“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” – Philippians 2:3
So many years ago:
The certainty with which I judged. The anger I received, Hot words with friends There in the driveway.
The bitterness I brought to bed that, strange to say, provoked a prayer. To my surprise, in answer came a voice:
“You were wrong. Go and apologize.”
Since that angry night, I’ve known that pride goes not before the fall: Pride is the fall. At least, my fall.
The voice did not just speak to judge or to correct, but leads and has led me that night to this. And, no, I’m never sure
This voice is God’s, and this voice mine, but on that night, I knew and know. If I am humble, it has been the struggle of my life and soul.
So Paul rings true to me to warn of pride (I laugh to think how much he struggled with his very warning),
And I take my comfort in the humble form of Jesus, who, though God in truth, eschewed the power: and shared the love.
A poem/prayer based on Philippians 2:1-13, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year A, Proper 21 (26).
Photo by Eric Anderson.
Author’s Note: This is a true story. I’ve struggled with pride ever since, of course. My arrogance is never far away. For the record, I followed the advice of the voice. I apologized.
He was the oldest of the three ‘amakihi, so he thought he would get everything the first and the best.
In fact, he did get fed first after he’d emerged from the shell and was breathing deeply for the first time. Getting out of an eggshell sounds easy, but he didn’t find it so. Next to him the other two eggs continued to rock and creak for some time as he ate his first bug from his mother’s beak. It tasted wonderful.
I know you and I might not think so, but he thought it tasted wonderful.
Truly, though, he wasn’t born first by much. His sister emerged from her shell within an hour, and his brother was eating his first bug a half hour after that. Still, he was first. And if you’re the first born – um, first hatched – that comes with some benefits, right? First hatched, first fed – at every meal. First hatched, first flight lesson. First hatched, first singing lesson. First hatched, first… well, everything.
But his parents didn’t seem to have learned that rule.
When they came with bugs for their nestlings, they tended to put it in the first handy little beak. Our oldest little ‘amakihi didn’t like it, but in all the chaos of pushing about in the little nest he thought they were just careless and making mistakes. As they grew, he learned to get his beak in place just a little more quickly at mealtimes, but he thought his parents had figured out how to feed him first. And at singing lessons, he didn’t wait for them to say, “Who wants to sing first?” He just sang first.
Flying lessons, though, were different.
Flying, obviously, has to be taken seriously. ‘Amakihi may be small birds, but gravity pulls them just like it pulls you and me. Mother and father didn’t ask for volunteers or pay any attention to his volunteering. They called on the one who was ready, not the one who was eager.
It made him mad.
“That’s completely unfair!” he shrieked one morning when his younger sister took off before he did. He launched himself into the air, flapping madly (and angrily) and not very well, because he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, he was paying attention to what he was feeling. He landed rather painfully in a nearby tree and sulked.
The branch jumped a little bit as another bird landed near him. He looked up to see his mother.
“What’s not fair?” she asked.
“It’s not fair for you to teach the others before me. I was born first. I’m always first. I’m always supposed to be first. I’m first!” he said. And he cried angry tears.
She waited until the crying had settled down some, and said, “No, it’s not fair. And it won’t be fair. Not because being born first, you always go first – that’s not true, son, and it’s about time you learned that – but because love isn’t fair.”
It was a shock to hear that he wasn’t always going to be first, but it was more of a shock to hear that love isn’t fair.
“I love everyone in our family equally,” she said. “I love them equally even when they peck at me, like your sister did yesterday, or when they ignore me, like your brother did this morning. I love them equally when your father eats the bug I was following or when your grandmother tells me how to do something that I already know how to do. If I were being fair, I’d love your sister more when your brother annoys me, and I’d love your brother more when your father makes me angry.”
“And you’d love everyone else more when your oldest son gets mad and flies off in a huff,” said her oldest son.
She didn’t have to reply.
“Thank you for not being fair,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now, shall we work on that takeoff? And landing? And paying attention to where you’re going in flight?”
