My Afternoon with Dick Clark

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Elizabeth Geitz

Oh, how I remember being with Dick Clark. No, I wasn’t on American Bandstand. I was a contestant on the $20,000 Pyramid with Dick Clark. And I’ll never forget it or him.

When I moved to the New York City area from Tennessee in 1979, the first thing I thought – seriously – is now’s my chance to get on a TV game show. You see, my neighbor Judge William O. Beach had visited New York City and been selected to appear on “I’ve Got a Secret.” My mother’s good friend, Mary Powers, had come to New York and gotten on “To Tell the Truth.” So if you moved to New York from Clarksville, Tennessee, the only thing to do was get on a game show. Of course, what else?

So I applied. I was in a baby group then, when our now 32-year-old daughter, Charlotte, was a year old. One of the women in the group had tried to get on a game show, so she showed me the ropes. I filled in my application and in to NYCity I went. With fear and trembling.

In preparation, my husband Michael and I played the $20,000 Pyramid board game back and forth, back and forth each night when he came home from work. I became relentless. He became exhausted. Finally I was ready to try my luck.

I hired a baby sitter, not easy in those days for us, and soon found myself in a small room playing the game with a group of strangers in the city. Miraculously, I seemed to do well.

“We’ll call if we’re interested,” they said. And that was it. Then came  months of waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally, I received the long-anticipated call to come back. So I did. And played the game some more.

At last, I was told I had been selected to appear on the show. Maybe. I had to be at the ABC Studio at 8am on a certain day and I may or may not be called up to be on the show. Michael and I stayed in a low-rent hotel room the night before and when I awakened, my curling iron would not work. An unbelievable nightmare to me in those days. So my husband, still here after 38 years, held the cord together with his hands as I curled my hair, while simultaneously trying to calm me down.

Then I had to play the game back and forth, back and forth again in the studio ante room and wait. And wait some more. A guard walked with me when I needed to go to the bathroom because of something that had happened on the $64,000 Question years before. Finally, I was called up on to the stage and there…..there….was Dick Clark, pancake make-up and all. Baby face and all.

Yes, he looked like the world’s oldest teenager, but he was also something else. He was one of the nicest men I’d ever met. He seemed genuinely concerned about the butterflies in my stomach. Asked about my Southern accent – I think he said it “oozed all over him”. Yes, that’s what he said. I’ve never forgotten it. During the commercial break he helped me calm down. He clearly wanted to help this young woman, so obviously a newcomer to the bright lights of New York City.

“Things you balance,” he said, as I played the final pyramid round. “Scales….your checkbook,” I replied in rapid succession. “Things that are bought by the pound,” he said. “Meat, potatoes…..nails,” I said. And that was the answer. I had won my $10,000. A fortune for me, with Michael just out of five years of graduate school, our future still uncertain before us.

Michael ran up on the stage. Very uncharacteristic of him. Dick Clark said, “Who is this?” We’d been talking about Charlotte during on-air banter, so I blurted out, “This is Charlotte’s father!” Of course, never mentioning that he was also my husband. What an afternoon! What a fortune had fallen into my lap.

A fortune that Dick Clark helped me win. Thank you Dick. Thank you. May your soul and the souls of all the departed rest in peace.

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So…….Where Is This New Creation?

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Elizabeth Geitz

On Easter Sunday, April 8th, Christians throughout the world proclaimed, “He is risen. The Lord is risen indeed!” On three words, “Jesus is risen,” hinges the entire Christian faith, the meaning of the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist, the difference between death and eternal life.

According to legend, because of their faith in these three words every apostle died the death of a martyr. But over two thousand years later, how easy is it to believe that Christ has conquered death and a new creation has been born?

Do you ever wonder . . . where is this new creation? When peace in the Middle East is more elusive than ever – it’s hard to know where the new creation is. When an unarmed 17-year-old African American is gunned down on his way home from buying Skittles and his killer has not been charged – it’s hard to know where the new creation is. When children are going to bed hungry at night in our own country and throughout the world – it’s hard to know where the new creation is.

Where is the evidence of the risen Christ in the midst of such daily occurrences? In the Bible, the Gospel of Mark tells us that when the Sabbath is past, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary the mother of James awaken at dawn and go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with spices.

