Compassion | All is Well

Friday Findings

October 5, 2018 By Shelly Durkee

Friday Findings

I’m a curious soul – with a wide range of nerdy and geeky interests, ranging from space exploration to theological concepts. I often find interesting items when stumbling about on the internet – and on Friday’s I like to share my findings with you!

Europe’s Oldest Intact Book – The Gospel of John

I love old books. A dear friend passed several very old books on to me a couple of years ago, and I have so enjoyed them – reading the writings, enjoying the covers and artwork, the marginalia, the fragile pages. I’ve enjoyed researching some of them – authors, details – and all of that has led me to research just old books in general.

Came across this great story about the oldest intact book in Europe, and its history. It’s the book of John, and it was found inside the coffin of a monk who had died in 687. As the story goes, the legend was that this guys remains were incorruptible, so people would place offerings around his tomb. No one is sure how the book got into the coffin, but they think it happened between 700 & 800 AD.

What is so remarkable is its condition – it is 1300 years old – and it is in great shape. The article goes into detail on the binding, and the pouch the gospel was in when found. Very cool stuff, and this article contains a link to actual scans of both pages and the binding (don’t miss that part!): Stonyhurst Gospel

In more “Old Things News”: Mom, I Think I Found Iron Man’s Sword

Oh, wait. Nope – not Iron Man’s Sword, but maybe a sword from the Iron Age.

That’s exactly what an 8-year-old girl found in Sweden’s Lake Vidostern. 1,500 years old – and also well-preserved. Guess little Saga Vanecek wins the prize for best “Show-and-Tell” item at school: Really Old Sword

Information is Beautiful Awards 2018 – Long List

I always look forward to this: The website “Information is Beautiful” has list its long list of finalists for this years IIB 2018 awards. Finalist for what? Data visualization and infographics. IIB searches out people who are presenting data in unusual and beautiful ways. The Interactive Infographics are always my favorite, but there are many other methods and mediums. I could spend hours looking through their long list – be sure to check out the Entymological Map of Africa (Maps, Places & Spaces), Tornado Migration (Maps, Places & Spaces), The Safest Skies Record (Science & Technology), and the entire category of Art, Entertainment & Culture: Information Really is Beautiful

Compassionate Pizza

If you’ve visited this space before, you may know that I love to travel. Love it. However, if you’ve ever traveled frequently, you know that there can be some really bad travel days. I’ve had my share.

In early September, an American Airlines flight endured one of those “bad travel days”, due to severe weather diverting their flight to a small airport in Wichita Falls, TX. I’ve been to Wichita Falls. Not somewhere I want to be stuck at overnight, at an airport.

The captain and his flight crew went over and above the call of duty, to care for their passengers, including ordering 40 pizzas from Papa Johns to feed them all. You can read the great article here, and then watch the video below – and then I challenge you to find one way that you can go over and above the call of duty in your workplace, to care for someone this next week: Hello, Papa Johns? Do you deliver to runways?

Quick to Hear – Slow to Anger: Loving the World Well

October 2, 2018 By Shelly Durkee

It has been a very difficult week, for our nation.

If you live in the United States, and if you do not live under a rock, you have probably read or heard about the current Supreme Court Nomination Hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, and the accusations of sexual assault levied at Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford.

These very serious allegations and this very sensitive and difficult situation is being arm-chair-judged by hundreds of thousands of people, across the nation. Opinions are strong. Voices are loud – whether they be the voices of senators, or the tweets of someone who knows neither of the parties involved, but who feels safe judging all involved, from the quiet of their living room and the dim glow of their iPhone Twitter app.

What frightens me the most is this: the very painful and complicated hellish reality of sexual abuse and assault has become such a deeply politicized – and, even more frightening – a polarizing issue in our society. Rhetoric and an “us vs. them” mentality is starting to overshadow the nightmare that those whose lives have been shattered by the nightmare of sexual abuse – whether the life be that of a victim, that of one wrongly accused, or even the life of a predator whose life is imprisoned in sin…and who should be in a brick, mortar, bars and razor wire prison.