That little ‘amakihi family went right on being unfair – and loving one another each day.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, then tell the story from memory. Memory plus improvisation, that is.
“And he [the landowner] said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.” – Matthew 20:4
You’ve given me heavy lifting, Jesus. How shall I understand this tale?
Do you applaud the naked use of power that’s used by rich and haughty men (and yes, I do mean men) to stratify and separate the workers who might, joined together, change the world? Oh, that would pain me, Jesus.
Or should I see in this landowner’s strange caprice the startling love that cannot be provided less to one, and more to one, for love unmeasured cannot be decreased or increased? This lifts my heart to hope.
Do I perceive a stern rebuke to those, like me, who act as if they know your will much better than the ones whose faith is newly growing, newly shining? It is a painful arrogance to think that you have set me on a throne to rule.
Is this a welcome call to nations who could never comprehend your word, O Jesus, in that ancient Aramaic? Those who, like me, are grateful for the pen of Matthew to record your parable, and translators to share this text?
Where shall I find my place, O Christ, in this strange tale? Am I the powerful one? I, long ago, put off my entry to the Church, so have I come late in the day, or have so many days passed now that I have worked the morning, noon, and afternoon?
I guess I’ll have to let your Spirit move. These things, and more, are… “obvious.” And when I struggle with the obvious your prompting steals on stealthy step to prod my heart and soul. Impel me, Christ, to find my place, from first to last, in you.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 20:1-16, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 20 (25).
The image is part of an illustration from the 11th century Codex Aureus Epternacensis, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10315166. One of the things that fascinates me about this image (and two companion paintings of the beginning and end of the Matthew 20 story) is that the faces are so alike. I’m certain that’s an artistic choice, and I’m letting it work within me.
They were building their first nest together as an ‘apapane couple. An ‘apapane nest is a pretty impressive piece of engineering, taking a week or even a day or two more. That’s a lot of grass and twigs and moss to move.
They weren’t the only ones, of course. In a tree not far away his sister and her husband were also building a nest, their first one, too. They’d got started a little earlier, so their nest was taking shape while the brother’s nest looked pretty ragged. Everyone was having trouble finding the grass and moss and twigs for their nests, and flying farther to find them.
That’s when he got his clever idea.
When his sister and her husband (and his own wife) were away looking for more material, he flew quickly over to his sister’s nest. He pulled out a particularly nice twig that would be perfect for his own nest and flew back. When his wife returned she found him proudly settling that twig into position.
“Well done!” she said.
“There’s more,” he said.
They both flew off, she to search the forest and he to his sister’s nest. Before his wife came back he’d made three trips to it, taking grass and moss as well as another good structural twig.
“Where are you finding this so quickly?” his wife wondered.
“I found an old nest that nobody’s using,” he said.
“Oh, good! Show me and I’ll come, too.”
“I wish I could. This was the last of it,” he told her.
But he went back to his sister’s nest again for more.
He was careful to make sure his sister and her husband were absent. It was clear that they had had a difficult time replacing the things he’d taken. They were still ahead in their nest’s construction, but not so much as before.
He pulled a piece of moss from his sister’s nest and turned around. There, sitting silently on a nearby branch, was his wife.
“Abandoned nest?” she said.
“I’ll stop with this one,” he said.
“That’s not enough,” she told him. “You have to put that piece back, first of all. Then you have to wait for your sister and her husband and tell them what you’ve been doing. Then you have to help them build this nest that you’ve been stealing from.”
“Isn’t it enough that I just stop and let it be?” he asked.
“No, it isn’t. It’s nowhere near enough. You’ve been pulling their nest apart and you need to help them put it back.”
“Couldn’t I just do that? Leave out that I’ve been taking things?”
She gave him a very sharp look indeed. “She’s your sister. Do you think she’d be content with a lie?”
He admitted that she wouldn’t.
“Ask anyone among the ‘apapane,” she said. “We can live together when we make mistakes and make amends for them. We can’t live together with lies. It begins with truth. So tell the truth.”
