My summer job is being a nanny. I work for a single father who has his two little girls (6 year old Lily and 9 year old Sophie) for the summer months. So my days now are spent cooking and cleaning, doing laundry and playing Barbies. We watch lots of Hannah Montana, we color and we play outside. When the weather is nice- or even remotely nice- we usually go to the pool in town, spending 3-4 hours playing in the water. This isn't my first nannying job but this one has taught me a few more things about life, children and love:
1) No matter what, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into four little triangles can say "I love you." No kidding. The girls' dad, Joe, told me that whenever he made sandwiches for the girls, they wouldn't eat them. I asked Lily about it and she said, "Well, it tastes better when there are four pieces and you are the queen of peanut butter sandwiches. You make them real good- even better than school." High praise indeed.
When I first made her a PBJ sandwich early on in the summer, I told her that my mom used to cut my sandwiches like that sometimes. Now every time we have sandwiches- peanut butter or otherwise- each girl gets "four little triangles," a little extra time taken to cut that sends a message to a little girl saying, "I made this just for you. It might just be a sandwich but you know that I care."
2) Hair rituals can be sacred and the time spend on them is vital. Both girls have long, beautiful hair that regularly needs lots of attention. Having short hair myself, I learn as I go. I'm not what I would consider very "girly" and my hair ritual consists of washing, a little bit of product and the end result is that I purposely look like I just got out of bed. Luckily, in my last nannying job, I learned how to french braid.
I think most of us at some point in our lives have enjoyed having someone play with our hair. It is an intimate, comforting thing. Everyday I brush the girls' hair and either braid it or put it up in ponytails. This is about the only time of day that they sit still. They sit down at the kitchen table or on the living room floor with straight backs, holding their heads high, just waiting for me to brush all the tangles out. I've learned over the summer that there is more to this ritual than simply "doing" their hair. Spending time brushing it and touching their heads is just as important as the end result.
Joe told me that his kids' long hair "sort of scares" him and that he has no clue what needs to happen with it. While the girls have never told me this, I suspect that hair care and "hair rituals" are pretty important when they live with their mom. And so each day we spend a good hour on hair- 30 minutes each. Combing, untangling, braiding, simply touching the head of and being close to each girl, reminding them how special they are and how much I care about them.
I had not been with the girls for a few days because they were on vacation last week. When I got there on Tuesday morning, they both raced to the door to meet me, carrying combs and pony tail holders arguing about who was going to get their hair done first. Hair. Something so simple, so "girly", so important- time that I wouldn't give up for anything.
These two things are only the tip of the iceberg of my summer. I love these two little girls I just met in May more than I ever thought possible and every day is a new adventure.
Never underestimate the power of a triangle cut PBJ sandwich and a hairbrush.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Amy
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
What does it mean to see Jesus?
The “Greeks” in the beginning of our text surely want more than to just “see” Jesus- they wanted more than just a glimpse of this great man they’d heard about. They wanted to truly “see” Jesus- to meet him, touch him, hear him speak—to know him. Their request seems simple enough. Jesus’ answer, however, is another matter entirely. He answers in a way that is anything but straightforward and perhaps not quite what these foreigners had expected. But we can only assume that they were granted their request and got to “see Jesus.”
But what about today? How do we “see” Jesus? How do we meet him, touch him, hear him, know him? In the world of Philip and Andrew, the Son of God was there in the flesh, there for everyone to see. Today, we have to look for Jesus in other places entirely. We have to look for evidence in places we might not expect.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Where do we see Jesus?
If we take a look around today, locally as well as globally, it might be hard at first glance to see Jesus. It is hard to see around and through the natural and human made disasters, the economic issues, and other things that seem so overwhelming. But if we take a step back and look at the people involved, it is another matter entirely. We can see Jesus in the faces of the people we meet every day. What an idea! If we take the time to look at- to “see” those who need our help and all whom we encounter in our daily lives, we can “see” Jesus. What if we treated everyone like we were encountering Jesus? Just as we treat Jesus with the utmost respect and love, we should treat everyone we meet. If we work to see face of Christ in others, it naturally means that we treat them with the respect and dignity that every human deserves. If we treat everyone as if we were seeing Jesus, it might make it easier to pay someone a livable wage, to work for peace and justice for all people, to work for human rights so that all people might be free from the bondage of poverty, hunger and disease.
In January I took a J-term trip through the seminary to Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. Shannon county, where most of the reservation lies, is one of the second poorest county in the entire country.
Over and over again, I looked into the eyes of the people who have suffered for so long. I heard the stories of people’s struggles with alcohol and drug addictions, the mistreatment at the hands of the people entrusted with caring for those living on the reservation. In those stories that brought tears to my eyes and even anger to my heart, I realized that every person was loved by Jesus. And that fact alone made it easier to see Jesus. In the faces of the children who came to play at the Lutheran retreat center every afternoon, in the eyes of the mothers struggling to feed their children and heat their homes.
We heard stories of triumphs, of traditions passed on, but we also heard stories of pain and suffering. One particularly cold and rainy day we ventured up the hill to Wounded Knee, the site of the 1890 massacre that claimed the lives of 300 Lakota people- men, women and children. It is also the site of the 1973 standoff between a Lakota group- known as the American Indian Movement- and US Marshals that lasted for 71 days.
