By Jerry Johnston
Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2009
Last week, Sister D. baked me a lemon pie. I won't give her name. I don't want to undermine the spirit of her gift. I will say I know of no other sister who has less free time to pinch and poke pie crusts for crusty old newspaper columnists.
My first thought was of Jack Handy's little tidbit of wisdom: "When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmmm, boy!"
I also knew if I didn't share her gift I would never get to pie heaven.
I gave several people a taste.
"This is not her first pie," my wife said, licking her lips.
A member of our Spanish-speaking branch got scriptorial. "Do you think we could multiply it, like the loaves and fishes?" he said.
One single guy, who I knew couldn't cook his way out of a paper bag, wanted the recipe. And my grandson, Lincoln, who hates the taste of lemon, loved that pie dearly.
I'm telling you all this, of course, for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is to make you all hungry and envious.
The second is to show the power that comes when one individual focuses on another.
The gift was a lesson in "ministering to the one."
Years ago I was asked to pinch hit for our TV critic on a Hollywood press tour. At one point there I ended up in a corner with the four writers who gave the world "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." I asked them why their scripts had so much more staying power than others. They told me it was because they never thought about making jokes or making statements about society. What they did was focus intensely on each individual character -- their fears, dreams and feelings.
Would Mary throw that shoe or not?
Would Ted burst into tears?
By keeping their eyes on individual characters, they made "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" memorable and bright.
By doing the same with the individual "characters" we know, we can do the same with our own lives.
One on one, the job gets done.
There's an old expression: "He can't see the forest for the trees." It means a person misses the big picture by looking too hard at the details.
But I've always thought the expression should be turned on its head. It should read, "He can't see the trees for the forest."
In other words, he can't see the individual because he's so focused on the group.
He can't see individual Muslims. He only sees the group.
He can't see individual Republicans, Democrats, Mormons or Mexicans because he only sees them as part of a group.
But when we finally get past that, when -- like cowboys -- we finally cut a calf out of the herd for special treatment, that's when we begin to make the connections that can literally change our lives and change our world.
But then, the sister who baked my pie knows that. She has been doing it for years.
She learned it at the knee of a couple of other people who've spent their lives "ministering to the one."
Last week, Sister D. baked me a lemon pie. I won't give her name. I don't want to undermine the spirit of her gift. I will say I know of no other sister who has less free time to pinch and poke pie crusts for crusty old newspaper columnists.
My first thought was of Jack Handy's little tidbit of wisdom: "When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmmm, boy!"
I also knew if I didn't share her gift I would never get to pie heaven.
I gave several people a taste.
"This is not her first pie," my wife said, licking her lips.
A member of our Spanish-speaking branch got scriptorial. "Do you think we could multiply it, like the loaves and fishes?" he said.
One single guy, who I knew couldn't cook his way out of a paper bag, wanted the recipe. And my grandson, Lincoln, who hates the taste of lemon, loved that pie dearly.
I'm telling you all this, of course, for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is to make you all hungry and envious.
The second is to show the power that comes when one individual focuses on another.
The gift was a lesson in "ministering to the one."
Years ago I was asked to pinch hit for our TV critic on a Hollywood press tour. At one point there I ended up in a corner with the four writers who gave the world "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." I asked them why their scripts had so much more staying power than others. They told me it was because they never thought about making jokes or making statements about society. What they did was focus intensely on each individual character -- their fears, dreams and feelings.
Would Mary throw that shoe or not?
Would Ted burst into tears?
By keeping their eyes on individual characters, they made "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" memorable and bright.
By doing the same with the individual "characters" we know, we can do the same with our own lives.
One on one, the job gets done.
There's an old expression: "He can't see the forest for the trees." It means a person misses the big picture by looking too hard at the details.
But I've always thought the expression should be turned on its head. It should read, "He can't see the trees for the forest."
In other words, he can't see the individual because he's so focused on the group.
He can't see individual Muslims. He only sees the group.
He can't see individual Republicans, Democrats, Mormons or Mexicans because he only sees them as part of a group.
But when we finally get past that, when -- like cowboys -- we finally cut a calf out of the herd for special treatment, that's when we begin to make the connections that can literally change our lives and change our world.
But then, the sister who baked my pie knows that. She has been doing it for years.
She learned it at the knee of a couple of other people who've spent their lives "ministering to the one."
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire