Lost and Found, Stories of Christmas

  One day, a fellow traveler motioned for him to stop. They had shared that dusty road for many years, but their journeys always took them in different directions. A smile, a polite hello, and a brief comment about the weather had been the extent of their conversations. But today, the man wanted more than a brief exchange.

  The carrier of water lifted his water-filled jars over his head and rested them on the ground. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead and his neck. “It’s a beautiful day,” said the carrier of water.

  “Yes, too hot for me,” the other man said. “I have a question,” he continued. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something, but we are always in such a hurry and going our different ways. I have wondered about this for a long time.”

  “Yes, what’s your question?” replied the carrier of water.

  “Well, it’s evident to me that you’re a hard worker.You bring honor to your master and his household . . . and please understand me, I am not implying that you do not know what you are doing.”

  “Go ahead, friend, what is your question?”

  “It has to do with your clay jars,” the man said. “One jar is perfect in every way. It has no cracks, chips . . . the lid fits tightly. It is free from any blemish. Not a drop of water is lost from this jar. But, the other jar. It has cracks and chips everywhere and the lid wobbles terribly. Water spills from this jar. The jar has to be half empty by the time you reach your destination.” The man paused for a moment, shaking his head as he continued, “Why don’t you replace it with a new jar? Surely your master will allow you to purchase a new one, one more efficient!”

  Looking back at the path he had just traveled, the carrier of water smiled and said with great delight, “Look, my friend . . . you tell me. On which side of the road do the flowers grow?

  “They do not grow on the side of the perfect jar. You are correct, not a drop of water is lost from the perfect jar. The side of the road where the flowers grow is on the side of the imperfect jar, the one with cracks, the imperfect one. It is the blemished and worn jar that brings the flowers to life in the spring and waters them all summer long.

  “Once I was consumed with bitterness,” the carrier confessed, “until that day when I saw those flowers at my feet. I looked at that old, weathered, cracked jar. I realized then that the master could use me, imperfections and all, to bring beauty into my life and the lives of others. On which side of the road do the flowers grow? Not on the side of the perfect jar, but on the side of the one you would have me throw away—the one with all the imperfections.”

  Irene and Jean

  Caustic Spirit Meets Human Whisperer

  “Oh no, it’s Irene.”

  Irene, the person who gave a new meaning to the word “negative” and was thought to be the originator of panic attacks. Once in Irene’s conversational clutches, you simply could not break free. The most positive, patient saints of our church tried to befriend Irene. One by one, they fell victim to her sharp tongue and caustic spirit. She was known as the “sigh” lady. When you saw Irene, that’s exactly what you’d say and do: “Oh no, it’s Irene,” and sigh.

  That’s what I thought that day when I was greeting parishioners after the morning worship. There Irene stood in the corner of the foyer, waiting for the last church member to move on so she could move in and have me all to herself. Sure enough, she made her move. I braced myself and prayed to God to give me the words to free her from what must be a painful existence. I also began developing an exit strategy if my prayer wasn’t answered.

  They say that at the moment of some dramatic experience, your life flashes before you. It wasn’t my life, but Irene’s life with our church that flashed before my eyes.

  I remember the first Sunday Irene walked into our large sanctuary. On Sundays in the 1950s, the sanctuary was often S.R.O. (standing room only). When Irene began attending, the 450-seat sanctuary hosted no more than a hundred worshippers on Sundays. The church had barely survived the great exodus of people from the inner city to the suburbs in the ’60s. Those who continued to attend made certain that the doors of the church were opened wide to the people of the community. The church had a much deserved reputation for being a loving, inviting, and accepting group of people. The church was a magnet for people like Irene, who got the tag “incorrigible.”

  From our first meeting, I suspected that the Lord had sent one of His most difficult cases our way. If we could not reach Irene, well, we were the end of the line. She had alienated herself from every church in the community. It was only after our first encounter that I made the connection: this was the person who was the topic of conversation at monthly clergy meetings. Immediately, she began displaying behavior that made her persona non grata, an unwelcome person, with the other churches. She found fault with everything: the choir was awful, the music selection was dreadful, the sanctuary was either too hot or too cold, the sermons were too long. Listening to her go on and on, I pressed my lips together, raised my eyebrows, and whispered to myself, “So you must be Irene. May God have mercy on our souls.”

  Four months later, she was standing before me, pointing to something in the church bulletin. Irene was of medium height and very thin, one could even say rather bony. She pulled her grey hair straight back into a bun, which drew attention to her perpetually furrowed brow. Irene was in her late seventies and always wore a sweater, even in the summer.

  “I can do this,” she said tapping her arthritic finger on the worship bulletin.

  “Do what, Irene?” I asked timidly.

  “Play the piano for the children. Don’t you read your own announcements?” she barked.

  Several weeks before, Jean, the director of our children’s ministry, had spoken to me about finding someone who could play the piano for the children in our primary department. We placed the announcement in the bulletin and this was what Irene was volunteering to do.

  I just stood there speechless . . . unable to utter a single syllable.