They seek him. In the midst of their heartbreak, dejection and defeat, expecting nothing but a lifeless form, they go to Jesus. They go in search of him.

Then they walk straight into the empty tomb. These three women did not gaze inside and run off. They faced the blackness, the uncertainty of the empty tomb, and walked right into it. They walked into darkness and found light. They walked into emptiness and found fullness. They walked in alone and found angels there to guide them.

Where is the empty tomb in your life? What is it that lies before you gaping in blackness and uncertainty? What do you need to walk straight through?

Where is the new creation? Paradoxically, we’ll most likely find it when we have the courage to do what the women did, to walk right into the middle of the darkness, trembling with fear and perplexity. Paradoxically, we’ll most likely find it where we least expect it. It wasn’t until they walked into the death of the tomb that they were told, “He is risen; he is not here.” It wasn’t until Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that Christians believe he was raised in glory.

Where are the people of the new creation? In the midst of fullness and abundance, blithely sailing through life with few problems? Probably not, because those who have been created anew, look for all the world like people carrying a cross.

We must walk into that place where we most fear being. We must walk into emptiness and darkness to find fullness and light. And oh, how we avoid this! What we won’t do to avoid the dark corners of our lives. We’ll mask them with overwork, busyness, hard playing, overeating, or overdrinking - whatever we can find – to avoid that empty tomb that resides somewhere in each and every one of us.

Only when we have the courage to walk right into it, will it no longer hold power over our lives. Only when we walk into the tomb, which is womb-like, can we find new life, rebirth.

Wherever you find yourself on your spiritual journey, may the Christian season of the fifty days of Easter find you filled with the courage of those women from so long ago, ready to walk without fear into the unknown, into the darkness, where light awaits.

 

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Speechless

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Elizabeth Geitz

I’m speechless. I know. This never happens to me. But it has.

I’m also overwhelmed and humbled. What began as the odyssey of three women of faith to the Good Shepherd Home for Children in Cameroon, West Africa is now becoming something far more than all we could ever ask or imagine.

Those of you familiar with the Bible will recognize that last phrase. It’s from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians and it was God of whom he speaks.

For who else could have led us to the doorstep of Sister Jane Mankaa, the Cameroonian nun who founded the orphanage that now feeds, clothes, shelters and provides medication for 130 children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic? Who else could have led me to write I Am That Child about that experience? And who else could have led readers to respond in such unexpected, powerful and life-giving ways to my book that has only been out for six weeks?

“I know how to get food to the children through my suppliers in Africa,” one reader responded. “Send me some information and I’ll get to work on it.”

“I understand Sister Jane wants to build the first Anglican school in Cameroon, focusing on the educational needs of orphans. I’m starting a fund. Right now. Let’s call it the ‘Cameroon 100 Campaign’ – 100 people to give $1,000 each. I’ll be the first to sign up.” And twelve other people quickly followed suit.

“My thirty-year-old son has epilepsy. The section of I Am That Child about epileptic children falling into the fire and injuring themselves sent shivers up my spine. I’m starting a program. I want to call it ‘Clip a Dollar for Epilepsy.’ I’m working on a pamphlet and details right now.”

“I want to sponsor four children. I know I can make a difference in their lives. Didn’t you say one was almost ready for college? I’ll be ready when he is.”

“Let me sponsor these twins. I’ve always wanted twins. Now this is a red-letter day!”

The outpouring of love and hands-on concrete commitment engendered by Sister Jane’s visit here in the United States and from the words I was called to write in I Am That Child is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Nothing.

The joy. The energy. The creativity. The compassion. The love.

Yes. I’m speechless, but I’m also grateful. Grateful to the bottom of my toes.

Thank you from the Children of the Good Shepherd Home, Cameroon. Thank you.

For more information or to order I Am That Child go to: http://www.elizabethgeitz.com/books.html

Children of the Good Shepherd Home, Cameroon

To sponsor one of the children for $30/month go to http://www.goodshepherdhome.org/ and click on “Sponsor a Child.”

 

 

 

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Feathers Flying

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Elizabeth Geitz

“We’re off to take a hundred chicks to market!” Sister Jane exclaimed. Her voice was so clear she could have been my neighbor just down the street, but she was in Cameroon, West Africa when I called her one morning. Her enthusiasm and joy never fail to affect me and that day was no exception.