I know this nightmare, very well – in my own life: my life was shattered by sexual abuse that led me to many years of doubting God’s very existence. Pain and grief unimaginable, that I still find remnants of today, when I least expect it.

Only through God’s grace and mercy and salvation, is it well with my soul.

But then, 9 years ago, the pain of sexual sin ripped my soul to shreds once again, when my Southern Baptist Minister (now-ex) husband was accused, tried and convicted for sexual assault of two minors – one of which was my daughter.

Rightly accused. He was guilty.

Only through God’s grace and mercy and salvation, is it well with my soul, and with the soul of my daughter, and with the souls of my other three children.

I do not write this, lightly. Nor do I write it as one who has no experience of the anguish, or fear, or terrifying hopelessness that comes from such horrific crimes. Though I have no experience with anyone close to me who has been falsely accused – what experience I have had with the court system and the media make me ache for those who have to endure that, though they be completely innocent.

When the #MeToo movement, and the #ChurchToo movement started gaining momentum in social media, I watched at first with a detached interest: I wanted to see where this was headed. My sincere hope as a Christ-follower and church member was that it would shed a much-needed refining fire spotlight on the issue of sexual abuse in the church, and some of the good ‘ol boy cover-ups that were being exposed.

Sadly though, what I am seeing in recent days and months, though, is this: it has become a shouting match, as opposed to an opportunity to demonstrate deep, compassionate love to those who are hurting.

Conservatives vs. Liberals
Republicans vs. Democrats
Friends vs. Friends
Colleagues vs. Colleagues
Christians vs. Christians

And, it is that last bullet, that pushes the world further away from the God they so desperately need.

We’ve seen it played out in racism time and time again. We’ve seen it play out in other areas – the immigration crises the world is facing, is yet another example. We see it repeatedly when the worship of America replaces the worship of God. And now we are seeing it as people….no, as we…hurl our indignant and righteous anger at each other, masking the gospel message – the only hope-giving message for a world that is so incredibly broken.

If we think for one moment that the world is not watching us – we are so sadly mistaken. They are watching.

And, if I may “go there” – there are victims watching, who have not ever shared their pain and grief – and, who may never know the healing grace of Jesus, if all they see of “Christianity” is the tossing of our anger back and forth.

My fellow brothers and sisters in Christ – we have an opportunity here, that we may never have again. It is an opportunity to choose our words wisely and to make sure they are soaked in love for all hurting people, with a grace-filled love that is only possible when we recognize just how sinful we each are, and that our sin was paid for on the cross.

Does this mean that we don’t stand up for what is right? That we don’t protect the innocent, or defend the wrongly accused? Does it mean that we don’t fight passionately for those who cannot fight for themselves? Absolutely not.

But we have taken James 1:19-20, and we have rewritten it to read “..be slow to hear, quick to speak and quick to anger…”, all in the name of righteous indignation, when we are told in that very same verse that “…the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

Jerry Falwell, Jr. – president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA – shared this on Twitter yesterday:

Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing “nice guys”. They might make great Christian leaders but the US needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps & many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!

I read this, and wanted to cry – because absolutely nothing in this statement from the president of a leading Christian University with ties to the Southern Baptist Convention through its affiliation with Thomas Road Baptist Church (among other ties) – absolutely nothing – shares the gospel message of the love of Christ. Not a single word.

And, the world is watching. And reading.

Jerry is wrong. Many of us are wrong. I am often wrong.

We need to be quick to hear: Not just to hear the words spoken, but also to ask for wisdom and discernment to hear the words that are not spoken – or, that are too painful to be spoken. Friends did that for me, and in their listening and hearing both what was spoken and what I could not speak, they pointed me to the only one who could truly hear and heal the agony in my soul.

We need to be slow to speak: Every situation does not need our opinion, or for us to “weigh in” because we have “freedom of speech” and 140 Twitter characters to fill. And, even closer to home, those in our circles of influence who are grieving or hurting do not necessarily need our words in those dark moments. They may just need our presence. Someone to sit with us in the suffocating dark, when the night is long, or the nightmares are unending. Or, they may just need to hear someone say, “I am so very sorry”…with no attempt to explain away the pain.

