Happy First Sunday of Advent

View this email in your browser What is Advent?   Today is the first Sunday of Advent.   If you are among the many who will ask, "What exactly is that?" don't feel bad.   I was raised in the home of a Southern Baptist pastor where we equated the word "Advent" with the start of the Christmas-shopping race.   But if you attend a church that practices at least some liturgy, you'll know that Advent is the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas. It commemorates a season of expectancy for the coming Christ on Christmas Day.   In this time of COVID, you needn't be religious to identify the foreboding tone of this Sunday's liturgical gospel reading.   The passage from Mark 13 begins in an upsetting, apocalyptic way that feels more like our current situation than it does a day in the future.   Verses 24-25 say, "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. And the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."   If this sounds like the beginning of your 2020 Christmas, you aren't alone. Today, millions are suffering in the darkness of hunger while even the successful stars seem to be falling.   However, this COVID Christmas season needn't be dark. We can light up Christmas again if we put charity first.   Charity is something I've talked a lot about in the 20 years of this column. The best advice I have given comes from the teachings of the 13th century Rabbi Moses Maimonides and his list of the "Eight Degrees of Charity."   If you read his list carefully, you can use it to size up your motives for giving. Let's begin at the bottom of his list to see how our reasons progress.   8. Giving because we are uncomfortable with our own wealth.   7. Giving cheerfully but giving too little.   6. Giving only when asked.   5. Giving without being asked.   4. Giving to those we don't know, while making sure they know who we are. There's nothing wrong with finding yourself in the bottom five. Giving is important at any level. However, the list makes it obvious that the top three deserve more attention as they address the depth of our character.   The rabbi said the third highest degree of charity is to anonymously give to someone you know. Examine needs within your circle of relationships and enlist an intermediary who will anonymously pass your gift.   Mutual anonymity is the second highest method. This means that neither the donor nor recipient know of each other. This happens when folks drop a cash roll or diamond rings in the Salvation Army kettle.   But I challenge you this Advent Season to aim for the top of Maimonides' list where he encourages folks to "Give your time or money to help someone become self-reliant." This giving is best illustrated in the saying, "Give a person a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime."   This means you invest in someone's life to enable that person to invest in the life of another. It's the ultimate "pay it forward" gift because what you give is you.   Jesus introduced this radical giving in Mark 12 after he observed a poverty-stricken widow giving all she had in the form of two coins worth half a cent.   "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything — all she had to live on."   It's a radical, drastic kind of giving, but I encourage you to try it. Try it before you drop your monthly check tomorrow on Cyber Monday. Try it before you overcompensate for your COVID anxiety by lighting up your house like an airport runway.   This year, let's light up Christmas by making giving our first priority. If Maimonides were alive today, I suspect that's what he'd do.   ---------------------- As you consider charitable contributions for Giving Tuesday please visit www.charitywatch.org to select a legitimate charity. Near the top of my giving list is still the Chispa Project, which is establishing children's libraries in the intercity schools of Honduras, www.thechispaproject.org. The project is run my by daughter Sara who lives in Honduras.   Visit www.thechaplain.net or https://www.facebook.com/theChaplainNorris. Contact me at 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or via voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain.             Copyright © 2020 Norris Burkes, All rights reserved. You signed up to be on Norris' list! Our mailing address is: Norris Burkes 10566 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
2 slight change to column


Column:

Please correct the website at bottom of page to say www.chispaproject.org

Then, depending on when you go to press, you might want to remove the sentence about Black Friday. Its the second sentence in the second to the last paragraph.

 

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New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
After Thanksgiving column


Column:

Editors: You may need to change first sentence to match your run date.



Remind me, What is Advent?

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.

If you are among the many who will ask, "What exactly is that?" don't feel bad.

I was raised in the home of a Southern Baptist pastor where we equated the word "Advent" with the start of the Christmas-shopping race.

But if you attend a church that practices at least some liturgy, you'll know that Advent is the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas. It commemorates a season of expectancy for the coming Christ on Christmas Day.

In this time of COVID, you needn't be religious to identify the foreboding tone of this Sunday's liturgical gospel reading.

The passage from Mark 13 begins in an upsetting, apocalyptic way that feels more like our current situation than it does a day in the future.

