August 8, 2004, 11:30 PM

Janet. Here is the rest of the email which I intended to sent with the email I sent you yesterday. I didn’t send this story to you then because it wasn’t finished… Hope you like it. G’pa

Hi Janet. Hope you and yours are doing OK. Haven't heard from you lately. Your notes to me are greatly appreciated and always make my days brighter. It seems I am have feelings of being out of touch with my family lately, and have trouble putting these feelings aside. Its all in my perspective I guess. I’m working on adjusting those feelings.

I finally finished that piece I mentioned to you previously- and if my memory serves me right, you said you wanted to see it when finished. Well, here it is. Hope you are not disappointed.

I send my writings only to those who ask for them or indicate to me that they find some element of sense or non-sense somewhere in my incessant “babble; chatter; blabber; jabber; palaver; prattle; gabble; blather; jibbers; gibberish; and twaddle ” of that 'I call' poetry and short stories. Reasons are obvious... A couple years ago, someone I didn’t know sent me an email and said, “You are changing the meaning of poetry.” I hit reply and said, “for better or for worse? I didn’t receive a reply. Also, who ever they were, they didn’t mention my short stories! With some of my best short stories, my computer nearly crashes every time I try to “save” one - on printing one; my printer clears its throat and goes into a series of hiccups. Dumb computer! Love, G’pa

Janet. If you have a minute or two more -

I'd like to tell you about a situation that happened to me about sixteen years ago. Although, it was not an unpleasant incident, it nearly held my entire focus for a week. As it turned out, it was helpful to me in resolving a paradox that had sort of addled my mind, off and on, since I was a youngster. The paradox had to do with my need to fully express my deepest feelings for God in times of prayer.

This situation took place in 1988. Before getting into my story I need to say that I may infringe a bit on fiction along the way, even though I have the best intention of being as factual as my memory provides. However, I do know better than to base my full confidence on old memories. So, with that said-…

Presented August 8, 2004, 11:13 PM

Compassion

By Lou Rogers

One Saturday morning, while temporarily working in Washington DC, I was finishing a rather long letter to your Grandmother. - 32 pages typed - longest letter I have ever written in my life. She told me a few months later, when I was back home, that she had spent a large portion of two or three days sifting through that letter. She also said, she now had a better insight into my mind then she ever had before. I felt a bit dubious about that, and told her so! To relieve my anxiety, she said, the insight she gained was mostly- for the good. Uh-Huh…

After posting my letter that beautiful, snowy white Saturday morning, I trudged back through the drifting snow headed for the place where I lived. Along the way some unconventional thoughts crept into my mind about a prayer said by an ancient looking, much older man than any one of us three friends sitting in the dining room at our breakfast table earlier this morning. When he came along he very politely ask in a kindly low voice if he could join us. Nice guy? - - Maybe?

This grand looking old fellow with his stately little white goatee, was a newcomer to all three of us sitting there. As it worked out, I saw him only once more after that Saturday morning breakfast. I found out later that he was registered in the personnel office as being 98 years old - I was sixty. This man was looking entirely, too agile, and too youthful to be thirty-eight years older then I. - he looked ancient, but apparently he was in very good physical and mental, condition. Fascinated as I was about his apparent good health, I couldn’t help but carefully spy on him out of the corner of my eye in sizing him up. He cleared his plate and other dishes from his tray onto the table.- - Then this old gentleman closed his eyes and opened with a prayer, in a very low modulated voice, “Lord I am feeling much better today, and I hope you are feeling better too.” Well, - I don’t remember the rest of what he said. It seemed to me, his prayer ended very quickly. I was to caught-up in the “ I hope you are feeling better too” part, to hear anything further. Later I was told that the old man had strung out his prayer for about three or four minutes. Couldn’t prove it by me, as I couldn’t have told you what I had for breakfast- if you‘d of ask me before I left the dining room.

Later that morning after getting back to my room, I still had thoughts of the old man’s prayer, still hanging in my mind. I, for some reason, envisioned God listening to the multitude of sad prayers and requests for redemption coming from people that obviously, dearly love Him. Love for anyone generally engenders concern and compassion, usually deep compassion, for someone you dearly love. Still in my mind was the old fellow’s last part of the first line of his prayer - “I hope you are feeling better too.“ That nearly sounded presumptuous to me - maybe out of place? On the other hand, I thought of times when I had wanted to tell the Lord of my compassion for Him. These were feelings for God that began for me nearly as long ago as my teenage days. I have often wondered through the years, why shouldn’t our love for God bring expressions of concern and deep compassion for Him? With all these thoughts skipping around in my mind, I sat down and tried to put at least some pieces of my thoughts on paper. After writing a few lines, I put the task aside.

