WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

 

 

I began my day today with a brunch.  When my four friends arrived we enjoyed a very varied menu with a contribution from everyone – an egg, cheese and veggie casserole; an assortment of fruit; an apple pie; a pear tart and waffles.  The food was great, but we weren’t really there for the food.  We were there for the friendships!  We talked about food, families, jobs, and children.  We talked about messy neighbors and how to be a good neighbor.  We oo’ed and ah’ed, and laughed, and sometimes we were even sad. 

As few as three years ago, I would never have expected to call these women friends, not because I wouldn’t have liked them, but because they weren’t on my radar.  All that changed when I saw an ad posted by our local library announcing training for those who would like to be ESL (English as a Second Language) tutors.  At the time, I had befriended a Peruvian lady at a local restaurant and thought it might be helpful in helping us to communicate. 

So, I went for the training and received my first “assignment”.  I would begin meeting weekly with a young Japanese woman!  I was really excited, but also a little anxious, because this was new territory for me.  I had some training under my belt, but it had been a long time since I’d studied things like the parts of speech and sentence structure.  What was I getting myself into! 

What I’ve discovered (a year and 2 more students later) is that doing ESL tutoring isn’t like teaching an 8^th grade grammar course.  No, it’s more like meeting a friend for coffee and chatting about language. 

So what do we do when we’re together?  Well, we talk of course! 

As I would do with any of my friends, we begin by catching up.  We talk about what our weeks were like.  If they had significant encounters where they needed to speak English, we talk about those.  We talk about how the kids are doing at school, who’s going back to Japan this summer, how their time volunteering at the school library, or International Night at the middle school, went.

Then we do some “official” ESL type exercises.  Our town library, which sponsors, organizes, trains tutors, and then matches them with students, has a large selection of ESL books and materials.  I look through them during the week and plan for our 1 ½ hour session in advance.  When we meet we might read an article or two in the “Easy English News” a newspaper written especially for English learners that includes articles about all things American.  Last week we read about the unique stresses on internationals living in the States and how to manage the stress.  There was an article about St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras in New Orleans; as well as an exercise on idioms and vocabulary.

Sometimes we’ll read a story together.  Then we’ll do the comprehension questions, followed by some questions that apply to every day life.

Occasionally, the women will have questions for me, such as when one wanted to know when to use the phrase, “Take care”.  She was curious to know if this was usually said just when someone was sick, or whether it was just something to say instead of “good-bye”.

As an older woman with children already raised and out of the house, I find myself also acting at times as a mother figure to these women so far from home.  We talk about raising kids, being a good wife, and how to establish relationships with other women.  These topics just arise naturally out of ordinary conversations.

I come away from social times, and from our more formal ESL sessions, being so thankful that I got to meet these young women.  They have enriched my life with their sweet ways, their kindness and gentleness, and their willingness to share themselves, their children and families, and their customs, with me! 

I was thinking today as we talked together about how to be a good neighbor, that these were the people Jesus had in mind when He told the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s gospel.  In the margin of my Bible above that passage I wrote: “If I want to be a good neighbor, I can administer mercy and grace to those in my sphere of influence.”

At brunch today, one of the women said, “I wish other Americans (would reach out to us) too.”

If you are an American, and especially if you are a believer in Jesus, look around.  You no longer need to go to a foreign land to be a missionary.  God has brought people to YOU from all over the world.  Simply be a good neighbor and show the mercy and grace and love of Jesus to those He’s placed in YOUR sphere of influence.

In Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life”, he reminds us that for believers in Jesus, being in this world isn’t “all about YOU!”  It’s all about others and bringing the mercy, grace, and love of Jesus to THEM. 

Who is YOUR international neighbor?  The guy who works in the next cubicle?  The family living next door?  The woman who rides the same bus to work?  The mom whose kids go to school with yours? 

Why not invite them to lunch, to a meal at your home, to a play date with your kids, or to celebrate a holiday dinner?  They will be SO happy you asked, and YOU will be abundantly blessed!

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

For the last 43 years I’ve been married to an accountant.  Now I know I don’t speak for ALL accountants when I describe them as detail oriented, organized, and very careful with and about money, but those words describe my husband Jim to a T.  I love it that he’s that way because I am not.

I’ve often joked that I married him because I needed someone to be the numbers person in my life.  He’s the bill paying, tax filing, expenses tracking, budget managing member of our family. If left to me, our check book would never balance, we might be behind in our taxes, and I’d never know how much money is left at the end of a month.

In this country we have a saying, “opposites attract”.  Jim and I have always said that the saying does not apply to us.  We have even taken personality tests at various times and have been amazed at how alike we are! 