He told the truth. His sister had some true and truly angry things to say to him about it, but she did accept his help in repairing the damage and, during family gatherings, was sometimes heard to say, “It begins with truth. Thank you, brother, for the truth.”
by Eric Anderson
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I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory rather than reading them. As a result, they change.
“[Jesus said,] ‘So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.'” – Matthew 18:35
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have granted my release to people who have hurt me. They confessed their fault, they offered restitution. I said, “I forgive you,” and I meant it. We reforged our peace.
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have bade farewell to consequences that I might have asked. Though truthfully, I’d never have received them from these ones who never owned their harm.
I’ve done it, Jesus. I have asked for true confession from the ones who’ve hurt me, though they’ve offered only their excuse and not acknowledged any harm.
And I wish that I could do it, Jesus. I wish that I could set aside the hurt that aches within, despite the glib assurance that they hurt me, “for the best.”
What is forgiveness offered when I’m told my hurt was for my good, my harm a temporary thing, when it has lingered on and on and on?
I’ve done it, Jesus. But I do not think I can do this.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 18:21-35, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 19 (24).
We’re back to flight school today. Nene flight school.
The first part of the day had been occupied with eating lessons, because nene believe very strongly in the virtue of a good breakfast. And lunch. And mid-afternoon snack. And don’t get me started on dinner, because a nene is pretty much always ready to start on dinner.
Now, however, the young goslings were ready for some flying time. They were very young, and they hadn’t been going to school very long. In fact, they were still on the first lesson, which is:
Taking off.
That’s kind of an issue for a nene. It’s a good-sized bird, and relative to some similar looking geese, it’s got smaller wings. A nene will fly better than you or I, but there’s a lot to know about getting started.
A nene has to get the hops right, and the wing downbeats right, and the leap and the downbeats timed right, and most important of all: face into the wind.
Face into the wind.
One of the young nene was having a lot of trouble facing into the wind.
Do you have friends who are distracted easily? Any little noise or movement draws their eye? Well, he was distracted by everything. A stray ‘ohelo berry. An unfamiliar noise. A familiar noise. A puff of wind. A stillness of wind. A bug. A waving blade of grass.
So when the teacher lined everyone up, had them face into the wind, led them through a couple of practice hops and a couple of practice wingbeats, she also turned into the wind with them and called out, “Ready?”
There was a chorus of “Ready”s behind her, except for one voice that said, “For what?”
He’d been distracted by a sunbeam on some lava glass.
She got him turned in the right direction, led the practice hops and the wingbeats, and called out, “Ready?”
She got the expected reply. Several nene “Ready”s and one nene “Oops.”
She dismissed the rest of the class back to eating lessons, but asked the ever-distracted-one to stay. “I know you’re easily distracted,” she told him, “but the problem is, you have to get everything ready before you take off.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Can we try it?”
“Yes,” she said, “we can try it.”
They tried it. It was a disaster. When he didn’t focus, he didn’t time his hops and his wingbeats, and he fell forward. When he forgot to hop at all, he stayed firmly on the ground. When he didn’t face into the wind and stay that way, he’d tip himself right over.
“How about we try it with me paying attention?” he asked.
A few minutes later his classmates looked up from their mid morning snack to see their teacher and their friend flying gently through sky above them. They cheered.
He paid a lot of attention when it came time for landing.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories first (it’s what you’ve just read) but tell them from memory. Memory and creative inspiration, that is.
This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the LORD. – Exodus 12:11
They tell us that the night for which we’ve longed has come. The days of bondage reach their end. The day is marked in blood and death, for which I sorrow. Blood besmirches my door frame, and spots the threshold where the lintel drips. But first: we eat.
We did not have a massive flock to search. Our neighbors had no flock at all. We sit together at the table laid in haste. A meal of meat is hardly everyday, but we will eat tonight in deadly haste. Yes, first: we eat.
Someday I’ll have the time for roasted lamb, to savor and rejoice in sensory delight. Tonight the flavor that I seek is freedom’s sweetness dropping from the chin, and so my staff rests by my sandaled feet. But first: we eat.
