Monday Morning Meditation #28: I Have Met My Enemy, and He Is My Friend

This week I finished I Samuel and read all of II Samuel. I have no idea why I just kept reading, with nothing touching me as a possible topic for meditation. Then, I realized that the two books taken together, with the stories of Saul chasing after David hither and yon, most usually for the purpose of trying to kill him, and David chasing hither and yon after women, with frequent time taken out for battle, provided a rich sujet for pondering.

Reading: I & II Samuel

Meditation: My first reaction after reading all the battles of Saul and all the battles of David, of the killing, of the deception was "what a bloody time that was" and "thank God I live in the 21st century. Then the image of all the wars going on today came to mind: the wars in which the US involved, the civil wars going on, and even the personal enmities that appear among supposed friends and in families. We are not far from David's time at all.

Then my mind wandered back to the Cold War. At that time, I was serving in the military, first as a soldier, then later, having received a direct commission, as an officer. The propaganda machine on both sides of the Atlantic churned out hatred day and night -- Americans of Russians and Russians of Americans. Hatred, fear, misunderstanding, cultural loathing, and all manner of ill along the very lines related in the books of Samuel. So how far have we truly come in the development of humanity?

Two incidents come to mind when I ask that question and when I think of war. One was a story from WWII in Belarus that was related to me by a decendent of the woman who experienced the incident. The other happened to me personally. I related both a while back on Mahlou Musings but will repeat them in full here although they are a bit long.

(1) Belarus. During WWII, advancing German troops would burn down entire Belarusan communities. To escape detection, the citizens of the towns would flee to the surrounding swamps as the Germans approached. In one small village, a mother of many grabbed her children and fled, only to discover to her horror upon reaching the wooded swamp that she had inadvertently left her infant in his crib. She wanted to go back after him, but it was too late. The Germans were already at the edge of town, and the townspeople made the mother stay in the swamp for fear of her giving away their position to the German enemy. The mother wept for her lost infant for three days. When the Germans vacated, the townspeople returned to their razed town, hoping to rebuild it. The mother walked along with them, in the blackest of grief. As the townspeople reached the outskirts, they saw one house still standing, the house that contained the crib of the infant who had been left behind. The mother, hardly breathing as a result of overlapping waves of fear and hope that crushed the breath from her, rushed into the house. There in his crib was her infant, well fed and happy. A bottle was beside the baby, and next to the crib on a rocking chair, which had obviously been used to feed and comfort the infant, was a German soldier’s warm winter shawl. To the shawl was pinned a note: “To the mother of this beautiful child.”

(2) Mahlou. In a most fascinating way, I once came face to face with the so-called enemy. That meeting remains one of my favorite memories. It occurred in a restaurant in Minsk in 1993. I was helping Academicians from the Belarus Academy of Sciences bring knowledge of individual differences in approaches to learning to the new textbooks being prepared in the Belarus language for K-12 students in a variety of subjects following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the nationalization of curricula. The Humanities University gave us a place to work, and the president and vice-president took me and several other guests to dinner soon after my arrival. I sat catty-corner from Anatoly, the vice-president. For some reason, Anatoly and I began comparing our biographies and were stunned to learn that during the Cold War, I was an officer in the US Army and he an officer in the Red Army; we had both had the same specialty and held the same rank. For a brief moment, we stared at each other, then Tolya (after such a discovery, it was only natural that I would begin to use the nickname for Anatoly) exclaimed, “You were my enemy!”

“And you were mine,” I responded.

We marveled about this discovery until long after dinner had ended. How could it be that two people who seemed to understand each other s poluslova (from half a word), as the Russians say, had been directly targeted against each other in an earlier time? Both veterans of the Cold War, we found we had even more in common than our scholarship. Thereafter, every day Tolya would bring me candies or cookies for our break, and we would sit and marvel again at how strangely fate had wrapped our lives together — and that we had found it out. We shared no military secrets; there were really none of any value by then, anyway. What we shared was a new understanding of the word, enemy.