  “You play the piano?” I asked, hoping that I had misunderstood her. “Please, God,” I whispered to myself, “if I didn’t misunderstand her, strike me deaf.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Uh . . . uh . . . I didn’t know you played.”

  “Silent movies,” she said. “I played for silent movies.”

  “Silent movies, really,” I mumbled. “Well, this is for little children. Songs like ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ You know, simple songs for children.” (For the first time as a pastor, I was trying to dissuade someone who wanted to volunteer in the church.)

  “I know,” she insisted. “I can play children’s songs.” “Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to Jean.”

  JEAN’S MAIDEN NAME WAS ZLATYKANICY. HER FAMILY immigrated from Poland at the turn of the twentieth century. They settled in West Newton, Pennsylvania. Jean’s father became a coal miner; her mother was a stay-at-home mom with five children. Jean was the middle child. When Jean was barely six, her mother died. All five children went to live with an aunt who played a major role in raising Jean and her siblings. Common for the time, the girls went to school until they graduated from the eighth grade; they then had to get a job. The boys were allowed to finish high school. Jean took her first full-time job when she was fifteen years old.

  Jean moved to Hamilton, Ohio, and soon married. Her husband left for work one day early in their marriage, but never returned. Tragically, he drowned in a huge vat at the brewery where he worked. Jean suffered another hard blow in 1948 when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She stayed at the Dunham Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, for eighteen months. Bedridden and wondering what life had in store for her, she met her future husband, who was visiting a relative at the sanitarium.

  In 1952, they were married and soon had two daughters, Patty and Mary. Jean’s difficulties continued, however, when her husband developed cancer. Attempting to stop the cancer from spreading, he underwent several painful surgeries of the mouth. Along with her two daughters, J
ean was caring for a husband who was relying upon feeding tubes to stay alive. Jean never complained. It was said that her care made it possible for him to stay home until he died.

  In the late 1960s, Jean’s daughter began attending the youth group of the church. I was the youth director. When I came back from seminary three years later, Jean was attending Sunday services with her daughters. She eventually joined the church, and I had the joy of baptizing her. A few months later, we discovered that Jean possessed an incredible gift.

  During the 1970s, an ecumenical organization called the Council of Christian Communions developed a program with the public schools called Released Time. Parents permitting, the fourth through sixth graders were released from school, usually after lunch, to go to a neighborhood church for what was called “spiritual enrichment.” No indoctrination into a particular denomination took place. It was forty-five minutes of games, Bible stories, and refreshments; a wonderful opportunity for inner-city children to be around positive, loving people who were there because they wanted to be.

  We were having a difficult time getting the neighborhood children to come to Sunday school. So when the Released Time program needed a place to meet, we immediately offered our church building. We decided if we couldn’t get the children to come to Sunday school, then we’d get them to come to Tuesday school. Many of our Sunday school teachers volunteered to also be Tuesday teachers. We were then faced with the task of finding someone to head up the program. Instead of a couple dozen children on Sunday, our Tuesday school’s enrichment program had more than 125! Jean was asked and she said yes without hesitation.

  They say that when someone has a connection with a living being, they are called “whisperers.” In the movies, Rex Harrison (known as Dr. Dolittle) could talk with the animals; Robert Redford is known as the horse whisperer. In real life, Cesar Milan of television fame is known as the dog whisperer. Well, Jean, as we learned, was a child whisperer. Her connection with children was amazing. I don’t believe I ever saw a child misbehave around her, and if so, not for very long. She would never raise her voice or scream across the room, “NO! NO! NO!” She never coerced, threatened, scolded, or counted to three. Children simply did what Jean asked them to do. When they were with Jean, they felt safe, protected, and loved. She was certainly a child whisperer, but she was also an adult whisperer. She connected with the child in all of us.

  Jean would never appear on the cover of a fashion magazine. Her beauty was deep, not superficial. Her tired eyes reflected a hard life, yet were filled with compassion and concern. Her wisdom and attitude did not come from the classroom, but from the experiences of life and the difficult lessons they taught her. She lived a life of less so others could have more. Living a life of simplicity was not a choice she made, but was just who she was. Those who were troubled seemed to find their way to Jean. Her common sense, contagious laugh, and firm yet gentle spirit were in great demand. If anyone could deal with Irene, Jean would be that person.

  There was nothing I could do but give Irene the opportunity. As much as I wanted to, I could not tell Irene that she could not play for the children. This was the first positive thought Irene had since visiting our church, maybe even in her life!

  The day finally arrived. I personally took Irene to the primary department and officially introduced her to Jean and the children. As I slowly left the room, Irene went immediately to the piano. The last thing I saw was Jean smiling and mouthing, “It will be just fine!”

  I stood out in the hallway of the Sunday school room, like a SWAT team ready to rush in at any moment and save the children. Soon I heard the piano playing and the children singing. I later discovered that Irene didn’t read music. If you could hum it, she could play it. Her playing still had that silent music style to it, but judging from their loud and enthusiastic singing, the children liked it.