 

We’re both introverts.  Being with people expends our energy necessitating some battery recharging with lots of alone time.  We’re quiet with people we don’t know and tend to avoid situations like that.  We both enjoy quiet pursuits like reading, and taking walks.  We can spend lots of time in the library or a book store just browsing. When we travel we love to visit museums and have dinner.  Having similar personalities and pursuits has enabled us to get along really well for all these years.

But there are some ways in which we see things differently.  I tend to be the one more likely to rock Jim’s world with some crazy idea! 

Early on in our marriage I’d seen a TV plea about some starving babies in a third world country and convinced him we needed to sell my jewelry and his coin collection.  If he’d known what would follow over the next 40 something years, he might have thought, “I’d better run NOW!”

There were the many times when I said, “Remember the money we loaned so and so? 

He’s an accountant.  He never forgets stuff like that! I could almost SEE his heart sink, and HEAR what he was thinking:  “Oh, no!  What now?”

 “Why don’t we forgive his debt?” I went on to say.

If I could read his mind, I know exactly what he would have thought: “WHAT?????????  Are you crazy?????????”

He may have thought I was crazy, but he never said no.  Many of our family members have been grateful for Jim's willing generosity.

Then there was the time when I came home and said, “I think the Lord wants me to go on this mission trip to New Orleans to build houses, with teens.”  I was in my 60s, had never been on a mission's trip, never built a thing in my life and had never worked with teens.  If he thought I was crazy, he never said so, and he gave me his blessing and sent me off.

Then last year I said, “I think the Lord wants me to donate my kidney.”  Jim expressed concern for my own health, but not once did he try to encourage me to think again. He was fully on board and supportive.

There was only one time I can think of, and we all laughed about it this morning, when Jim, using NO words, just facial expressions, said a LOT about what I was proposing – and what his face said was, “Okay, now you’ve gone too far!  You ARE crazy and we will NOT do this!"

I’d gone outside to do something and noticed a car at the end of our street with a man sitting inside.  Concerned, I went over to the car to look.  Inside was a very drunk man, fighting nausea, and trying not to be sick.  He opened his door and could barely stand.  In speaking with him I discovered that he had no idea how he got there.  The last he knew he was many miles to the north in New York State.  Scary to think that he had been driving in that state!  He was obviously in no condition to drive home, so I did the only thing I could think of: 

Jim was on his way over when he heard me say to the man, “Well, you can’t drive home.  You need to sleep it off.  Why don’t you come to my house just down the street where you can sleep (and possibly be sick all over).  Then, when you sober up you can go home.”

Oh, my, Jim’s face said a thousand words!  Needless to say, we did NOT take the stranger home.  A neighbor called police and I’m guessing that man had a lovely day and evening sleeping it off in a holding cell in the local lock up.

Jim and I are a lot alike, but thankfully, in the areas where we aren’t, the Lord has put us together so that we perfectly complement one another. 

Jim keeps our financial systems running smoothly, while I help him with his generosity.  I keep life jumping, while Jim keeps me from doing insane things and lives some pretty cool adventures through me.  We are more alike than unalike and we are a match made in heaven!

JESUS STOPPED

Some time ago I was teaching my middle school Sunday school class from the gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 46-52.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the passage, the setting is the entrance to the city of Jericho.  Jesus and his disciples, surrounded by a big crowd, are passing out of the city.  Sitting outside the gate is the blind beggar Bartimaeus.  When he hears that Jesus is passing, he begins shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. 



As it might be if it were happening today, people in the crowd, who were finding it difficult to hear, and who possibly didn’t want Jesus to be distracted from THEM, turned to Bartimaeus and told him to be quiet.  But Bartimaeus would not give up!  He just turned up his volume and kept shouting.



Okay, here’s the part I LOVE the MOST.  The very next words in verse 49 say, “Jesus STOPPED and said, ‘Call him’”.



Did you catch those two magnificent, jaw dropping words, JESUS STOPPED!  Back to this in a minute!

                                                                                                                                           

Oh, everyone noticed Bartimaeus too, but to most he was just background noise.  A fly buzzing in their ears.  The beat of someone’s boom box in the background.   Noisy voices on a crowded beach when you’re trying to take a nap.  Annoying, but insignificant.

Be quiet, blind man!  I’m trying to get the attention of Jesus!

They told him to stop bothering Jesus, but he wouldn’t. 



Jesus stopped.  What did Jesus hear that they didn’t?



Jesus heard the words that must have been sweet music to His ears.

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

With the sound of a crowd of voices all around Him, Jesus zeroed in on the voice of faith, and stopped. 



And He called to Bartimaeus!  We don’t even have to imagine Bartimaeus’s reaction because it’s recorded for us.  “Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.”



Imagine yourself called to win the grand prize.  Yeah, Bartimaeus was THAT excited!



“What do you want me to do for you?”, Jesus asked.



And Bartimaeus said, “I want to see.” 



And so Jesus healed him, but not before He acknowledged his faith.  “Go, Bartemaeus, your faith has healed you.”