When it came time for me to leave, the Belarusans, as is typical of their culture, threw a parting party for me. Tolya kept jumping up with a toast and running over to hug or kiss me. This is not exceptionally unusual behavior except that Tolya was known to be an extreme introvert and rarely took part in toasting.

"What did you do to Tolya?" one faculty member asked me.

"I did nothing," I replied. "He took an enemy to dinner."

With the recent cooling off of relations between the USA and Belarus, Tolya has become locked away from me for now, perhaps even forever. Who knows when winds of politics will shift again? But now I know what lies behind the old Iron Curtain that is being drawn again between me and a land and people I came to know affectionately a decade ago. And for one bright and shining moment, I stood side by side in friendship with my enemy.

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to repent for those times that I have thought of others, any others, as enemies, to thank God for giving me the unusual opportunity to meet my enemy in flesh and blood and find him to be a friend, and to give praise for the way in which He teaches His children. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Sabbath Sunday #12: Ganging Up in Prayer

Fr. Christian Mathis (Blessed Is the Kingdom) has made the suggestion that we "rest" on the Sabbath by taking a break from our normal blogging and sharing an older post of which we are particularly fond. Rest? Gladly! I don't get to do that very often, but now, thanks to Fr. Christian, I get to do it at least once a week -- and it gives me more time to spend with God, which is a wonderful gift.

I chose Ganging Up in Prayer for this week's older post. I have copied it below to make it easier to locate it, but if you go to the post itself, you can read the comments made at the time.

Ganging Up in Prayer

So many friends, acquaintances, church members, and bloggers have been praying for Nikolina, Shane, and the whole Mahlou family that God must feel like people are ganging up on Him. Many thanks to everyone for those prayers! The Mahlou family is once again not only emerging from the muck but also being washed off and cleaned up. We are almost presentable now.

Thinking about this reminded me about how a colleague and I ganged up in prayer on a senior boss a few years ago, resulting in something very strange (well, not really so strange if one knows the power of prayer) happening at our senior staff meetings. It used to be that the division directors hated gathering together with our boss's boss because he would berate them publicly when production was behind, customer satisfaction was low, or product quality was questionable. Instead of working together to identify and fix the problem, he would verbally abuse the director of the responsible division. Two of the four division directors quit within six months of my arrival. (It had nothing to do with my arrival; they had simply been around longer and were tired of the abuse.) A third talked of quitting. That would leave only me still in place from among the four of us who were on board at the time that I arrived, and I had been there only a few months.

Oddly, I was never berated or otherwise abused. (Moreover, a few weeks ago, on a business trip, I ran into this big boss, and he was genuinely happy to see me.) But, maybe it was not odd at all. God tends to protect me. I don't know why. I guess it has to do with His spoiling me (which I do not take for granted but I do love it).

Maybe it also had to do with prayer. I prayed often for this particular person because he often gave me new reason to pray.

When my former employee was promoted to being my colleague, replacing the third director who did quit, I told him that every time the big boss started turning red, a sign that he was about to sling verbal muck at someone, I would say a silent prayer, asking God to calm him and bring him a sense of peace; always the red would turn back to flesh color and his words would be tempered. Knowing that, my new colleague began to do the same, and we both noticed that meetings became more peaceful and productive. Soon everyone was talking about how the big boss had changed, how much more calm and respectful he had become, and how much easier it now was to attend his meetings.

Maybe all that happened was that our prayers visibly calmed the two of us and that calm spread to others, including the big boss, who sensed a gentling reaction from us. Or maybe God reached straight down into this gruff man's pounding heart or irritated psyche. I do not pretend to understand how God answers prayer. I just know that God does.

Saturday Evening Post #5

Usually, I do not double-post on any given day. However, when I posted this morning, I had completely forgotten that today is the first Saturday of the month. Elizabeth Esther runs a meme in which on the first Saturday of the month bloggers select their favorite post of the month and share it with other bloggers. The links are posted at Esther's site: here, and I usually enjoy joining her in this meme. Therefore, I present you with the second post of the day.

