Laura and the Soap Dispenser

I woke up this morning and lay in bed smiling to myself about a long-ago incident.  The kind of incident that only happens to the parent of an unusually impulsive child.  The “child” is now in her forties, and I don’t think the telling of this will upset her.

When Laura was in middle school, the phone rang one day.  I heard the school nurse’s sweet but somewhat hesitant voice.  “Mrs. Chapin… we don’t think there are going to be any bad outcomes from this, but the principal asked me to call you and tell you what happened today.  Laura got her arm stuck in a soap dispenser.  She doesn’t appear to be injured, but we did have to dismantle the soap dispenser to get her out.”

I was not the least bit upset by this, because there was already quite a history of “incidents.”  If an idea passed through Laura’s head, she was already doing it with no thought as to the consequences.  My friends used to say, “you could write a book!”  I didn’t ask the nurse any questions, because I figured I would get the detailed report from Laura herself.

I should probably set the scene for you.  When the school was built, the open concept idea was in vogue.  Each of the wings of the building, which had multiple classrooms, was built without dividing walls.  There were rows of low bookcases sectioning the large area into classrooms, but anyone standing up could see the entire wing of the building.  The lavatory stalls were in an enclosed area, but the sink was out in the open and visible.  It was a large round affair with water spurting out all 360 degrees.  The soap dispenser was in the middle of the sink and a bit raised.  It had a plastic lid with holes to allow air to enter and equalize pressure as soap was dispensed.  These holes were larger than they needed to be. Unfortunately, they were large enough for a child’s arm…specifically for Laura’s arm.

Laura reported that after using the lavatory, she went out to wash her hands.  Another little girl was standing there very distressed, because she had dropped her barrette into the soap dispenser and didn’t know how to get it out.  Laura often got herself in trouble in a genuine but misguided attempt to be helpful.  So, she plunged her arm through the hole to try to retrieve the barrette.  She couldn’t quite reach it and pushed her arm in further.  Eventually she realized her arm was stuck.

According to Laura, the first teacher who passed her just shrugged and said, “I’m going to leave you there.”  I suppose given the open classroom concept, every teacher in the wing knew her and figured as long as she was trapped, they at least knew where she was and what she was doing.

Others did, however, come to the rescue.  Before the incident was resolved, the principal, the assistant principal, the school nurse, and assorted maintenance men had gathered in the attempt to extract her.  They tried rubbing soap on her arm.  Then an attempt was made with Vaseline.  After the greasing and various contortions, a maintenance man finally went and got a hacksaw blade.  He carefully slid the blade in next to her arm and sawed outward releasing her arm but destroying the lid of the dispenser.

The arm was neither bruised nor scraped, so I figured that was the end of it.  I didn’t think the school would bill us for the cost of the soap dispenser.  However, Watertown is a small city and stories spread quickly.  I discovered on Sunday that the incident was now part of local legend, as a church friend approached me laughing.

At the time, Watertown hosted the Miss New York State pageant.  My friend had the prior week attended a luncheon for pageant hostesses.  One of the attendees sitting at her table was a middle school teacher, who told a hysterically funny story about a student getting her arm stuck in a soap dispenser.  My friend said, “As soon as she said the child’s name was Laura, I knew it had to be your Laura.”

Ah, yes.  If you manage to keep the kid alive, an impulsive child makes life very interesting, and when you are an old lady, you may find yourself chuckling.

Teetering on the Edge

The world has gone mad.

Mad as in insane, out of its mind.

Mad as in a red-hot rage.

Horrible vitriol pours out

From distorted faces,

Teeth bared and eyes ablaze.

Words are hurled like spears.

They sear our ears.

They pierce our souls.

It is impossible to hide,

From the maelstrom,

To find refuge from the whirlwind.

How can we protect our children,

Those who are mentally fragile,

The innocents among us?

Can we turn ourselves around,

Seek common ground,

Calm the stormy waters?

