Friday, September 9, 2022
Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Miles and Jasper, overnight, following Jesus
It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, “Let me wash your face for you,” when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. (The Message, Luke 6)
And so yes, there is a smudge on Jasper’s face. Usually it’s Jasper, sometimes its Margaret, or Miles, or even Andi or Aki. But in our household anchored by the three year old, it’s usually Jasper with the smudge on his face.
Jasper feels judgment quickly. It hits him like a heavy mallet, jars his brain, and silences him. He looks up at me and then quickly looks down again. Often I’m not judging him at all; I’m just startled, or I’ve done something myself that he thinks he did. Two days ago I took a water bottle out of the fridge, opened it, and asked if he wanted a drink, handing it to him.
He said, “No.” I dropped the bottle between us. Cold water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. He didn’t move an inch. A pall fell over his face. It took a few minutes of reassurance and re-direction to help him get over that utterly false guilt.
Can a blind man guide another blind man? Won’t they both end up in the ditch? And an apprentice doesn’t lecture his master. But be careful who you follow as your teacher.
These days Jasper and I get along pretty well. How does he know he should “follow” me, or “follow” Margaret, or his mom or his dad? What turns his heart toward us? How deeply does he trust any of us?
I think of all the ways we learn. Visually, auditorily, kinesthetically. Jasper often loves to be touched, to wrestle and cuddle with us or with teddy bears or even with the rug. He hears everything and often repeats it back with understanding. He goes to his bookshelf and picks out a book which he wants one of us to read to him. And he scans the skies when he hears an airplane. He hears sirens before any of the rest of us.
He learns every which way, led always by his innocence.
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.
In his “Clear Communications” class, Matt sometimes squats as if he’s talking to a four year old. He insists that if the speaker fails to get his point across, it’s his fault, not the listener’s. The speaker must adjust to the audience. When I adjust to Jasper, I’m also hoping he’ll adjust to me. But if he doesn’t, I need to make a change or two.
Miles AND Jasper are spending today and overnight into Saturday with us. We hope to find a fun place to go out to eat. We plan on swimming in our apartment pool. We’ll set up a tent in our living room and maybe even blow up a mattress to put inside. There are books to read, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs to build with.
I have no idea what “learning” comes out of that profusion of fun. But no doubt there will be a lot of it. Learning, that is. And I know if Margaret and I are following Jesus, we’ll be showing them, one way or another, how to do that too.
(1 Corinthians 9, Psalm 84, John 17, Luke 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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