Verses 24-25 say, "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. And the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."

If this sounds like the beginning of your 2020 Christmas, you aren't alone. Today, millions are suffering in the darkness of hunger while even the successful stars seem to be falling.

However, this COVID Christmas season needn't be dark. We can light up Christmas again if we put charity first.

Charity is something I've talked a lot about in the 20 years of this column. The best advice I have given comes from the teachings of the 13th century Rabbi Moses Maimonides and his list of the "Eight Degrees of Charity."

If you read his list carefully, you can use it to size up your motives for giving. Let's begin at the bottom of his list to see how our reasons progress.

8. Giving because we are uncomfortable with our own wealth.

7. Giving cheerfully but giving too little.

6. Giving only when asked.

5. Giving without being asked.

4. Giving to those we don't know, while making sure they know who we are.
There's nothing wrong with finding yourself in the bottom five. Giving is important at any level. However, the list makes it obvious that the top three deserve more attention as they address the depth of our character.

The rabbi said the third highest degree of charity is to anonymously give to someone you know. Examine needs within your circle of relationships and enlist an intermediary who will anonymously pass your gift.

Mutual anonymity is the second highest method. This means that neither the donor nor recipient know of each other. This happens when folks drop a cash roll or diamond rings in the Salvation Army kettle.

But I challenge you this Advent Season to aim for the top of Maimonides' list where he encourages folks to "Give your time or money to help someone become self-reliant."
This giving is best illustrated in the saying, "Give a person a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime."

This means you invest in someone's life to enable that person to invest in the life of another. It's the ultimate "pay it forward" gift because what you give is you.

Jesus introduced this radical giving in Mark 12 after he observed a poverty-stricken widow giving all she had in the form of two coins worth half a cent.

"Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything — all she had to live on."

It's a radical, drastic kind of giving, but I encourage you to try it. Try it before you drop your monthly check on Black Friday. Try it before you overcompensate for your COVID anxiety by lighting up your house like an airport runway.

This year, let's light up Christmas by making giving our first priority. If Maimonides were alive today, I suspect that's what he'd do.

----------------------
Readers: As you consider charitable giving this year, visit www.charitywatch.org to select a legitimate charity. Near the top of my giving list is still the Chispa Project, which is establishing children's libraries in the intercity schools of Honduras, www.thechispaproject.org

Visit www.thechaplain.net or https://www.facebook.com/theChaplainNorris. Contact me at 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or via voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain.

 

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Can you pray for a pet?

