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Parson to Person - July

Dear Friends, 

I have loved my life lived near the heart of the Church.  Never more so than at Armstrong Chapel. Our daily lives are noble teachers when we are attentive.  All of the following happened to me on a bright summer day not long ago on a visit to one of the fine hospitals in our city.

 The beautiful lady I was calling upon was suffering from short term memory loss.  While I was with her, she kept repeating that she had something she wanted to tell me but just couldn’t remember what it was.  When it was time to go, I asked her if I might have a prayer and she answered and I did.  After the prayer, she said to me with a smile and bright eyes, “While you were praying, I remembered what I had wanted to say.  What I wanted to say was ‘please help me’ and your prayer did.”  Leaving, I thought to myself, what a perfect request of our Heavenly Father, “Please help me!  It is always an appropriate prayer.

When I got to the exit door of the locked unit, I realized I was a long way down the hall from the nurses’ desk and that I couldn’t get off the floor without them pushing the buzzer to release me.  Just then, from the other side, a lovely nurse opened the door and eyed me with a modicum of suspicion.  “Can you let me out?” I asked.  “Well, I guess I can,” she replied, with a wry smile.  I have been in lots of closed places over the years where it took someone from the outside to set me free.  At times it has been Jesus.  Other times a friend.  Even at times a stranger.  While I would like to be always adequate for every occasion, it just doesn’t happen that way.

The third learning occurrence that hour was when I entered the elevator on my way back to my car in the parking garage.  There was a doctor already on the lift.  He could be identified by his badge, his coat and his stethoscope.  I guessed him to be Indian and he was supported by a cane in his right hand.  I must have entered with a good stride because he smiled and stated, “It is a good thing to be able to walk!”  It IS a good thing to be able to walk!  Even when your hips grind and your knees ache.  I thought about all the good people I know who aren’t graced with the mobility I often take for granted.  As I drove away that morning, I realized anew how many more gifts I had received in a short span of time than I had given.

 Thanks for spending the time to read this.  I hope you found it as helpful to read as I did to write.

 Love, hope and prayers,
Stanley Lawrence 

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Parson to Person

Parson to Person

Dear Friends at Armstrong Chapel,

Sometimes in the wee hours of the night when sleep escapes me, I read a book that I keep near on a bedside table.  It has to have several qualities.  (1) It must not be too involved to read late at night;  (2) It must have print which is easy to read;  (3) It must be light enough to hold above me and catch the glimmer of a small lamp.  The book I’m currently enjoying is The Wind in the Willows by a Scotsman, Kenneth Grahame.  Over the years, I have seen it referenced but never picked it up.  It is classified as “Children’s’ Literature” but it surely is replete with adult themes.  It was composed 110 years ago but is timeless.  It is peopled by animals such as Mr. Toad, Ratty, Badger and Mole. 

 Last night I read a page in chapter 9, entitled “Wayfarers All.”  It reminded me of friends in Ohio and other points north who go to great lengths to enjoy fairer climes.  There is even a text for this spirit of adventure found in Hebrews 11.  In The Message it reads, “…they accepted the fact that they were transients in this world.  People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home.”

Grahame writes, “Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others.  As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table d’hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year’s full reopening, cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flitting’s and farewells, the eager discussion of plans, routes and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship.  One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous.  Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly?  You don’t know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out.  All very true, no doubt, the others always reply; we quite envy you – and some other year perhaps – but just now we have engagements – and there’s the bus at the door – our time is up!  So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful.  The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoever went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air, and feeling some of its influence in his bones.”    

Love, hope and  prayers,
Stanley Lawrence

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