to the side wall and crawl down, taking hours and hours, or (3) take a calculated leap to the floor to arrive in a matter of a minute or two.

Somehow a little spider’s brain picked a leap of faith, a feat of daring-do, a risky flight without a parachute. A little spider decided there were enough resources down inside of his little anatomy for a safe landing on yonder carpet.

A silvery strand hanging in front of us proclaimed a spider’s wise courage and coaxed us to a our own leap of faith.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Parable in the sky

It was very early morning in late May. I pulled into an empty parking lot, grabbed my planner, swung my door open, and headed a few dozen yards to the front door of the office.

Half way there I stopped.

In the sky, far in the distance, was a veritable two-ring sky-circus of honking, squawking, flapping wings as several dozen Canada geese headed in every direction.

I watched, feet glued to the asphalt.

Occasionally geese would fly from one writhing cluster of geese to the other as if choosing up sides for a baseball game, all the while making no progress in any direction.

The Barnum-and-Bailey-thing-in-the-sky continued.

I soon noticed the two groups of geese were forming a single gathering that began moving, ever so slowly . . . in my direction. The circle began taking a triangular shape, began spreading apart. Birds moved about, lining up.I watched . . . watched . . . watched. Two lines of geese formed, spreading wider and wider, wingtip to bill, moving swiftly . . . more swiftly . . . yet more swiftly . . . closer . . . closer . . . closer!

An icicle shot up my spine as one of the largest, most perfect, formations of Canada geese I had ever seen, swept over me.

Above the swish, swish, swish of wings there was barely a sound – only an occasional, single honk. I watched the formation out of sight, noticed an occasional transfer of the lead.

It’s one of those moments when you want to grab for your shoes so’s to stand barefoot as you stare at the handiwork of something so much bigger than you. It’s one of those moments when you feel you should salute something, sing something, call somebody . . . maybe even write something.

This time I wanted to call to the sky, “God, do that again! I need another one of those! I gotta’ have just one more like that one!”

But I was left standing there in the parking lot, swallowing past a lump, with nothing more than an inner voice that seemed to scoff, “Here, bud, have a parable! Chew on this one for awhile.”

I don’t know about you, but I sure enjoy a creative God, a God that talks to me in ways that make my pulse race, my feet sweat, and my spine shiver.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Feed and be fed

I suppose you could call me consumed, obsessed or something, but when I’m having a good time, bad time, or so-so time, I’m often wondering what eternal message I may be staring at . . . but missing.

A couple weeks ago I stood belly-deep in the bath-water surf in Clearwater, Florida, fishing pole in hand. Somewhere out in the surf, maybe twenty yards or so, was a tiny baitfish, tethered to my pole, hook through his middle, fighting to escape the inevitable.

My good friends Gene, George, and William were close by, similarly outfitted.

It came to me as I watched pelicans and gulls all around me (much better at fishing than I) that the creature world, both in the sea and in the woods, is pretty focused. Whether you’re wearing scales or fur, be you bear or tarpon, your Franklin Planner motto for the day will read the same as it did yesterday, and it will read the same tomorrow: Eat and don’t get eaten.

It seems to me that the Creator extended the option of a higher plane for we humans: feed and be fed.

On a very simple level, have you ever noticed how different food tastes after you’ve first served up a generous portion to a hungry person. I think mothers and fathers who cook may enjoy food most. Do you suppose?

Feed and be fed.

Unfortunately, we seem often to want to remain the creatures of the sea and woods: eat, consume, devour . . . and watch your back.

What a miserable way to live!

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Cheap Candy and Sick Lambs

I was lucky to work with Leo for many years. Leo played out a country-bumpkin persona to everyone's amusement. He'd often exit for lunch with the announcement, “I’m out for a cool RC and a Moon Pie.” Or, he’d get up from his desk at quitting time and bellow, “It’s time to blow the pop-stand.” (You must be from Ohio to understand that one.)

Leo feigned a Jack Benny-esque stinginess at every opportunity. He often found a way to break the ice with a new employee with some kind of prank. I remember the day he placed on the desk of a rather new secretary, a well-worn, heart-shaped Valentine candy box, complete with empty paper candy cups and cheap jelly beans. There was a note with a simple request: “Would you fill the papers with the candy so I can give the box to my wife for Valentine's Day?” I can still see Charisse glaring at those dime-store confections and the tattered candy box in disbelief and disgust.

When we want to convey our deep-felt affection for someone, we look for the best that we can find or afford – the best chocolates, the most voluptuous roses, the grandest restaurant.

In Malachi 4, the prophet relayed the angry words of God, “You show contempt for my name.” The reply from the priests was, “Who? Us? How!?” And the answer was simply, “You place defiled food on my altar. You bring blind, crippled, or diseased animals as a sacrifice. Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors so that you would not light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you and I will accept no offering from your hands.”