View this email in your browser A Feline Prayer Opens New Feelings   In spite of an early morning rain, my day at the Sacramento VA Medical Center began like most days had during my 25-year career as a healthcare chaplain.    After checking voicemails and emails, I took the elevator up to patient floors where I began visiting veterans with critical diagnoses such as cancer, cardiac problems or liver failure.    However, on this spring day in 2013, a nurse interrupted my morning by stopping me outside a patient's room to share a critical prayer request of her own.   "Do you pray for animals?" she asked.   My eyes swirled with hesitation patterns. I'm pretty fond of dogs, but the only time I ever prayed for one was when Toby, my little Jack Russell, peed on our living room futon. My intercessory prayer was that my wife would spare Toby's life.   "It's OK," the nurse said, ready to excuse me. "Maybe it's a bit frivolous to pray for animals."   I had to admit her request felt almost flippant when compared with the concerns of our patients.    Nevertheless, I had to admit that God doesn't ration our prayer requests. There is no limit or qualification on what we can pray for. God isn't some kind of genie who grants only three wishes to the bumbling nincompoop who uncovers a buried lamp.   Her eyes quickly moistened, and I asked for more specifics.   "My cat is in the ICU at the animal hospital," she said. She blew into her handkerchief and became more definitive. "Missy has cancer, and the vet doesn't expect her to make it."   The pained look in her eyes recalled the one I had seen in my children's eyes ten years earlier when we put down our 14-year-old schnauzer.   "Sure," I said. "I'd be honored to pray for Missy."   As we stood on the quiet end of a busy hospital hallway, we joined hands and I whispered a prayer. It was not unlike the ones I say with the family members of our patients. I asked God to comfort the nurse and help her make the best decisions about Missy's care.   The nurse wiped her tears and thanked me as we both returned to work. I didn't think of her prayer request again until a few days later while on weekend duty with the Air National Guard.   That's when my chaplain assistant, Technical Sergeant Robert Webster, pulled me into our office to share a similar request.    "I need your help writing an animal eulogy," Webster said.    Clarity lingered from the nurse's pain the previous week, so I felt more sympathetic than I might have been otherwise. I motioned for Webster to pull our chairs close and invited him to say more.   "It's Sydney," he said.   I squinted. The name sounded familiar.   "She's my wife's 14-year-old Aussie shepherd."    He squeezed his arm rests, trying to grip the reality of it all.    "We had to put her down this week."   I'd never eulogized a dog, but then again, I'd never prayed for a sick cat until Missy.    "Absolutely. I can help you do that."   In both cases, please know, dear reader, I did not comfort them with platitudes such as "All Dogs go to Heaven." Nor did I say animals don't go to heaven. I don't speculate on the eternal destination of anyone, much less an animal.    However, I did pray for the pets because it seemed obvious to me that praying for their pets was in fact praying that my friends would be consoled in the love they knew for their pet.   My prayer included the Jesus' words in Matthew 6:26, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."   The verse speaks volumes of how God cares for animals. And if God cares about animals, I know he looks for us to do likewise.   But the verse goes even farther when it asks. "Are you not of more value than they?"   The assumed answer to this rhetorical question is -- yes. And that is a win-win for both animal and man.         ----------------------------------------------   Visit www.thechaplain.net or https://www.facebook.com/theChaplainNorris. Contact me at 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or via voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain. Copyright © 2020 Norris Burkes, All rights reserved. You signed up to be on Norris' list! Our mailing address is: Norris Burkes 10566 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

New Column From Norris Burkes

Subject:
column for 20-22 Nov


Column:

A Feline Prayer Opens New Feelings

In spite of an early morning rain, my day at the Sacramento VA Medical Center began like most days had during my 25-year career as a healthcare chaplain.

After checking voicemails and emails, I took the elevator up to patient floors where I began visiting veterans with critical diagnoses such as cancer, cardiac problems or liver failure.

However, on this spring day in 2013, a nurse interrupted my morning by stopping me outside a patient's room to share a critical prayer request of her own.

"Do you pray for animals?" she asked.

My eyes swirled with hesitation patterns. I'm pretty fond of dogs, but the only time I ever prayed for one was when Toby, my little Jack Russell, peed on our living room futon. My intercessory prayer was that my wife would spare Toby's life.

"It's OK," the nurse said, ready to excuse me. "Maybe it's a bit frivolous to pray for animals."

I had to admit her request felt almost flippant when compared with the concerns of our patients.

Nevertheless, I had to admit that God doesn't ration our prayer requests. There is no limit or qualification on what we can pray for. God isn't some kind of genie who grants only three wishes to the bumbling nincompoop who uncovers a buried lamp.

Her eyes quickly moistened, and I asked for more specifics.

"My cat is in the ICU at the animal hospital," she said. She blew into her handkerchief and became more definitive. "Missy has cancer, and the vet doesn't expect her to make it."

The pained look in her eyes recalled the one I had seen in my children's eyes ten years earlier when we put down our 14-year-old schnauzer.

"Sure," I said. "I'd be honored to pray for Missy."

As we stood on the quiet end of a busy hospital hallway, we joined hands and I whispered a prayer. It was not unlike the ones I say with the family members of our patients. I asked God to comfort the nurse and help her make the best decisions about Missy's care.

The nurse wiped her tears and thanked me as we both returned to work. I didn't think of her prayer request again until a few days later while on weekend duty with the Air National Guard.

That's when my chaplain assistant, Technical Sergeant Robert Webster, pulled me into our office to share a similar request.

"I need your help writing an animal eulogy," Webster said.

Clarity lingered from the nurse's pain the previous week, so I felt more sympathetic than I might have been otherwise. I motioned for Webster to pull our chairs close and invited him to say more.

"It's Sydney," he said.

I squinted. The name sounded familiar.

"She's my wife's 14-year-old Aussie shepherd."