We need to be slow to anger: Yes – there is a time for anger. There is a time for protective anger – an expression of anger on behalf of a victim. Someone expressing that anger on my behalf was healing. Someone expressing anger on the behalf of my family, was also healing. But we have become so quick to express anger in situations where we can’t possibly know the whole story or where the anger is not ours to express, that any attempt at expressing love is drowned out, choked out, throttled, and lost in the vehemence that pours from our mouths or through our written words.

These are hard things to write. They are hard lessons to learn – they are lessons that I need to learn. I have thrown out my own share of angry words, when a listening soul and the gospel message of hope and life were needed. We all have.

But there is grace and mercy, for all of us. And there is the opportunity to do better. To love all people, well.

I love that James 1, which contains the verse above about being quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, also ends with these words of warning coupled with a directive of compassionate love to others:

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Me and Alex

April 5, 2016 By Shelly Durkee

Knock, knock, knock.

I knew who it was before I even got out of my office chair.

It was Alex.

For a split second I thought about not opening the door.

We have new neighbors. They moved in about 4 weeks ago. And the day they moved in, is the day I met Alex. And her Great Dane, named Dixie.

I’m not a “kid” person. You know people who are great with kids—the ones that know just what to say to soothe a skinned knee or hurt feelings, the kind of people who can coax a smile from even the most stubborn 2-year-old in the throes of a tantrum. The ones that parenting seems to be so natural for.

That is not me.

I have four amazing, wonderful, witty, fun and compassionate children. And while I love (almost) every second of parenting them today, it wasn’t always that way. So many times I felt lost in the world of parenting. How did the other mother’s at the playground seem so confident and relaxed? It wasn’t that I was over-protective of my crew; no, in fact–if anything–I was the opposite. I seemed to miss the “mama bear” trait somewhere along the line.

There were even times that I wasn’t sure that I knew how to love them well.

Maybe that sounds like a terrible thing for a parent to say; I suppose that to some, it does. But it wasn’t that I didn’t love them, per se. I did. But I wasn’t always sure how to love them. I never felt like I understood parenting well, and I often ached for my kids. I felt they somehow deserved better than what they got in me, as a mom.

A lot has changed, though, in the past several years. For one thing, I’ve come to know God as my Father–I’ve come to see 1 John 3:1, for the truth that it is:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

So we are.

So am I.

And something fascinating happened in my mind and soul, as I came to know God as Father–and to understand as best I can that I, as His daughter, am loved: I began to understand parenting a bit more. I began to understand a depth in my love for my four children, that I hadn’t ever grasped fully before. I loved them differently. There was a deeper kind of love accessible in my soul, by which to love them with, than was there before.

Goodness, how I love my crew.

Fast forward to today. When the door knocked. When I almost didn’t open it.

Alex is in 3rd grade. Or, maybe 4th. She’s given me a couple of different answers on that question. She is a bundle of energy. Skinny, with scabbed knees and wild hair, and never seems to have matching socks on. For all of those reasons and more, I instantly liked her.

She has yet to remember my name; instead, she calls me Ms. Chelsea. Every. Single. Day. I’ve given up correcting her; it’s not important. If she wants to call me Ms. Chelsea, so be it—I can be Ms. Chelsea. If I step outside to mow the grass or get something from the garage or go to the mailbox, she is there instantly; bounding across her yard with her Great Dane Dixie, calling my name “Ms. Chelsea, can I come over? I have a question for you.”

Alex is inquisitive (nosy) and persistent (stubborn). If she doesn’t agree with something, she is quick to debate (argue). But, she is also eager to please. She craves approval, and she yearns for hugs. She steps right up next to me, and if I don’t put my arm around her and give her a hug, she will grab my arm and put it around her shoulder and say “We are friends, right Ms. Chelsea?” And I can’t help by say “Yes, Alex, we are friends.”

I’m kind of surprised at how this scabby-kneed, wild-haired girl has captured my heart. But I think this is why: In her, I see me.

There was a time when I was that scabby-kneed, non-sock-matching, coke-bottle glasses-wearing girl–except my hair was a short mess; because I had cut it short with some dull scissors. And I was probably inquisitive (nosy), persistent (stubborn) and quick to debate (argue).