“How do you get them there?” I asked, picturing a hundred chickens loose in the back of her orphanage’s dark blue pick-up truck. Sister Jane is founder of the Good Shepherd Home for Children, home to 130 children orphaned by the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

“They’re all in boxes, Canon,” she replied using my formal title as an Episcopal priest.

“Oh, in cages . . . I see,” I said.

“No, in boxes. They’re dead!” she answered, laughing heartily. “We slaughtered them over the last three days. We have been busy, I tell you. There’s blood everywhere!”

“Who on earth slaughtered that many chickens?”

“The older orphans,” she exclaimed, proudly. “Ambe, the child you sponsor, was plucking all the feathers out for three days. Feathers were flying all over the place. You should have seen him covered from head to toe!”

And I could see him all covered in feathers, enjoying every minute of it. You see, the Good Shepherd Home is working valiantly toward self-sufficiency. They tried rabbit farming until dogs ate the rabbits. They tried pig farming until the advent of swine flu. They tried raising cows until there wasn’t enough to feed them. But the chickens seem to be working.

From a dream in her heart and a vision in her head, Sister Jane now operates the largest chicken farm in Bamenda, Cameroon, a city of 270,000 in the North West Province, just below the Nigerian border. With an uncanny sense of what will work, Sister Jane has successfully implemented what world economists spent years of research concluding – that self-sufficiency is the answer to many of Africa’s problems – not all, but many.

Dambisa Moyo’s book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, painstakingly traces why $1 trillion in aid over the last fifty years has not helped and has actually hurt Africa. The aid to which she refers is primarily large scale government to government aid, which too often fosters corruption among African officials. Non-targeted development aid often falls into the hands of dishonest government officials as well. However, aid geared toward specific self-sufficiency projects and micro-finance loans is successful.

With seed money from caring donors Sister Jane now has a burgeoning business that is helping care for the 130 children who turn to her each day for food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and school fees. I thank God for her perseverance, can-do spirit, and faith that if one project doesn’t succeed another one will.

She’s just ordered 12,500 baby chicks to raise and sell. “Oh, you should see the people lined up here to get their chickens. They come from all over and I sell them for $6. I need lots of soybeans to feed them, but I know that will be coming. I just know it!” she exclaimed with her usual optimism.

Sister Jane Mankaa, my neighbor just down the street.

My new book, I Am That Child, chronicles the story of the indomitable Sister Jane and the children of the Good Shepherd Home in Cameroon. Click on the “Home” page here to read more!

Visionary Founder of the Good Shepherd Home

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Piercing Darkness

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

The now familiar Christmas story in “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” began not with song and light, but in darkness in the town of Bethlehem. Deep, piercing darkness.

For God’s chosen people were a conquered people the year Jesus was born. Roman occupiers had imposed a despised universal taxation on the Jewish people, and Jewish peasants had lost their homes and land. There was no calm in Israel, only conflict and tension. It was a land torn apart by oppression, persecution, and terror.

Yet on that night in a cold, dark cave used to shelter shepherds and sheep from the elements, a frightened young woman with her husband by her side gave birth to her first child. They named him Jesus. The One who Christians would hail as the Messiah, God incarnate. The One who Jews and Muslims would hail as a Prophet. This tiny, squirming Jewish babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.

His mother, Mary, laid him in a manger – not a wooden manger, as often depicted, but a limestone trough used to feed and water sheep in the depths of the sheltering cave. As a pilgrim on a tour of the Holy Land last December, I stood inside a similar cave in Tekoa near Bethlehem, gazing at a similar stone trough. After a meditation, the thirty other pilgrims and I carefully climbed out of the cave and boarded a bus bound for Bethlehem to see the cave where Jesus is reported to have been born.

Oh, how I wish it were still just a simple cave like the one in Tekoa! Instead, a large Greek Orthodox Church was built over it in the sixth century, now filled with icons and candles and hanging lamps, masking the very beauty and simplicity of Jesus’ humble, lowly birth.
With heads covered, each pilgrim walked down the well-worn stone steps to touch the small piece of exposed stone cave, now just below an altar. To kneel and touch and pray and hope that this year, something might change. Something might be different in this land still torn apart by darkness.

After kneeling one by one, we stood together and sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem” as tears rolled down our cheeks. Then in silence we walked outside the large stone Church of the Nativity. Then boarding our bus, we headed toward Jerusalem filled with emotion and memories to last a life-time.


