Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

A person’s actions show you what their words won’t. 

As a child, a term I heard often from a teacher or my Momma was, “Now pay attention.” That’s a term we need to hear and pay attention to throughout life. 

OK? Now pay attention to these words from the French spiritual writer, Simone Weil. “Those who are happy have no need for anything in the world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle.” 

Time and attention go together. But the truth is we can give people our time without giving them our attention. In his gospel, Mark tells a story which instructs us here. 

A man with leprosy came to Him and begged Him on his knees, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” 

Jesus was indignant. He reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. (Mark l:40-42) 

No wonder Mark put this in the first part of his gospel! The leper said to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean” Packed into one beautiful sentence is almost everything Jesus was, and what he was about. “Jesus was filled with pity for him, and stretched out His hand and placed it on the leper, saying, ‘Of course I want to – be clean!’” (Mark 1:41, Phillips) That tells it all. 

Jesus listened to the leper. Is there anything that enhances our feelings of worth more than being listened to? When you listen to me, you say to me, “I value you. You are important. I will hear what you have to say.” 

Jesus looked at him. He gave the leper His attention. 

Jesus not only listened and looked; He touched the leper. To be generous with our attention, we cannot remain aloof; we must deliberately reach out, touch, and become involved. 

When I give attention by looking, listening, and touching; the Spirit comes alive in relationship. When I listen and look with mind and heart, revelation comes; the gap between the other person and myself is bridged. A sensitivity comes that is not my own. I feel the pain, frustration, and anguish of the other. Beyond myself and my own resources, I become an instrument of miracle-working love. Healing, comfort, reconciliation, strength, and guidance come to others when we generously give them our attention by looking, listening, and touching. 

Pay attention to people that care.
Who are always there.
Who want better for you.
They’re your people.

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

A friend told me this story recently. A seven-year-old girl was sitting on her grandmother’s lap. As the little girl moved her hand casually over the older woman’s face, Grandma said, “Honey, those are my wrinkles. They mean that I’m getting older.” The little girl thought for a moment and then asked, “Grandma, do wrinkles hurt?” 

That’s a loaded question! It involves more than just wrinkles. It deals with the whole business of aging. Age is an issue at all times of our life. In fact, age is an issue of life because our aging determines in large part the pattern of our lives. 

It’s difficult to think of aging without reflecting on retirement. I believe in retirement, but I’m afraid our culture has equated retirement with “ceasing to work”… and ceasing to work has become inactivity or endless days of golfing, fishing, or some other recreation. 

Back to wrinkles; do they hurt? NO! In fact, our wrinkles could mean far more than added years. They could mean 

Wisdom, if we decided to continue growing and sharing; 

Joy, if we used some of our time relating to, and serving others; 

Continued growth, if we did not retire our minds, and involved ourselves in the issues that are impacting our community; 

Spiritual growth, if we banded together with a few others in mutual accountability, if we practiced prayer and regularly shared in public worship. 

We live in a culture which glorifies youth. Notice the people in the TV commercials. We “older folks” need to show America a good image of aging by personifying an exciting sign of wrinkles. The Bible says that “Gray hair is a crown of splendor. (Proverbs 20:29). Many of the biblical heroes were up in age before they did great things. 

Our wrinkles need not hurt. Let’s make them a badge of honor. 

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

A while ago my wife, Jerry, attended a women’s retreat led by a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Susan. A few days after returning from the retreat, Jerry received a letter from Sister Susan which concluded with this prayer, and suggesting that Jerry pray it daily: “Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is.” 

What a prayer! Does it shock you? Most of would have problems praying it. Why? Our Christian faith warns about thinking too highly of ourselves than we ought to think. 

Unfortunately, we have misunderstood that and taken it too far. The message of Christianity, the most affirming of all religions, has come through as self-denial. To be sure, there is a place for self-denial, but that must not be seen as self-depreciation or any form of devaluating self. 