God asks from us our very best – our best sermon, our best solo, our best lesson, our best meeting … the best we can muster with our resources and our talents.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Gentle Persuasion

I’ve pondered this question lately: What is my work as a disciple of Jesus Christ and how should I go about it?

I think I’ve come up with a simple definition of my work. My work is to change minds and thereby change hearts. It was the work of Jesus.

So, if that’s my work, how am I supposed to go about it? When I meet someone who holds a different world view than I, who voices and lives out philosophies that are contrary to mine, when persons act and live in ways that I see as dangerous, what am I to do.

That’s the tough part.I could choose to make all the common mistakes:

1. I could argue; make all the right points loudly enough so that I melt down the other person’s view and fill a room with nodding heads.

2. I could intimidate the other person; make them feel less educated, less sophisticated.

3. I could label them and look for ways to identify them as such to my family, friends, co-workers, and the whole world so as to alienate them.

4. I could campaign for a law that would make the other person’s view illegal.

5. I could even go so far as to call down fire and brimstone on their heads and declare them headed to hell.

An old adage comes to mind, “A person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still.”

The words of a gospel song come to mind. Remember these lines?

Soft as the voice of an angel
Breathing a lesson unheard,
Hope with a gentle persuasion
Whispers her comforting word.

Remember “Whispering Hope”? Two words jump at me from that song: gentle persuasion.

I’ve changed my mind and my heart in the past. So how did it happen?

Sometimes I changed my mind when I saw someone living in a way that I admired, and when, in a kind manner, they stated their view, I was drawn to their belief.

Sometimes I changed my mind when someone respected my view, asked me to explain it, and I struggled for a believable answer.Sometimes I was driven to study and revise my belief by a simple suggestion or question from someone who really seemed to care about me.

I think I’ve found a clue to how I should go about my work.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: To Phil

Driver Tom nodded to his left, “I sure miss Phil’s flower garden.”

“Yeah, I do, too.” I said.

Phil.

Twice a day, to and from work, I get a reminder of Phil when I drive by what used to be Phil’s flower garden. Now the spot is occupied by a new house ready for somebody’s move. Nice house, but not as nice as Phil’s weedless garden full of all kinds of flowers.

I met Phil ten years ago. For ninety minutes, I sat around an interview table with Neil, Ed, Sharon, Cal, Louise . . . and Phil . . . at the corner of the table to my right.

I don’t remember if Phil asked me any questions. I think he mostly just sat there . . . and smiled. It seemed as if he was fulfilling some sort of grand mission, not to ask any brilliant questions, but just to listen intently . . . and smile.

Phil was a rather important guy. He’d been a chief meteorologist for a chunk of the middle of Pennsylvania, was a lay leader of his church conference. Phil and I had some great conversations in the years that followed. ‘Not sure I ever caught him without that . . . smile.

Phil got busy caring for his wife of many years. We didn’t talk very often.

A few years ticked by.

Three o’clock in the afternoon, on a Wednesday, my desk phone rang. “Hi, I’m Jim, Phil’s pastor. Phil’s in the hospital. He asked to see you.”

I dropped everything.

“Phil,” I whispered to the man sleeping upright. His eyes opened . . . the smile . . . and then, “Jurry!” (That’s “Jerry” in a Pennsylvania Dutch accent.) We talked . . .. . . and talked.

I prayed for Phil . . . waved goodbye.

Phil waved . . . and smiled.

Friday I walked into Phil’s room. There was no response . . . and no smile. Phil took it along with him the next morning.

The church was packed. There were tears, but there were more laughs. We listened to mischievous farm-boy stories. A very tall police chief told a story of faking an arrest of Phil in Kentucky.

Beside the Lutheran Church in Tusseyville there is a little cemetery with the name Phillip Neff carved in a stone. I stopped there one day . . . thanked God . . . thanked Phil . . . and smiled.

I’ve learned a lot from the people I’ve known. So, Phil, I think I’d like to talk a little less in the future; maybe smile more.

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: Sam

On any given morning when my wife, Ruth, called out the back door, “Good morning, Sam,” there was a resounding, “HONK!” that echoed across the back yard. If I called “Good morning, Sam,” out the same door, there was always stone silence across the back yard.

Sam was a Chinese goose. Big bird; mean, too. Great “watchdog.”

Sam was a widower; Samantha died years before, probably exhausted from laying dozens and dozens of eggs for the skunks to eat.

Ruth bonded with Sam years before. Sam was her bird.