Soon the bus suddenly stopped and we found ourselves waiting, waiting, waiting . . . at the Israeli wall checkpoint that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem. Our prayers filled the air as we sat with passports out waiting for armed soldiers to board our bus.

There’s a different kind of waiting in the Holy Land during a season that could be filled with expectant joy. Waiting for hours to get through checkpoints. Waiting for sons and daughters, husbands and wives to return from war. Waiting for the wall to come down. Waiting for families to reunite. Waiting for peace that never comes.

And yes, waiting for the Prince of Peace to be born anew. Waiting for something to change, something to shift this season. The season of Christmas. The season of Hanukkah. The season of unexpected light piercing the darkness that is all around.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thankfulness in All Things…..Really?

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

My best friend in elementary school was named Louisa and we had a great deal in common. Louisa liked to sit in the yard on summer evenings and make clover necklaces. So did I.  She liked to play hopscotch. So did I.  She liked Joe Weatherford, the cutest boy in fourth grade, and so did I.

Even so, Louisa and her family had several customs that were unfamiliar to me. I discovered one of them when they invited me to Thanksgiving dinner one year. We gathered in the dining room where the table was set, but to my surprise there was no food in sight. Not even one piece of bread. We all sat down and then I noticed that beside each empty plate was a pile of corn, five kernels to be exact. “Oh no, I’m going to starve!” I thought.

Then I saw Louisa’s father nod to his son who then asked, “Dad, why are there five kernels of corn beside our plate?”

I wanted to know that too.

He told us that the Pilgrims faced many hardships when they came to America, one of which was hunger. One of their first winters was so brutal that they only had five kernels of corn to eat each day. However, the next spring, with help from their Indian friends they had a bountiful harvest. They then raised their voices in thanksgiving, inviting their new friends to a great banquet – the first Thanksgiving. So the five pieces of corn, he told us, were there to remind us of their suffering, of our bounty, and of our need to give thanks.

Her father picked up a kernel of corn and told his family how thankful he was for them. He then laid the kernel of corn on the other side of his plate. Then Louisa’s mother took a piece of corn and named something she was thankful for. They went around the table until they got to Louisa, and Louisa looked at me and said that she was thankful for me and for what a good friend I was, describing several occasions I had been there for her. I felt myself starting to tear up. Then it was my turn. I picked up a piece of corn and shared my thanks for Louisa and her whole family.

We went around the table until everyone had given thanks for five blessings they had received that year, one for each piece of corn. After that we all went to the kitchen and there, on the counter was lots of food. We then ate one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever put in my mouth. Food had never tasted as good to me as it did that night.

If you had five kernels of corn in your hand right now, for which five blessings would you give thanks? If you’re like most people, you might give thanks for your health, your family and loved ones, your job. You might remember those special things that someone unexpectedly did for you, or you might give thanks for the beauty of creation.

But what about those events in our lives that we don’t feel thankful for? What if a loved one is dealing with an addiction they can’t seem to break? What if you have recently lost someone close to you and this is your first Thanksgiving without them? What if you’re in a seemingly unresolvable conflict with someone you love? Or what if in today’s economy, you can’t find work no matter how hard you try? What then?

Paradoxically, it is within those very things in our lives we wish we could change, that we are most likely to find our Source of spiritual strength. It is in those times of difficulty, that we are most likely to let God into our lives, in whatever way we understand God.

If you had five kernels of corn in your hand right now, for which five blessings would you give thanks? You might give thanks that your loved one is resting safely in the arms of our Creator. You might give thanks for the illness or addiction that forced you to rely on your Source of spiritual strength. You might give thanks for the conflict with that family member, because it enabled you to ask God to be the unseen third party in all your dealings with them, transforming you both forever. While few would give thanks in this economy for losing their job, you might give thanks for discovering through such hardship that there are many people who genuinely care about you.

So as we give thanks tomorrow, let’s focus on those things for which thanksgiving doesn’t come so easy. Thankfulness in all things…..really.

 

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The Big Aspirin Bottle in the Sky

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

Who or what might be the big aspirin bottle in the sky?

