rachel’s blog

I saw a very sad scene on the way to work this morning.

I live just a few blocks from an elementary school, so it’s not uncommon to see children walking to school. As I drove down the street towards the school, I saw a boy cross the street at a crosswalk. He seemed to have a bounce in his step, despite the cold morning. Maybe he’s a fifth grader.

When he got to the corner on my left, he turned around and looked towards the street and started saying something. I looked to my right and saw a chubby girl on the opposite corner who I presume was his younger sister. She was standing still. She had her backpack in her hand and her coat was hanging open.

The girl was bawling. The look on her face said, “I have been wronged by my big brother, and now I’m angry!”

I realize that sibling spats are not uncommon, but the whole scene was just so sad. A conflict had emerged and Big Brother crossed the street without Little Sister. For one brief second, I considered pulling over to the curb, walking over to the girl, and asking her what was wrong. But I didn’t. Children are taught to be wary of strangers, and I didn’t want to further traumatize the girl.

As I drove past the school and on down the road, I found myself wondering whether I had been a good Samaritan. Should I have stopped? On the one hand, it was none of my business; if the children are old enough to walk to school without their parents, they’re old enough to resolve their own conflicts. On the other hand, the little girl was not coping well with whatever was going on and may have benefited from some adult intervention. Of course, if the girl had been bleeding or otherwise injured, I’m sure I would have stopped, but is physical suffering the only reason to stop and help someone? What about obvious emotional and relational suffering?

I know what you’re thinking. “Get over it, Rachel. It was just a normal brother-sister quarrel.” Perhaps it was. And maybe she’s a brat who was being unreasonable. Who knows? But does this mean it’s OK to just look straight ahead and pretend I didn’t see the situation on the street corners?

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you see injustice and say nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor.” Well, you say, we don’t really know whether the boy had treated the girl unjustly. True. But does that mean I shouldn’t have even bothered to find out?

Forgive me for sounding cliche, but I can’t help but wonder… What would Jesus, the Prince of Peace, have done?

This morning at church I accompanied a song that took me right back to 1998. I have many memories associated with various hymns, so I wrote a collection of vignettes for a church music class I took last year. Following is one of those stories, and I have added a few bracketed details so it makes sense to my non-Mennonite blog readers.

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During my sophomore year of college, my friend Heidi and I “Mennonited Our Way” through the Southeast for spring break. We mapped out a preliminary route, consulted the “Mennonite Your Way” directory [a listing of Mennonites across the U.S. who are willing to host overnight guests in their home for a small fee], sent letters and made phone calls, thanked Heidi’s dad for his gas card, and headed off to visit a variety of strangers (as well as a few relatives). Since I was only 18 years old, my mom wisely suggested that I call home every few days while we were traveling to let them know we were OK.

As indicated on our itinerary, Heidi and I planned to spend our final night in the mountains of western North Carolina. Night had already fallen as we wound our way up the curving mountain roads, marveling at the fact that we no longer had any radio reception. Since it was 1998, neither of us had a cell phone, but we had made prior arrangements to meet our hosts at a fast food restaurant and then follow them the final distance to their home. As we waited in the parking lot, Heidi and I were glad to see a car pull in with a license plate reading “606.” [This is the number of the most popular hymn in the old Mennonite Hymnal -- "Praise God from Whom."]

Orpah hopped out and introduced herself to us; we would meet her husband Elam when we got to their house. As Heidi and I hauled our duffel bags into their home a few minutes later, Elam was sitting at his organ playing a hymn he had selected for this very occasion — “For We are Strangers No More.”

I had never heard the song before, but Elam announced that he was playing a special song for us and happily explained the reason. A few minutes earlier, after Orpah had already left to meet us at the restaurant, my mother had called their home to see if we had arrived yet… and Elam decided to play the Mennonite game [think Six Degrees of Mennonites]. Through the course of our visit, Heidi and I also discovered that Elam and Orpah were the great uncle and aunt of our friend Christopher. Six years later, through my work, I got to know two of Elam and Orpah’s college-age grandchildren, Amanda and Conrad.

For we are strangers no more, but members of one family;
strangers no more, but part of one humanity;
strangers no more, we’re neighbors to each other now;
strangers no more, we’re sisters and we’re brothers now.

This was yesterday’s “Close to Home” comic on my page-a-day calendar…

I feel quite certain that somewhere in the world, a Mennonite has already tried this… or has at least thought about trying it. Haha. It reminds me of the Fritter Car that was supposed to be here in town a few weeks ago, raising money for MCC. It runs entirely on used vegetable oil.

Speaking of MCC, here’s a goofy movie clip I recently found called “Secondhand Pants,” which promotes MCC thrift stores. Hats off to my mom for managing one of those crazy places! Oh, and be sure to watch the clip all the way to the very end for a tiny treat.

Given the size of planet Earth, I should be glad that one of my favorite places in the world is a mere 38 miles away. It isn’t a popular tourist destination or a world-class city — it’s just a little church out in the country.

I started attending there ten years ago when I was a sophomore in college, and continued to worship and serve there for the next four years, until I decided that I needed to be plugged in to a church in my own local community. A few days after the events of September 11, the church had a special time of sending and blessing for me during the annual church retreat. In the year or so after that, I attended a couple special events at the church, but I hadn’t worshiped there on a Sunday morning in almost six years… until today.

I love that place. The people at the church are some of the most amazing people I know. It’s taking me forever to write this, because I simply can’t come up with words to describe how wonderful it was to be there again this morning.