He squeezed his arm rests, trying to grip the reality of it all.

"We had to put her down this week."

I'd never eulogized a dog, but then again, I'd never prayed for a sick cat until Missy.

"Absolutely. I can help you do that."

In both cases, please know, dear reader, I did not comfort them with platitudes such as "All Dogs go to Heaven." Nor did I say animals don't go to heaven. I don't speculate on the eternal destination of anyone, much less an animal.

However, I did pray for the pets because it seemed obvious to me that praying for their pets was in fact praying that my friends would be consoled in the love they knew for their pet.

My prayer included the Jesus' words in Matthew 6:26, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them."

The verse speaks volumes of how God cares for animals. And if God cares about animals, I know he looks for us to do likewise.

But the verse goes even farther when it asks. "Are you not of more value than they?"

The assumed answer to this rhetorical question is -- yes. And that is a win-win for both animal and man.

----------------------------------------------

Visit www.thechaplain.net or https://www.facebook.com/theChaplainNorris. Contact me at 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 or via voicemail (843) 608-9715. Twitter @chaplain.

 

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What have you done for your country today?

View this email in your browser Mundane Heroism Gets the Job Done   This past week as I enjoyed my free Veterans Day meal at a local restaurant, I couldn't help but shy away from the word hero that emblazoned the restaurant signage.   I think most people who served their county feel as I do. We were asked to do a job that we often did with routine regularity.  That point was hammered home one day as I made my regular chaplain morale visits inside the Military Personnel Office at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.   On this base where they launch rockets, I entered a typical Air Force office section to find most of the 30 airmen hard at work. Their supervisor, a chief master sergeant, stepped out from behind his desk to greet me.   His mannerisms were cordial and professional, befitting the highest enlisted rank in the military. Chief master sergeant is a rank that subordinates will sometimes nickname "god." So, you can see how I might have assumed that our conversation would be absolutely no-nonsense — an assumption quickly disproven when a second lieutenant stepped into our impromptu meeting.   To understand what happened next, you need to know that the lieutenant and I technically outranked the chief. However, his 25-plus years of experience easily outranked our rookie status.    "L-T!" the chief said, pronouncing each letter of the abbreviation for lieutenant.   The man stiffened in his polished shoes. "What can I do for you, Chief?" he asked.   "Well, for starters," the Chief boomed, "you can tell me just what in the hell you have done for your country today!"   The lieutenant wavered in the face of what seemed to be a public upbraiding, but the glint in the chief's eye told me that this was a comic routine, a regular part of their snappy repartee.   While I don't remember the lieutenant's exact words, I believe his hyperbolic intent is best expressed in a dialogue like this:   "Chief, in selfless service to my country today, I have thrown myself on two grenades, knocked out a machine gun nest and singlehandedly rescued three airmen from a burning building."   The chief smiled at the lieutenant's chutzpah. He knew, of course, that the L-T had done none of that. But more importantly, he also knew that the lieutenant was learning a valuable truth about work: Heroism isn't always measured by an individual's dramatic and drastic deeds.   The heroism of doing one's daily job is rarely romantic or adventurous. The grit is in the details. Mundane tasks sometimes are accomplished only through tireless work for many thankless hours.   Helen Keller best expressed this heroic truth when she said, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble."   Then, as if thinking of folks like this lowly lieutenant, she added, "The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."   The chief had one last satirical question for the lieutenant.   "Is that all you've done the live-long day, L-T?"   "No, Chief. I've also completed and filed the weekly personnel report, finished the commander's PowerPoint presentation, and to top it all off, I filled a cup for the mandatory random drug screen."   I looked at the L-T and then back at the chief. Both seemed to be holding their breath.   "Now, that is impressive," the chief master sergeant boomed. "Carry on, L-T!"   With that, the L-T smirked, giving us all "permission to laugh." ——————————————————— If you want to read more about military heroes, download a free chapter from my new book, "Hero's Highway – A chaplain's journey toward forgiveness in a combat hospital." It's available for sale on my website or at Amazon.com.   Copyright © 2020 Norris Burkes, All rights reserved. You signed up to be on Norris' list! Our mailing address is: Norris Burkes 10566 Combie Rd Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.