The answer to that question lies in an unlikely place – at the beginning of what Christians refer to as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which can be found in the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew (5:1-12). It is not one sermon preached on one occasion as it appears, but is rather the distillation of Jesus’ teachings throughout his ministry. It’s Matthew’s big chance to give us the message of Jesus in a nutshell, to lay it all out before us, in case we’ve missed the point somewhere along the way.

But as I re-read these familiar words, I find myself feeling angry. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew copped out, sold out to the crowd, sanitized the very words of Jesus. How can I make such a bold statement?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”, Matthew’s gospel states, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. And yes, this is true, isn’t it? When we are poor in spirit, emptied of all that usually fills us, it is then that God has a chance to break in. Miraculously, wondrously. But is this the primary message of Jesus’ “Premier Sermon”?

This message, which I call “comfort theology”, is . . . well, comforting, isn’t it? And who among us doesn’t need that at numerous times in their life? I know I have. Yet this theology of God as “the big aspirin bottle in the sky” is only a partial theology. Life-giving at times, definitely, but it does not begin to encompass the totality of Jesus’ message. It is not the whole story.

If Jesus had preached only comforting words, the crowds wouldn’t have tried to throw him headlong down a cliff after one of his sermons. If he had preached only that which made us feel good about ourselves, he would hardly have met his death in the humiliation and pain of crucifixion. If he had taught only that which supported the status quo, there would have been no crucifixion, no resurrection – and therefore, no Christianity.

On the other hand, the writer of the Gospel of Luke tells it like it is – no holds barred. Jesus states in that gospel, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”. (Luke 6:20-21)

“Blessed are you who are poor.”

Throughout the history of Christianity, some scholars have interpreted “the poor” to mean the poor in spirit, as Matthew has done. Yet such interpretation is not in line with the meaning of the New Testament Greek word for “poor”, ptochos, which means “one who does not have what is necessary to subsist and is forced into the degrading activity of begging.” Blessed are you who are beggars, Jesus is saying here. Blessed are the beggars.

Gustavo Gutierrez, a well-known liberation theologian, speaks out against all attempts to transform poverty into spiritual poverty. He writes of “the brute reality of material poverty, as lack of sufficient economic goods to lead a full human life” and goes on to say that this “describes perhaps seventy percent of the human family.” Seventy percent.

Part of that seventy percent live just around the corner. I don’t have to tell that to anyone who has visited their local food pantry or homeless shelter. Part of that seventy percent is involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement which has spread not only across the United States, but across the world. Part of that seventy percent is the fifteen million children around the world who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Blessed are the poor, the beggars.

In reaching out to the poor, Jesus is clear that we are meant to offer our sisters and brothers not only material goods, but relationship. He tells us that we are to invite the poor to table fellowship with us. “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors . . . but when you give a banquet invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Jesus’ example to us is to offer community in addition to food, clothing, and the basic necessities. Not in place of much needed ministries like food pantries, but in addition to.

I first became involved in outreach to the poor in Trenton, New Jersey. I became a tutor and then a high school equivalency instructor at a Catholic settlement house where I was privileged to enter into relationship with my students – relationships that changed my life.

I vividly remember one morning when one of my students was particularly agitated. She was a middle-aged woman who had been homeless most of her adult life. I took Emma into another room to talk, where used clothing was stored for resale in the community. She stood in the midst of musty boxes piled high, in clothes she’d worn for two weeks. Her eyes were often glazed and in a far-off place, but were very alert and alive at that moment. She told me over and over that someday people would not judge her by her outward appearance, but would see her for the type of person she was and for the type of heart she had. She just stood there, patting her heart, repeating these words to me. At that moment my eye was drawn to a small glass ball that hung from a chain around her neck. It was about the size of a dime, and contained one tiny seed.

“Emma, what is this?” I asked. “That’s a mustard seed,” she replied. “That’s what keeps me going and keeps me knowing that someday things will be different.” Emma’s faith in God convinced her that someday people would see beyond her outward appearance to the type of person she was and the type of heart she had.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

So why did Matthew cop out? Because he was writing for a mixed community of both rich and poor. Rather than take a stand for justice, as Jesus did, he “added to” the words of Jesus, enabling his wealthy constituents to feel comfortable.

Why does this bother me? Because many times in my own life, I too have copped out, preferring not to hear the truth of Jesus’ message drawing me out of my comfortable home, drawing me into relationship with the “least of these my sisters and brothers,” whether that relationship was in the inner-city of our own country or on a far-off continent.

