Not to many words for everyone today. I am struck by much of what is here and this entire study is having a profound effect on my life. I am moved to reconsider much of what I have been doing and what I do. I suppose some of it is the Holy Spirit moving inside me but I truly believe I need to change.
I pray that the words shared here are changing a life some place else also. As you move into the next day take to heart what is written here. Read the scriptures referred to and then add your life up with the formula Herb Miller is laying out before you.
I will be up in north central Nebraska sleeping on the ground (well air mattress under me) rising early before the sun, trudging up and down steep hills, eating high calorie, hi fat food, looking all the time for the perfect chance to bag a deer.
In these days of life I seldom shoot at anything other than paper and seldom catch a fish. I have however learned that one needs to get outside, away from the routine and get some fresh air. I have learned that it is not about shooting an animal nor is it about catching a fish, it is all about going fishing and hunting. Shalom WaynO
The Good Neighbor Road to Wealth
Someone said. "If you want to feel close to God. spend one day each week working among the poor." That person had learned the truth that the rich man in Jesus's parable missed. In reaching out to die less fortunate, we draw closer to God's presence and creative power, and to eternal life. When we fail to care about the poor and needy, we distance ourselves from God.
Deep down, we all know this truth. Even advertisers know it. A roadside billboard in Indianapolis read. "WRTV 6—six people making a difference." It featured a picture of six people who were obviously key communicators with that TV station. Is that not what we all want, to make a difference in the lives of other people? Do we not all know that commitment to helping people does not diminish our lives; it enlarges and enriches our lives? Do we not all know that it
is the people who do not care about others who live lonely, meaningless lives? Do we not know that the rich man at his full table got the table but nothing else? Yet the pressure from the "it" myth can sometimes keep us from choosing this road to real wealth.
During August 1988. the national news media repeatedly publicized the messages of "miracles and healings" that three parishioners had received from the Virgin Mary over a six-month period at St. John Neumann Roman Catholic Church in Lubbock, Texas. At the height of this exciting period, approximately 6.000 people gathered from across the country for a special service. Several people with handicapping conditions were in the crowd. One of them reported later that, as she was praying, a woman she did not know came through the croud handing out prayer books. "I took one and kept on praying," she said. "Later, when I got home. I looked through it and found a $100 bill. Some of the other people with handicaps tell me they got the same kind of book, each with a $100 bill."
Deep down, all of us know that kind of caring is the way to live. Yet do we always respond to that inner urge? Part of our failure to live as Jesus suggested comes from our tendency to overestimate the length of our lives. We often expect to become more caring persons at some point in the future, when we have more time. A woman was shocked to read her name in the obituaries one morning. The age was fifty, the same as hers. The notice even said that the deceased had a son in Midland. Texas, as she did. She told a friend what a sobering experience that was. She wondered if she should phone someone to find out if she was still alive. Someday each of our names will appear in the obituary section of the morning paper. When that happens and our friends look back over our expenditure of the years, what will seem important—what we got, or what we gave? At that point, will it not seem that helping others in ways that count will be more significant than the dollar amount in our bank accounts?
J. Wallace Hamilton reminds us that not only do we overestimate the length of our lives; we also underestimate their length. He points out that the people are wrong who say. "A hundred years from now, what's the difference? We'll all be dead." Actually, a hundred years from now we will all be alive, somewhere. And what we have been and done will make a difference. It will go on having meaning."
Texas Highway 82 runs east out of Lorenzo. Texas, past a country cemetery. A passing traveler was struck by the obvious parable in the landscape. For about fifty yards the old rock wall of the cemetery laps over the ditch and right-of-way and comes within a few feet of the white line at the right edge of the asphalt. Looking at those gravestones standing so close to the old wall, the passerby realized that the cemetery managers must not have wanted to move the graves at the north end of the cemetery when the highway widened from two lanes to four lanes. How difficult it is for us to remember how close the cemeteries of life lie to the busy daily highways of life, he thought. How we would like to forget that we are all one heartbeat away from that cemetery! Perhaps there should be more cemeteries built close to busy highways. Perhaps that would help us keep our priorities straight about how we use our lives, how we function in our relationships, and how we spend our money. Viewed from the perspective of the country cemetery east of Lorenzo, Texas, what is more important than giving our money for a worthwhile cause while we still can? There are no checkbooks in the cemetery.
In the most sober moments of our lives, we believe that what Jesus said in his parable about the rich man and the beggar is accurate. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, made a fortune by inventing powerful explosives and licensing the formula to governments for manufacturing weapons. When Nobel's brother died, one newspaper accidentally printed an obituary for Alfred instead. It described him as the man who had made a fortune by enabling armies to achieve new-levels of mass destruction. Alfred Nobel, sobered by how his life seemed to be adding up, decided to use his fortune to establish awards for great accomplishments in various fields that benefit humanity. We therefore remember him for the Nobel Prizes, not for his invention of explosives. Like Nobel, there are moments in life when we see the value of this principle that Jesus is trying to teach. As Leon R. Kass put it in an interview with Bill Moyers. "Where people
really give their lives for others, our hearts go out to them precisely because they have paid in coin of their future for something fine.' And yet, how difficult it is to maintain a grip on that truth as we move through the distractions of daily living.
A pastor from the U.S. was in northern Canada on a speaking engagement. He wanted to write a letter to his wife, but he did not have any stamps. So, he walked down to the post office to buy some. When he put his money on the counter at the post office window, the clerk would not take it. "That is U.S. money." the postal clerk said. "We only take Canadian money." The traveler could not buy even a single postage stamp with the $100 in his pocket. He had not exchanged his money at the border, and now it was useless to him. That is exactly what Jesus said in the parable of the rich man and the beggar. You and I will eventually move to a new country. The only way we can take our money with us is to exchange it for something worthwhile before we leave. What are you trading your money for these days? Are you buying something worthwhile, something that will last?