Short Short Story: September 27, 2023

“Love your enemies?! You must be crazy," said the corrupt President.

The tortured, imprisoned woman replied, “I do love you, even though you are a billionaire by stealing countless properties of the poor; taxing the working poor to death and abolishing all taxes for the rich; and extending the death sentence to all religious organizations, environmentalists, and non-violent human rights advocates.”

A Short Story

 

He hated every second of Lakeshore Indian Residential School. Not a day went by that he wasn’t abused by a priest or nun physically, psychologically, or sexually. He had been taken forcibly from his parents by a priest and Mounties when he was only 5 years old. The school was 400 kilometres from his home, and he only got to see his parents once a year at Christmastime. Of course he wanted to stay home with his parents, but the priest and the Mounties would always come to forcibly take him back to the school for another year. 

At school, they took away his traditional Indigenous clothing, and punished him severely if he spoke Cree. 

He hated the school so much, that he tried to run away on several occasions. Only to be caught and dragged back to the school. Every day was a day of torture. 

One day, when a priest tried to abuse him for a third time, he summoned all the courage and strength he had and kicked the priest between the legs as hard as he could. The priest fell to the floor and, in anger cursed him. He then ran away again. Tragically, a nun saw him running and was able to send another priest after him, who brought him back to school. 

When the abusive priest cornered him, he punched him in the face and he fell back onto a sharp edge of a desk and was killed instantly.

30 years later, his body was found in an unmarked grave, and all of his family and members of the reservation had a day of remembrance to mourn his death and the deaths of other students who were discovered in a mass unmarked grave behind the school. 

A short story

Joy was a missionary who had taught school in Iraq for seven years. True to her name, she spread the joy of Jesus’s love to whomever she met. Many of her Muslim students fell in love with Jesus through the beautiful songs Joy sang. Joy had the voice of an angel. Listening to her sing inspired the soul, melted the heart, and was like a drink of cold water in the hot desert sun.

   Then, one day without warning Islamic State fighters invaded Joy’s school. One fighter grabbed Joy and threatened to kill her on the spot if she resisted him.

   She was blindfolded, pushed into a truck with other prisoners, and driven to an Islamic State building. They locked her up in a room for two days with nothing to eat or drink.

   Then, on the third day, a man came in and started ordering Joy to take off her clothes. She refused. Instead she started singing the most beautiful rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” that she had ever sung.

   The man pulled out a knife and threatened to kill her if she refused to do his bidding.

   Joy continued to sing. The man then grabbed her, shook her and yelled at her as he brought the knife closer to her neck: “I told you to take off your clothes!”

   Joy ignored his order and continued to sing, she couldn’t stop singing. As she sang, the man began to listen, he soon dropped the knife and let go of Joy.

   A few moments later, he began to cry. He sobbed uncontrollably, and fell to his knees, and buried his head with his arms.

   Joy stopped singing and looked at him and prayed for him in silence. She prayed as she never had before, for an enemy, one who most likely hated her and everything that she loved and believed in.

   After a few minutes, the man looked up at Joy and said gently: “Forgive me. Please sing that song again, it is beautiful.”

   Shocked, and expecting the worst, Joy was surprised and began to sing again.   

   “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

   “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

Pentecost Walker and Talker

Confused, Thomas walked around in circles, talking to himself, “Where am I? How did I walk so far from the city. This desert heat is killing me. I think I’m going toward the city, but the landscape looks the same, there’s my sandal-prints yet again!”

   On and on his words came pouring out.

   Suddenly he thought he saw a fire, then a wind came up and blew him in the direction of the fire. It seemed so irresistible, with its multi-colours streaming up to the heavens against the horizon. 

   “Maybe someone was there. Maybe I will survive. Maybe my life does have some reason to go on after all. It’s starting to come to me now, didn’t Jesus say something to us about the Holy Spirit and staying in Jerusalem and waiting for the right time?”   

A short, short story on keeping Lent

What does it mean for us twenty-first century Christians to “keep Lent”? the pastor asked his congregation this rhetorical question in a sermon on the first Sunday in Lent.

   There was silence for a few seconds. Then Pastor Jacob continued with the rest of his sermon on “What do you give up or take on for Lent?”