As the pinnacle of God’s creation, not proudly, but humbly we should have a high opinion of ourselves. This old story will put it in perspective. A French Prime Minister said to an eminent surgeon who was to operate on him, “You will not, of course, treat me in the same manner as you would your poor, miserable wretches in the hospital.” The surgeon replied, “Sir, every one of those poor, miserable wretches, as your Eminence is pleased to call them, is a prime minister in my eyes.” 

In the eyes of God we are all creatures of potential greatness. Write the prayer down—memorize it. Pray it daily—it will change your life: 

Oh God, help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is.”

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam 

I was spending the night in the hospital room with my mother. Fifteen years before, she had won a tough, ravaging battle with cancer. Now it had struck again. 

She had had a mastectomy that morning and had been sedated all day. In the middle of the night 1 was dozing, but her stirring brought me to alertness. I had the feeling that she wanted to talk, and that she wanted to talk about real things, not just make time-passing conversation. How did she feel? What was she thinking? There was a lot of deep sharing. 

I hope l never forget that night and what she said. “When you give your life to the Lord, Son, everything has to be all right—-no matter what happens.” 

lt was her way of expressing confidence that she was okay in God’s hands. She had known God’s love and care in the past, and she could trust him now. 

That night, Momma taught me that trust is a verb. We trust by relying on God to be true to his promises. At our age, here at Kirby, we trust God’s promise, “I go to prepare a place for you,” and we “ready ourselves” to claim that place. 

CRUSADE for CHRIST 

Wednesday, May 4 | 6:30 pm – Reverend Jimmy Latimer

Thursday, May 5 | 6:30 pm – Reverend Jimmy Latimer 

Friday, May 6 | 6:30 pm – Glory Land Singers

May Vesper Services | 6:30pm | Performing Arts Center 

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

I’m intrigued by bumper stickers. I sometimes get dangerously close to a car in order to see what is being proclaimed on the bumper sticker.

A recent sticker got my immediate attention, “Kiss an artist today.” That’s easy for me. My wife and my daughter are artists.

But the thought is expansive. I began to reflect. I remembered a story John Powell told about two priests who experienced a rich and
rewarding friendship. They struggled together through the wilderness of long seminary training and worked together in a community ministry.

Then one of the two friends was hit by a car and killed in front of their residence. The other knelt at the side of his old friend, gently
cradled the brother’s head on his arm, and before all the people who had gathered blurted out, “Don’t die! You can’t die! I never told you I loved you.”

It could happen to any one of us, but it need not. Before this day ends, do two things. One, even if you have to call them on the phone or write them a note, tell a person you have not told recently that you love them. Two, for a person you are always telling you love, do something that will validate your words.

Drive carefully, but pay attention to those bumper stickers. Just today I read this one: Don’t believe everything you think.

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam 

Paul’s “Hymn of Love” (First Corinthians 13) is one of the best-known sections of Scripture. In all my years of ministry there have been few weddings in which I have not referred to this great love reflection. When thoughts and reflections are being connected with love, none can do better than to read and spend some time with this “Hymn of Love”. 

“But have not love” is an attention getting phrase that occurs three times in the first three verses of the hymn. “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels — but have not love.” 

“If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains — but have not love.” 

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned — but have not love.” Paul closes his last “but have not love” with the dogmatic word, “I gain nothing.” He makes his point clearly; nothing is of any use if love is missing. Bereft of love, we become less than we are as humans. 

After my sermon, in a conference where I was preaching, people were in a line greeting me. I saw a woman “hanging back.” I knew she wanted a bit more time than the usual greeting and thank you. I was so moved by her affirmation and self-introduction that I spontaneously hugged her. You would have thought I had given a glass of water to a person dying of thirst, or a $1,000 to a penniless beggar. Her face was aglow. “Thank you,” she exclaimed, and added, “Nobody hugs me anymore.” 

She told me more: the loss of her husband 10 years before, her children scattered and she was now living alone. She doesn’t get any hugs. 