Community means being in relationship and solidarity with – the poor, the beggar. It does not mean giving up the power we may have, for many people in first-world countries have far more power than they realize. It means using that power to help the powerless.

“Blessed are you who are poor.”

“Blessed are you who are in relationship with the marginalized, the powerless, the poor, for yours too is the kingdom of God.”

“Blessed are you whose hearts may have been opened through hearing these words of Jesus, who yearn for a way to reach out to the seventy percent – bringing the kingdom of God just a little bit closer.”

     Bea Confidence of the Good Shepherd Home for Orphans, Cameroon, West Africa

(To see a video and information about the children of the Good Shepherd Home, click on the link at the bottom of this page.)

Posted in Global Justice Issues, Good Shepherd Home, Justice Issues | 2 Comments

Toby’s Top Ten

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

My husband and I recently adopted a puppy named Toby. On Sunday, he received a blessing at our local Episcopal church’s Blessing of the Animals service. On that day many Christians celebrated the life of St. Francis of Assisi, thirteenth-century monk and the original dog whisperer. In fact, Francis was not only a dog whisperer; he was also a wolf whisperer and a turtle-dove whisperer.

Francis knew long before Cesar Millan did, that we humans can learn a great deal from God’s creatures. What might we learn from our pets about spirituality? What can they teach us about life? To answer these questions, I’d like to share with you what I call “Toby’s Top Ten”. Move over David Letterman!

#10. Focus on what’s really important in life – like whether we have food to eat, water to drink, a warm place to live. In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff.

#9. Give thanks for small kindnesses. Every time I feed Toby he licks my hand. Every time I give him water, he licks my hand. He gives thanks and shows gratitude for every small kindness. We too are called to show thanks to one another, especially for those every day acts we often take for granted.

#8. Take a nap every day. As a Southerner I learned this years ago, but I find that my northeastern friends still haven’t figured this out. If you can’t learn from a Southern friend, learn from your pet! It truly is nature’s way of helping us recharge our batteries.

#7. If you’re looking for something that’s hidden, go dig it up! How often a co-worker or friend will have just the gift or talent we need, yet maybe they’re not even aware of it. Perhaps they buried their talent long ago and have forgotten it’s there. Sniff it out, ask questions, dig deep until you find what you seek. What a life-giving gift this can be, not only for ourselves but for the person to whom we’re reaching out.

#6. Enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. Splash in the puddles if there’s rain. Bask in the sun if there’s sun. Jump in a pile of leaves if it’s fall. Our furry friends have got this one down. I don’t know about you, but I’m taking notes.

#5. Play with abandon with those we love. Play with a ball of yarn. Play with a stick. Grab whatever’s handy. Enjoy the life we’ve been blessed with and don’t take it for granted, even for a moment.

#4. Take risks. Have you ever noticed that your furry friend will rush in and tackle insurmountable odds without fear? They just do it! I first noticed this when Toby would jump into the middle of our lavender bushes filled with buzzing bumble bees. One might question the wisdom of such an action, but miraculously he was never stung and enjoyed the fragrant scent each time. So if some project attracts us – I say, just jump on in and worry about the pluses and minuses later.

#3. If someone’s having a difficult time, stay by their side. Whether we’re with friends, co-workers, or at home – just be a ministry of presence. We don’t have to say a word. Just be there. What incredible role models our pets can be to us. They instinctively seem to know when we’ve had it or when we’re sad or when we’re sick. They’re right there beside us, providing just the comfort we need.

#2. Welcome everyone – regardless. Have you noticed that our animal friends don’t have a clue about distinctions among people – like race, class, gender, sexual orientation – all the ‘isms’ that come into play for us? Without distinction, God’s creatures welcome everyone with a wagging tail or a purr.

#1. Love unconditionally. Have you ever longed to be the type of person your pet thinks you are? They don’t know whether we’ve blown it or hit a home run. They don’t know if we’ve just made a huge mistake or a fantastic decision. They don’t know if we’ve snapped at our loved ones or been caring and loving. They don’t know and they don’t care. They love us anyway.

Regardless.

Unconditionally.

Like God.

How much our pets can teach us! How thankful I am for Toby.

This blog appeared in my “Spirituality Matters” column in The Pike County Dispatch, October 5, 2011.