Easily my favorite post for January was Joy in Despair. If you missed it the first time around, I hope you will enjoy it now.

Amazing Power of Prayer

Marvels of marvels and miracles of miracles, something happened this morning that I never thought I would see. Never. Because I did not have as much faith as I should have had.

Donnie and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary on March 20. Complications, however, have arisen in celebrating it. First, March 20 is the only time that the university students in Lithuania can do the review session for the course I taught there the last two weeks, and they need one. Moreover, March 21 is the only day that they can take their final. Given the 10-hour difference between our countries and the plan to have the students do the final review over Skype and the final (monitored by the department chair) in the computer lab, emailing me immediately their answers, my presence is required in both instances in the late evening hours, ending at midnight. So, while I can be free during the day, I need to be at home, with the proper computer equipment at night. Any plans that Donnie and I would have liked to have had to take a trip (we have dreamed of a special trip for our 40th anniversary for some time, entertaining a number of different exotic locations, among which it had been difficult to choose) cannot be accomplished on the actual date. Second, with Shane unemployed, I would prefer to use trip money to pay the next unseen number of months of his COBRA fees, which at $800 a month are well beyond his ability to pay on unemployment compensation, and provide smaller amounts to help with the kids and food. (His umemployment amount covers his rent only.)

So, seeing that our local St. Francis Retreat Center, which is no more than five minutes up the hill from our house, is offering a two-day retreat on Franciscan spirituality March 20-21, I decided to sign up for it. Donnie has agreed to come! We will try to sneak away on the evening of March 20, during the dinner hour, for a private anniversary dinner at our favorite local restaurant.

The process leading to this decision began when Donnie returned from Jordan, an atheist as I had always been, to find that I had had a remarkable conversion experience and was now pretty dedicated to following in the path of Christ and obeying God at all costs. It was not the kind of thing one emails to one's spouse of 30+ years or relates on a phone. So, I had waited until he had completed his contract there, which ended eight months after mine, and then, when he arrived back in California, I shared with him all that had happened.

To say that he was in shock would be an understatement. For nearly a week, he could not even speak to me. He would look at me and mutter, "I cannot get my head around it."

Doah, on the other hand, was delighted. He had been a believer perhaps before he was even born. Who knows, given his significant retardation, what and how his beliefs were formed, but he always exhibited them. However, from the time that he could speak, he evinced not only strong belief but strong connection with God, saying things like "God told me" X or Y. One weekend soon after Donnie came home, Doah was in the car with us, driving to a nearby city for grocery shopping, and spontaneously said a prayer that momentarily got Donnie's attention, "Dear God, Thank you for bringing Mom to You, but You forgot about Dad."

Unfortunately, the effect was minimal and shorter than temporary. I wondered what would reach Donnie, and I knew that he was not the type to be pushed. Moreover, he was still in shock. I had been such an outspoken atheist.

A few months later, a friend visited from Nebraska. We spent every evening walking around Old Mission grounds, a little of it together but most of it separately praying and communing with God. It was during that time that I started begging God to help with Donnie and was told that eventually he would come to believe but that first I must frequently pray with him.

Pray with an atheist? I knew how that would have gone over with me, and I had a pretty good idea how that would go over with Donnie. Nonetheless, convinced that this was the path that God had chosen to bring Donnie to Him, at our very next breakfast together, I insisted that we say grace together. We have continued that pattern for two years now. I have also upon occasion, as I sensed his atheism turning into agnosticism, asked him to say grace (just in case), and he has acquiesced.

Then, last spring my torn rotator cuff was healed instantly during Mass. Doah was there and sensed the same presence on the kneeler with us that I felt touch my arm. When I returned and showed Donnie the totally free movement I had in my arm that had been impossible to move than 30 degrees before I went to Mass, he was again shocked. With the healing confirmed five days later by MRI, his agnosticism began to turn toward a "just in case, perhaps-perhaps not" kind of potentially emerging belief.