A week went by, during which I looked around often for that old, ancient man, but he did not appear. When Saturday morning again arrived, I found myself still pondering the issue of my deep love for God, yet my failing to fully express my compassion.

Finally, it came to me, that maybe it is not that we don’t have and feel compassion for God, it is that when we pray, or when we hear others pray, we do not express or hear expressed, direct compassion that is surely felt by all of us for God. During our prayers, we ask for and expect, forgiveness, help, and guidance from God, for ourselves and for those whom we feel are in need, and we express our sorrow for our transgressions, but how often do we express or hear expressions of direct compassion for the Lord? Are we overlooking something in our conversations with our Father In Heaven, that could and should sensitize our feelings of responsibilities to Him; sensitivities that could put our feelings on a more tender and realistic level that would help us better follow His will?

Well, it didn’t take me long to realize I did not have the answer. I felt like a fool in doing so, but I sat down and prepared a five by eight card with my questions, left my room with the card and posted it in the section marked “THOUGHT FOR TODAY” on the dining room bulletin board. I placed the card on the bulletin board while on my way to the dining room for lunch. On the card I had put the following:

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

During our prayers, we ask for and expect, forgiveness, help, and guidance from God, for ourselves and for those whom we feel are in need, and we express our sorrow for our transgressions, but how often do we express or hear expressions of direct compassion for the Lord? Are we overlooking something in our conversations with our Father In Heaven, that could and should sensitize our feelings of responsibilities to Him; sensitivities that could put our feelings on a more tender and realistic level that would help us better follow His will?

As I left the bulletin board area I felt very reticent about leaving that 5 by 8 card on the board. I thought, gosh sakes! Who is being presumptuous now? But, I left it and went on to the door of the dining room where I stopped, and turned to look back down the hall to that, “ominous bulletin board.”

Who do I see standing there? The ancient, old man standing squarely before the bulletin board. Why should that bother me? I don‘t know but it did. He turned from the board and walked to the Information Desk. It was to for away for my hearing, but it appeared he asks the lady there if he could sit at her desk. It looked like he started to write something and then, changed his mind. I moved on into the dining room, got my groceries and sat at a table with friends and started eating. About thirty minutes later as I was having a cup of coffee with my friends, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I looked up and standing there ramrod straight was the old, ancient man with a bristly, troubled look on his face and in his eyes. I stood up facing him and said, “yes“, and he abruptly cut me off, saying, “The lady at the desk told me you had put that new card on the board with questions about compassion and God. I said, “yes I did”. All this time he is speaking to me in a very quiet manner, but from his directness, I am feeling a mixture of embarrassment, irritation, concern and a wee bit of fear. Since preparing the card, I had been reluctant to leave it on the bulletin board. Also, I had been strongly focused in writing on the subject, but when finished, I still felt a little edgy on my conclusions and questions. -- Now I had to deal with this! --He continued to tell me that I had broached a subject beyond my right, and, that the subject bordered on being sacrilegious, and therefore could be hurtful to Christian believers. By this time my ire was coming up a little bit, and I told him, I hoped as calmly as he was talking to me, that actually my mind has been on this subject since listening to his prayer at the breakfast table the previous Saturday. At this point, he lower his voice even more than before, and said, “My prayer is strictly between God and me.” Upon saying that, he turned and walked away with a definite lilt in

his step. Well, I suppose he deserved to walk with a “spring” in his step. --There was something else working in my mind!

I felt a little embarrassed from the confrontation, but now, I was not a bit doubtful about the questions I had often thought about through my life, or, my putting the card on the bulletin board, or anything else for that matter. Actually, I felt good. I felt confident. The questions in my mind of expressing my full feelings of compassion and love for God had been answered in that ancient, old man’s parting remark, “My prayers are strictly between God and I.”

Again the same thought rolled through my mind as it did the first time that ancient, old fellow sat down with my friends and I at our breakfast table. Nice guy? -maybe?

. . .

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