During the four years that I attended there, I was given many opportunities to test and develop my gifts and to serve others — leading worship, providing music, preaching, teaching Sunday School, chairing the Worship Committee, baking cookies with the youth (a year from now one of those ‘kids’ will have his Ph.D), picking up trash along the road, etc. I’m not exaggerating when I say that those four years changed my life.

The impetus for my return today was a potluck and wedding reception for a friend and his wife this afternoon (congrats to the happy couple), but I was just as excited to be there for the worship service in the morning. A minute or two after I walked in the door, the worship leader asked if I would read a passage of scripture. I happily agreed. As I sat waiting for the worship service to start, the worship leader came over and told me that the usual pianist was sick… and asked if I would I be willing to play piano too. Honestly, life doesn’t get much better than this.

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So today I’m grateful not only for the wonderful time at church, but also for the fact that today was a day of REST. On Friday and Saturday I spent many hours painting three rooms in my house, so my muscles were happy for a break today. Which reminds me — those of you who are subscribed to my blog via email will need to actually visit my blog to see my last post. For those who are curious, the thief was apprehended just a few blocks from where I work…

My eyes still feel puffy from the tears that leaked from my eyes and ran down my cheeks this afternoon. I wasn’t planning or expecting to cry, so I hadn’t even carried a tissue with me. But the involuntary tears made their appearance, and there was nothing I could do but let them fall.

The auditorium, which officially seats 1200, was more than packed. I sat in the balcony, where some people had to stand along the aisles. As a community, we gathered to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Lee Eshleman. It’s hard to sing when your throat is tight and the tears welling up in your eyes threaten to spill over. I made it through the first two congregational songs OK (”Come, Let Us All Unite to Sing” and “Praise the Lord, Sing Hallelujah”), but when we started singing “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” I only got through part of the first verse before the tears started to fall.

Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin;
how shall my tongue describe it, where shall its praise begin?
Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free,
for the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

The reality that Lee ended his battle with depression through suicide makes the words of this hymn incredibly poignant.

This wasn’t the first time I had attended a memorial service for someone I had never met. The first was just over a year ago, after the death of Tom Fox, a Christian peace activist whose kidnapping and death in Iraq was widely publicized. Tom and I had mutual friends. Lee and I also had mutual friends. Many of them. Lee was more than just a friend, of course — he was a son, a grandson, a husband, a father.

It was a meaningful, unusual time of remembrance. Never before have I attended a funeral or memorial service where the mourners watched comedy clips on the video screen prior to the arrival of the family. But we did, and in fact, it would have been wrong not to. As half of the fantastic comedy duo Ted & Lee, Lee will long be remembered for the way he presented insights into scripture (and the more mundane things in life…) with humor. This was also the only memorial service I’ve attended where the decor on stage included such recognizable props and costumes as Lee’s viking hat, the book “Green Eggs and Ham,” and the angel Gabriel’s robe.

Lee’s best friend and business partner, Ted, read Lee’s “life sketch” a.k.a. eulogy, and of course he managed to throw in some much-needed humor and levity as well. (Did you know that Lee flossed daily?) The remainder of the memorial service was fairly typical, except for the fact that one of the special musicians was none other than Ken Medema.

In spite of the difficult circumstances surrounding Lee’s death, the memorial service proclaimed a message of hope. The final congregational song we sang was “I Am the Bread of Life.” I offer these words from verse four in closing:

I am the resurrection, I am the life.
If you believe in me, even though you die,
you shall live forever.

It seems almost irreverent to post something funny on a day in which this community is reeling from the untimely death of our beloved Lee Eshleman. Although I didn’t know Lee personally, many of my friends and acquaintances did, and I had the privilege of watching him perform many times as half of the comedy duo “Ted & Lee.” We have lost an insightful, hilarious brother in Christ, and while this sounds cliche, I miss him already.

Lee created many opportunities for us to laugh — and hopefully the image below will bring a little laughter to you as well. It has nothing to do with Ted & Lee, but I found it tonight and couldn’t resist posting it.

The site selling these Left Behind Gym Shorts describes them as the perfect short for anyone who is concerned about the “End Times.” Left behind is screenprinted on the appropriate location. Adult sizes only as we all know no child should be “Left Behind.” Don’t leave these shorts at the Gym or they will be Left Behind.

As I was traveling this weekend, I saw a billboard along the highway that caught my attention. It was advertising a local church, and the slogan at the bottom read, “One of America’s Most Exciting Churches.”

Says who? President Bush? Jerry Falwell? Your mom?

That’s a pretty bold statement to make. I wonder how the experts conducted the research and developed their conclusions. I’m pretty sure the Exciting Churches Review Board never visited MY church, but perhaps their sources had already told them we wouldn’t make the cut. And it’s too bad they limited their research to the United States. I mean, with just a little more effort, they could have collected Excitement Factor data on all of the churches in the world. And really, why stop there? If there really IS life on Mars, wouldn’t you want to know whether there might also be exciting churches there?

And how exciting IS this church? Do people camp out 48 hours in advance just to be first in line to get a seat? Do the ushers swallow your offering money and then magically pull it out from behind their ears? Do they feed 5000 people at their potlucks with only a loaf of Wonder Bread and a can of tuna?

OK, I probably shouldn’t mock a church’s efforts to draw people in to hear the Gospel. But seriously, I can’t imagine ever attending a church that has the audacity to claim to be one of the most exciting churches in America. Unless the Fruits of the Spirit are amended to include “Excitement,” I won’t be making a Sunday morning commute to this oh-so-exciting church.