A poem/prayer based on Exodus 12:1-14, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 18 (23).
The image is “The Feast of the Passover” by Charles Foster – from Charles Foster: The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation Hartford, Conn., 1873., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59186517
‘Apapane are known for their singing – the ohi’a and koa forests echo with it during the cooler parts of the day. ‘Apapane are sensible creatures and when it’s hot they save their breath for breathing.
They are also known for the complexity of their singing. They sing high and they sing low, they squeal and whistle, they making clicking sounds, and my goodness can they trill. An ‘apapane concert is often a trilling experience.
Sorry about that.
There was one ‘apapane, however, who didn’t seem to have received the word that he could sing high, low, middle, whistle, trill, click, and squeal. Instead, he sang one very simple song. It was pretty, to be sure, a low note that rose and then flourished into this marvelous little trill. Other ‘apapane really enjoyed his song, and so did ‘akepa and ‘amakihi so on. It was so lovely that it would soothe a grumpy ‘i’iwi, and when an ‘i’wi is grumpy, they usually stay grumpy.
His parents and brother and sister and miscellaneous aunties and uncles and cousins and tutus all waited for his second song. They were expecting something else to thrill the ears – I’m sorry, that should have been “trill the ears.”
But it didn’t come.
When he found ohi’a in blossom, he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When he had just filled up on insects, he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When the sun was bright and warm on his feathers he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill. When he was just feeling content with life he sang a low note that rose and flourished into a marvelous little trill.
Nobody actually became bored with his song, but they did become concerned.
Parents, grandparents, friends, aunties, uncles, and so forth began to ask him about his one single song. He’d just smile in an ‘apapane way (they don’t have lips to curve up, so I think it’s got something to do with the way they move their head, but to be honest I don’t know), and he didn’t say anything about it. They’d ask about his next song, and he’d smile. They’d ask if he was all right with only one song, and he’d smile. They’d ask what it meant for him to have only one song, and he’d smile.
It was his sister who figured it out. She didn’t peck him with questions (or with her beak, which brothers and sisters sometimes do and they shouldn’t). She just hung out with him, flying from tree to tree, talking with him about nothing in particular, and enjoying his company. He enjoyed hers as well.
She watched as he sang his one song when the sun rose, and when the sky was clear, and when the hot sun went behind a cloud, and when there was lots of nectar, and… that’s when she realized it.
“You sing a song about being happy,” she said. He smiled.
“Nobody else has figured that out,” he said, and smiled again.
“They’re all waiting for you to sing about something else,” she said.
He smiled. “I like to sing about being happy,” he told her.
She smiled back. “That’s a song about everything,” she said.
“And nothing,” he said.
“Everything and nothing,” she said, “is a good thing to sing about.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, and then tell them without notes. Sometimes that means that the pre-planned puns don’t make it in, as was the case today. You can decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.'” – Exodus 3:14
I don’t usually indulge in the histories of the shepherds who keep us. What matter to me or to ewe as long as they lead us to grass? As long as they guard us from wolves? As long as they don’t get us lost?
But Moses, for all of his protests to God, did not keep his silence from us. How often we heard how he lived dual lives, one family held by the other as slaves? How often we heard he had ruled as a prince and fled as a criminal here to our hills?
Though I’ve not known a sheep with two hearts, poor Moses had two in his breast. One beat to the rhythms of royalty. One pulsed with the sorrow of slaves. He wept when he called out his orders. He knelt when he tended our hurts.
I’m not one to linger by fire – it burns – but when Moses turned aside to the flaming bush, I followed, and listened, and chewed on the grass. The voice challenged Moses to merge his two hearts, to step up and lead, not as prince, but as prophet, to commit his one heart to deliver his people.
He sidestepped and soft-shoed, did Moses. “Who am I?” he demanded, “to set people free?” No sheep ever asked, “Who am I?” but of course, no sheep ever lived with two hearts in its chest. “You are the one I have chosen,” said God. Just one, said God. One man with one heart.