And, I was aching inside, though I didn’t fully realize it, because I didn’t know what it meant to not ache. To not be afraid. There were hard things.

And, for Alex, there are hard things as well.

For me, my Ms. Chelsea was Machelle. Machelle was an older teenager who traveled to our small, Iowa town with a youth group from Red Bank Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN. That week, she took me under her wing like a big sister. During the backyard Bible clubs they conducted, I sat right next to Machelle, and sometimes on her lap. She bought me candy from the Handy Pantry where they would go for treats, and at the end of the week, she took me into the small bookstore on our town square and told me to pick out any book I wanted, since she knew I loved to read, and she bought it for me.

And, when she got on that big coach bus to go home, I ran and hid and cried until I very nearly made myself ill. Her unconditional love of this gangly, scrubby girl, was sunshine to my world.

Years and years later, I had the gift of getting to reconnect with Machelle when, while working in a Lifeway bookstore in Virginia, two men came in from Chattanooga who were in town for a conference. We got to chatting, and within minutes we were putting two and two together; both of these men had been on that very same mission trip to Iowa, and were still members at Red Bank Baptist Church, and were still friends with Machelle. It was truly a gift of God’s grace, to be able to reconnect with her, and to thank her. Grace. That can’t be made up.

So, today, when the inevitable knock, knock, knock came at my door, my first instinct was to selfishly not open the door. I was busy. I had spreadsheets to populate, meetings to attend, emails to send, travel to book. My house is currently a mess—a broken pipe has created chaos of clean-up and repairs. I have upcoming travel that I need to plan for, and my crew is home for spring break. I wasn’t sure that I could be “bothered” by Alex today.

But then I flashed back to my own scabby knees and awkward self at that age. And I remembered. I remembered God’s grace, to me, through Machelle. And I remembered God’s grace and mercy, to me, in that He loves me. I am His child. And, He loves Alex, too. Deeply. He sees her scabby knees and wild hair and the hard things of life, and He loves her–enough to give His son to die for her, and to adopt her, too, as His daughter.

What’s five minutes of interruption to my day? Nothing. Nothing at all, compared to the opportunity to wrap my arms around Alex and tell her that I think she’s pretty terrific. And God does, too.

I Prayed for a Dog Today……

July 15, 2015 By Shelly Durkee

Ok, yep, that really happened.

One of the unexpected results of walking nearly every day for a year or so, is that I’ve gotten to know my neighbors.

That certainly wasn’t the plan. At all.

I’m an introvert. I am happiest in my little, tiny house, by myself. Oh, mind you, I can work a room, when necessary. I can be the extrovert, if forced into it. But, overall, I am satisfied with my introvertedness. Give me that one bedroom cabin in Montana, under the big sky, and I’m good to go. As long as I have access to Amazon Prime and UPS to bring me my books. That would be the one requirement.

And, for a few years, due to events in life, my introvertedness kicked into overdrive. I work from home, and there were literally weeks when I did not leave this house, for anything, except food or toilet paper–and then only if we were desperate. Hermit status.

In fact, one of the hardest things in getting restarted with exercising at the beginning, was I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me out there walking; or, heaven forbid, any of my neighbors stopping me to talk. In fact, for months and months, I would walk just to the edge of a fellow church member’s house, then turn around. I was embarrassed that I was so out of shape, and the idea of a conversation was taxing.

But, slowly that has changed. Now, most of my neighbors know me. And I know them. I don’t know their names, though I am starting to work on that some, but I know them. I know the:

70-year-old man who flies past me nearly every day jogging, and who tells me to not quit (he makes me look like a slug)
Family who either own or work for Sea Tow, with all their trucks that have “Sea Tow” painted on the sides
The woman in her early 60’s, with 2 big dogs, who likes to sit on her screened porch and drink coffee in the mornings
The dad who, every day, without fail, walked his middle school daughter to the bus stop, with their big yellow dog
The pastor and his wife of the church I live behind, who are so friendly and encouraging
The senior adult who lives across the street from me, who is wheel chair bound and has 24/7 in-home nursing
My church member friends, who I know I could contact if there was ever an emergency (such as when my air conditioning in the house went out)
The gentleman who gives me produce from his garden and who asks me nearly every day why I walk so much
The three senior adult ladies, with their 3 sweet dogs. Barney is the name of one of them. One is a white poodle. One is a mutt.