Still, he has been unwilling to step closer. I go to Mass alone or with Doah, Noelle, or Lemony (my daughter-in-law who was gladly my sponsor), when they are visiting, or even sometimes with a friend.

Nonetheless, Donnie has spent time with Fr. Ed and Fr. Barry, when they have come for a family or other event. They don't push him, either, and I try to follow their model of just being an example. I have also tried to be steadfast in praying for him and, as God urged, with him, relying on God to take care of the rest.

And so today, I am the one in shock, pleasant shock. (The shock pricks me, though, in thinking that had I had greater faith, there would be NO shock. Nonetheless, I am happy, indeed. Yes! A spiritual weekend together! What better anniversary gift could there be?

7 Quick Takes Friday #14

I cannot believe that it is so soon Friday again and time to contribute to 7 Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I am happy to report that I am back in sunny California, and it has been sunny! Also, the cold I felt I was coming down with simply disappeared as soon as I was home. (Maybe it has something to do with Fr. Ed blessing everyone's throats, one at a time, at noon Mass on St. Blaze's day. (Yeah, it was nice to start my first day back in the USA with a morning off and noon Mass.)

1. I started the week still in Lithuania. On Sunday, the English department chair and I attended Mass again at St. Casimir's. The temperature inside the church was still below zero. Proof positive: the holy water was a solid chunk of ice. After Mass, the dean, department chair, and I had dinner together at an Armenian-style restaurant. The food and company were both outstanding. Afterward, we went shopping, the one and only time while there that I had time to pick up some souvenirs, and I was delighted to find an illustrated book of the history of church art in Lithuania for Fr. Ed, who likes art. The only drawback is that the book is written in Lithuanian. Hopefully, a picture really is worth 1000 words!

2. After returning from the evening out on Sunday, I discovered that my ticket was for Tuesday, not Wednesday. On the one hand, I was distresse, trd to figure out how to get the Tuesday night class taken care of. On the other hand, this was a godsend. I really did not want my division to be reorganized in order to pose for a 125% expansion with my being able only to provide input from afar, since the direction things were taking were not at all to my liking and would have made it difficult to maintain quality control. It was a godsend (perhaps literally) that I was able to get back on Wednesday, before the final decision was made on Thursday. Once back, I was able to provide my input, and the decision all the way up and down the chain matched exactly what I wanted. Yes! Saying goodbye to the students a day earlier was emotional. Lots of hugs!!

3. The three-and-a-half hour drive to the airport was, in a word, snowy. We left with plenty of time to spare, which was necessary because a tractor trailer had jacknifed across the snowy, slick roads. Powder-white snow covered everything: the slim birch trees struggling to grow in the northern sea climate, the ice-covered lakes that reminded me of ice-skating as a child on New England frozen ponds, and the once-green-now-white fields. The trip reminded of Robert Frosts' poem about driving through the woods and snow on a winter night, only I was traveling in the day. In fact, as we passed the ice-encrusted birch trees, which in the summer could have been very much like the bending birches that Frost describes so affectionately, the poetry of Frost, a fellow New Englander, and Frost-related memories flooded my thoughts. Beyond his poetry, I have always felt affinity with Frost because he, like I a few decades later, home-schooled his children long before it was an accepted practice. Then there was the time that the British co-editor of one of the books I published through Georgetown University Press came to visit friends in New Hampshire when I was visiting family in Maine. We met at Robert Frost's farm, which was not only equidistant from where we were staying but also only a mile from my uncle's house. There, on the hood of her rental car, we signed the publishing contract, which needed original signatures, and then I showed her the real mending wall and the real west-running brook about which Frost wrote so meolidically.