“Well, then, who are you?” asked the twin hearts of Moses. “Who shall I say has given this command?” A soul who couldn’t be sure of himself asked another for certainty. An echoing silence greeted the question awaiting an answer. “What is your name?”
“I AM WHO I AM.” the voice softly declared. “I am who I am” is all I could say if asked to account for my being, my name. “I am who I am” reveals my one heart, my undivided soul, my unified self. “I am” is enough for a human, for God, for sheep.
Are you listening, Moses? Do you understand? “I AM WHO I AM,” is the living Divine, but is also the nature of all living things. Let your hearts be united now, Moses, and see. You are who you are. You are made in the image of God.
When he put on his sandals, returned to the flock, I followed, and knew I would see him no more. His separate hearts were not healed, no not yet. They were healing, however. “I AM” had begun. He called us together this time without tears. He led us on home. He led us to home.
A poem/prayer based on Exodus 3:1-15, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 17 (22).
This story is not about a Hawaiian bird, although this bird does have relatives in Hawai’i. She was a black-crowned night heron. Black-crowned night herons live all over the world – they’ve been seen on all seven continents. They live here in Hawai’i, where you can find them in the shallow waters hunting for fish. The Hawaiian name is ‘auku’u.
I’m not sure what this bird called herself, partially because she lived a long time ago and languages change, partially because she lived in Egypt and I don’t know the Egyptian name for an ‘auku’u, and partially because I strongly suspect that birds don’t call themselves by the names people use for them anyway. She lived up to the name “night heron,” though, because she slept through most of the day and hunted the shallows of the Nile River at night. Hawaiian ‘auku’u, by the way, sleep and night and fish during the day.
This ‘auku’u, however, had had her sleep interrupted by the sounds of soldiers marching by. Although she hunted fish, she had no trouble concluding that they were hunting something. They went into little homes with their swords and spears ready, frightening the poor people within, most of whom worked hard all day with other people standing nearby with whips. Sometimes the ‘auku’u had seen the whips used on those poor people and she’d felt very sorry for them.
The soldiers didn’t seem to find what they were looking for, so they gathered together and marched away. A few minutes later, the heron heard voices from one of the little huts. A young girl rushed out, dashing from house to house and asking those within for things. When she returned, she had jars of sticky oil and pine pitch.
The ‘auku’u settled back to sleep again, but then the door to the hut opened again and the girl returned, this time accompanied by her mother. The mother carried a shallow bowl that glistened with newly applied oil and pitch. The two walked down to the riverbank, where the ‘auku’u watched unnoticed in the reeds.
The bowl wasn’t a bowl after all, but a woven basket, and the ‘auku’u was surprised to see that the oily pitchy coating worked to keep it afloat as they laid it in the water. The ‘auku’u was even more surprised to see that the improvised boat held a baby, a human baby. The mother and daughter cried as they pushed it out to where it could be caught in the current. It began to float slowly away.
The girl followed along on shore, moving slowly among the reeds to hide as best she could. The ‘auku’u was too curious to go back to sleep. She followed the girl and the girl followed the basket, rocking gently on the water.
They all three – baby, girl, and bird – heard the splashing ahead. Another group of women were swimming in the river. One saw the basket get caught in the reeds. Another went to fetch it. They gathered around the child, who was awake and yawning.
The ‘auku’u watched as one of the women adopted the baby as her own. She watched as the girl emerged from hiding, offering her mother’s services to care for the child. She watched as they all left the riverbank together.
The ‘auku’u didn’t understand all of what was going on, of course, but she recognized this: those soldiers had been a danger to this infant, one which would only get worse. The mother and sister had done their best to get him to place of safety, and they had succeeded. This new woman in the baby’s life had given him a home in which to grow.
The ‘auku’u didn’t know it, and frankly neither did any of the women, but the baby whose life they’d saved that day would grow up to deliver those enslaved people and lead them to a new home. We know him as Moses. He lived because of what those women had done.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories first, then tell them from what I remember of what I wrote. That process includes both a certain amount of, well, misremembering, and somewhat more improvisation.
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