Or are we on the brink of a precipice,

Are we staring into the abyss,

Teetering on disaster’s edge?

Jesus whispers peace.

He is the only answer.

Will anyone believe that?

“When He comes,

Will He find faith

On the earth?”        Luke 18:8

I Was There

In the humdrum of daily life, sometimes there is a moment that stands out.  A moment that one looks back on with amazement and the realization “I was there.”

One of my moments occurred during September of 1967 when I was a senior at Wheaton College.  We were required to attend chapel daily.  We sat in assigned seats, and someone checked at every chapel to make sure the assigned seat had someone sitting in it.  We were allowed a few cuts, but I rarely took them.  My senior year, my assigned seat was in the very back of the auditorium on the left aisle as one faced the platform. 

The chapel on that autumn day began as most others.  We must have sung a hymn, although I don’t remember which one.  The speaker was Dr. V. Raymond Edman, past-president of the college.  His topic was “Entering the Presence of the King.”  There was nothing remarkable about his beginning remarks.  He talked about meeting Ethiopian President Haile Selassie.  He spoke of the pomp involved in entering the throne room…the attitude of respect and reverence one felt.  He transitioned into observing the lack of reverence he often saw as people entered the chapel.  He was admonishing that we consider the attitude with which we should enter the presence of the King, and then right then and there…..

HE ENTERED THE KING’S PRESENCE.

He slumped behind the pulpit and fell sideways.  Even at the very back of the auditorium, I heard his head hit the hardwood floor of the stage.  As a nurse, I immediately surmised, and I think I whispered quietly to myself “cardiac arrest.”

Every muscle in my body tensed.  I was ready to spring out of my seat and run forward.  Then I said to myself, “You are sitting as far away as you possibly could.  There are probably 30 nurses sitting closer to the stage.”  I saw a friend named Jan move quickly from her seat and head forward.  She was only a few rows from the front, and I knew she was working her way through college as an ICU nurse.  There was also a coach who was certainly versed in emergency care seated on the platform.  I stayed put.

I’m not sure how much time elapsed, but the current president at that time, who was also on the platform, went to the pulpit, prayed and dismissed us.  No one spoke as we left the chapel.  I saw some of my friends standing in the grass across the street and joined them.  We talked quietly about what we had just seen.

For the next hour, there was almost no conversation.  Normally one is not aware of the sounds of footsteps on the sidewalk.  The surrounding chatter and laughter drown out the sound of shoes on pavement and cement.  But for that hour, all I heard was the sound of footsteps.

Eventually, the bells in the tower of the chapel began to ring.  We all knew instinctively that Dr. Edman had not been revived.  That he had irretrievably entered the King’s presence.

I have been present at the time of death for others…patients and family members.  But, Dr. Edman’s death was unique.  God decided to take him in a very public way as he was speaking in a place he loved about the God he loved. 

An absolutely amazing event…and I saw it with my own eyes…I was there.

What Will the Guys Think?

Time for a funny story.  I hope my son doesn’t mind me telling it, but it happened almost 20 years ago, so I think I’m safe.

My son was a bit unusual.  I realized this early on, and my husband and I decided he really needed to be home-schooled.  He was highly self-motivated and sped through the materials I gave him.  At the age of 13, he came to me with a brochure of classes at the local junior college.  It had been inserted in the local newspaper.  He informed me he wanted to take an American History course in the fall semester.

He had to jump through a few extra hoops because of his age, but when college began in late August, he was ready to go.  He was, of course, not old enough to drive, so I took him to the campus.  I wanted him to feel comfortable walking in to his first class, so we arrived early to scope things out.  I suggested we walk through the building and identify the classroom, so he would be confident.  He was clearly going to stick out like a sore thumb, whether or not he knew where he was going, because at 13 he had not yet had his growth spurt and looked like a little kid.

