Angels? Or Sheer Coincidence?

“An Angel Experience? Or a Coincidence?”

We were sleeping at a cottage at Cobmoosa Shores, near Stony Lake, on the sandunes of Lake Michigan. Only Linda and I were there to sleep that night, but the previous day a couple of little grandchildren had been around. Their toys were lying here and there.

Early that Saturday morning we awakened to the music of one of the little wind-up toys. It played “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping Brother John, Brother John, morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing, Ding Ding Dong, Ding Ding Dong.” It played it through completely, then stopped. Since it had awakened us I checked the time, saw it was 6:00 A.M., and decided to get up and make coffee.

At 9:00 that morning the telephone rang. It was Nancy, Linda’s Step-mother. Linda had answered the phone, and she seemed rather serious in her manner as she listened and responded. When she hung up she told me “My Dad died this morning at 6:00 o’clock.”

Immediately I thought of the way we had awakened at six. It was a happy little song played for us at the moment of her father's death.

Were the Angels playing with the toys? It could not have been just a coincidence.

A Care Blog. My Vision Statement on Care and Kindness

My Vision Statement on Care and Kindness for this CareBlog--by Jim Kok

For nearly three months I have been experimenting with this blogging venture. Now I must set out a plan.

My ground-level hope is to contribute to the lives of those who want to live out this mission of brightening the world through profound or simple acts of care and kindness. That is the theme of this blog---Care and Kindness. This is my passion in life. I believe it is at the heart of what Jesus' mission was; Jesus wanted to make this world a better place, and someday come again to totally renew this earth and the human race.

This blog will include everything I can think of, or that comes across my line of vision, that might stimulate, inspire or provoke some kind of loving behavior that will directly or indirectly, immediately or gradually, make this world a better place.

Some theological perspectives will be written here. Anecdotes about acts of friendliness, helpfulness, and lovingkindness will be inserted. Quotes and proverbs that speak to the subject will be included. But there will also be miscellaneous tidbits on tangential topics--like prayer, angels, and other spirit-touching topics. These will be added to keep the blog's diversity alive.

Today I want to include a quote from a great book. These words make it clear that our efforts to make this world better are valuable, profoundly beautiful and wonderful. they are part of something very big. So ponder these words:

"Every act of love, gratitude and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the Gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world—all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God. God’s recreation of his wonderful world, which began with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously as God’s people live in the risen Christ and in the power of his Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God’s new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there.” Surprised by Hope , N.T. Wright, p. 208

If you read this or any part of this Careblog on care and Kindness, please leave a word or two. To keep writing is helped so much by knowing there are readers---- Jim Kok-Careblog Writer

Research on Prayer for Seeds

Research on Prayer with Seeds
A few years ago some people decided to do research on prayer. They believed prayer could affect any living thing- plant, animal or human being. They decided to start with plants; more specifically seeds.
In their first experiment they spread a large number of seeds, immersed in water, on two cookie sheets. One they then prayed over intensively, for three days. The other seeds were allowed to germinate without special attention.
The results were astounding. The prayed over seeds germinated far more promptly, and more completely, than the seeds that were left alone.
They decided to push it further. They added a third tray. This one included the seeds and water but they added salt to the water. Adding salt to the water was like making the seeds sick because salty water is harmful to living seeds and plants.
To their surprise the salty seeds, that were prayed for, did germinate and even more rapidly than those in clean water.
The conclusion they drew was that prayer may be especially beneficial to the ill and injured, like the sickened seeds in the salt water. Their neediness may make them the best candidates for prayerful care. An interesting and provocative thought about prayer. It may be most powerful with the weakened.

(soon--another discovery about prayer these people found).

Charlie Brown and Lucy in Real Life

The Charlie Brown and Lucy Story in Real Life

Reading about Charlie Brown and Lucy caused me to remember teaching my son to say something nice to a person or say nothing at all. When Darin was 8 years old, for some reason he didn't like the little girl across the street and one day I heard him saying unkind things to her in the yard, like, "Get out of here. We don't want to play with you!" He and I had a little talk afterwards and I told him that I was inviting her mother over for coffee and if she brought Becky, he would have to say something nice to her or spend the time alone in his bedroom. When Becky and her mom came to the door, Darin and I answered. The two kids stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. I squeezed my son's hand and out came the words, "I like your buttons!" which seemed to work. :-)

To this day, we laugh about that. In fact Darin is now nearly 50 years old and still, if he's talking about a person in a negative or critical way, I can look at him a certain way and he'll stop speaking and say, "OK, He has nice buttons!" We bust out laughing, but I realize, that that simple lesson long ago has caused him to stop and think if he begins to put someone down or be overly critical to look for something he can appreciate or compliment. And he really does look beyond the buttons!

