The Bungee Cord. 6-20-23
Hello,
If you were looking for a Bungee Cord last week and didn’t find one, the reason is that I was in Davenport, Iowa visiting my folks. They both live in a care center. My dad, whose memory is gone, lives in a memory care unit, and my mom whose health is very fragile lives in a total nursing unit. I’ve been making regular trips out there as their health has gone downhill, but I try to call my mother several times a week.
On one of my phone calls, I asked her if she was still playing the piano in the gathering room in her unit. She plays it around 3:00 every day when her “fans” are there. On the phone call of which I write she said that when she was playing, a lady who regularly attends had a smile from ear to ear. “She has the prettiest smile,” she said. “But she also has the saddest frown, and when I play that frown becomes a smile. That really makes me happy, too.”
For nearly twenty years, my mom has gone to the nursing care place that she lives to play music for the residents….to bring a smile to their face. She has a two-octave keyboard that she would bring with her and take to the rooms of the resident who were bedridden. She would play. She would sing. The people would smile…even those who could not move their limbs. It was her Christian mission, and she did it with zealous joy.
About a year and a half ago, she had a significant fall from which she has not recovered. She progressively lives in her imagination, but she remains cogent when I talk to her. On Good Friday of this year, she suffered a stroke, but had an amazing recovery. Nevertheless, the stroke has made her even more frail and her lifespan uncertain.
I said to her on my last visit, “Would you like to play your keyboard?” (My brother and I bought her the keyboard to replace the organ that she had in her home.).
“Sure,” she said. I wheeled her over to the keyboard. She slowly lifted her hands from her lap, and she played…..and I smiled.
Music is a God-given gift that she has. A gift that the struggles of life has not taken from her. I give thanks to my mom who is a living example of the power of God’s love to break through the darkness and bring light (John 1). Believe me, it’s not all rosy (her name is Rose) with her, but in the midst of the thorns she brings a smile to the smile-less.
I hope that this Bungee Cord is akin to my mom’s music, a laser of grace and hope in your lives. There are moments when life is far from rosy for me, and I expect the same is true for you. But because others, like you, have shared their gift of compassion and care with me, a smile of hope spontaneously forms on my face. Likewise, because God, who refuses to let me be taken from his embrace, unites himself with me weekly at the altar, I find myself ready to laugh at the spiritual bullies of my life saying, “Okay. Hit me with your best shot!”
We are all gifted from God, and nothing, as my mom is living evidence, can keep you and me from being vessels of God’s love in this world.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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