   After the service, shaking hands with his parishioners there wasn’t a word spoken to Pastor Jacob about his sermon. He wondered whether his message made any difference. He wondered if he made any difference. What was God up to in his life and in the life of the members of this congregation, Resurrection Lutheran Church? Sunday after Sunday the same response, the same soul-wrenching questions. Were there ever going to be any answers? he wondered. The more he looked and longed for, the less he saw any signs of resurrection in himself or his parishioners.

   Then, one day while preparing yet another sermon for Sunday, there was a knock on his office door. He opened it. In front of him stood a homeless drunk whom he had seen in church before.

   The drunk surprised him when he blurted out, “Pastor, I would like to take on something for Lent, can you baptize me?”

   They sat down and chatted further, they agreed to go ahead with the baptism next Sunday, even though Resurrection Lutheran frowned on such a practice during Lent.

   Next Sunday Bjorn Egan was baptized much to the surprise and dismay of many parishioners. Pastor Jacob wondered what was going to happen next. Was that the last he would see of Bjorn Egan?

   The days passed by quickly and as the pastor began the Sunday service, he was shocked and delighted to see Bjorn Egan and a dozen or so other street people sitting in the two back pews.

   Of course the congregation glared at them as if to say “What are you doing here?”

   After the service when Bjorn Egan shook hands with Pastor Jacob, he asked him: “My friends here were wondering if you would baptize them too?”   

Christmas shorts

Christmas shorts

Kjell sat in inside a Salvation Army shelter on Christmas day. He could barely move, think or feel, since he just arrived off the street from the minus fifty degrees with the wind-chill. Even though he was too sick with cancer, too old to work, too poor to own a home or pay rent for some other suitable accommodation; even though he had lost his wife a year ago, and their only child was in a special needs home because of her disabilities; he was most grateful for the Sally Ann shelter and the Christmas dinner he was about to eat with the others in similar, if not worst circumstances than himself.

Sigrid had all she could do to drag herself out of bed on Christmas morning. She heard the bells ringing from the village church steeple, heralding this day of joy, peace and love. Yet she wondered where these virtues were; had she lost them forever now that she had gone through with the divorce from her abusive husband? Where was the spirit of Christmas? Suddenly she heard a knock on her door. Should she answer it? Who was it? Surely her husband didn’t know her whereabouts now, or did he? Fear and dread, mingled with a seed of hope, and a speck of courage led her to open the door. It was her pastor, the Reverend Sharon Olavstad. After wishing Sigrid a God Jul, she said, “I thought you might need someone to talk to, so here I am.” Sigrid poured out her soul to the pastor for the rest of the morning.

Another Short, Short Story

Once upon a time, in the imperfectly perfect city of Purfeckt, lived some imperfectly perfect citizens who were in the process of electing a new mayor and city council. 

   The present mayor and 3 of the 7 city councillors were electioneering again, hoping the citizenry would re-elect them. 

   However, there were other candidates running too, most of whom were young, and inexperienced in civic politics. They were Sally, Mary, Harry and Barry. Or the 'rhyming Simons' as many citizens called them-some in jest because they alleged that these newbies had nothing unique to contribute to civic politics, they were all blowing the same trumpet so-to-speak, offering no viable alternatives to the present council.

   Then, at the last moment, a new candidate registered, with only a handful of citizens actually knowing her. 

   She was a recent refugee from Rwanda, a feminist, a devout critic of the status quo on matters of politics in the state and the church. 

   Her campaign was simple, yet profound. Zero umemployment rate, zero poverty rate, perfect peace with justice policies and love with mercy policies that guaranteed living wages for everyone, free education, free music, art and literature events that involved the whole city every week at city hall. There would be no need for police or jails or guns or emergency shelters and homes for the abused, since no one would have the need to break any laws, no one would be abused, no one would resort to violence to solve problems, no one would be bullied, or manipulated or hated, all would be loved, accepted and equal in the city, all would look after all.

   She was elected mayor for life, her name was Shalomie, and everyone lived happily ever after in the now perfectly perfect city of Purfeckt. One day, she observed, "This is all possible because the Messiah has come."    