Sam and I “unbonded” the day he escaped his pen and I stepped all over him, trying to bundle up his thrashing wings. If the neighbors saw Sam and me they probably decided I was making a giant feather pillow. Anyhow, I remember I finally resorted to grabbing Sam by the neck, and unceremoniously, web-feet-over-beak, firing him home over the fence. I think our bond snapped somewhere mid-air.

Sam and I weren’t particularly “close” after that.

Sam’s mission from that day was to even the score with me. I’d be on my knees, pulling weeds in the garden and suddenly I’d hear swishing through the grass. I’d look up and here would come Sam, feet flying, head straight down, charging in my direction. As soon as our eyes met, Sam would come to a halt, neck up, head looking around the yard as if to say, “I wasn’t doing anything.”

Sam didn’t understand his pen. It was about as classy as a foul pen could be, a fourteen-poster with a slanted fence cap. There was plenty of food and water.

Sam didn’t understand that outside a fence a lot of critters around our place would love a feast of goose a la feathers. Out of love for Sam, Ruth sweat-built that fence. So, she was the most exasperated with Sam’s wanderlust that occasionally compelled him to “fly the coup,” so to speak.

One snowy day Ruth returned home to find Sam missing. A search along goose prints in the snow all around the neighborhood found Sam at a farm about a quarter mile away. The trip home could have been a painting, best described as, “country wife drags goose by neck with goose feet sliding through snow while school bus children laugh and wave.”

Sam’s trajectory into the pen was similar to the flight plan I had filed sometime before.

You know, God’s had to return me to my pen lots of times. I keep thinking I know better than the loving God who prepared a way of living for me, outside of which there are many critters that could eat me, feathers and all. God’s corrective actions can be humiliating, make you want to charge at something, pinch something with your beak.

But that’s a good God, isn’t it?

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: The walk to Avacado

Friends Sharlene, George, and William said, “We’re going to Guatemala for Thanksgiving, ‘Wanna go along?” We couldn’t think of a reason not to.

Guatemala is an incredibly beautiful country in November: lots of flowers, beautiful green vegetation. We spent a couple days high in the mountains above Guatemala City at the Hogar Maguel Magone, an orphanage for sixty boys; spent some time painting beds, learned to know Karen who began the orphanage ten years ago with three boys, learned the challenges of running an orphanage in a country with no government help for education, no help for orphanages for boys.

Sunday was a special day. A Rotary Club from Guatemala City brought games, a jumping gym, and pizza for an afternoon of fun. Added to the boys from the orphanage were children from a little hamlet close by called Avocado.

The sun began to set and we joined the kids for the short walk to Avocado, past a Catholic church, back a long narrow path to the home of Loraina, a young woman of 17 years who works at the orphanage. With an absent mother and father, she cares for her six younger siblings in a tiny shack. Two strong young men had to help us navigate the muddy hill to the most meager of living arrangements.

I stood there in the dark with the delightful chatter of neighborhood children all around me. And once again in my life, I tried to reconcile the plight of so many living in a world where so many have so much and so many have so little. At home I imagined there were shoppers dashing about, grumbling, still stressed from Black Friday, grabbing more stuff to pile on top of the stuff already piled up.

In contrast were the goodbyes from little people in Avocado and Hogar Miguel Magone, hugging us around the knees, and little smiling faces looking up and saying, “Gracias, gracias!”

Glad we could get together.

Commentary: The fox and me

It had rained hard that early morning before I started out for work. The droplets of water hanging from limb and blade sparkled in the sunrise that broke through the heavy clouds.

From my car window I caught the dark form of an animal sitting by the side of the road.

Curious, I turned the car around to find some sort of critter, dripping wet, just sitting by the road trying to figure out how to dry out his world. Was it a dog, a cat, a big rat? It was hard to tell. I rolled down the window and our eyes met.

Aha! “Good morning, Mr. Fox,” I said, sounding like a faux Mr. Rogers. We stared at each other for awhile then shared a slow journey down the road. Mr. Fox walked. I drove.

Mr. Fox disappeared under a small bridge.

For just a fleeting few moments it seemed that the two of us broke through the inborn distrust between fox and human: He didn’t ask about guns; I didn’t bring up chickens. And it was rather grand.

Two years later - same spot - same fox (?) we met again. This time a fluffy, beautiful, red fox stared at me as I rolled down the window and began to talk. Did he remember me, that he was willing to stare and listen for perhaps two minutes? Had we formed some sort of bond two years ago? Would this moment happen again? I guess I’d like to think so.

Trust. What an illusive, wonderful, God-thing it is to know and experience. When you trust me and I trust you, what a wonderful world it is.

Trust. So difficult to build and so extraordinarily easy to destroy! I didn’t see Mr. Fox by the road today - maybe tomorrow. I trust so.

Glad we could get together.