We’re left to imagine the scene.  My imagination gives me goose bumps, thrills my soul, blesses my heart!  Jesus saw and heard what everyone else missed – and Bartemaeus’ faith was rewarded.



Do you know what?  Bartimaeus may have been physically blind but he already saw what most people missed when it came to Jesus.  He SAW who Jesus was with spiritual eyes. 



He knew the prophecy given to David (2 Samuel 7) that a descendant of his would reign on his throne FOREVER.  He knew this prophecy referred to the coming Messiah.  And he made the leap, he put two and two together – Jesus was the the Son of David!   Jesus was the Messiah!  Jesus blessed him by restoring his physical sight and Bartimaeus responded by following Jesus.



There are so many times in the Bible where Jesus stopped and saw with His eyes of love and compassion what others often missed.

·        Jesus saw the widow of Nain slowly making her way through town to bury her only son and He stopped and gave him back to her. 

·        Jesus saw the man possessed by a legion of demons, avoided by everyone for miles around, and He stopped and set him free.

·     Jesus felt the touch of the woman with the issue of blood, and He turned around to find her, saying, "Who touched me?"

·        Jesus saw Zaccheus up in a tree.  He stopped, turned around, invited himself into Zaccheus’s home, and brought him salvation that very day.

·        Jesus saw the woman caught in adultery and, instead of condemning her like everyone else, He stopped, and told her to go and sin no more.

Do you get it?  Jesus SEES and when He does, He STOPS and He enters into lives with His offer of salvation, His words of forgiveness, and His acts of compassionate love.



Maybe you are sitting by the side of the road

·        Mourning over the death of a loved one

·        Grieving over your sin

·        Steeped in guilt

·        Possessed by things

·        In need of salvation

·        Buried by bills

·        Bereft of friends

·        Aching from illness

·        Lost and alone

·        In need of wisdom

·        Confused

To others you may be background noise, but not to Jesus.



Jesus SEES you, He STOPS and He says, “What do you want me to do for you?”  And then He enters into your situation.



First of all, He wants to save your soul, forgive your sin, give you eternal life, translate you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His glorious light.  And then, He wants to minister His compassion, heal your heart, give you wisdom, lift your confusion, ease your grief.



How can you avail yourself of this extravagant grace of Jesus?  You can start by repeating the words of Bartimaeus:  “Jesus, Son of God, Messiah, have mercy on me!”  I promise you, Jesus will stop.

LOVING THE DYING

One of the things that had disturbed me so much when my mom had a stroke back in 2007 was that she seemed, in the span of a day, to go from a vibrant, interesting person worthy of attention, to the anonymity of being simply “the patient” in room 200.  In a way it was easy to understand how this happened, though not at all easy to accept.

In the middle of a medical procedure she had a stroke that left her paralyzed on one side of her body.  That was limiting to be sure, but the worst effect was that it also seriously affected her speech.  For someone like mom, who lived to talk and tell stories, this was a catastrophic injury.  Make no mistake, it never stopped her from talking, but from that moment on, Mom was nearly unable to communicate at all. Over a long time some of us family members could, with great patience, decipher her words. But I was shocked at how her inability to communicate with others demonstrably changed the way they saw her.

One night, not long after Mom was in the rehab center where she lived for a while, I arrived to find her extremely agitated.  I found out why when the man caring for her explained.  He said he had been trying to get her to take a shower, when she got so angry she threw the TV remote at him.  A few minutes of talking with her and patiently trying to unravel the issue, revealed that she was trying to tell him that she never took a shower at night, she always took one in the morning and would prefer that.  I could understand how it happened.  He was busy and he was a stranger. Maybe he didn’t give her the time and attention she needed to make her need clear.  And his inability to understand made Mom frustrated and increasingly angry. Hence, the throwing of the remote, which would ordinarily have been very out of character for Mom.

 I longed for that young man and all those who cared for Mom to know her in the way I’d known her.  I was so proud of her.  Having begun her life with the disadvantage of losing both her parents when she was young, and then having to drop out of school in the 7^th grade to support her grandmother and younger sister, she managed to rise to the level of vice president in the bank where she’d worked.  She got her GED at the age of 69.  And she was a woman of great compassion, as well as the funniest person and best story teller I knew.  I wished they could have known THAT person. 

If they’d known her they would have been endlessly amused by her humor, even after her stroke.  Like the time a nurse, having already asked a number of questions about Mom’s history in order to complete a form, asked her what language she spoke (as if she couldn’t already have figured that out).  Mom’s answer:  “Chinese.”

Or the time her false teeth had somehow slipped out of her mouth and her doctor caught them before they fell on the floor.  Mom’s comment:  “You didn’t happen to see the salami sandwich I was eating down there with my teeth, did you?” Thankfully, for those of us who loved her and really wanted to know what she said, we managed to translate those gems and pass them on.  Oh, what those caretakers missed!

