Hands Across the Planet

[image from cleveland.com]

Hands Across the Planet – Love Abounds!

Wasn't that freaking scary, when Blogger was out of commission? I worried about my entire year's writing, which I do not have backed up, a situation I must rectify very soon. Scared me to death. This has been my most prolific year ever. Losing all that writing is not an option!


But now we're back to normal. And today, kids, I am going to pass along to you a cool little story I’ve come across recently. It is just one small thing that happened on this big old planet, among people who choose to remain nameless, that shows the hearts of most people are basically good, and that it is in small acts of kindness that we can each, if we choose, profoundly impact the world or, at least, someone else.

So, out in blogger-space, one aging woman connected with one young student in Africa, who writes passionately about social justice. Drawn by his poetry and his passion for righting the social ills of the world he inhabits, they make a connection, form a friendship. Within mere weeks, he becomes another grandson.

He was once a little boy sleeping on the ground under a blanket of stars by the village campfire, with the other nomads. But he dreamed big dreams, under those stars and, in time, someone arrived in his life to help put him through school.

Now he is on the last legs of a long push towards completing some post graduate work, some time yet to cross the finish line. He is doing it on his own. His sponsor, who first recognized his brightness and gave it a chance to blossom, told him some time back the rest is up to him. He has been trying to hang on, to make this last push to the finish line. And now, at this very moment that he is scrabbling desperately to complete his objective, the universe sends him a grandmother in the West. The West is wealthy, but she is not. By Western standards, she is at the bottom of the heap. But by African standards, she is certainly far more comfortable than anyone this young lad knows.

First, she thinks small: she will send him a gift.

Then, she has an apparently “random” conversation, in town, one day, in the course of running her errands. But nothing, in this life, is random. She was actually leaving the store when she decided to turn back and tell the storekeeper the story of this young man. Over the years, they have recognized each other as folks who love humanity. They have big hearts for the suffering of the world, and a wish to contribute something good. So she simply thinks, “This man will enjoy hearing about my young friend in Africa.”

Only partway through her story, the storekeeper says, without qualification, and wholeheartedly, (which is the way he does everything): Tell him I will send a hundred dollars a month, if he can find a child to put through school.

At first, she doesn’t understand. He repeats his offer.

In that single moment, in a “random” conversation between two tiny beings on this big but interconnected planet, the lives of children on the other side of the world begins to change.

She recognizes, with the open-hearted and selfless manner in which the young man is thrilled at the chance to help other children as he once was helped, that she has within her means enough to help him in his final push towards his goal, small amounts of western money being able to do great things across the world. Thus, it all comes full circle.

The young man is flabbergasted, humbled and also empowered with the joy of being able to do for other small children what was once done for him. He tells her that the amount of money the man proposes to send is enough to send TEN children through school. Ten children, five little boys and five little girls, who are bright and needy, whose smiles will shine brighter at this unexpected act of kindness from across the world.

This is one amazing world, both the cyber world, and the real, green and blue planet we are making this sojourn on, together.

Never forget: People are capable of great kindness, enormous hope. And life is very good.

In The Infinitely Possible Universe.....

Taking time out of time,
I can,
this morning,
without leaving home,
lift my heart out of life's
gobbling dailyness,
setting it free
amongst
the infinitely
possible
universe.........

I am sitting in an upper row
at the Imax,
and on the big screen
in front of me
spreads the Kalahari,
lions stretching and yawning
in the amber glow
of the African veld,
herds of wildebeeste
flowing across
the brown and endless land,
a wave of life
surging to a
common shore.

Now I'm siting
in a stone hut
in the Himalayas,
drinking butter tea.
In the glow of the fire,
warm brown faces
smile at me
with kind eyes,
their expressions radiant
with the peace
of their hearts'
simplicity.

Walk with me
along
the Great Wall of China,
then let's nip over to
see the rounded shapes
of the Mystic Mountains.

Or travel the Camino,
five hundred miles
a pilgrim,
sleeping on stone benches,
the trail one long thirst.

In Dharamsala,
I sit with red-robed monks,
in a silence so vast
the veil parts,
I am half in
and halfway out,
co-existing
between two worlds.

There are
no limits
here.

So now we travel space,
a vast blackness,
stars scudding past,
exploding and imploding,
the glow
of comet-dust
upon our seeing eyes.

Time to come home,
and I'm most happy to -
home to my tiny trailer,
with its barking dogs,
its clean, green
sweep of yard
full of marmalade-colored leaves,
cheerful with Tibetan prayer flags,
bamboo wind chimes,
waiting porch swing.

When I first wrote these words
my nearest neighbor
was a tender newborn foal,
small as a medium-sized dog,
who clung to life
with a sweet tenacity
and spooky pale-blue
and inquiring
eyes.

He left this world
fourteen months later,
was buried with his
favorite ball
in a green spot
where now an apple tree
blooms each spring.

There is a bench
there,
for sitting,
and remembering
Baby Leo,
his spirit
now running free
in some other
parallel
reality
in this
infinitely
possible
universe.

DREAMING OF AFRICA

photo from free-extras.com

Behind my closed eyes

at four in the morning,

herds of wildebeeste are moving

fluidly, as one,

across the great brown plains

of the Serengeti.

Lions lie amber

in the setting sun,

while deep in the forest canopy,

green and prime,

gorillas gather

by the ancient baobab,

primordial family

beneath the Tree of Time.

Elephants parade past

ponderously,

giraffes lope by.

Hyenas' songs are shrill

sung to a desert sky.

