“You look hungry,” the deli guy says, with a knowing grin.
He means well . . . I think.
“Not really,” I say (a tad stiffly: I want a salmon fillet, not a conversation.)
With his dark shock of hair and wonky paper hat, he is a stooping, nameless, genial giant. His long fingers flex inside flimsy cellophane gloves.
“How was your Thanksgiving?” he asks, slashing, then triple-wrapping the meat.
And then a shrug when I ask about his.
“Just me.”
So stoic: an answer seemingly sheathed in steel.
“Ohh, I’m sorry. No family locally?” Now who’s being intrusive?
Apparently . . . not only is he living in the States—solo . . . older siblings remain, in Israel. He waggles his plastic gloves: “Ten of us. Ten! What a total waste.”
I tilt my head, lean closer.
He consults his scale, slap-dashes a price tag across the bagged flesh. “I’ll never go back. Never be part of that. My brothers? Every last one of them in the Army. All dead,” he says. “And for what?”
Speechless, I press against the display case, hands on the countertop. As if getting closer might somehow help—my exposed mother-heart, almost audible.
“. . . and for me you turned language / into a landslide of glass houses.”
Poet Pablo Neruda wrote that line.
I have no words for this young man handing me sustenance. No gift to impart save welling eyes, a body poised to somehow absorb a shard of his pain.
But now he’s the stiff one, guarding himself. And the spotless counter shines, dividing us.
Whatever I believe about Gaza, Netanyahu, Palestine—the all-too-human or hopelessly heinous, the supposedly holy—I question my lack of action. Would it have eased that young man had I shared a few verses from Israel’s ancient Hebrew prophet, Micah? Probably not.
I glimpsed a hurt lad through his adult armor, knew myself hapless, helpless. Ambushed by a grief too vast to imagine.
Real people. Real pain, stark and divisive and centuries old.
“But you, Bethlehem, David’s country . . .
From you will come the leader
who will shepherd-rule Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes
until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,
And the scattered brothers come back
home, home to the family . . .” (Micah 5:2-4, The Message)
Friends, perhaps you and I can remember this young survivor—and others we know with terrible stories—remember them together although we are far apart, and pray the rest of the passage:
“[Messiah] will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God’s strength,
centered in the majesty of God-revealed.
And the people will have a good and safe home . . .
“For the day is coming when there will be no more war” (Micah 5:10).
Friends, how are you investing in Peace on Earth?
Speaking of ambushed: eight medical appointments for us this month! Dreamer will soon be wearing a heart monitor as well as a Santa hat. We didn’t see that coming. Our health safari continues . . .
Dear, dear readers, thank you for your prayers. Your wisdom and compassion continue to strengthen our faith.
May the Prince of Peace renew and defend you.
May mercies as well as mirth surround you.
Whatever you face, may hope enfold you.
Recent sighting: “Leave things merrier than you found them.”
[cropped] Photo by Oxana Kolodina on Unsplash
“No gift to impart save welling eyes, a body poised to somehow absorb a shard of his pain.”
There are just too many “shards of pain” as far as the eye can see, these days, it seems. And yet, we continue to tilt toward the suffering, the kindness and mercy of Christ burning brightly from within, despite our own life stories. It is a wondrous gift to carry His compassion wherever He takes us.
O Pacia! THIS: “And yet, we continue to tilt toward the suffering . . .”
That image: living slightly off our center of gravity——reaching, leaning, tilting——yes, it is wondrous, indeed, to be filled, then entrusted, with God’s compassion and kindness, no matter what.
Thanks for the gift of your words and images!!
xo
You gave this hurting gentleman a gift: your listening ears and kindness. “Lord, please bring others into his world to bestow compassion and our Savior’s love.”
I don’t understand so much of what’s occurring in our world; I hate so much of what’s happening in our world; I well up with tears when I hear stories of broken hearts and minds in my near world and from afar.
What I do understand is that we will live with our King of Kings in His sinless world when He deems it the perfect moment in eternity’s clock. Until then? Well, we wait with Living Hope and be His gifts for others in the divine moments.
I continue to pray for you and Dreamer.
Dear Carol,
I so appreciate hearing about things you do and don’t understand. And empathize. Sights, sounds, and stories ambush us in our “near world and from afar.” Unthinkable sorrow. Heinous wrong. I have to unplug sometimes. And not feel guilty. (Whoever coined the term “compassion fatigue” was acutely observant.)