After locating the room, we went back outside and sat at a picnic table.  He said to me, “Mom, I am a bit concerned about this.  I am not worried about the academics.  I know I can do it.  But, I don’t know how I will be received.  Oh….I know what the girls will think.  They’ll think I’m just a cute little boy, but I don’t know what the guys will think.”

I replied, “Well, I don’t know either.  We’ll just have to wait and see.”

He went off to his first class.  I went to run some errands and returned in time to pick him up.  I sat in my car in the parking lot and watched for him to emerge from the building.  Soon I saw him, but he was not alone.  Next to him walked a rather stunning young woman.  She was dressed in tight blue jeans and a form-fitting sweater which showed off her attractive figure.  She had dark hair cascading over her shoulders and pretty features.  They strolled to the parking lot together, talking and laughing as though they were already good friends.

He got in the car, and I couldn’t help myself.  I said, “Nate, I know what the guys think.”

“You do?!" he said startled.

“Yes…they hate you,” I said with a laugh.

I continued, “You know, probably over half the guys in your class, would have loved to walk to the parking lot with that girl.  How did that happen?”

“Well, after class she came over and asked me how old I was, and we just got talking.”

He had three sisters who were teenagers when he was born, so talking to an “older woman” came easily for him.

He eventually made friends both male and female.  Everyone was older than he was, and some were even grandparents, or mothers who wanted to fix him up with their daughters.  But, he had a wonderful experience and even got involved with student government.  So much for the notion that home-schooling has a negative impact on social skills.

Am I a Racist?

Current events should cause us all to do a bit of soul searching.  Several incidents in my life when my conscience was pricked are coming to mind.

When I was a child, I was rarely left home alone, but on those unusual and unavoidable occasions, I was always instructed to keep the door locked and open it for no one.  We lived outside the city in a rural area where houses were far apart.  One day when I was alone, I heard a knock at the door.  A well-dressed black man was outside.  There was a window in the door so we could see each other.  He called through the door that he was having car trouble and needed to use a phone.  I shook my head “no.”

He said, “Oh, honey, I wouldn’t hurt you.  Please let me use the phone.”

I shook my head “no” again and moved out of sight of the door feeling terrible.  Did the man think I had refused him because he was black?  I had been sternly admonished to open the door for no one, so his color was irrelevant, but he didn’t know that, and I felt terrible.

After I had become a registered nurse, I worked one summer between college years at a hospital in Buffalo, New York.  I worked with a number of black LPNs and aides that summer, and we also had black patients.  There were not enough RNs to go around, so on the night shift, I covered anywhere from two to six floors for medications, treatments the LPNs couldn’t do, and assessment of situations in which they needed help.

One night I was called to a floor where a black lady was complaining constantly.  The staff on the floor knew her from a prior admission and said she was a difficult patient to deal with.  I do not remember whether the LPN and aide on the unit were black themselves or white.  I went in to try and settle her down and determine if anything was seriously wrong and her complaints legitimate.  She said she was becoming paralyzed and couldn’t move her legs.  The problem was that when I left the room and returned a few minutes later, she had changed positions, so I had trouble believing what she said.  I concluded that she had some mental health issues. It was an unpleasant night with no good solution to her seeming distress.

When I arrived on that floor the next night, she was gone.  I asked if she had been discharged or transferred.  No…she died this morning.  My heart sank.  My immediate thought was that I had not believed her because she was black.  When I expressed that I felt terrible for not believing she was genuinely in distress, I was told, “Don’t feel bad.  When she said she couldn’t breathe, there were two doctors standing there who were convinced she was holding her breath.”  She died right in front of them.

I suspect the woman did have mental health issues, and she already had a reputation with the staff, but I was still troubled.  Had I allowed her skin color to influence my judgment?