Zebras thunder

like rippling keyboards

atop the red red sand;

their sharp hooves drum staccatos,

and a quickening

is felt

across the land.

Wandering nomads

in billowing

vermilion and indigo

pace, silent and slow,

beside the farthest sea,

and I begin to understand,

but dont yet know:

am I dreaming of Africa

or is Africa

dreaming me?

A Miracle in Africa

photo from commpassionatejourneys.com

[This was sent to my inbox today and I looked it up on the internet to verify the author. I consider myself to be a "spiritual" rather than a "religious" person. Having been rather scared away from organized religion, I prefer a wider view of matters spiritual.

The priest who related this story says that God knows our prayers even before we are born, and answers them before we even ask. This brings a certain comfort on this lovely cool-ish sunny late-summer morning, and it is such a beautiful story I decided to pass it on. We can take from it what we wish.

I sit here, so grateful for the sun, the trees, the freshness of the air, my morning cup of tea, my two doggy companions..........and connection with all of you, each starting your day somewhere else. Blessings abound!]

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Many stories and "urban legends" make their way around the world through the Internet. Some cannot be verified, many can be proved fictional, and some, like the one below, can be authenticated.

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THE HOT WATER BOTTLE - A True Story By Helen Roseveare, Missionary to Africa

One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter. We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts. A student-midwife went for the box we had for such babies and for the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly, in distress, to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. "...and it is our last hot water bottle!" she exclaimed.

As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk; so, in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over a burst water bottle. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. All right," I said, "Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm."

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with many of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chilled. I also told them about the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died. During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt consciousness of our African children. "Please, God," she prayed, "send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby'll be dead; so, please send it this afternoon."

While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, " ...And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she'll know You really love her?" As often with children's prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, "Amen?" I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything: The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren't there?

The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator! Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses' training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time that I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel!

I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone; so, I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly. Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then, there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children began to look a little bored. Next, came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas - - that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend.

As I put my hand in again, I felt the...could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes, "A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!" I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could. Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, "If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone: She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, "Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she'll know that Jesus really loves her?"

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday School class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God's prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. One of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child -- five months earlier in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it "That afternoon!" "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Isaiah 65:24

Helen Roseveare a doctor missionary from England to Zaire, Africa, told this as it had happened to her in Africa.

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TERRA COTTA WARRIORS

I have a bucket list of places I would love to see, but likely never will this lifetime.
The Great Wall of China for one. Imagine walking in the same footsteps as people of so long ago.

I enjoy armchair traveling though. I read, late into the night, the soft light falling on the page, as I trek through Burma with a woman seeking her lost lover; or walk, footfall by footfall through the Himalayas, seeking a glimpse of the snow leopard. (Best book ever: The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen!)

Machu Picchu.

courtesy of Wickipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Terra Cotta Warriors.

First on my wish list is Africa, of course, which I have loved and dreamed about all my life. My friend Lynette topped even this dream, when she went to Africa, by floating in a BALLOON across the Serengeti at DAWN. I did not even know dreams could be that big, and be fulfilled.

On Thursday I met a man who has been to Africa, and other exotic places, many times, in his work with the missions, building dwellings and wells for some of the world's most impoverished.

"That is what I should have done with my life," I told him.

He replied, "You're still alive."

Yes, I am.

I live in such a beautiful area that really I have little interest in exotic "vacations". Tofino, an hour and a half away, has everything I love and need. But there are a few places I would like to see :

I wish I was strong enough physically to walk the Camino. I traveled there with Shirley McLean, slept with her on concrete slabs in stone pilgrimages, leaned on her walking stick the whole way. It was glorious!

Dharamsala because the Dalai Lama is there. A dear Buddhist friend of mine was walking by a travel agency some years back and saw a poster of Dharamsala. Immediately she knew that she had to go there. She bought her ticket on the spot and spent six months in a monastery there.

I first learned about the Terra Cotta warriors, reading Annie Dillard's For the Time Being. She wrote about going to see them herself, life-sized clay figures of hundreds of soldiers, carriages and horses, emerging from a partially excavated archeological site in China. They were carved and placed there to guard the tomb of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang around 210 B.C., to protect him in death, as an alternative to burying his live soldiers and their horses, who had protected him in life. (Likely a good era to be a pacifist!) They estimate there are 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots and 520 horses still buried.

I can only imagine what it must be like to see them. Many trenches have so far been dug, and a great many of the soldiers have been excavated and stand in formation, row upon row. Annie wrote about entering what looked like an empty, uninteresting antechamber, then catching her breath in wonder as she stepped through a doorway to see men emerging from the clay - here an arm, there a leg or helmet, and some who seemed to be swimming upward through the soil, still partially entombed in clay.

There are many things on my wish list of things to see: African lions lying amber in the setting sun, and elephants, trumpeting gently in the morning mist; basically EVERYTHING in Africa!
(Thank heaven for films! I Dreamed of Africa is an all-time fave. True story.)

I would like to travel one more time along the Oregon coast down to northern California. Preferably when the Monarch butterflies are swarming the highway in the thousands during their migration.

The Queen Charlottes, far enough up the West Coast and in a severe enough climate that what has happened to Tofino has not occurred there yet. Beauty times a thousand. I would be living there if it was not so far away from my family.

Oh, and a trip by train across the Denali wild life refuge in Alaska. May as well take one through the Rocky Mountains again, too, while I'm at it. (Dream BIG!)

And those Terra Cotta warriors, swimming through the packed soil, to live above the ground once again.