Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Dec 14, 2006

Today’s announcements

Happy birthday Tunay Patria Warner: tunaywarner@yahoo.com

Now onto the good stuff!

Today’s Queue Stories

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Thanksgiving Leftunders

Ina Townsend Young

 I know I've bragged in many comments here on Gather about how I've "passed the baton to my oldest daughter and no longer have to worry about all the preparations that go into Thanksgiving dinner."  I gloated about not doing the shopping, cooking, cleaning.  I waxed smug about only having to bring one dish and sitting back to just enjoy the day.  To get fat and sleepy as were my just dues after so many years of having done it all.  What a dumb broad I am.

 No, I didn't have to clean.  That's about it.  Instead of just one dish, I ended up having to bring 3.  And a bottle of wine.  On my way to my daughter's, my phone rang.  Just as I had been dreading.  Just as she always does for any family get-together in the 2 years since she has taken over hosting the festivities, I got the call.  "Mom, can you stop at the store and bring some pop?  Three or four 2 liters will do.  And some napkins?  And I need some film for my camera.  And camera batteries.  Is that ok, Mom?"  I grumbled and groaned, but totally expected this.  Of course, I stopped and hit the debit card for all she needed that she forgot about prior to the big day.  I don't know whatever made me think I could get away without some of this, but all in all, it was better than having to host the entire event.  I just told myself that someday she would be better organized and would be able to remember everything that was necessary without my back-up.

I never realized that this wasn't the worst of it.

The worst of it came to light to me tonight.  The day after Thanksgiving.  I came home from work and prepared to have the "Day After Feast".  Ahhh...Thanksgiving leftovers!  The greatest reason to wake up on Black Friday.  I opened the container my beloved daughter packed for me with the leftovers in it and...GASP!  What the hell is this?!? MACARONI AND CHEESE?!?  Gobs of it!!  One tiny little dollop of mashed potatoes.  NO GRAVY!!!  What a travesty!  Where the hell are the cheesy potatoes I made??  The amount of turkey wasn't enough to keep a toddler happy.  I dislike a lot of bread, but there was a freaking ROLL!  And one large scoop of stuffing.  For someone who doesn't particularly care for bread?!   No vegetables?  Where is the cranberry sauce?  No pumpkin pie?  Or even a slice of the apple pie that I made that no one had room for yesterday...that would have been grand!    

So, I've learned my lesson.  I gloated on Gather.  And God kept the cheesy potatoes and gravy away from me, possibly for Himself.  Not that my waistline is suffering from their absence, mind you.  Just my psyche.  I was all pumped and primed to strap on the feedsack tonight.  To revel in the glory of finally being the matriarch of the family and not having to work as hard as I did for so many years.   I will now take my roll, macaroni and cheese and  & slink away to the kitchen with my tail tucked firmly between my legs.  Next year, I prepare my own plate of leftovers.

Ina Townsend Young

mimisuzy127@yahoo.com

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All from Insights from a Blind Man: Chris Hansen

Chris Hansen
E-mail Address(es):
chrishansen54@sbcglobal.net

Questions That Changed My Life

By Chris Hansen

    I came to a major crossroad in my life, which forced me to make a decision one way or the other.  Many of us encounter such points of decision.  My point of decision came when I encountered a series of questions, which would change my life!

    My journey toward God began with this question: is there intelligence behind the universe?  I kept telling myself that the answer to that question was probably no.  Modern public education had been busily engaged in convincing me that the universe did not need a supernatural explanation.  I was thoroughly convinced that a natural explanation would do.  I was convinced that the universe was more mechanism than mind guided by a what rather than by a Who.  I came to the horrifying conclusion that this mechanism was flawed!  In fact, I came to believe that some parts of this flawed mechanism were actually running over and breaking other parts in a mindless and cruel sort of way.  At this point, I came to my crossroad, which began to change the entire course of my life.

    One day, as I sat in a high school human physiology class, I asked a question.  Now, as I look back on that day, I believe that my question was inspired by God, although I didn’t know it then.  Something my physiology teacher said really started me thinking my way in God’s direction.  On this fateful day, she was describing photosynthesis.  This is a very complex process by which plants transform dirt into dinner.  She reminded us that this process was so complex, that our best scientists could not duplicate this process.  She also told us that, if we could somehow unlock this process, we could feed the hungry of the world.  At this point, I asked her this question: “If our best scientists can’t duplicate this process, then how did unintelligent material manage to pull it off?”  There was a long awkward moment of silence followed by her startling admission that she really didn’t know!  Could this actually be evidence of intelligent design?

    It was easy for me to find evidence of intelligent design through the lens of photosynthesis because it really is a beautiful and intricate design.  It is like mathematics and poetry expressing themselves through chemistry and art.  Consider the recipe for photosynthesis for a moment: combine a handful of dirt with a splash of water, a gentle breeze, and a flash of sunlight in the presence of chlorophyll; and what do you get?  Life!  You get a process that forms sugars and starches and fats and proteins, along with enzymes, in a bewildering variety of colors and tastes!  All of this produces the building blocks for all future life on this planet!  Is it reasonable to suppose that this miraculous recipe was cooked up by some mindless random process?  I certainly didn’t think so.  Was the universe really more than the sum of its mechanical parts after all?