It made me sad to watch people do FOR her, but never really know her. So back in the spring of 2013, when I saw a flyer at my church advertising a training class for hospice volunteers, I eagerly signed up!  I’d had experience with hospice and it changed the way I viewed death and dying.

Just two days before Mom died she entered a hospice home in Fort Myers, Florida. I was so impressed.  Here, because they were free from the enormity of having to care so much for Mom’s body (hospice’s role was to simply make her comfortable), they were able to concentrate on making her last days pain free and restful.  They were unfailingly kind and caring.  They cared about Mom’s comfort, but they also treated her with the dignity deserving the still living.  They made an effort to listen to her and know her.  I fell in love with hospice for treating my mom with the same kind of tender loving care with which I would care for her.

So when I heard about this hospice training, I knew becoming a hospice volunteer was something I wanted to do, and as with so many things I’ve undertaken, I knew that the Lord had prepared me for this very thing with my own mom and was opening up this door of opportunity to me.

One of the hospice patients I’ve been visiting for a while now has Alzheimers.  Much of the time he seems completely out of it.  He sometimes makes eye contact, and he does speak, but when he does, what he says makes no sense to me, even though it seems to make perfect sense to him.  Occasionally, amazingly, he’ll say something that demonstrates that he knows exactly what he’s saying and he says it clearly.  Such as the day when he looked me right in the eyes and said, “You’re young.  Take care of yourself.”  I knew what he meant.  He meant, “You’re young. Don’t you have anything better to do than come to see me?”

In the time since I began visiting, I have come to truly love and care about this man.  And when he has those lucid moments, I know he feels the same about me.  He may think I have better things to do, but I believe he’s glad I come to see him.  We have formed a bond in these months of visits.  The “connection” amazes me because so little real communication happens when we’re together.

If I had met this man in the prime of his life we may have had nothing whatsoever in common.  We may have traveled in different kinds of social circles, enjoyed different books, disagreed on politics.  Those things no longer matter to him, but it doesn’t stop me from asking.  Most of what I know about him before this terrible mind sucking disease took hold, I find out from his wife.   

This week, as I was helping him with his meal, he looked into my eyes and stroked my face.  Sensing the affection I thought he was communicating, I replied, “I feel the same way about you.”   Watching this exchange, his wife commented about my patience, surprised that I talk to him as if he understands (which he does!).  She attributed my patience to having helped raise my granddaughter.  I said something in response, although it was insignificant and not what I wanted to say at all, but I’ve had time to think about it since and if I get a chance I’ll tell her next time.

I realize that my reason for doing this has everything to do with the way I view life.  Life is a gift from God, the Creator of all living things. The Bible tells us in Genesis that when God created man, He created him in His own image. He created man to know and love Him.  Life is precious to God. We were meant to know and enjoy Him forever.  Each person who lives and breathes has an opportunity to respond to the God who loves them and died to rescue them from sin and its curse.  One day Jesus will return and restore all things to the way God intended, but until then sickness and death are part of the package of living in this natural world, but they don't keep us from knowing God in the person of His Son Jesus.

My mom, ravaged by stroke, was loved by God.  He made her to be the vibrant person she was and I have no doubt her stroke and what it took from her grieved Him as much as it grieved me.  The man I visit was also created in God’s image, but the ravages of sin has taken its toll on him as well. Yet, he is still abundantly loved by His Creator – even if many others no longer see him as someone still among the living.

I volunteer with hospice because God values the likes of Mom and this man with Alzheimers.  He made them in His image, and He loves them. He has given me His heart and His eyes with which to see them.  And because Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

I confess I don’t serve in this way because I’m hoping that when my turn comes I’ll be treated with the dignity and respect I hope I give them (although it would be nice).  But I do serve in this way because it’s the kind of care my mom had, the kind of care of which everyone is deserving – even if they can no longer communicate, even if it’s impossible now to truly know them.

Dying is the final, natural act of living. The process of dying should not diminish in any way the value of the one living out his or her last days.  One of the things that strikes me so much when I read about Jesus in the Bible is that He SAW with compassion what others only saw in passing. When He saw beggars and blind men and lepers and grieving mothers and prostitutes who longed for forgiveness – He stopped and really SAW them.  His seeing led to action.  I simply want to SEE what Jesus sees, stop where Jesus would stop, and then do something to extend His compassion, to communicate value to the ones He brings across my path. And if I'm able, to tell them how much Jesus loves them.

 When someone’s last days draw near we need to treat them, not as the “almost dead”, but as the “still living”.  We need to use those days we’re given to celebrate the person each one has been and STILL IS and be thankful for the contributions they have made to our world, while lovingly caring for them through the days that remain in a way that affirms their great worth – to God and to us.