Rhea Zakich

Change is Possible

Change is Possible

Hereis an example of how you can change. You can change! Note: I go to the UCI Medical Center about once a month. I always leave my car in the parking garage, get my ticket stamped at the Dr’s office so I can park with no charge. When I exit, the same woman is always there to take my ticket. She then raises the bar to let me drive out, by pushing a button. That is her job. However I also have a job.

I’m merely parking there and driving my car down the ramp, but I have a job to do. My God-assigned task is to brighten the attendant’s life, not just pass the time until I get back to my office. I have a duty to carry out. It is to leave her with something that will make her life brighter. Her spirit must be lifted.

After many months she knows me when she sees me because I always say “You’re beautiful.” She is an older woman, simply dressed and she always responds with embarrassment, “Oh no, oh, wow!” Two simple words and a smile and her life is better, at least for part of that day. And it is so easy. It’s not something that is done for the fun of it. It is fun, but it is my job in life to see people, and notice people, and leave them a little cheered. It takes so little to do so much.

Praying Personally with Another

Praying Personally for Another

Some of the guidelines for praying for someone with whom you are talking face to face, or on the telephone, are these:

1. Trust that the love and energy of God is flowing through you.
2. Pay close attention to the person. Avoid distractions.
3. Usually holding their hands, when speaking the prayer, is a helpful connection.
4. Speak to God about the person’s concern or challenge. You are talking to God about what the person is experiencing and needing. For example: “Dear Lord, Barry is very worried about his son….”--- Open your prayer in whatever way you are used to beginning. Then present the person to God along with his central concern.
5. Use feeling words. That is, talk to God about how Barry is emotionally—“worried”, “fearful” “anxious” “sad” “lonely” etc. He may not tell you his feelings. You can usually guess after they describe what their prayer need centers on.
6. Use his name several times.
7. Limit the prayer to two or three minutes, maximum.
8. Conclude with a brief summary, in Jesus’ name.

Examples of Prayers:

For an aged person-“Thank you Lord for Brenda’s many years of life, and for how she has blessed those around her, with her kindness. She is now feeling alone and worried and insecure. Walk with her now in a special way so she knows she is loved and valued. Give her a strong sense of security and peace. May your arms embrace her and hold her, so her days and nights are comfortable and even joyful. Thank you Lord for caring for your precious child, Brenda. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

For someone very ill-“Lord Jesus Greta needs your healing presence today. She is worried and scared about the cancer recently identified. She needs your healing power to overcome this illness she is fighting. May your love and grace flow into her and restore her. Renew and strengthen her confidence, as she receives her medical treatment. May she trust that healing is happening, and the cancer is shrinking. May Greta feel your arms around her and your love healing her in the care she is receiving. In Jesus name we pray, AMEN.


Prayer is More Than Words and Thoughts. It is Love Energy.

Prayer usually is active thinking and caring for another person. It can include picturing them in your mind, and even trying to feel their pain, when there is a trial or grief. At the very least we will be thinking of them and their need, when we pray for them.

Love is being given when we stand and pray with someone. Love is traveling from us to the one in need. And, Love is from God. God is Love, the Apostle John says, in I John 4:16. Our Love is God flowing through us into the other.

I like to think of that Love as energy. So our prayer, for someone, is sending Godly energy into them. Prayer is Love, and Godly energy, flowing from me and directly from God. That resource, that energy, has the power to heal and encourage; to restore and strengthen.