4. My departure brought its moment of adrenaline. The Lufthansa flight arrived from Vilnius was delayed, and I arrived at Frankfurt with just minutes to make it to another gate area and through security before my Washington DC flight departed. I made it to the gate out of breath just as they were calling my name to say that the door was closing. Whew! This really is not the best way to get my morning calisthenics. I am sure planned exercise is a much saner way!

5. This week while on Facebook, I found a long-lost cousin. Well, she was not actually lost because I could have found her any time I wanted through my aunt, but when I made contact with another relative on Facebook, up popped the name and picture of this cousin, who is now living in New York. She was the youngest of my aunt's four children by far, not much older than my own children, so sort of a half-generation younger than me. I grew up with my older three cousins but had left Maine by the time their youngest sister was born. Maybe it is time that I got to know her better. I contacted her, and we are now Facebook friends. Lotsa catch-up to do! This is definitely going to be fun!

6. When I got home, Donnie told me that there were some interesting developments in family life that he had not shared with me by email while I was gone. Perhaps it was just as well. I have now blogged about them on the Clan of Mahlou site (Welcome Home?), but I will quickly relate them here. (a) Lizzie and Blaine, who have lived about because of work assignments in different states for the past five years of their 7-year marraige, have decided to divorce and remain permanently apart but good friends and devoted siblings. (Not blood kin, they were raised together from the time we took Blaine in from the barrio as a teenager.) We sort of think that is probably the relationship they should always have had, but grown children make their own decisions and parents support them whether or not they agree with those decisions. (b) While recovering from the loss of Ray, Noelle has encountered another difficulty. Her bone infection has worsened, and doctors are talking again about possible amputation of her foot. She is scheduled soon (still don't know the date) for some last-resort surgery to avoid amputation. Prayers welcomed!

7. Ah, Friday at last! And a special Friday at that. I was supposed to be on leave all week from work, but considering the drastic changes being planned on Wednesday and Thursday, I put in pretty full days, although I did take Wednesday morning for errands and Mass and came home at 7:00 p.m. for our Bible study group when I might have stayed later into the evening as I did on Thursday. I do have to go in to work this afternoon, but this morning, yippee, I am going to First Friday at St. Francis Retreat Center! A moment of peace! :)

Wishing all of you a weekend of peace!

Blest Guest Wednesday #6: Sadhu Sundar Singh - A Christian Ascetic Holy Man

From time to time, it is difficult for me to post regularly, given my crazy travel schedule, which you can follow, if you have such a liking, in the Twitterlets. You will notice that "crazy" is the correct word because while one day I think I am going to Afghanistan in March, the next day I learn that it will be Ohio. (I am trying to determine what those two places have in common!) I have been able to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday."

As today's "Blest Guest," I asked Amrita from India (actually from a place with the delightful name of Allahabad, meaning in English, City of God), who comments on Blest Atheist frequently and whom I have come to know and have some affection for through the blogosphere. I think you will find her post something from another world, literally.

Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Christian Ascetic Holy Man

Sundar Singh was born into a rich landowning family of Punjab on Sept 3,1889. He lived a life of comfort and ease and received his education at a Christian High School in order to learn English.

His mother used to take him to a sadhu (holy man) living in a nearby jungle who taught him the holy scriptures and religious traditions. Sundar sat at the feet of the hermit, drinking in the wonders of Eastern philosophy and religion.
His mother's sudden death affected the young boy deeply . Anger and disillusionment erupted in Sundar's heart. This often took the form of violence against Christians and missionaries connected with his school. He started taking great pleasure in ridiculing and persecuting Christians, especially new converts. In a blatant act of hatred, Sundar bought a Bible, tore it up, and burned it page by page as his friends watched the spectacle.

Three nights later, his soul seeped in bitterness, Sundar decided to commit suicide. A fast train passed by on the railway tracks near his house at 4 o' clock every morning. He would lay on the tracks and let it pass over him; that would be the end.
Contemplating his predicament, he got up to take his last bath. While bathing, he looked up to the star-speckled sky and, addressing the Unknown God, cried out, "God, if you really exist, reveal yourself to me." Then he lay down on his bed, waiting for the morning to dawn.