    As I ponder intelligent design, there is an illustration which has occurred to me which, I believe, brings this whole idea of “what” versus “whom” into very sharp focus.  As you read this article, you are reading something that is far more than the sum of its basic parts.  This article is made of ink plus paper.  You and I already know intuitively that this article is far more than mere ink and mere paper.  This article required a mind to organize this ink and this paper into something meaningful.  This mind has an understanding of language and ideas.  These ideas are being communicated to other minds, which also understand these things.

    I began to understand that the universe is far more than the sum of its parts.  It is being guided by a mind!  I was not alone.  God encountered Moses in a burning bush.  My encounter with God was on a much smaller scale but no less dramatic.  I did not encounter a burning bush.  I encountered a green leaf!

    There were other aspects of creation which captivated my interest.  The human heart is a finally engineered instrument.  Our attempts to duplicate it are primitive by comparison.  Each chamber contracts at the right time.  Each synod signals each chamber of the heart in just the right sequence.  Each valve opens and closes at the optimum time.  The human kidney filters blood far more efficiently than our best attempts at dialysis.

    Our stomach is so cleverly engineered that it digests almost anything except itself.  Its digestive processes have to be just right-too weak and the stomach is useless-too strong and the stomach destroys itself.  The ear can pick up sound so soft that the eardrum barely moves the width of a molecule, and still we can hear it!  Our eye is like a finely tuned camera each of our cells is like a factory; producing energy, filtering out waste, allowing nourishment in, and then copying itself in meticulous detail!

    Could all of this “engineering” have occurred without an “engineer”?  I didn’t see how this could be.  Was the alternative God?  I couldn’t be satisfied with simply admitting that I didn’t know just how I got here and simply leaving it at that.  My mind would not admit “I don’t know” as a viable option.  

    My next question took me one step further: if there is an intelligence guiding this universe, does it care about us?  I kept telling myself that the answer to this question was probably no.  Up to this point, my experience indicated that I had to figure things out for myself.  I grew up with a single mother in a neighborhood where crime was plentiful and money was not!  I grew up during the cold war where nuclear war hung like a black cloud over my world.  It seemed very much as though God had left us to figure things out for ourselves.  It was at this point that I asked another question which drew me closer to God.

    I knew that the Jews had been enslaved by the Egyptians for centuries.  I also knew that the Egyptians were the mightiest military force of their day.  How then did a downtrodden and enslaved people like the Jews manage to conquer the Egyptians-the mightiest military power on the planet?  Was it possible that God helped them?  Was it possible that God cared about us?  Did God demonstrate this concern by setting millions of people free from slavery under humanly impossible circumstances?  I had to find out!  

    My next encounter occurred when I met Jesus.  At first, I was not impressed.  Wasn’t he that radical rabbi who claimed to be the messiah and who got himself killed?  I kept telling myself that he faked his own death so he could pretend to rise from death.  I was even willing to be generous and give Jesus the benefit of the doubt and suppose that he fell into such a deep state of unconsciousness, that everyone was fooled into thinking that he had died.

    Somehow, I thought, Jesus must have recovered from this coma while he was in the tomb.  Even he must have believed that he had risen when he emerged from his coma.  I couldn’t imagine a dead person coming back from death.  It seemed reasonable to me that, if a person did come back from death then, that person was only thought to be dead.  I thought of death as irreversible.

    My experience told me that the dead stayed that way.  I had vivid memories of standing at my mother’s graveside as clods of dirt fell heavily and finally on the top of her casket!  Wasn’t that my final destination?  My mother was emaciated by cancer.  I was still young and strong.  What difference did all that make!  We were both destined to die!   

    I began to face the truth about Jesus in a Bible study in my high school.  The Bible study leader confronted me with this question: did Jesus die or didn’t he?  I knew that I was facing a dilemma.  If I said that he didn’t die on the cross, then he would ask me, then how did he survive all the horrible things that were done to him?  If I admitted that he did die, then I would also have to admit that hundreds of people saw him afterward, and then I would have to admit his resurrection.  Then, I would have to admit that Jesus had left enough credible evidence for me to believe!  I wasn’t quite ready to go that far, yet.

    Was it reasonable that Jesus could have survived being crucified by professional Roman executioners?  After all, I knew the terrible things the Romans did to him!  Before Jesus even got to the cross, he was savagely beaten with a leather whip embedded with sharp metal.  He was already bleeding profusely before he was even crucified.  In his already weakened condition, he hung by nails driven through his wrists and ankles for hours!  Finally, he was laid in a cool tomb.  If he hadn’t gone into shock by then, the coolness of the tomb would certainly have encouraged him in that direction.  What a victim of shock needs is warmth, not the coolness of a tomb!  I began to suspect that the answer to this question of Jesus surviving crucifixion was a very troubling no!

