I AM AMONG YOU AS ONE WHO IS [F, 11-29-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Corrections of An Old Man—I AM AMONG YOU AS ONE WHO IS [F, 11-29-24]

 

Like most boys in the years just past WWII, I wanted to be a part of what was then “America’s game,” baseball. I wanted to be a player, like Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams. Or Johnny Wyrostek. I wanted to play for my team, the Cincinnati Reds, like Johnny did. He wasn’t as good as DiMaggio or Williams, but he had the right uniform.

 

Then he didn’t. The Reds sold him. Just like a slave. I knew about slavery, because we studied history in school back then. I also knew slavery wasn’t right. I decided to change careers; I had no intention of being a slave.

So, I didn’t know quite what to make of it when Jesus said, in my Sunday School paper, about the same time I decided not to be a baseball slave, that he was among us as one who serves. [Luke 22:27] Wasn’t a servant just one step up from being a slave? You still got ordered around by people who thought they were better than you. I didn’t like that.

 

But I wanted to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus. The Christians I knew just seemed so much more satisfied with life than other folks did. They were nicer to be around, too. They wanted to help, and fix stuff that was wrong. So, I wanted to be a Christian, someone who helped people, and fixed things that were wrong. Like slavery. So I was a strong supporter of Curt Flood, born just a year after me, when he took on the baseball slave masters and their political enablers…and won!

I did a pretty good job of it, for a long time, being a helper and fixer. I thought “being among you as one who serves” meant being there as one who helped and fixed.

To me, that meant always carrying the heavier load in any relationship, always doing more than the other/s in that relationship. The best Christians were the ones who sought out the heaviest loads to carry.

 

But Rachel Remen, MD, says there is a difference between serving, and helping and fixing.

 

“Perhaps we can truly serve only those we are willing to touch, not only with our hands but with our hearts and even our souls. Professionalism has embedded in service a sense of difference, a certain distance. But on the deepest level, service is an experience of belonging, an experience of connection to others and to the world around us. It is this connection that gives us the power to bless the life in others. Without it, the life in them would not respond to us.” [My Grandfather’s Blessings, p 204]

Oh, good grief, now I’ve got to start all over and be all touchy-feely. Well, I’m getting rather tired from that heavy relationship-lifting all those years, anyway. Maybe belonging instead of helping and fixing won’t be so bad…

John Robert McFarland