He was suddenly awakened by a blinding light and saw a vision of Christ. who looked at him with love and compassion and showed him his nail pierced hands and feet. The dazed Sundar fell down at Christ’s feet in worship and adoration. His heart overflowing with joy and excitement, the 14-year-old lad ran to his father and told him about this vision of Jesus.

The elder, staunch Sikh man chided his son, saying it was a figment of his imagination and that he should shun every thought of a foreign God. But Sundar would not budge from his faith and determined to follow Christ, whom he had seen face to face.

His conservative Sikh family used various ploys to destroy his newly found faith. Unable to do so, they even tried to poison him. Sundar was finally disowned by his family and driven away from home as converting to Christianity bought great shame to the clan. He lived in a Christian community, and at the age of sixteen he was baptized in the hill town of Shimla.

After that, he donned the yellow robes of a sadhu (a holy ascetic man) and set out on foot to traverse the length and breadth of India and the neighboring countries to spread the message of Christ. On his journey he would beg for food. At night, he found shelter under a tree. He had many strange and miraculous encounters with people who appeared to be angels or outlaws, and he once found that he had slept with a cobra.

At first, the Christians of North India were suspicious of his liberal ways, but they soon found out that Sadhu Sundar Singh was a devoted follower of Christ. They gave him the title of "the apostle with the bleeding feet." He received a lot of public attention in the cities he visited. People wanted to elevate him, but he responded by saying ,”I am not worthy to follow in the steps of my Lord ... but, like Him, I want no home, no possessions. Like Him, I will belong to the road, sharing the suffering of my people, eating with those who will give me shelter, and telling all men of the love of God."

In his missionary journeys, he traversed the entire sub-continent, even Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Afghanistan, and Tibet. He spoke of meeting a 300-year-old Christian hermit in a cave on the snowy slopes of the Himalayas. Both men spent several weeks together in fellowship.

The sadhu was not welcome in Tibet after he shared the gospel message. As on many other occasions, he was beaten, stoned, and left to die but miraculously survived. Once, he was sewn up in the dry skin of a yak and left out in the blazing sun to die of suffocation, hunger, and thirst. But at nightfall, a man who appeared to be an angel of the Lord came and rescued him and sent him on his way.
Nothing is clear about his death. In April 1929, he set off into the Himalayas to visit Tibet again as well as places of Hindu pilgrimage. He was last seen in a small hill town of Kalka, after which he disappeared. He never returned. His biographers say he died on the frigid terrain of the mountains or was taken up to heaven by angels. I would like to believe the latter.

Below are excepts from the Sadhu teaching from The Parables of Truth.

Parables of Truth

- When a man is in a state of sin, he has no sense of sin. A man dives into the water. On his head are mounds of water, but he does not feel their weight at all. However, on coming out of the water, if he lifts a vessel of water, he thoroughly understands how heavy the water is. In the same way, when a man is sunk in sin he has no sense of sin, but once he is delivered, he is conscious of the least sin.

- It may take a long time to know about a flower, but it doesn't take long to smell its sweet fragrance. It doesn't take long to enjoy Him. I know Him -- that is enough for me. People have been quenching their thirst with water, not knowing that it is hydrogen and oxygen. So it is with the water of life. If salvation is for a few, then it is not universal, and if it is not universal, it is not true.

- “How can I believe there is life hereafter? -- Heaven and Hell?” I was asked by a professor.
“But,” said I, “we find the proof in ourselves.”
“Can you give a proof about the future life?” he asked.
“Certainly. Eggs at first contain only liquid matter. Then, a young bird is gradually formed. Supposing the mother-bird tells the young one, ‘You will come out of this shell. You will see mountains, hills, clouds, fields and also your mother.’ What if the chicken says, ‘No, you are telling a lie. What proof do I have?’
‘Why, those wings, those eyes have been given to you. You can't use them in the egg shell. You can't see anything but yourself. Your eyes and wings are proof that you are being prepared for a world to come.’ When the chick came out of his shell he saw everything and his mother and he could enjoy everything.'”

