Humble help often is just the answer
Whenever people ask me about "the wife," I say, "Her name's Becky, so please don't call her 'the wife.' ''
I say this because at our wedding 30 years ago, she refused to let her father "give" her away. "I'm not a commodity to give away like 'the house' or 'the car,' '' she explained.
She was right. She's still not. She's a wonderfully intelligent schoolteacher who's rarely careless or clueless. However, she was recently "keyless.''
It happened last month in Sacramento as she walked to her car clutching her remote key along with an armload of schoolbooks. When her load shifted unexpectedly, she bobbled her key and dropped it.
The next few moments played like slow motion. The key tumbled through the air, took a bounce, and then slid across the pavement making a hole-in-one through a slimy storm grate.
When she called seeking solutions, I suggested she hitch a ride home to retrieve our extra key.
She went home to grab the key and magnet, but also took time to mention her troubles to a friend who promised prayers.
An hour later, she returned to the scene of the grime where she discovered that a 50-ish woman bending over a storm grate will draw a crowd of children quicker than an ice cream truck.
Just then, the mousy voice of a fourth grade girl erupted from the gaggle of kids to offer her father's assistance. Becky agreed and the girl walked across the street to collect her non-English speaking father.
When the girl translated my wife's problems, the man retreated into his garage workshop and affixed a hooked nail to the end of a broomstick. Returning, he hunched over the grate and thrust his contraption into the hole to vigorously stir the leaves.
Then, just as the school's lawn sprinkler gushed and runoff water threatened to ruin the key's electronics, the man suddenly came up with key.
Becky isn't a "hugger," but she made an exception for this girl. In turn, the girl translated my wife's gratitude to her father.
The next day, Becky returned a "thank you'' that needed no interpretation — cupcakes. The little girl took the tray, but requested something else.
"Could you help my mom translate school registration forms?'' she asked.
My wife was overtaken by the spiritual opportunity to return the family kindness and spent the next 20 minutes gladly filling forms.
The incident reminded me of the little boy who offered to help Jesus feed 5,000 followers. The "help" consisted of only two loaves of bread and five boney fish, but Jesus accepted the help and asked his students to distribute the food. Soon the disciples were stunned to see how the boy's gift multiplied enough to send the people home satisfied.
Sometimes our prayers become an attempt to micromanage God. "Perhaps you can send a locksmith or maybe you can make this magnet work, or get the city to fix it,'' we pray.
Yet at the end of the day, both Jesus and my wife got their help from a child, a fact which demonstrates two things. First, God has the ability to help in amazing ways if we're open to humble sources. Second, God is always in control and without him we are always keyless.
Norris Burkes is a syndicated columnist, national speaker and the author of "No Small Miracles." He also serves as an Air National Guard chaplain and is board certified in the Association of Professional Chaplains. You can call him at (321) 549-2500 or email him at ask@thechaplain.net or visit his website at www.thechaplain.net. Write him at P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, Calif., 95759.
Ignorance can often be expensive
The first time that I gave my wife a flower, it didn't work out so well.
We were on our first date when I bought the flower from what I thought was a street vendor raising money for world peace. Hey, I don't know. It was the 1970s.
"Did you know that you just gave money to a cult?" my date asked in scolding tone.
Not really, I thought. The closest thing that resembled a cult in my hometown of Atascadero, Calif., was the Future Farmers of America (a rivalry joke between my ROTC cadets and them).
With love for my future bride, I said nothing, primarily because I knew nothing about the Hare Krishna. With respect to Becky, she only knew what she'd been told.
Sometimes ignorance is endearingly funny, but it wasn't funny last week when Wade Michael Page, 40, went on a killing rampage in the Wisconsin Sikh temple.
His ignorance leads me to this confession: Readers tell me that I've done a fair job of inspiring them, tickling them, and sometimes even inciting them, but I've been remiss in educating readers on the religions of our day.
I can't help but wonder if a little education somewhere along the way might have stopped Wade. So, in that spirit I hope you'll allow me a few moments to offer three areas in which me might better understand Sikh culture.
History: They've become the world's fifth-largest religion and have gained nearly 25 million adherents since they were founded in India by Guru Nanak in the 15th century. Estimates put the U.S. Sikh population considerably short of a million.
Sikhs aren't even remotely Muslims. They come from a Muslim/Hindu culture, but calling them Muslim is about as far-fetched as calling a Scientologist a Lutheran because Scientology's founder was born in Nebraska.