  Sunday after Sunday, Irene was at the church building long before the custodian opened the doors. She lived for that day and time. A few weeks later, I visited the classroom. The children were hanging all over her as she played the piano. Irene loved every minute of it. I had never seen her smile the way she did that day.

  Irene then learned that we needed someone to play the piano for a weekly Bible study we had started in one of the large apartment buildings in our neighborhood. Rain or shine, she was there every Thursday at 10:00 AM. She delighted all those who attended, mostly African Americans who never sang “Amazing Grace” the way Irene played it. Those Thursdays turned into a lovefest that greatly enriched all who attended.

  Irene was transformed before our eyes. She was Lazarus raised from the dead. As the apostle Paul would say, the old person was gone and the new person had moved in. Gradually, the “Oh no,” was replaced with simply, “It’s Irene.” Instead of going out of their way to avoid her, people now would go out of their way to talk with her. She became a joy to know and be around. Her transformation was of Ebenezer Scrooge proportions. If you complimented Irene, she’d gently push you away saying, “Oh, you don’t mean that!” which she loved to hear and say.

  Something happened along the way that held that beautiful spirit in bondage. It took the love of those children and the patience of a beautiful Polish lady to bring it out.

  Several years later, Irene missed Sunday school and the Thursday Bible studies. We were worried and had the building superintendent give us access to her apartment. All the shades were pulled down; she lay in bed, unresponsive. We took her to the emergency room, where we were told she had fallen into a deep depression, a disease she had lived with all of her life, but never properly treated. She went to live with her daughter in New Jersey. Several months later, I received a note saying that Irene had died. Her daughter said she died peacefully and that the loving mother she once knew had come home.

  Sometimes, when I’d be all alone in the church building, I could hear Irene playing while the children were singing the silent-movie version of “Jesus Loves Me.”

  DURING A COLD JANUARY DAY IN 1984, WE LAID TO REST our dearest and most precious Jean. A few weeks before she died, I went to see her in the hospital. The cancer that had taken her husband’s life was now about to take hers. I was now serving another church and hadn’t seen Jean for several months. At the end of our visit, we prayed together. I leaned over and we embraced. I whispered in her ear how much I loved her and how much she had meant to my life. As I raised up, she pulled me close to her and held me tightly, “Good-bye, Wendell, good-bye!” She knew we would not see one another again this side of paradise.

  As I got to the door, I looked back. We exchanged smiles. Her room was blanketed with all the flowers she watered in life. Imperfect like us all, yet used by God to bring so much beauty into the world.

  Dorothy and Thelma

  Beyond Capacity

  Frail and sickly, the slightest breeze would have blown her over. Every breath she took was a tortuous undertaking. The doctors didn’t really know what it was, nor could they attach a name to it. All they would say (in layman’s terms) was that her lungs were turning to stone. Whatever it was, it was painfully and prematurely taking Dorothy’s life. Dorothy and her eleven-year-old grandson, Danny, lived in a small second-floor apartment. Every Sunday they would faithfully come to Sunday school and worship service. They only lived a few blocks from the church building, but it might as well have been a continent away. Every few steps Dorothy would stop, raise her head, and gasp for air. Danny, ever so attentively, would hold his grandmother’s arm and patiently wait for her to continue the journey. Dorothy was as determined as she was ill. She continually refused rides from church members. “I’m not an invalid,” she’d say, smiling and waving them on.

  The summers in Cincinnati sizzle. This particular year in the mid-seventies, we were all wilting under record-breaking temperatures and high humidity. Two of the deacons from the church, Thelma and Margaret, were visiting our shut-ins. That afternoon they called me from Dorothy’s apartment. A thermometer mounted on
the window frame read ninety-five degrees. Dorothy was lying on her bed gasping for air. Her only relief was an old oscillating fan, which was doing little more than moving around the hot, stale air. Dorothy needed help, and fast!

  Air conditioners were considered a luxury then. Department stores and shopping centers had them, but the only homes with central air conditioning were found in the suburbs. If you wanted to escape from the heat in the inner city, you sat on a covered porch or the stoop. Dorothy’s house did not have either, nor could she use them if her building had them. Dorothy needed an air conditioner. We were not, however, a wealthy church. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened my eyes, there it was before me.

  Sometime in the late ’50s, a couple of sisters left a considerable amount of stock for the purpose of making sure that there would always be a nice study for the pastor. There was one stipulation; only the dividends from the stock could be used. When the one-hundred-year-old ceiling in the fellowship hall came crashing down (miraculously missing twenty preschoolers at lunch), we received permission from their heirs to use some of the dividends to replace the ceiling. Again, always sympathetic to our financial needs, they asked that we abide by the wishes of their deceased relatives. The study had just recently been redecorated, complete with a new, window-mounted air conditioner.

  I picked up the phone and called the church treasurer, “The study needs a new air conditioner.”

  “What’s wrong with the new one we just installed?” he asked.

  “I don’t like the color,” I replied.

  “Color? It doesn’t have a color. It’s grey, if you call that a color,” he responded. He knew I was never frivolous with the Lord’s money. He paused and said, “Oh, I see . . . Dorothy.” I have always been amazed by how quickly news travels in the church.