GRANDMA'S BARBER SHOP

For more than forty years I've cut hair. Untrained, unlicensed, unpaid, with the warning, “Results guaranteed or your hair back in a bag.” Definitely not a career. Maybe this photo of my “shop” (the kitchen stool in front of the kitchen sink) will confirm my truly amateur status. But it was good enough for my husband, who realized my minimal skills were adequate for his minimal (buzz) hair cut. With the money I saved, we could even eat out for dinner (well, maybe drive-through take-out). And home-brew haircuts worked out great for my son and grandsons, whose busy lives meant trips to the barber were not only expensive but hard to slice into their family's packed lives. A cheap cape and a clipper set kept my clientele coming every few months.

The scenario, of course, wasn't perfect. A couple grandsons are not the perfect haircut models. One hates to have his head handled. A money bribe usually helps. But then his little brother thinks he needs a bribe, too. After all, there's a Lego (c) set he's saving toward. My insistence that they should be paying Grandma seems to float over the top of their financial figuring.

Somehow we get through the quick cuts with their eyebrows reappearing, necks cleaned up and ears still intact. They're fascinated by the amount of hair collected from three little boys and a dad. I offer to bag it up so they can put it out for the birds to build nests. How true that is, I'm not sure, but it is something of consolation for the “I-hate-haircuts” kid who needs an altruistic goal for his trimming.

Just a caution: I do only kitchen-stool family haircuts. No “chemical services” around here. And I see a real hairdresser for myself—an every-two-months cut-only pampering. My hairdresser is great, skilled at the basics and even with the exotic. Last year or so she told me about a call from an out-of-towner who wanted a Cruella DeVill hair dye. If the name doesn't ring a bell, that's the wicked lady in the cartoon “101 Dalmatians” who sported a “do” that was bleached white on one side, and black on the other. Imagine being the hairdresser who achieved that! (My hairdresser did meet the challenge.)

My family “cuts” are pretty simple (besides being free). Easily scheduled, too—often after having a dinner at Grandma's house.

Oh dear, can I pull out a spiritual lesson of all this? Maybe the example of Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom (Matthew 20:28). Sometimes God calls us to ordinary tasks—like helping someone with yard work, mending clothes, taking a meal, or sitting down to listen. Or giving a busy family “kitchen stool” haircuts when “not perfect” is okay...and helpful.

HAPPY PLACE

Noticed this sign at a fabric and craft store--yes!

My late mother (she would have been 101 this year!) had many happy places in her life, all of which my dad graciously encouraged. One was sewing, and after years of cramming her sewing machine into what should have been the breakfast nook in our kitchen, she moved it all to my old 10x10 bedroom when I moved out on my own.  The other was her art, mostly oils and pastels, which my sister and I shared among ourselves and with relatives after her death.

I am not an artist, but I have found joy in sewing simple projects, like grandkid pajamas and baby quilts.  I leave the intricate quilting to the real pros who exhibit their masterpieces at our local quilt show. But I have made more than 1,000 simple patchwork baby quilts in the last five or so years, none of which stayed in our home. I donated them to hospitals and ministries serving people in need or advocating for unborn babies. This was my “happy place,” to create and give away. That’s why I resonated with this sign at a local fabric store (where I often stop to check the remnants bin!).

A few mornings ago my husband had the television news going while I was still trying to admit that daytime had come. (I am not a morning person.)  They featured a guest who said there were three important elements to cardiac health.  One was exercise, then healthy diet, and finally, a “happy place”—that is, something that brings you the altruistic joy of serving people.

Bingo! That’s what my crazy blanket-sewing project had become as I continued to pursue it during a time of enduring emotional negatives from a troubled person.It’s prompted me to consider these scriptures in the light of a God-pleasing “happy place”:

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 NIV)

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. (Ecclesiastes 9:10 NIV)
Now, fear not if the sewing gene skipped your generation. I know several who serve with willing hands and “with all their might” in a local soup kitchen, week after week after week. Others are “lunch buddies” for grade school children at emotional risk. Or they take food and encouragement to seniors or families in need. One woman, who never had a bike as a kid, tries to match used bikes to kids in poverty who have none.  