Short Story: Jacob the sixth generation "PK"

He is a sixth-generation "PK," that's short of preacher's kid, coming from a long line of clergy ancestors, including a famous Scandinavian hymn writer-bishop. Of course he was raised in the good graces of mother church: baptized the first week of his life on Easter Sunday, attending worship services every Sunday and on special festivals with his parents, Sunday School, Confirmation on Pentecost Sunday, involvement in a youth group, choir, a special youth service trip building a school in a two-third world country, and loving, supportive parents. All of this, so his parents had hoped, would facilitate his faith-formation and maturity process. 

   Alas, then the shocking news came like a sharp knife to the heart. Jacob had written his parents a letter of farewell. Farewell not only to them, but also to everything they held near and dear, their rock-solid Christian faith and traditions. "What went wrong? What happened to our son that he'd do such a thing?!  They had hoped he would enter seminary and go into parish ministry. What is Jacob doing?! How could he become a Muslim? Is this for real, or a terrible dream?!" they lamented, crying, agonizing over this most horrible news.

   You see, Jacob had fallen in with "the wrong crowd" in college. In his religious studies class at the University of British Columbia, he'd met up with a few Muslims. They'd had their in-class debates and rivalries. Jacob was one of the strongest Christian debaters, and the Muslim students knew it. In fact, it took all of them to win a debate with only this one articulate and vigorous, Christian debater-infidel. 

   So what did they eventually do? Well, they decided the diplomatic tact. They befriended him. One day they invited him to attend an "information night" at their neighbourhood mosque. Jacob accepted the invitation, thinking he might have more opportunity to convince his classmates and other Muslims of the truth of his Christian faith. 

   When he arrived however, Jacob was in for a surprise. First, there was music and eating. Then he began to feel a bit drugged and passive. Had they doped up his food or drink? Then this strange looking imam entered the room and began his long 2 hour lecture. One point after another about how Christianity was inferior to Islam. Then the showing of three YouTube videos in a row. Followed by speeches by his Muslim classmates. The anti-Christian rhetoric exacerbated and Jacob's head was swimming now, being polluted with Islamic  radical jihad ideology. This continued all night, until this Al-Qaeda cell had successfully brainwashed and recruited this infidel Christian, Jacob. 

   In the morning he wrote his letter to his parents, and the cell group recorded his renunciation on video, sending it to YouTube for the world to see. 

   Next, Jacob and these cell group members went to Afghanistan to be trained in an Al-Qaeda camp. A month later, Jacob and the other cell group members were ready to enter Syria and terrorize Christian communities there. 

   They entered a mountain top village where Christians had lived for centuries. Then without asking any questions they opened fire. Jacob fired his rocket launcher into a small house, demolishing it. He then went to see the damage. He saw a mother with three young children-all dead. The mother still had her Bible in one hand. The Bible was opened up to Matthew 5:43-48. Jacob began to read: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven..." 

   Jacob took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and immediately realised what he had done. So he began his prayer: "Father, forgive me, and..."    

A short, short story

Abraham Shapiro was animated. He was making the most of every second that night over at the home of his best friends Ole and Ingrid Pederson. The conversation was long and lively. Abraham had many details to share.

   He was the only member of his family left. The others had either died, or had gone to unknown destinations. It was too risky to try and track them down right now. He had to make each moment count now. Ole and Ingrid had to know where everything was, all of his earthly possessions.

   In exactly one hour, he had to say good-bye to Ole and Ingrid. He didn’t know if he’d ever see them again, since he didn’t know if his flight into exile would work.

   The hour passed far too fast, they spoke of intimate things: the memories of joyful times together hiking in the mountains, studying together to prepare for their final university exams, singing in the community choir, sharing special events like birthdays and anniversaries. Attending weddings and funerals of family, friends and neighbours in the synagogue and the church.

   Finally the time was up. “Good-bye and thanks for everything Ole and Ingrid. Shalom my friends,” Abraham said tearfully.

   Ole and Ingrid responded, saying, “Good-bye Abraham, we will miss you. May God go with you.”

   The years came and went. Ingrid had died, and Ole was in an old folks home. Every once in a while he’d think of his younger years, and his best friend Abraham—was he dead or alive? Did he escape the death camps? After all of these years, he wondered what to do with Abraham’s possessions. “Who knows how much longer I’ll be around?” Ole said to himself.  

   One morning, as he arrived at the breakfast table, there was a new gentleman there. “Hello Ole, long time no see,” Abraham said, as he extended his hand out to Ole in a gesture of friendship. Abraham continued: “Have I a story to tell you!”  