Worship: Men and women sit apart for worship in a temple called the Gurdwara. Their temples often are seen as compounds by the uninformed. That's because they incorporate clinics, schools, guest quarters and community centers as a way of giving back to the community.
American congregations largely worship on Sunday with hymns and teachings (much like my church does, but without the five-piece band.) They welcome everyone and pray daily for the betterment of all humanity and for the well being of the world. When worship is concluded, they offer home-cooked meals to anyone who wants one. It's my kind of place.
Beliefs: The main tenet of their monotheistic faith is equality, a teaching that rejects India's traditional class system. They preach that all religions are good and they honor all sacred texts. In fact their scripture commands them not to condemn other religions.
Of course, what causes them the most grief in the U.S. is their commandment that men must conceal their uncut hair under a turban — much like Jesus of the Nazarenes, minus the headgear. While Sikh women dress in contemporary fashion, they will often don the traditional Indian long shirt and loose-fitting pants.
Additionally, Sikhs learn two other important things: Work hard, never beg.
So, today I beg you on their behalf to learn a little bit about people who are different from you. Ask them what they believe, what's important to them and how they share kindness. Do this, and you will learn far more than the simpleton lesson I've offered today.
We were still teenagers when I gave that flower to my wife, which by the way, she promptly threw out. A little interfaith education has brought us a long way since then, so I pray it will do the same for you.
Assault rifles are useless for civilians
It's happened again – this time in Aurora, Colo.
At times like this, I'm often asked why I believe in God. One reason I know there has to be a God, is the presence of evil. In other words, if God doesn't exist, what is it that evil is working so hard to overcome?
I've seen this evil before – in 1989 in Stockton, Calif., a man released a hail of bullets that ultimately injured 29 and killed five children between 6 and 8 years old. My pastor's heart and military training demanded I go to the scene where Stockton police asked me to help with death notifications.
As I spoke to parents who'd recently emigrated from Vietnam, they wanted to know how the grammar school had become a killing field reminiscent of their homeland. I had no answer, but the legislature did.
Five years later, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was passed. Unfortunately, it was allowed to expire on Sept. 13, 2004 and since then, efforts to reinstate it haven't even reached a vote in the house.
"Why?" I ask.
I introduce the question in a spiritual not political way. Spiritually, we know that killing innocents is a sin, so if we allow a weapon linked to killing so many innocent people to remain on the public market, are we complicit?
We are such safety nuts in America. Prescription drugs capable of killing one in every 50,000 are banned.
When a few children have crippling reactions to their inoculations, thousands refuse shots.
Yet when more than 30,000 people are killed annually by guns in this country, we can't even discuss how the banning of assault weapons might mitigate those deaths. (And don't get me started on how many lives would be spared in Mexico without American-made assault rifles.)
These weapons have a single purpose – to kill people. They are not for hunting or home protection or target shooting. They aren't even accurate. The strategy is to spray an area and hope your target is among the collateral damage.
I'm not for taking your handguns, mind you. Not shotguns or hunting rifles. Just military assault rifles. Who needs these guns? Only the military!
We live in a country of freedoms and restrictions. We can drink, but not while driving. We can own weapons, but can't kill.
We accept reasonable limits.
Those limits often change with societal interests, but this is one of those times that I wonder if gun-related fundamentalism is holding our society hostage to its own Kevlar-vested interest.
(And believe me, I know the face of fundamentalism.)
It's unlikely that my humble musings will affect the political outcome one whit. But perhaps when these mass shootings do occur, spiritual questioning can bring transformative change.
The question is: Do we hear God's call or something else?
The Stockton tragedy of 1989 changed my life and put me on the path to becoming a chaplain because I realized that assault rifles are weapons of mass destruction, but God calls us to be something my friend Tamara Chin likes to call, "Agents of Mass Humanity."
And by being a chaplain, I'm living God's response to this violent act as I repeat the words spoken by Joseph in the ancient book of Genesis, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
Norris Burkes is a syndicated columnist, national speaker and author of No Small Miracles. He also serves as an Air National Guard chaplain and is board-certified in the Association of Professional Chaplains. You can call him at 321-549-2500, email him at about:ask@thechaplain.net, visit his website thechaplain.net or write him at P.O. Box 247, Elk Grove, CA 95759.