What Prayer Looks Like

I visualize prayer like an enormous triangle. The top peak is God, and the extreme bottom left point is the one speaking the prayer. The third, and remaining, point is the man or woman for whom a prayer is being said. Then I visualize the bottom two lines going out from the one offering prayer. One goes up to God. The other extends, on the horizontal level, to the one in need. I look up to God, and over to the one for whom the prayer is being spoken.
Love/Energy Flowing From God
I see two lines flowing from down God. One goes to the one being prayed for, the other goes back down to me, the pray-er. The line that goes to the one in need is God’s energy and love streaming to that person. The line that goes from God to me is God’s love and energy flowing back to the one in prayer. From there, from me, God’s love and energy goes out toward the target person, for whom supplication and intercession is being offered.
Flowing Through Me Too
The astounding part of this picture is God’s healing love flowing through me, the one doing the praying. The help doesn’t exclusively come down directly from God to the hurting person. It does, but it also comes straight through me, the one calling on God, for the needed help.
Visualize the Person
When praying for someone, if I am not in their presence, it is always helpful to conjure up a mental picture of him, or her. I see them in my mind. I think of them in such a way that I can visualize them rather clearly. This may then be multiplying the loving energy of God, that is flowing toward them. It streams directly from God, and also through me.

An Interesting Encounter About Haillie Selassie

An Interesting Encounter About Haillie Selassie
At the Car Rental desk in Phoenix I asked a man about his unusual name. It was Haillie. "Where are you from?” I asked. "Africa" he replied. I chuckled, and inquired for a more specific answer. He laughed, in turn, and said "most people are satisfied with my answer. They think Africa is just one country." Then he told me he was from Ethiopia. "Oh" I said "Haillie, like Haillie Selassie". I was shocked that my brain came up with that so quickly. He seemed pleasantly surprised that I knew that name, and asked how it happened. I explained that I studied theology and Haillie Selassie, Christian leader of the Coptic Church, and the Emperor of Ethiopia, was supposedly in the line of the Queen of Sheba, one of King Solomon's wives. He nodded in agreement.
Then I said: "We have heard the legend that the Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia." He quickly rebutted my remark. He said, "it isn't a legend. It is there. Some day I intend to go and see it." Suddenly I was at a whole new place and I apologized for my word "legend". That was a three minute educational event. Something I had fixed in stone was suddenly modified. Now I'm open to the possibility of what he believes.

Table Devotions

“Table Devotions”

A family tradition we tried to establish was reading the Bible at the evening meal. This started with Jim(Dad, me) reading, and as the kids learned they would take turns too. Each would be holding their own Bible.

After awhile five of us were taking a turn. Linda opted out, claiming exhaustion, and Steve, age four or five, still illiterate, created his own Bible story.

We had one New Testament named something like Todays New Testament which was modern English but also included a lot of pictures. There was a drawing, cartoon-like, on almost every page. That was Steve’s Bible. Steve would look at the picture and make up a story. They were thoughtful, creative, and somewhat related to the picture, but usually a long way from what the real story was about. Often they were so far out the rest of us were gagging on our laughter, trying to hold back because it was devotions and he was serious, while we were very amused. Steve was quite intense about what he was saying so we did not want to discourage him with laughter.

Those were good positive devotional times that may have done as much good as staying close to the literal word. The children were left with a pleasant feeling surrounding Bible time.

"It is Finished"

II.

“It is Finished!”
Thirty three years later the carpenter’s son was dying on a wooden cross at a place called Golgotha. There is no evidence that Joseph was still alive, or that he was present, as was his wife, Jesus mother, Mary. As Jesus came to the end of his life he breathed out a sentence that is incredibly important. He said, “it is finished.” It would be natural to consider this to be about his being alive, that his suffering was over, but it was a lot more than that. When Jesus said those three simple words he was announcing that the whole complicated, meticulous system of sacrifices and rituals that were designed to obtain forgiveness was now over. Jesus had paid the price.
All religions, more than anything else, have majored in laws, systems, practices and rituals designed to satisfy God, or the gods. Paying for sins committed, offering some kind of penance to protect oneself from God, or the gods, was what religion was all about. (This is not totally unknown today, even in Christianity). Meanwhile Divinity was above it all, enjoying heavenly satisfactions, while always threatening to punish, or harm, the people on earth if they neglected their religious obligations. Religion was about keeping the gods happy, or obeying God to avoid damnation or tribulation.
Jesus death on the cross cancelled the need for that anywhere in the world. “It is finished.” Jesus paid the debt of humanity in full, for every human being. The world is changed.
It is reasonable to conclude that God in Jesus had something else in mind than to have people preoccupied with rituals, sacrifices, laws designed to keep God from punishing them. When Jesus death was planned, and then carried out, it was a supreme act of love for humanity. It also signaled that there was something else that God/Jesus had in mind for civilization. The sacrificial system had played an important role in keeping people God-conscious, and God serving. But it had deteriorated into rituals and activities that had lost much of their meaning. The sacrifices and rituals had become nearly meaningless for positively directing lives. So God took care of it. “It is finished.”
So the religious system was turned upside-down. All of this included a powerful new revelation about the nature of God. Rather than understanding God as threatening, punishing, angry, and demanding payment for sins, while enjoying the pleasures of being above it all, the incredible bottom line of Jesus death and the ending of the sacrificial system is that GOD IS LOVE. God loves people. What will we do with that?
A new agenda was another part of Jesus mission. What now if religion is no longer what it was?