On and on the list of hidden ministries could go. The principle is there in Jesus’ teaching about the vine and the branches (John 15). When we stay vitally connected to Him, “fruit” is going to happen through growing godly character and serving others for Him. Far better than a kid’s “happy meal,” my “happy place” feeds my soul, one patchwork square at a time.

Donkey Tales

I thought of a memorable holiday pageant the other day when I took my grandson on a stroller ride to see Jo-Jo the donkey, who saunters around an urban farm close to my home. Once the donkey figured out that we had no carrots to feed it, it lost interest in the humans on the other side of the fence, and turned its ample body away,  v   e   r   y 
 s    l   o   w   l   y. 

Not so the donkey (or was it a local pet camel?) that sauntered down the carpeted aisle of our church for an off-the-top Christmas program one year.  The owner assured planners that his steed was very well-trained for public situations.  But somewhere between the prayer rail and the side exit, the animal forgot his public manners.  I wondered later if the janitors flipped coins to decide who had to clean it up. As for the choral number after the animal’s “performance,” who could even remember it?

I think there’s a bit of donkey in many of us. We like to get some recognition (or notoriety).  Like the Christmas story.  Ever think of the donkey that Mary rode on from Nazareth to Bethlehem?  There is no Biblical reference to such an animal, just that the twosome had to travel about eighty miles to be a part of the census called by ruling authorities. With Mary nine months pregnant, it’s doubtful she walked it—thus the presumed donkey.  Healthy people who could walk 20 miles a day could make it in four. But with a donkey, and Joseph believed to be an older (and slower) man...maybe a week?

A writer of children’s stories could have an imagination’s heyday with that scenario. Yep, that donkey was a key figure in the Christmas story.  He got little Mary to Bethlehem in time for a Messianic prophecy to be fulfilled with her baby’s birth.  Brag, brag, brag.

Instead of that approach, I lean toward something written by Jim Elliott, one of the missionaries martyred in 1956 in Ecuador by tribal people they hoped to reach with the Gospel.  “Missionaries are very human folks,” he once said, “just doing what they’re asked.  Simply a bunch of nobodies exalting Somebody.”

When God calls us to a ministry, He doesn’t need roosters who crow about what they’re doing for the Lord.  Or donkeys, who hee-haw so loud (like the one my neighborhood) that you can’t miss their presence.  Admittedly, some of God’s workers are more in the public eye.  But there are lots of them behind the scenes, just working away.  Or plodding the rocky, weary miles from one place to another, helping out in a task bigger than they can imagine.

When we get discouraged about the journey, we just need to look back and see how far we’ve come, and then keep going. The Messiah’s arrival may be sooner than we think!

Encroachments

An overgrown hedge sprawls over the sidewalk of a nearby house. When my mother-in-law, Doris, was still alive, on warm days I’d help her into her wheelchair and push her around the block to see the flowers. But I couldn’t push her down that narrow hedge-covered stretch. I’d have to dip down into the street one driveway before, then push her back up one driveway later. Alas, that rental house and yard simply didn’t get the care they should.

The word “encroachment” best describes the situation. And what a lesson its meaning packs! To encroach means “to enter by gradual steps or by stealth into the possessions or rights of another; to advance beyond desirable or normal limits.”

Recently we remembered what would have been Doris’s 93^rd birthday. She died at 89 of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not what she would have chosen for her exit to Heaven. If anything, she avoided inconveniencing people, and to become mentally and physically helpless was alien to how she'd lived the rest of her life.

