the Rabbi and his student

a student sat with a Rabbi and said "i love you sir"
there was a long silence and then the Rabbi said to his student...
"do you know what causes me pain" to which the Student quickly replies...
"no" at which point the Rabbi said to the student...
"If you don't know what causes me pain, it is difficult for you to love me." SHALOM

trusting one's heart

Who 'listens' to you? All my life and ministry I listened to what people were saying and to what they were not saying. I have gone to battle hundreds of time, for people who were members of my Churches but for people in general, demanding in a positive sense that what the person was feeling was listened to...People would say "why are you doing this? and what do you expect to be the results?" But the people looked to me, because they felt that I cared for THEM, in the name of Jesus...

Last night after the stroke of two years ago, and telling dr. after dr. that there was something wrong and I told them of the fatigue, the itching, the chest pains, the itching, and they did NOT listen to what I felt and I felt as though I was overwhelmed by people who didn't care about ME...and they thought what I was trying to say wasn't true, Last night I went on a Google search for the symptoms of lymphona...after going on my own to the cancer center here in Melbourne...HE spent over an hour with me last Friday, the Director listened to ME. and I asked him what he 'thought" and he mentioned lymphoma...and he said he would walk BESIDE me through it all, and give me the medical info
and then would let ME decide...

I have a biopsy scheduled for MONDAY MORNING>>>in my google searching of the symptoms of malignant lymphoma I found about seven symptoms that I have mentioned to all these Drs. and until last Friday was listened to.. and I'm pretty sure that the biopsy will indicate that I am right in determining that I have hodgkin disease..

and it was while sitting on the Boardwalk early this morning gazing across the wide open sea...
that I deserve the same kind of concern that I shared with these hundreds of people...and I will FIGHT for Peter's right to be listened to and heard...and while i was writing this entry , i had a call from the Hospital where the biopsy is to be done, and they said I WOULD NOT be put out completely...and I told the woman, that I had been promised this...and would not have the procedure without it...and I will stand up for myself, and I miss my father, my best friend, who would listen to me and my heart...and would understand...

ROY MACKENZIE

You will never have the privilege of knowing Roy and his wife Lillian. They were in their 80's when I started ministry in Oak Lawn, RI> It was late fault and they were warning people over 80 to get their flu shots. Roy and Lillian didn't want to get flu shots, but I arrived one day and drove them after I had convinced them, to get our shots. Two weeks later Roy died...of the flu. and yours truly learned a valuable lesson in life and ministry.

Lillian said to me "I don't think that Roy wanted to get the shot..." It is easier to let others make important decisions for us, as we can blame them if things go awry. In my ministry, I listened to people, and helped them explore the options, but only so the person could make, for them , what was a correct decision for them. I never told people, after this moment, what they ought to do...even when family members or friends of the person I was talking to put pressure on me "He (she) trusts your wisdom..."

I have FIVE drs. working on my current health, all part of the same grouping, who referred me to the next Dr. and they are disagreeing with the decisions made by the next Dr. in line. In the process they have forgotten about ME...I have been saying for months that there is something wrong, but they have disagreed...and to be honest, I don't trust them anymore to give me the facts, the truth, so that I can make, what is for me, a correct decision...

I am overwhelmed...and only as I think back to Roy, and had I LISTENED TO HIM...it might have changed the outcome....

APRIL 6, 1993

I just had a phone call from Heather in Woods Hole, as she travels to the Vineyard, to spend the night with a friend. Tomorrow with tear-filled eyes she will drive to that quiet spot where Phyllis is buried.
Jennifer will spend the day with her family, and with tear-filled eyes might remember that she was playing the piano for her mother, as the latter reached out and left this earth to touch the face of God. I will observe quietly and thank God that I had the joy of being married to her for almost 24 years, and to be father to Heather and Jennifer who remind me so very much of their "mom."

She died during Holy Week 1993, her Memorial Service was held in St. Augustine's Church on the day before Easter...but her shadow encompassed, and still does, so much more. On the hot day in Syracuse, NY when we were joined in marriage by our fathers' officiating, we knelt on a piece of drift wood from Otsego Lake, and Pathfinder Lodge where we met and fell in love.

The words imprinted were 'IF GOD DIDN'T CREATE ALL THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS DOWN HERE...
WHO DID?" They were written by Linda Hart. As we pause tomorrow, unashamedly with tears in our eyes, we shall rejoice that we had the joy and pleasure in sharing daily life with one of the most beautiful creations of God. And we shall be thankful...

PHYLLIS EILEEN CASH SANBORN

I have a dream

Forty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was at Andover Newton Theological School, Phyllis was at Hillsdale College in Michigan. She was on tour with the college Choir that day and they were at a concert in downtown Detroit. They performed Mozart's "Requiem" in honor of and in memory of King... the solo "Pie Jesu" was a favorite of Phyllis.

Fifteen years ago she died of pancreatic cancer, and a young singer named Patty Howell came home from college to sing the Pie Jesu in her memory...and her dream, as with King, lives on in the family who loved her and shared in her dream...