A glass of milk

Does it "pay" to do small kindnesses for strangers? You feel good about yourself, but is there ever any benefit down the road? Consider this true story.

Dr. Howard Kelley (1858-1943) earned his M.D. at U of Pennsylvania in 1882. When he was 31, he was hired as the first professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital. During his 30-year career at Hopkins he invented numerous medical devices still used today, and received countless honors.

A devout evangelical Christian, he was known to share his faith openly, and he loved taking long walks through the countryside to observe plants and animals. While hiking one day, he became thirsty and stopped at a farmhouse to ask for a glass of water. The young woman who answered the door felt he looked hungry, and brought him a fresh glass of milk instead. He visited with her briefly and then resumed his hike. Sometime later, this woman arrived at the hospital needing surgery. When Dr. Kelly saw her name, he agreed to be her surgeon. Afterwards, the bill was brought to her room. It would have taken all her savings to pay it, but across the bottom were the words, "Paid in full with one glass of milk."

Say 'Amen,' Somebody!

"Say Amen, Somebody" is an exuberant documentary spotlighting the special world of gospel music. At least 24 hand-clapping songs are featured within the film's joyous 100 minutes. Special emphasis is given to the careers of two of gospel's legendary performers, "Mother" Willie Mae Ford Smith, and "Professor" Thomas A. Dorsey. The camera visits a storefront church, a gospel music convention, classes where Dorsey explains the many songs he has written and where "Mother" Smith instructs would-be gospel soloists. The music alone makes the film worth seeing, but it also glows with warmth and friendliness and heart-touching family scenes. If you'd like to see the trailer, here's a link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyPWiBmJ3x4  After seeing the trailer, if you'd like to own a DVD of the movie for yourself or a dear friend, you can buy it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KHX7HG/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=32560740031&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8008250945693764284&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_33uf413h89_b

After watching "Say Amen, Somebody," I was touched most by a gospel hymn called "Jesus Dropped the Charges" by the O'Neal twins. Think of it as a trial scene, set to music. The lyrics say, in part:

I was guilty of all the charges, doomed and disgraced,

But Jesus by his special love saved me by his grace.

I was guilty for so long; lived in sin too long,

But Jesus with his special love gave me a brand new song.

Jesus dropped the charges, although I was wrong.

Jesus dropped the charges and gave me a brand new song.

Jesus dropped the charges, cast them all away.

He dropped the charges, and at Calvary I heard him say,

"Case dismissed! Case dismissed!"

Saved by grace.

To hear the O'Neal twins sing this song in the movie, click this link.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAMi0yaPNRk

The lesson of Peanut Week

Have you ever felt ignored by someone who owed you a kindness? Were you resentful?  I was, and here's why.

The camp I attended as a boy had an event each summer called Peanut Week. We all received a peanut with someone else's name wrapped around it. We ate the peanut and some of us also ate the paper, to keep the name secret. It was the name of our peanut, the camper we'd do nice things  for all week, anonymously. We were his "shell." Next weekend, one at a time, we'd each reveal our identity to our peanut and give him a homemade friendship stick, usually a slightly decorated twig.

I'm third from right, in dark t-shirt.

I tried to do something nice for my peanut each day. Once I made his bed. Another time I snuck a copy of Hot Rod Magazine under his pillow. He had no clue how it got there. But nothing good happened to me! Not on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. I asked my counselor if I had a shell, and he said "yes, don't worry about it," but I was mad. I could hardly wait for Saturday so I could tell my shell "thanks for nothing!" in front of everybody.

At the end of the week, we all gathered around a big council fire to exchange sticks. One at a time, each camper learned who his shell was. Finally a counselor got up and walked over to me. He was my shell, and he gave me the most elaborate friendship stick anyone had ever seen at camp. It was delicately cut from a birch log, with my name carved into it, and the year, on a surface carved into diamond shapes. Everybody around me admired it, and I was no longer mad.

Peanut Week taught me a lesson that summer. We're all peanuts, and God is our shell. Even if we don't see evidence of God every single day, we can rest assured He hasn't forgotten us, and at the final assembly, He'll give us the best gift anyone ever received -- eternal life.

"the most unpromising boy of the whole lot"

Following a wave of immigration, New York City in the 1800's had thousands of orphaned children called "street urchins." They begged for food to survive. A few lived at the Children's Aid Society Orphanage, but founder Charles Brace felt kids need families, not orphanages, so he organized the orphan trains. Between 1854 and 1929, about 120,000 abandoned children were given a set of new clothes and sent on trains to rural towns in the south and midwest for adoption by farm families. Upon arrival at each town, they were lined up a stage for inspection. If an adult wanted a child and the child agreed, the deal was done. Most farmers preferred boys who could be raised as farmhands. Girls were last to be chosen, since many farm wives felt threatened by them. Most adoptees picked well-groomed, polite children, but not Judge John Green. He picked John Brady. Perhaps he remembered the Bible verse where God reminds the prophet Samuel, "...I do not judge as people judge. They look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart." (I Sam. 16:7)

John Brady was an Irish Catholic boy who had lived on the streets of NY to avoid his father's drunken beatings. When he turned 11, he declared himself an orphan and boarded an orphan train bound for Indiana. After it arrived in Noblesville, he and fellow-orphans were fed at the Ferguson Hotel and put on display for possible adoption.

"It was the most motley crowd of youngsters I ever did see," said Judge Green, who lived in the nearby town of Tipton. "I decided to take John home with me because I felt he was the homeliest, toughest and most unpromising  boy in the whole lot. I wanted to see what could be done with such a specimen of humanity." What was done?