Seems more and more often an encounter—on line or in daily life—can wreck my heart as well as rile my sense of justice.
But there are also the wonders, big and small . . . poised in (loving) ambush. “The world is wilder and more wondrous than we dare believe,” John Neuhaus said.
Often it takes hindsight for me to understand a moment was touched by the holy. Like you letting me know that in listening I offered a gift. (Thank you.)
I love your words: “Be His gifts for others in the divine moments.”
I’m going to write it above my mirror, beside my computer, in the dust on my dashboard . . .
Those of us who know Christ can look forward to his return, when we’ll receive an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade (1 Peter 1:3-4). I pray that MANY will seek truth in this time of rampant duplicity, and seek to know who Jesus is and why we must acknowledge him as the Son of God and our Savior. I pray for holy curiosity, that people would want to know once and for all, is Jesus who he said he is? And if so, what is the wise response?
“Holy curiosity”—what a wise and marvelous request! I’m going to start asking that, too.
How wondrous to imagine our human capacity for seeking and recognizing truth expanding . . . with added grace poured in for intention and follow-through . . .
Thank you. And may joy abound in your household!
Maybe this is a bit harsh, but your young man is a victim – of US. We sometimes are confronted, in our insularity, with the realities of a world bent on the destruction of it’s own humanity. Increasingly, we find it here – at home. We are armed to the teeth and wonder why people are being killed. We arm our allies to the teeth, and then in our posturing, decry their violence. When the poor and least among us strike back with rocks and pitchforks, not to mention the occasionally igenious piece of lethal weaponry, we cry ‘shame!” and rally to our “allies”.
What am I doing?’ I might just as well shovel the sand back to the sea. I live my life and hope it will be over soon – not my life, but the killing. One way or the other. I marvel at how the working people of all civilizations shrug in frustration at their leaders, and go back to their local, workaday problems. I think of how my parents reacted to The Great (maybe: Not so Great) Depression, world war II and all of the nonsensical and brushfire wars and confrontations they lived through, by going to work every day. I remember playground fights in grade school, (which I was seldom a part of) when the breakup came, and questions were asked, the first words of the militants as “Well he started it!!” Our “leadership” is like a bunch of playground bullies. They are, regardless of party or ideology, complicit. How many fishermen will die over a phantom drug “war” because those lives don’t matter? So, another country and another generation of pissed off orphans who hate America. And so it goes . . . with apologies to Linda Ellerbee.
.
Yes. And yes. I was shocked clean out of my casual, get-cozy-for-Christmas socks and my insular outlook.
When you write about the marvel of the steadfast all over the world who press onward, work hard, show up day after day, quietly help those around them, I think of guys like you. And your dad.
And I think of Jesus taking his last meal with friends to tell them, No matter what goes down, be known by your love.
That’s something I observe you living out in under-the-radar as well as more public, often comedic, and always generous ways.
It counts. All of it. I have to believe that.
Did I really just write “out/in/under”? Talk about a train wreck of prepositions!
Thank you for this reminder of hope and joy, even in the face of the impossible. Needed this. God is always good. Immanuel.
Dear Linda Jo, I am awaiting a copy of your book about Shepherd Amos. Bet your story brims with hope and joy.
May both mercies abound for you this season!
After i lost my son at 29
I asked God for something good to come put of it.
For me it has become
Divine encounters. I am the one who asks how is your day?
Seeing a national park shirt i ask oh how did you like Yosemite???
I had three divine encounters this morning at my favorite coffee shop.
I am so thankful for that God brings people to me to share God’s goodness.
God be with you as you go through this new adventure.
Rich
Dear Rich, what a vast, consuming, lifelong sadness that could be. And yet . . . in your words I hear great hope. What mercy. That each day with its moments (that could potentially swamp you in grief) keep making way for moments ordained for conversation. Connection. It is so heartening for me to hear how others invest in Peace on Earth.
And? I want the name of that coffee shop!
I am impressed that the fruit of such encounters, even hearing about such a grave place, has for me a tiny bud of joy. Oddly. Joy not for hearing about life lost but for what’s being held out. Eternal hope. Somehow in seeing, hearing, real hope is possible joy burbles over — even before anything else happens. Perhaps it is this joy that causes us to continue to pray for him.
Oh, this is so worth thinking about more, thank you! Post-encounter, for me the hope/joy connection registers very very quietly, perhaps faith’s implied whisper. I’m grateful to have met him. And keen to see how praying for him might ripen into more conversation next time I shop there . . .