It's kind of ironic to have a holiday called LABOR Day. One thing I've been thinking about recently is how hectic my life can get in a very short amount of time. In John Ortberg's book Everybody's Normal Till You Get To Know Them, he writes...
"Maybe the biggest single barrier to deep connectedness is simply the pace of our lives. If you think you can fit deep community into the cracks of an overloaded schedule – think again."
He is soooooo right. I'm embarassed by the number of times I think about stopping by to see someone, or picking up the phone to call, or jotting a quick e-mail -- but never do.
If you feel the same way, why not take some time on this Labor Day weekend and see if you can't SLOW DOWN just a little and enjoy the day of rest - maybe you'll find a few minutes to connect or reconnect with others (you'll be glad you did!).
2 comments:
I came across this article in the Arizona Republic, I thought it applied here.
With last breath, she prayed for her killers
Sept. 5, 2007 12:00 AM
With her final breath, Mabel Lopez offered a prayer for the two men who stood over her.
"May the Lord have mercy on your souls," she said.
The last of her killers was sentenced last week. I'm guessing you didn't hear about it. It barely registered on the news, and why would it?
We're a fast-moving city. Fastest-growing place in the nation, in fact. You don't get that title by standing still. We are all about the here, the now, the future. Nobody remembers an old lady who once reached out in kindness to strangers and was repaid with a death sentence.
It's a shame because Mabel Lopez, in the way she lived and in the way she died, could teach us a few things.
For much of her life, Mabel was a participant in growing this city, never content in the role of mere observer. She was a fixture in south Phoenix where she lived for 40 years, raising eight children and raising up her community. She never finished high school but she would go on to get her GED and go to college. By the 1970s, she was teaching English as a second language, advocating to help kids and adults alike get an education, working to make her city a better place to live - sometimes one person at a time.
"Mother would take anybody in," her daughter, Cathy Paddack, told me. "She would often take strays in, both animals and people who needed a hand. She was always trying to help people help themselves, giving them work, letting them earn a living vs. killing somebody, which is strangely ironic."
In late August 2000, Mabel took in Pablo Martinez, 26, and Miguel Lopez-Cruz, 23. The two had sneaked into the country several weeks earlier and were living on the streets when Mabel met them. She gave them jobs painting a few rental houses she owned and let them stay in the studio apartment behind her house. She bought them clothes and food, even toothbrushes.
A few days later, on Sept. 1, 2000, she found them drinking beer in her house.
Details of what happened that night came out several years ago at Martinez's trial. How they were drunk, how she told them to leave, how they stabbed this 69-year-old woman 19 times and robbed her. How she said a prayer for them before they ran out the patio door, leaving her there to die.
Her body was discovered the following morning, next to a telephone. The cord had been ripped out.
Paddack says her mother sent her messages in death. There was her voice on the answering machine the day after she died, telling of God's love and saying goodbye. There was the Bible by the front door, opened to Psalms 59, which starts out "Deliver me from mine enemies" and goes on to say, "slay them not."
The second of her killers, Lopez-Cruz, was sentenced last week. Both men got life in prison.
Paddack said her mother always set an example for her family and her community. She was far too trusting, but she cared about this place and its people. And she had that most precious and elusive of gifts: the ability to forgive.
"At the first trial, they asked him (Martinez), 'What was the lady saying, was she screaming for help?' And he said, 'No, she said, "May God have mercy on your souls," ' " Paddack recalled. "With her dying breath, she was praying for her murderers. She wasn't praying for her children; she wasn't praying to have her life saved. She was praying for her murderer's souls. That's a hell of a lesson."
It is a hell of a lesson, here in the fast-moving city. Maybe especially here in the fast-moving city.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8635
While this story is sad - it reveals that serving others is not always "safe". Yet that's still what we're called to do.
In truth, Jesus set the ultimate example for us - willingly laying down His life for us.
Personally, I still have a long way to go in this area. I like being "safe", but I'm praying God will change my heart so I'm more interested in serving others - regardless of the cost.
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