    There was something else that troubled me.  Let’s say that Jesus had survived the crucifixion somehow.  By the time he saw his disciples, wouldn’t he look more like a patient who needed a hospital and less like a preacher who inspired worship?  His mangled body would inspire pity, not proclamation of a resurrected Christ.  I suppose doubting Thomas would have said, “My Lord, you need a doctor!” instead of “My Lord and My God!”  I didn’t see how a mutilated messiah would inspire men to die gladly.

    I kept telling myself that believing in a resurrection was absurd!  Or was it?  The disciples didn’t think it was absurd.  What else would transform them from cowards into conquerors?  Peter couldn’t even admit that he knew Jesus when he was confronted by a servant girl.  A few short weeks later, there he was, preaching all over Jerusalem and risking his life!  A real resurrection by Jesus would certainly explain why eleven men would go from panic to proclamation.  A real resurrection would certainly explain why Jewish disciples would suddenly abandon centuries of worshiping each Saturday and change that day to Sunday, the first day of the week; the day on which Jesus was seen alive again.  This resurrection would certainly explain why centuries of animal sacrifice were suddenly abandoned.  A final sacrifice by Jesus and a triumphal resurrection afterward would render these sacrifices meaningless!  

    God’s final assault on my fortress of reason occurred when I encountered the Old Testament prophecies, which predicted the life of Jesus in astounding and accurate detail.  There are many so-called prophets who claim to speak for God.  If these prophets make enough predictions, it is reasonable to assume that they will get some things right in a general sort of way.  However, the Old Testament predictions were far more than lucky guesses and vague generalities.

    Psalm 22 was written a thousand years before Christ.  Yet his crucifixion was accurately predicted in all its horrid detail.  Isaiah Chapter 53, written 700 years in advance, laid out Jesus’ mission in remarkable detail.  Daniel, Chapter 9, contains a passage which foretold the exact time of His arrival - 483 years in advance!  Micah, Chapter 5, verse 2, foretold his birthplace - Bethlehem.  … I could resist no longer!  It was no longer reasonable for me to doubt Jesus!  Sherlock Holmes would remind us at this point that, when you have eliminated all other possibilities, then, no matter how absurd the remaining possibility is, it must be the truth!  To explain Jesus in purely natural terms was no longer possible for me.  Yes, I had indeed encountered the absurd, and I found it to be true!

    For me, the implications of believing in Jesus were astounding!  I am convinced that intelligence does seem to be guiding things.  This intelligence does care.  I am convinced that death is no longer a period or a question mark.  It is now a comma!  I really believe that prophecy really did point to Jesus after all.  I am persuaded that we really can be transformed from cowards into conquerors through Christ.  I am certain that we can conquer the ravages of old age.  We can conquer the cruel acts of terrorism.  We can conquer the cruelty of disease.  Even in the deepest darkness, for me, the light of resurrection shines forth.

    However, I am just as convinced that, for those who do not believe, even the best circumstances are like living on the luxurious Titanic.  Wealth and friendship, virtue or wisdom, and even comfortable old age - all of these lead to inevitable destruction!  The resurrection of Christ did not happen because we believe the absurd.  Rather, we believe the absurd because the resurrection of Christ actually happened!  We have encountered the absurd, and it turns out to be true after all!

© 2001 by Chris Hansen

Author of Grandfather's Journal

Revelation Revisited and Secret of the Psalms

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Poetry Corner

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Readers Feedback

Special Treat – Ina Townsend Young – very interesting, Tannia Ortiz-Lopes

The story by Michael Smith was a marvelous story. As a Canadian I was
especially interested and I would love to tell him this but since he
did not include an e-mail address I can not so I hope you tell him
"good job"
  Great Story

Hugs ellie Braun-Haley

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU, DEBRA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  God has his ways to use our talents for His plans for our lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Check out the following websites and add your book there... Both of them are free of charge...

www.christianstoryteller.com

www.bookhitch.com

Nancy Gibbs - Follow the Light - this story is SO TRUE!!!!! We all have done it.... God wants us to turn right, but we want to turn left. Then when we find ourselves in the midst of a big mess, then God comes to our rescue and help us to find our way back on the road He told us to walk... Very profound message.... Thanks for this wonderful story, Tannia Ortiz-Lopes

Also, Hartson, the belated Pope John Paul, made the Virgin of Guadalupe the Mother of all hispanics!  When I lived in Nashville, TN, we always did a very beautiful mass on this day... As a Catholic, I invoke her assistance in times of need....Tannia Ortiz-Lopes

I love mythology and this account of today Famous People was full of it.... Very interesting, indeed... Very new to me too!!! I like this column very much... Good idea, Carol....  Thanks for sharing this with us, Gautami – Tannia Ortiz-lopes

The Pool, The Man, and The Bond - A very powerful story with a profoun message and reminder of never make promises to God if you won't be able to keep them.... A cute modern version of the Garden of Eden with a small twist and a valuable lesson at the end. I LOVED IT!!!!.  Keep up the good work, BJ,

from the distance, TANNIA

The Man of Honor - A very touchy homeless story..... Perhaps, we didn't look or acknowledge him, because we were afraid of seeing ourselves inside his eyes..... Tannia

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