Standing on the top of that hill in the cold rain, looking over the cemetery where so many people are buried, I wondered where I could “see” Jesus in the midst of all the pain and sadness. While our guide, Kelly Looking Horse told the story of his own involvement in 1973, I realized that Jesus was right there, in front of me. Kelly Looking Horse and others like him work to keep the stories of their people alive and pass on the history to future generations. He also reaches out to visitors to help spread the message and to encourage people to support the reservation. That day, perhaps more clearly than any other time on our trip, I looked and saw Jesus in the face of someone else. When he finished his story, someone in our group thanked him for sharing his story and for allowing us to come to this sacred burial ground. His response made us all pause: “This is my life, my story. And I give it to you so that you might tell someone else and keep the hope alive.” That is where we see Jesus: in the moments of hope and promise that exist in the darkest and seemingly most hopeless of circumstances.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
We don’t have to look far to see Jesus today.
But if when we look at others, we see the face of Jesus, the opposite is true as well. Can others see Jesus Christ when they look at you? When they look at me? Author CS Lewis writes in his book Mere Christianity, that we are “little Christs.” We are called to be the face of Christ to others- to witness by our very lives the good news that Christ died on a cross and rose again for all. But to be “little Christs,” we are called also to act. To be the very hands and feet of Jesus. To carry Jesus’ message to world. To work for peace and justice, to reach out to those who suffer, to remember and embrace those who are at the edges of society.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Let us live our lives so that others might see Christ in us. And let us live our lives seeing Christ in everyone we meet.
Amen.
What does it mean to see Jesus?
The “Greeks” in the beginning of our text surely want more than to just “see” Jesus- they wanted more than just a glimpse of this great man they’d heard about. They wanted to truly “see” Jesus- to meet him, touch him, hear him speak—to know him. Their request seems simple enough. Jesus’ answer, however, is another matter entirely. He answers in a way that is anything but straightforward and perhaps not quite what these foreigners had expected. But we can only assume that they were granted their request and got to “see Jesus.”
But what about today? How do we “see” Jesus? How do we meet him, touch him, hear him, know him? In the world of Philip and Andrew, the Son of God was there in the flesh, there for everyone to see. Today, we have to look for Jesus in other places entirely. We have to look for evidence in places we might not expect.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Where do we see Jesus?
If we take a look around today, locally as well as globally, it might be hard at first glance to see Jesus. It is hard to see around and through the natural and human made disasters, the economic issues, and other things that seem so overwhelming. But if we take a step back and look at the people involved, it is another matter entirely. We can see Jesus in the faces of the people we meet every day. What an idea! If we take the time to look at- to “see” those who need our help and all whom we encounter in our daily lives, we can “see” Jesus. What if we treated everyone like we were encountering Jesus? Just as we treat Jesus with the utmost respect and love, we should treat everyone we meet. If we work to see face of Christ in others, it naturally means that we treat them with the respect and dignity that every human deserves. If we treat everyone as if we were seeing Jesus, it might make it easier to pay someone a livable wage, to work for peace and justice for all people, to work for human rights so that all people might be free from the bondage of poverty, hunger and disease.
In January I took a J-term trip through the seminary to Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. Shannon county, where most of the reservation lies, is one of the second poorest county in the entire country.
Over and over again, I looked into the eyes of the people who have suffered for so long. I heard the stories of people’s struggles with alcohol and drug addictions, the mistreatment at the hands of the people entrusted with caring for those living on the reservation. In those stories that brought tears to my eyes and even anger to my heart, I realized that every person was loved by Jesus. And that fact alone made it easier to see Jesus. In the faces of the children who came to play at the Lutheran retreat center every afternoon, in the eyes of the mothers struggling to feed their children and heat their homes.
We heard stories of triumphs, of traditions passed on, but we also heard stories of pain and suffering. One particularly cold and rainy day we ventured up the hill to Wounded Knee, the site of the 1890 massacre that claimed the lives of 300 Lakota people- men, women and children. It is also the site of the 1973 standoff between a Lakota group- known as the American Indian Movement- and US Marshals that lasted for 71 days.
Standing on the top of that hill in the cold rain, looking over the cemetery where so many people are buried, I wondered where I could “see” Jesus in the midst of all the pain and sadness. While our guide, Kelly Looking Horse told the story of his own involvement in 1973, I realized that Jesus was right there, in front of me. Kelly Looking Horse and others like him work to keep the stories of their people alive and pass on the history to future generations. He also reaches out to visitors to help spread the message and to encourage people to support the reservation. That day, perhaps more clearly than any other time on our trip, I looked and saw Jesus in the face of someone else. When he finished his story, someone in our group thanked him for sharing his story and for allowing us to come to this sacred burial ground. His response made us all pause: “This is my life, my story. And I give it to you so that you might tell someone else and keep the hope alive.” That is where we see Jesus: in the moments of hope and promise that exist in the darkest and seemingly most hopeless of circumstances.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
We don’t have to look far to see Jesus today.
But if when we look at others, we see the face of Jesus, the opposite is true as well. Can others see Jesus Christ when they look at you? When they look at me? Author CS Lewis writes in his book Mere Christianity, that we are “little Christs.” We are called to be the face of Christ to others- to witness by our very lives the good news that Christ died on a cross and rose again for all. But to be “little Christs,” we are called also to act. To be the very hands and feet of Jesus. To carry Jesus’ message to world. To work for peace and justice, to reach out to those who suffer, to remember and embrace those who are at the edges of society.
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Let us live our lives so that others might see Christ in us. And let us live our lives seeing Christ in everyone we meet.
Amen.
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