When my children were little, I took them to a pediatrician’s office where I had opportunity to interact with several of the nurses.  I had a favorite who was obviously intelligent, soft spoken and very kind.  One day I received a phone call from a professional acquaintance.  She was in a position to hire a Registered Nurse and had been informed that she needed to hire someone black to even things up at the institution for which she worked.  She said, “I understand there is a black nurse at the pediatrician’s office where you take your children.  Can you tell me her name?”

I paused and thought about it….a black nurse?  After a few seconds, it dawned on me.  My favorite nurse was black.  I had never consciously thought about it.

That nurse and I became friends.  One day we somehow got on the topic of traveling with our parents when we were young.  We both had the experience of our mothers packing our meals for days of travel and sight-seeing, but for different reasons.  My family could not afford to eat out in the days before McDonalds.  Her family could never be sure they would find a place where they would be allowed to eat.  I felt such sadness for her and a keen awareness of the differences in our experiences.

I hate what has happened and what is happening in Minneapolis right now.  A black man is accused of passing a counterfeit bill (which at this point isn’t proven), he does not resist arrest, and a cop with previous accusations of undue force, pins him down and basically kills him in plain sight of people who are begging him to get his knee off the black man’s neck.  What?!  How can this be?

Cops have a very difficult job.  There are some bad folks out there…black and white…with whom law enforcement must deal.  There are bad cops.  There are also good cops whose job is made more difficult by the bad cops and by violent responses to the actions of those baddies.

All the sensitivity training and regulations in the world won’t solve the problem.  The problem lies in the human heart and mind.  Only God can solve that.  Jesus died to redeem us from all types of sin…including racial prejudice.

May the Holy Spirit prick my conscience when I am tempted to deal with anyone in the context of their skin color or social status.

Mortal Man's Dilemma

Soaring forth on eagle’s wings,

We long to see the future.

To know what is down the road,

To live without conjecture.

Oh, to have the piercing eye,

That sees what lies ahead.

So we know with certainty,

Whether to embrace or dread.

This the plight of mortal man,

To be caught in pinpoint time.

One small slice of our life span,

Is all we can divine.

As we awaken each new day,

The veil so slightly drawn,

We step out in faith or fear,

Until the final dawn.

What will we do when God confronts us?

If I have denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me?  What will I answer when called to account?  Did not he who made me in the womb make them?  Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?  Job 31:13-13

These verses are part of a lengthy statement made by Job in which he lists potential sins and potential judgments against him by God for those sins.  I found this one especially interesting, in light of the tendency in our society for people in positions of authority to enrich themselves at the expense of those for whom they should be caring.  Substitute the word “employees” for “my servants.”

Having spent over 50 years married to the CEO of a business, I do understand that there are times when the person sitting at the top of an organizations makes decisions that are not understood by employees, and that may appear to them as unfair because they don’t have the big picture.  But, that is a different thing than ignoring a grievance and failing to act with integrity.  Job knows that he will have to account for living in luxury while turning a deaf ear and blind eye to the needs of his workers.

What makes the billionaire with multiple homes, yachts, and the most extravagant clothing and food, think that he deserves these things?  Didn’t God form his underlings too?  Didn’t they both start out as naked babes?  Won’t they both leave this world taking nothing with them?

A person may believe he deserves more because he is more intelligent or talented or works harder.  Who gave him the ability to use his mind or his hands? Who gave him the strength to work intensely?  Everything we have comes from the hand of God.  Any one of us could have just as easily been born slow of mind or weak in body.  We will have to give account for the way in which we have used what we have been given.  The parable of the talents (Matthew 25) makes it clear that we have responsibility commensurate with our gifts.

These verses speak also about something even worse than ignoring the needs of employees.  In the situation cited by Job, the employee has “a grievance.”  Unfair treatment is exposed.  It cannot be ignored, but no correction is offered.  Justice is requested and denied.

It is true that we have a loving God.  It is also true that we have a just God.  Because he is loving, he may withhold judgment for a time.  Because he is just, judgment will eventually come.  He does not ignore a grievance.

What will we do when God confronts us?

What will we answer when called to account?