John grew into a fine young man, respected by everyone. After high school, he was appointed master of the Mud Creek Public School in Sharpesville.  Eventually he continued his education, graduating from Yale University in 1874. He moved to Alaska, where in 1878 he founded a college to train Eskimos. He then served three terms as Governor of Alaska, all because Judge Green picked him instead of a "more promising" orphan.

The wind beneath his wings

When I worked for the Pilot-News in Plymouth, IN, in 1990, we had a scanner in the newsroom, crackling messages from police and fire dispatchers. One day the siren at the volunteer fire department wailed and the scanner said "Plane in trouble over the airport." Three of us grabbed notepads and cameras and hopped in a car for a quick drive to the airfield north of town. When we arrived, city police and county sheriff cars were already parked beside the terminal with lights flashing. EMTs arrived minutes later, along with three fire engines. What was the problem?

Culver Military Academy, 15 miles south of town, had an aeronautics department. High school "cadets" over 16 could earn their pilot's license by logging airtime in one of the academy's four single-engine Piper Warrior training planes, like the one shown below. Each plane had dual controls, and one of the planes was circling overhead, burning off fuel. Upon take off, the instructor and student-pilot both felt a problem with the wheel under one wing. They circled low over the Culver field requesting visual inspection. The wheel had fallen off, so the instructor took the controls and flew with his student to Plymouth, where the grass runway was longer.

With so many flashing lights around the field, drivers on the highway next to the airport began pulling over to watch. One later told me, "I knew something was very wrong, so I prayed that God would be the wind beneath the wings of anyone in trouble."

The terminal put communication between the tower and the pilot on the PA system for all to hear. Fire trucks lined up at one end of the field, along with ambulances, ready to roll forward behind the damaged plane as it landed. My job was to stand next to the runway where the plane might stop if it crashed, to get photos of the explosion.

Over the PA system we heard the instructor radio, "One more circle, and I'm coming down." What happened next amazed us all. As the plane approached the field, the instructor tipped it 20 degrees, so only the one surviving wheel touched the ground. Then he kept the plane balanced on that wheel all the way down the field, until the Piper slowed, and stopped and flopped, with no damage and no injuries.

Absent an explosion, I ran to the plane for a comment from the "cadet" student as he climbed out. Had he been afraid? "No sir!" he replied smartly. "I have complete confidence in my instructor, sir."

Many praised the pilot for his skill that day. Some felt he was lucky. But at least one lady watching from her car near the highway thanked God for being the wind beneath his wings.

Will Caspar Milquetoast inherit the earth?

In the Bible Jesus is quoted as saying, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matt. 5:5) Some people think he was putting a halo on Caspar Milquetoast, a cartoon character from 1931 until 1953 in the comic section of the New York Herald Tribune. The name was a deliberate misspelling of a bland food called milk toast, used to settle nervous stomachs. Caspar was extremely shy and timid, and thanks to him, the word "milquetoast" is still defined in many dictionaries as someone who is unusually submissive or meek. But rest assured, Jesus never meant to imply that Caspar would inherit the earth.

Caspar Milquetoast

At a basic level, meekness is open-mindedness, gentleness and self-control. At a higher level, it means emptying oneself of personal will, and overcoming many fears, including fear of criticism. It means surrendering an over-inflated confidence in our own judgement. Meek people have none of these embarrassments. 

They know meekness is strength, restrained by love. Only strong people (not in muscle, but in mind) can be meek. The meek don't think less of themselves, but they think of themselves less. They exhibit strength without compromise, shown by putting others' needs before their own. 

And what is the earth they are to inherit? It's not acreage. "Inheriting the earth" means having a power over human hearts that others do not possess.

Helen Keller had this power. She defined meekness this way. "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but my chief duty is to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

A Veteran's Day memory

Only one American veteran flying a bomber over Germany after WWII was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit. It was Col. Gail Halvorsen, and here's he won it.

After the war, Germany was divided into sectors governed by the victorious allies. The city of Berlin was also divided, but it was deep inside the Russian sector. Hoping the allies would give up their part of the city, Russia closed all rail and road access to "West Berlin" in June, 1948. The only way residents could receive food or fuel was by air, so Allied forces began the biggest airlift in history. During 15 months, until the blockade ended, they flew in 15 million tons of supplies -- including milk, dried eggs, dried potatoes and coal.  Col. Halvorsen was an airlift pilot.

After landing one day with a plane load of flour, Halvorsen, noticed 30 children outside the fence of Tempelhof Airport. They were ragged and hungry, but didn't ask for food. All they asked was, "Please don't give up on us." He wanted to help, but only had two sticks of gum. When he passed these through the fence, he noticed the children didn't fight. They broke the gum into tiny pieces so each boy and girl could have a sniff! He was so moved that he promised to bring more gum the next day and drop it from his plane as he approached the airport. "How will we know which plane is yours?" they asked in English. "I'll wiggle my wings," he said.

Fellow pilots gave him their candy rations, and he dropped gum and candy daily for two weeks, folding handkerchiefs into small parachutes. The crowd of kids got bigger. He received thank-you notes at the airport addressed to "Onkel Wackelflugel"(Uncle Wiggly Wings). When local media reported favorably on the candy bomber, airlift commander Gen. William Tunner told Halvorsen to keep doing it. Then word got back to the United States.

The National Confectioners Association offered to donate all the candy Halvorsen could drop. The treats arrived at Westover Air Force Base in MA, where local school children assembled the handkerchief parachutes. Before the airlift ended, 21 tons of candy were dropped to the children of West Berlin. As one Berliner told Halvorsen years later, "It wasn't just chocolate you gave us. It was hope."