I thought of that the other night when we had dinner guests. After we ate and I was removing dishes from the table, the mom jumped up to help with washing and drying them. I thought how Doris did the same in her better years.It was just the way she was: always serving. I was reminded of other ways she served when someone recently shared an old photograph of Doris in the children’s Sunday school class she taught. Doris really "owned" that responsibility. She painted the little classroom pale pink (her favorite color) and took care to set up a "worship corner" with a little vase of flowers. In such little ways she put others first.

Those memories started me thinking of how a person learns to be a “server” rather than a “taker” (or, in the hedge analogy, “an encroachment”). I  think the answer resides in the classic passage about God’s discipline in Hebrews 12. It talks about how parents discipline their children as part of character development. (Yes, there was a reason I insisted our kids make their beds, help with dishes, take out the garbage, and respect authority!) But, the writer continues, “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

God’s “pruning” may involve hardship or intimidating challenges. He may use a sermon, article, or personal Bible study to reveal behaviors or attitudes that have “encroached” on our lives. He may also use people whose godly examples inspire us and cause us to reflect, “Am I living to please God or myself?”

That's why I think of Doris and her humble service when I walk by that hedge and get my legs scratched. Left unpruned so long, it probably just needs pulled out--a huge, messy task. Similarly, God's "pruning" (which often includes "serving" assignments) keeps my spirit from growing wild. The last thing I want is for someone to reject the Lord Jesus on the basis of negatives they see in me.

Hooray for domestiques

I’m afraid “bike genes” got dropped from my DNA when I was being “created.” Though I rode a trusty old Schwinn with a pert basket to the grocery store when I was a single living in southern California, don’t ask me to do that now. Zooming downhill our main road to the nearest grocery wouldn’t be a problem, but uphill with groceries? Pant, pant, no.

Yes, I do have a bike. It has “spiritual” credentials, having come from a church group’s fund-raising yard sale. In tough shape. Went to a fix-it man who did his best to make it roadworthy. It’s probably a youth bike, but it’s a good bike for me, a short (ahem) mature woman who prefers a lower center of gravity. I’m not comfortable with bikes that sit you as high as a horse. But don’t take this one to the Tour de France.

I find beyond belief the endurance of professional bikers who churn their way through the nearly 2,000 miles of the Tour de France, marking its 99^th run June 30-July 22. In our town, it would just be another small story on the sports page, except a young man from my daughter’s high school graduating class has been in the race a few times. In fact, his father was the one who pieced the puzzle of broken bones when I fell and broke my ankle a few years ago. (His dad said to me, “You schmooshed it real good.”)

Though I’m not much of a devotee of bike races, I’ve learned something of the race culture that is a powerful spiritual analogy.  In Reflecting God (Beacon Hill, 2000) by Wes Tracy, we’re told the French team has a domestique who rides in front of France’s presumed leader. The word means “servant” and that’s exactly his role. He doesn’t ride to win, but to shield the top cyclist from wind, giving him the advantageous “draft.” Mile after weary mile he chugs on, knowing the fans will cheer for someone else.  The author adds:  “The one he has enabled to win the race is crowned—and that is enough for him.” For Christians, the analogy is this: “Holy service is all about becoming a domestique for Christ and our fellow travelers” (p.158).

Yes, those who volunteer in their churches are body-life domestiques. What would we do without faithful diaper-changers in the church nursery or those who don full body armor to take the junior highers on a retreat?

But in researching last week’s column about thorns and George Matheson, I encountered someone who was a spiritual domestique in every commendable way. This great Scottish preacher (1842-1906) became blind as an adult and never married. But he was able to have a fruitful ministry because one of his sisters learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew to help him in his theological studies. When he became a pastor, she was his faithful co-worker, helping him with calling on people and other pastoral duties. In considering her willingness to serve her brother, I recalled something I’d just read in Charles Swindoll’s book, Hope Again (p.120): “Maturity begins to grow when you can sense your concern for others outweighing your concern for yourself.” Being others-centered for the cause of Christ is the way of a spiritual domestique.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go take (pant, pant) a bike ride. Maybe around the block. Hey, it’s a start.