If we know we are loved — and hugging helps us to know — we can bear anything. But if we have not love, we become less than human. 

It is easy to grow careless of the ones we are supposed to love. We become thoughtless of the little things that keep love alive. So we don’t hug as much as we should. We don’t speak kind and loving words to our spouses. We take each other for granted, and to take another for granted is to make them less than human. 

Words and actions can wound us, but so can no words and no action. Indifference, disregard, neglect — these are the painful bullets that penetrate our hearts and bring emotional death. These deaths are silent. We don’t see them because we are not looking — we’re not listening. The ears and eyes of our hearts are closed to those around us — sometimes even to those we love. 

Of all that we must be intentional about, love is paramount. 

Reflections by Maxie Dunnam

“It isn’t any of our business, is it, Lord?” A little girl with a tender conscience asked this question in her evening prayer. She had seen a poor needy man on the street that day. “Oh, Mama,” she had said, “let’s help him.” The mother had answered, “Come along, dear. It isn’t any of our business.” 

That night, when the little girl had said, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” she added, “Oh God, bless that poor man on the comer.” And then remembering her mother’s words that day, she added, “But really, it isn’t any of our business, is it, Lord?” 

Unknowingly the little girl expressed a tragic fact. Many of us grow up conditioned by the feeling that the world and the people about us are none of our business. How untrue! Recall Dickens’ Christmas Carol and be haunted by those words of Jacob Marley’s Ghost. “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop in the water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

Everyman is our business. What happens to the person next door, down the street, across town, yes, even beyond the ocean is our business. We too easily forget one of the clearest words of Jesus, “Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these you did it unto me.” 

At our age, living in a community like Kirby Pines, it is easy to seclude ourselves, to shut off from others. We even think “other peoples’ lives are none of my business.” The fact is others are our business, and our setting gives us opportunity to take care of business by genuinely caring for one another. 

Because we are “retired,” or at an age that has moved us from a former “active” life, does not relieve us the responsibility of caring. To be sure, there are needs in our community and we can focus our caring locally. But our attention must be broader. I suggest we listen to the news to keep us sensitive to the needs of the world, thus our praying can be focused. And most of us can contribute financially as well as pray. I am convinced that praying and contributing financially to causes that are serving the world is a means of grace that enables us to be more purposefully Kingdom People. 

Put Your Thinking Cap On

I’m calling this column REFLECTIONS. To reflect is to ponder, to meditate and contemplate. Reflecting is thinking about something carefully. Because this is what I’ll be doing in in these REFLECTIONS, there may be a banner accompanying the article calling you to PUT ON YOUR THINKING CAP. The term “thinking cap” denotes an imaginary cap to be worn in order to facilitate thinking. My high school teacher who influenced me most would often say that when we were beginning to explore a new subject. 

In Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, the hero is about to walk along a heavy but rotting beam over a brooding, murky creek. Starting over, stepping gingerly . . . he felt he would never reach the other side: always he would be balanced here, suspended between land and in the dark and alone. Then feeling the board shake as Idabel started across, he remembered that he had someone to be together with. And he could go on. 

Isn’t this our experience? It certainly has been mine. I shiver at the thought of having to go it alone. I get chills when I consider where I might be if, at the right time, I had not felt the board shake because someone was walking with me! 

Life in community, particularly the Christian walk is a shared journey. Whether Christian or not, living in a community such as ours at Kirby Pines, we do not walk alone; others walk with us. Paul provided some guidance for our journey together. I urge you to read Gal. 6:1-6. 

Paul is talking about interrelatedness and interdependence. This principle is laced throughout Paul’s epistles. If one member suffers all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26 R.S.V.). We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak (Rom. 15:1 R.S.V). The new life into which we have been born through Christ is a shared life. Because we belong to Christ, we belong to each other. In community, we are bound to each other, to Christ, and to God. Our life is a shared life.