"MY EARS HAVE HEARD OF YOU, BUT NOW ... "

(An offering based on this week's lectionary scriptures: Job 42:1-6, 10-17 and Mark 10:46-52).

We can be found

along life’s road …

disciples who have seen,

followers who rebuke, 

one of many in a 

muttering crowd,

overlooking (or stepping over)

the one, the beggar,

whose only possessions

are faith and hope

and a name 

that is covered

with the dust 

of his or her days.

A dusty faith whispers,

“My ears have heard of you, O LORD …

my ears have heard of you.”

How many cries 

from the roadside

have been the cries

heard that day …

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID,

HAVE MERCY ON ME …

SON OF GOD, 

HAVE MERCY ON ME!”

A stepped-over hope whispers, 

“My ears have heard of you, O LORD..

my ears have heard of you.”

There is no contentment 

in hearing alone.

The implications are great

and costly for us all

in the one answered question …

“What would I have you do for me?

I WANT TO SEE!”

And the one 

who has answered the question

declares,

“My ears had heard of you, O LORD,

but now my eyes have seen you!”

Let those who have sight

be beggars no more

for there is great wealth 

to be found 

in such witness.

"A Life Reduced to a Piece of Paper?" (I think not)

It would do us all good to celebrate the plain, quietly courageous, doing-the-best-they-can sort of people more often.  Sarah M. Johnston is one such person. 

She was the third wife of my paternal great-great grandfather. Sarah Mathilde Jones (born 1863) and Henry Talley Johnston (born 1840) had corresponded for a while before she arrived on a train and married him just one day after they met face to face for the first time. He was much older, a Civil War veteran, a father of 11 children, and a widower. She was a writer from Alabama (she wrote for the Atlanta Constitution at a time when women columnists were few and far between); she had never married and was very alone …her immediate family had died around her. After Henry’s death and having lived with his daughter (Anna, after whom I was named) and other members of his in the family, she quietly and secretly made arrangements to move into the Confederate Women’s Home in Fayetteville, NC. Even though all in the family seemed to have a soft place in their hearts for Sarah, she felt it was the loving thing to do.

The Confederate Women's Home is no more … torn down … reduced to a cemetery and 6 boxes of papers in the North Carolina Archives. In the boxes are notations of complaints by the residents of sub-standard food, poor nutrition and miserably cold rooms. I have letters in my possession from Sarah voicing these same complaints. In one of the boxes in the Archives is also confirmation of such issues found in a report written by the Home Administrator during Sarah’s years there. How sad for these women.

My Great-Great Grandmother Sarah’s end- of-life was reduced to a few words found on a piece of paper in one of these boxes in Raleigh … “Sarah M. Johnston: Died October 8, 1949 3:00AM”

She was much more than a few words on a piece of paper in a box in the North Carolina Archives . She was a writer … a risk-taker … a wise and gentle woman. Sarah was one who was immediately received into the family and one who found love to offer this man and his children. I would have loved knowing this woman.

So, on this date of her death, October 8th, I think of Sarah M. Johnston, a woman who was much, much more than a piece of paper in this world.