- So we shall come out and see our Heavenly Mother-Father. Why these desires? Longings for peace? There is no room to satisfy all human desires in this life. But we shall see our Saviour and the saints in Heaven. In this body we could not see them. But all eggs do not get hatched. They need the Mother's warmth. So too we need the baptism of the Holy Spirit to make us warm. We must receive the warmth and heat from Him in prayer."

- "When I was in America a wealthy man was telling me of his experience. 'What do you think is the most precious thing in this drawing room?' he asked, 'Some say it is that beautiful picture or these precious stones. But the most precious thing in my house is that tiger skin. One day when I was hunting with my brother a tiger was shot. But he was not killed -- only wounded and still breathing. My brother fired and the tiger jumped on him and so my brother was killed but the tiger was killed too. These scars are my brother's blood. My brother gave his life for me. So this is the most precious thing in my house.'
- So when we read the word of God we learn that our Brother gave His life for us. There is no precious thing in the world than this. It has the mark of our Brother's blood."

- I have a stone in my hand. I hit somebody with it. The man's head is broken, and he dies. As long as the stone was in my hand, it was in my power. However, once the stone was out of my hand, it was out of my power. And it was too late. The man was dead. If I repent, that only means I won't throw any more stones in the future. But the man is already dead! In the future, we shall receive strength, but we must hold fast for the present. Otherwise, we are in danger of losing what we have.

- There is a danger of losing the gifts or the blessings which we have been receiving from our Heavenly Father. If there had been no danger of losing our crown, our Lord would not have given warnings. So,” watch and pray.” Gifts, blessings, spiritual life and crown — there is a difference between having these things and receiving them again. Those who repent may obtain forgiveness if they go to our Heavenly Father, but those who postpone may find it too late."

- It is an excellent plan to entertain noble and lofty thoughts in the mind at all times; for by the Law of Association one good and noble thought attracts another.

- A tree grows and develops in the light and heat of the sun. There is infinite space above the tree; yet, when the tree has reached a certain height, it cannot increase any more. Why can it not increase? The force of gravity draws it down. We are spiritual beings and are to grow upwards and not downwards though things in this world draw us down.

- The heat of the sun makes a tree grow, but by the heat of the same sun, another tree dries up. When a worm or an insect has entered a tree, the life of the tree is being gradually destroyed; then the heat of the sun instead of giving it strength helps the process of decay. We have life within us and are to grow through the light of the Sun of Righteousness. To what degree is it possible for us to increase? To this degree, “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.'"

- When governments began to mint coins, men began to make counterfeit coins. So, too, in the Spiritual life, the Evil One provides counterfeits of every virtue.

- In the spiritual life, we can do much harm when we fully intend doing good just like the man in Burma who rushed to pour buckets of water on his house which had suddenly caught fire and found that in that great oil-region he was pouring kerosene oil instead.

--------------------------------------------

When I was growing up, my grandma and parents told us stories about Sadhu Sundar Singh. I was in awe of his spirituality and devotion, and it has left a deep mark on my life. Two years ago, his niece held a series of meetings in my town. She is also a missionary, and it was thrilling to hear about the rich legacy the Sadhu has left behind.

- Amrita from India

Tickled Pink with Embarrassment

I spend a fair amount of time teaching the principles of servant leadership to new managers and working with all levels of managers on implementing my leadership policies of servant leadership, reverse evaluation, and shared governance. I try very hard to practice what I preach, and I ask God for help every day. However, it is not easy to practice what you preach when it is in the area of servant leadership.