At first, I couldn’t look at any of these folks, let alone acknowledge them. But slowly I started to glance at them; mainly because I was curious. Then I returned a wave or two, and now–well, now I feel like they are friends. Kind of.

This morning, as I headed toward Back Creek road, I came upon one of my senior adult friends–with her puppy, the white poodle one. But I could tell something was wrong. She looked distraught, and the poor little puppy looked pathetic.

I stopped and we started to talk. And I found my soul breaking for her. Over her dog, of all things.

The poodle (she told me the name this morning, I just can’t remember right now. Which is pathetic, as you will see in a moment…) had a pink band-aid wrapped around his thin leg, and she told me that the band-aid was to hold the catheter in place. Yep, a catheter. The little doggy’s kidneys were not doing well. Cancer. And, she was so heartbroken.

We talked for at least 20 minutes. She told me all about her puppy, how long she’d had him (11 years), where she had gotten him, what companionship the puppy had been. She then told me that she knew it would be her last dog forever, because her husband doesn’t like dogs, and so she has decided she will not get another one after this one. She was nearly in tears. And the little doggy just sat in her arms, shaking.

We talked about other things as well–she asked me if I went to the church that I live behind, and I told her no, that I attend the Baptist church down the road. She asked about my kids; how long I’ve lived in Seaford. And then we came around to her dog again.

And, that’s when I heard words come out of my mouth that I never expected to ever say.

“Can I pray for your dog?”

I’m still not entirely sure where that came from.

I still feel really, really odd about it. Hugely odd.

But, for some reason, in that moment, it seemed to be the right thing to do.

I take prayer very seriously. Very seriously. Mostly because I don’t understand it very well. But also because I feel it is a weighty responsibility. I only pray for a small handful of folks; my kids first and foremost, and then a small group of others–friends, family, a co-worker. But the number is small. However, I pray furiously for that group of people. Earnestly. Prayer is very important to me.

So that is one reason why the words surprised me when they came out of mouth. And, honestly, it’s a dog. I love my dog, Biscuit. But I’ve never considered praying for her.

But talking with my neighbor, and seeing the look in her eyes, and hearing her voice–it just seemed like the right thing to do. So I did.

It was short and awkward and odd. I put my hand on that dog and muttered something akin to “God, please help ________ (and see, I can’t even remember the name, that’s ridiculous) to get better. Thank you for our pets, they are such a comfort to us. Amen.”

That was it.

She thanked me and wiped away a tear, and then we awkwardly laughed a little and she asked me where I work (from home, INTROVERT), she gave me a little hug and thanked me, and we went on our way.

I still feel strange about it.

But, here’s the thing I keep coming back to:

My neighborhood is full of hurts and needs. Yours is too. Doesn’t matter if you live in a gated community with million dollar homes, or if your house is in the inner city with drug deals going on in the alley behind it. Your neighborhood has needs. My neighborhood has needs. And I can be so incredibly selfish at times and sit in this house and could absolutely care less about the world around me. I do that well.

But that’s not what I am called to do. It’s the stuff of 1 John 3:17-18:

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ¹⁸Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

I am not a very compassionate person, at all. I can be very hard-hearted and cynical. I am guilty of this: “….yet closes his heart against him…” Compassion is not my forte. And I can sit in this house all day long, selfishly going about my life and caring nothing for the hurting young mom across the street. Or the curmudgeon down the road, sitting alone on his porch. Or the shopowner trying to survive on little business. Or the teenager sulking in his backyard as he mows. Or the neighbor kid with the terrible attitude. All day; I am so good at being so blind to the world.

Or, I can quit preaching and teaching and writing and talking about love (“let us not love in word or talk”) and get off my butt and start loving in deed and in truth. Meeting practical needs. Mowing the yard. Sharing groceries. Showing compassion–real compassion, not shallow, not false.

And sharing truth–that God is real, that He sees and knows, that He is our only hope.

And maybe praying for dogs. On occasion.