Toby Demonstrating #8

(photo by Brenda Ruello)

 

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Rainy Days and Mondays

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

One of my high school friends just posted ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ by the Carpenters on her facebook page. We’re all getting ready for our 40th high school reunion which begins this Friday, September 16th. “Remember this?” she queried. “How could I forget?” I responded. You see, we all graduated in 1971 from high school in Clarksville, Tennessee on….you guessed it, a rainy Monday.

Why did such a joyous day, ‘get me down’? My high school boyfriend of 2 1/2 years broke up with me right before the…..let’s see…..state high school basketball championships, senior prom, graduation. Everything. He was the captain of the basketball team and it seems that better things were just around the corner for him. And I wasn’t it. Oh yes, that day got me down, as did the prom before it.

Looking back on all of that with the perspective of a 58-year-old who’s been very happily married for 37 years, it can seem silly. But it wasn’t. Not then. When we’re young and vulnerable everything is magnified. It doesn’t matter that we know this isn’t the love of our life. We want to be the love of their life. It doesn’t matter that even at that moment, we know it’s not the ‘real thing baby’; part of us wishes it were.

What does matter is that it can teach us what we need to know to parent our own children when they are that age, believing somehow in their heart of hearts that today is all that matters and who cares about tomorrow. Telling our children about such times in our lives, I’ve discovered, can help them through the inevitable rough spots in theirs – those rough spots that none of us can escape. Not one of us.

I’ve been asked to give the invocation at our class brunch on Saturday. What can I say about our hopes and dreams – those met and those not met? Those exceeded and those lost? I wonder how I will feel looking out at my friends of so many years gone by. I’ve been friends with a number of them since kindergarten. Yes, kindergarten.

Stay tuned. More to come. And Michael Geitz, I love you, for making all my dreams come true – on steroids.

Posted in Reflections on Life | 2 Comments

Remember to Love

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Elizabeth Geitz

“As we as a community reel from the shock of missing friends, co-workers, and loved ones many of us are overcome by a sense of unreality and feel that somehow we have become the unwilling observers of yet another Hollywood disaster movie. But this is not a movie. It is real and we are right here in the midst of it.”

So began my sermon on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, September 14th, 2001. Re-reading these words, spoken with shaking knees and a heavy heart, brings me right back to that moment when those of us in the Tri-state area were still trying to absorb the magnitude of what had occurred in our own backyard.

“What can we do at a time like this when words fail us and emotions overcome us? What can we do when we don’t know what to say to our children? What can we do when we feel this vulnerable,” I continued.  What indeed.

What we as a country did, was reach out to one another with open arms, loving the stranger in our midst, rescuing the forgotten, supporting the bereaved. What we did became an outpouring of love, unprecedented in my lifetime in terms of its breadth and depth. What we did was live into the heart of many major faith traditions.

The Judeo/Christian tradition is clear that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Buddha teaches us to practice loving kindness toward others. Hinduism tells us to never do to others what would pain ourselves. And in the Islamic tradition there is a hadith* which states, “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”

In the aftermath of a senseless act of terror and mass murder, committed in the name of God, people of faith and people of no faith joined hands and lived into the reality that love can overcome the worst that we humans can do to one another. Love can overcome a twisted faith that distorts the message of love and forgiveness, nearly universal in religious traditions. Love can overcome our deepest sorrows, fears, and prejudice.

Ten years later, let us remember to love* – everyone. Let us remember that the heinous acts of a few Muslims are not the acts of all Muslims, any more than the bombing of abortion clinics by a few Christians is the act of all Christians. Let us remember to reach out with love to all our neighbors, not just those who look and act and think like we do. Let us remember to look ahead, not back, focusing on how we can make our world a better place for all.


*A ‘hadith’ is a saying of the prophet Muhammad or a report of something he did.

*’Remember to Love’ is the theme of Trinity Church, Wall Street for the 10th Anniversary Remembrance of 9/11. For information on events see www.trinitywallstreet.org.

 See Elizabeth’s book, Fireweed Evangelism: Christian Hospitality in a Multi-faith World, written in the wake of 9/11. This blog first appeared in the Pike County Dispatch, Milford, Pennsylvania; and The Two Rivers Times, Red Bank, New Jersey.


 

 

Posted in Global Justice Issues | 2 Comments