THE NEXT STEP WILL APPEAR SOON

Avoid Saying This

Avoid Saying This

Recently I talked with a young mother whose six year old daughter had died a month earlier. The little girl had been born disabled, both physically and intellectually. At age six she was still infantile in all ways, needing constant care for all her needs.

Her mother confided in me how much she resented the words repeatedly spoken to her in the aftermath of the death. Person after person said “well, she’s better off now.” Hardly anyone realized how deeply this mom loved that little girl, and what an empty place there now was in her life. All the friends saw was the girl’s disability, and the enormous effort it took to care for the child. They saw a burden. They saw relief. The mother was feeling devastated at losing her child.

Their words, “well, she is better off now,” carried the message that she, the mom, shouldn’t feel so terrible because the child was now whole and happy. They totally overlooked her attachment, her investment, her love for her daughter, as limited as the child was. They projected themselves into the situation and saw only enormous hours of hard work. They failed to see a mother deeply invested in her child, now empty-handed and sorrowing, because her child has died. They failed to see the mother's love and their words were not helpful.

Grief guidance-1.

Compliment People

Charlie Brown to Lucy: "Do pretty girls know that they are pretty?"



Lucy to Charlie Brown: "Only if someone tells them."



Charlie Brown looks stunned.



Lucy: "Well?"



Charlie looks away with a strange befuddled look on his face. He can't say the words.



Reflection: No one is so good looking, competent, or talented they do not need an admiring word or compliment.



from The Miracle of Kindness p.121 by James R. Kok

Final Four Kindness Suggestions

Final Four Kindness Suggestions
(plus a bonus thought)

1. Look at People! Notice and remark about--clothing, jewelry, pins, haircuts, even scars or disabilities. Ask, inquire, lament, comment, praise, appreciate: “Interesting pin.” “Great colors.” “I love your car.” “Sharp tie.” “That’s quite a scar on your arm, how’d that happen?”

2. Use Names. Remember Names. Write them down to lock the names in. Use them as much as possible. “Good morning Harry.” “Have a good day Gerry.” Ask for names. Don’t stop asking until you remember it. Embarrassment must not keep us from asking for the name, still another time.

3. Give a Well-Wishing Farewell. “Good to see you today.” Or “It has been a pleasure meeting with you today.” Even if it is merely a committee meeting, or a consultation with one or two persons, leave saying appreciative words about being with them. Start a routine, when you leave a gathering, to declare clearly—“I really enjoyed being with you today.” My parting sentence with many, after some kind of transaction is over and they say “have a great day,” is to answer “I will, and you just made it better.”

4. Return Phone Calls. As promptly as possible, and certainly the same day. Never leave people hanging when a quick effort can connect you with them, and relieve them of wondering and waiting for your reply. Also, acknowledge e-mail messages and forwards. Just say “thank you.

5. Touch. Hug. (caution!). Touching someone’s hand, or laying a hand on their shoulder, or shirt sleeve, can be a caring gesture. It is usually a positive. But not all touch is appreciated. Some touch is inappropriate. Touch with care.

Note: Not everybody hugs or likes to be hugged. Offer hugs with close attention to the other’s body language which says “yes” or “no”. Hugging is an increasingly welcomed gesture. Each of us can grow more and more comfortable and confident by frequent but tentative practice.

(The first eight appeared in earlier Blogs)