Like anyone else, I am vulnerable to stress upon occasion, and currently there is an inordinate amount of stress as we are poised for explosive growth. Right before Christmas, we reached the zenith of need for new personnel to be identified and the hiring process started and a nadir of activity. Learning the latter, I went in search of the manager of a particularly needy division and found his door locked. The associate manager told me that he was on vacation. I sort of remember approving the time off, but that was much earlier and before we knew that we would need globs of new people in January and February. I was furious that he would take vacation without having completed the hiring that needed to be done and without even bringing me up to date about it.

"Please call him in," I instructed the associate manager, "and, unfortunately, you will not be able to take vacation next week as you planned; no one can be away until we have an adequate number of personnel for the taskings that will appear right after Christmas." After that and until the manager showed up, I proceeded to take over the hiring process for one of the understaffed programs among several growing ones in this particular division, looking over the resumes and recommendations of applicants, and setting the program director about arranging interviews.

I understood from interactions after his arrival that the manager was upset, but I did not know how much until he sent me a note on Christmas Eve, telling me that he had been too distressed to attend Christmas Eve Mass with his family. I wrote back, urging him to go to Christmas Day Mass, that we could discuss issues of work at work on Monday, and that God can often put right what man has messed up. The short story is that he did go to Mass, and he said it brought him some inner peace

After everything had quieted down and we had all returned from the New Year holiday, I had a chance to talk to the associate manager about training some of the new supervisory staff brought in for some of the projects and emphasized the need to help them understand the concepts of servant leadership.

"Let me ask you a question," he said. "Do you consider your behavior last week appropriate to the servant leader model?"

When I queried what he meant, he referred to my calling in his boss from vacation and those rather difficult days between Christmas and New Year when we all had to work.

"Was there some kind of resentment about being called in from vacation?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "It was your reaction."

"Was I rude?" I am not without the capacity to be rude, never intentionally, but, you know, in a work world, things you don't want to happen do happen.

"No, you were polite," he said. "It was your body language. We could tell that you were angry with us and that made it difficult to work as effectively, well, certainly as efficiently."

I had not even realized how I had let that stress level take me over and then splash onto them. The associate manager was right; it was not a good example of servant leadership. Every day I begin my morning prayer by asking God to prevent me from harming anyone. Hm...I guess I was not listening to God that day. I wonder how many times He tried to reach me!

The conversation with the association manager reminded me of the time that 12-year-old Lizzie, having started a course in psychology at Northern Virginia Community College under a gifted student option, sat me down at the kitchen table and said, "Mom, we must talk."

"And what must we talk about?" I asked her.

"Your disciplinary techniques," she replied.

"And what is wrong with them?"

"Well, Mom, they are pretty haphazard, chaotic, and really nearly nonexistent."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for example, when you punish us you should not expect us to remember that we are being grounded or doing some other punishment. You should remember, too!"

Guilty as charged, I supposed she was right, and she left, happy that I seemed to understand the error of my ways but not at all convinced that I would be able to change. She was right on both counts.

I hope, though, with my managers that, with God's help, I can change.

Back to the associate manager, he was clearly aware of my willingness to discuss the situation with him, both from the point of view of appropriateness on my part and as an example of how managers should not handle stress. He was, though, very unlikely aware of my real emotional reaction. I was tickled pink that he was not afraid to address the issue with me, to tell me how what I had done made him feel, and to suggest how I might better have handled the situation. So, in spite of the somewhat embarrassing and uncomfortable feeling I had from not having practiced what I preached, I had something important: proof that I have indeed established an ambiance of servant leadership; otherwise he would not have presumed to correct my behavior.

Should I have had any doubt about that, the morning after came the clincher. I apologized to the manager while it just happened that the associate manager was in the room. The manager accepted my apology with grace: "We have to work together as a team, or we will never survive this avalanche of new tasks." Just exactly what I have been teaching (but apparently not quite so well modeling)!

I am very proud of my managers although I am less proud of myself. Perhaps what happened was a gift from God in spite of my not listening to Him very well that day. I was given the opportunity to develop greater humility. And that is always a useful and needed opportunity.