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| INSPIRATIONAL
MESSAGES Please submit inputs via e-mail to ekpk@godlymen.org
John Powell, A Professor at Loyola University
in Chicago writes about
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a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy: Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith. That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange ...very strange. Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving FATHER-GOD. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew. When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I'll ever find GOD?" I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically. "Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing." I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out: "Tommy! I don't think you'll ever find HIM, but I am absolutely certain that HE will find you!" He shrugged a little and left my class and my life. I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: "HE will find you!" At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful. Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. "Tommy, I've thought about you so often. I hear you are sick !" I blurted out. "Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It's a matter of weeks." "Can you talk about it, Tom?" "Sure, what would you like to know?" "What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?" "We'll, it could be worse." "Like what?" "Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real 'biggies' in life." I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification GOD sends back into my life to educate me.) "But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, " is something you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find GOD and you said, 'No!' which surprised me. Then you said, 'But HE will find you.' I thought about that a lot, even though my search for GOD was hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about that lot!) "But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating GOD. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But GOD did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a GOD who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn't really care about GOD, about an afterlife, or anything like that. "I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them." "So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him." "Dad". . . "Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper. "Dad, I would like to talk with you." "Well, talk." "I mean.… It's really important." The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?" "Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. "It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to. "Then, one day I turned around and GOD was there. HE didn't come to me when I pleaded with HIM. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through. 'C'mon, I'll give you three days three weeks.' Apparently GOD does things in HIS own way and at HIS own hour. "But the important thing is that HE was there. HE found me. You were right. HE found me even after I stopped looking for HIM." "Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find GOD is not to make HIM a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that. He said GOD is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with GOD and GOD is living in him." "Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn't be half as effective as if you were to tell them." "Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don't know if I'm ready for your class." "Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call." In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for GOD and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined. Before he died, we talked one last time. "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said. "I know, Tom." "Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?" "I will, Tom. I'll tell them. I'll do my best." So, to all of you who have been kind enough to read this simple statement about love, thank you. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven: "I told them, Tommy . . as best I could." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where God Wants Me After Sept. 11.....I happened to call a man on business who I didn't know and have not, nor will ever talk to again... But this day, he felt like talking. He was head of security of a company that had invited the remaining members of a company who had been decimated by the attack on the Twin Towers to share their office space. With his voice full of awe he told me stories of why these people were alive and their counterparts were dead and all the stories were just little things. You might know, the head of the company got in late that day because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts. There were other stories that I hope and pray will someday be gathered and put in a book. The one that struck me most, was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive. Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone...all the little things that annoy me...I think to myself, perhaps this is exactly where GOD wants me to be at this very moment. And it is enough. May GOD continue to bless you with all those annoying things. (and don't sweat the little things) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An Old Lady's Poem What do you see, nurses, what do you see? What are you thinking when you're looking at me? A crabby old woman, not very wise, Uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes? Who dribbles her food and makes no reply When you say in a loud voice, "I do wish you'd try!" Who seems not to notice the things that you do, And forever is losing a stocking or shoe..... Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will, With bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.... Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see? Then open your eyes, nurse; you're not looking at me. I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still, As I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will. I'm a small child of ten ...with a father and mother, Brothers and sisters, who love one another. A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet, Dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet. A bride soon at twenty -- my heart gives a leap, Remembering the vows that I promised to keep. At twenty-five now, I have young of my own, Who need me to guide and a secure happy home. A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast, Bound to each other with ties that should last. At forty, my young sons have grown and are gone, But my man's beside me to see I don't mourn. At fifty once more, babies play round my knee, Again we know children, my loved one and me. Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead; I look at the future, I shudder with dread. For my young are all rearing young of their own, And I think of the years and the love that I've known. I'm now an old woman ...and nature is cruel; 'Tis jest to make old age look like a fool. The body, it crumbles, grace and vigor depart, There is now a stone where I once had a heart. But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells, And now and again my battered heart swells. I remember the joys, I remember the pain, And I'm loving and living life over again. I think of the years ....all too few, gone too fast, And accept the stark fact that nothing can last. So open your eyes, nurses, open and see, Not a crabby old woman; look closer ...see ME!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Godly Men of Integrity Ministries
E-mail: ekpk@godlymen.org
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