A short, short story

Elias offers a prayer at the wall in Jerusalem for his people, especially the ones who live in daily fear of yet another bomb in the living room and children dead. 

   Abdulla throws rocks at the IDF soldiers who clear a path for a bulldozer to destroy his olive grove. He prays to his God too, that his enemy would be defeated and pushed into the Mediterranean. 

   A Coptic priest, named Joseph, prays for the safety of his parishioners, as their non-Coptic neighbours become increasingly suspicious by the day with the escalating conflict between the Egyptian army and the Muslim Brotherhood.

   Jews and Christians living for centuries in Arab nations are being ethnically cleansed and wonder what to do and where to go. Meanwhile, the Western media ignores them.

   All over Africa, Asia, and Latin America the little people like Lee and Kim, Seti and Ette, Jose and Maria are homeless and jobless thanks to large Western corporations developing natural resources for sheer profit, without any thought of the environment or the well-being of the peoples of these nations. 

   In the Western world, citizens like Harry and Janet continue to take their democratic freedoms for granted, shop til they drop, and buy cheap condos in warm and exotic places for the winter.  They can do this because they pay the least amount of money for groceries and clothing that come from nations that exploit their workers in sweat shops and slave labour agricultural estates owned by billionaires. 

   Meanwhile God continues to shed tears of sorrow at a world divided and falling apart, ignoring his love and super-abundant grace that envelopes the universe.
 

    

   

   

A Short Story

That damn phone, always rings at the most inconvenient time! You're in a hurry, late for work, over tired, have ten thousand things on your "to do" list - without fail, at times like these the phone rings. What to do, answer or let it ring? Finally, you convince yourself to pick it up.

   "Hello," you say with a slight tone of irritation in your voice.

   "Is this Sam?" the voice on the other end asks expectantly.

   "Yes, this is Sam, who I am speaking to?"

   "This is your long lost friend John." 

   "Which John? I know several by that name," Sam said, wondering by now if the unrecognized voice was some deceitful telemarketer trying to rob him of his time that he needed to spend other than on the phone.

   "Sam, you remember me, don't you? I'm your old friend from university days long ago, we graduated in the same class. You remained in Canada and settled into your teaching job in prison. I went overseas as a teacher-missionary at a church-college in Romania. I thought I'd be back in Canada after my three year contract was up. However, 30 years later, here I finally am." 

   "John! how good to hear from you after all of these years!" Sam now speaking with joyful surprise. "I had lost track of you, didn't know what happened to you."

   "Sam, I would really like to see you. I'm back here in the city hospital. Can you come up and visit me? I'm on the third floor, room seven of Compassionate Redeemer Hospital. Can you come today?" 

   Sam, again a bit surprised at both the location and urgency of his friend John, responded, "Why of course I'll come John. I'll see you in about an hour."

   Now in the hospital Sam is sitting on a chair close to John who is laying in bed. They have been reminiscing for almost an hour. Suddenly John abruptly changes the topic. 

   "Sam," he says with utter solemnity, "will you forgive me for that time when I took all of the credit for that research project we did together in university? Remember I was given an A+ and you were given a C+. That wasn't fair. You lost a scholarship over that and you had to take out a loan. Moreover, you even got rejected for that dream teaching job you had hoped to get because they chose another grad who had solid As. Please forgive me Sam!"

   At first a bit of the old hurt surfaced in Sam's heart. However it left almost as quickly as it came. "Of course I forgive you John!" Sam said with conviction. "In the long run, that episode in my life worked out for the better." 

   "What do you mean?" John asked. 

   "Well, as the saying goes, when God closes one door, he often opens up another one. That's exactly what happened for me. I thank God that I got that C+, and that so-called "perfect dream job" didn't work out. Instead, after my brother struggling with all of his personal problems and ending up in jail, I would go to visit him there. Eventually, I realised how much they needed teachers in jail. So, I applied for a position, and well, the rest is history. I was blessed with a three-decade teaching job in prison. If I hadn't worked there, who knows whether we'd be having this conversation John. After three decades of prison work, I've learned how important it is to forgive. Forgiveness has transformed the lives of so many prisoners. 

   "Thank you Sam," John replied with a sense of emotion and relief in his voice. "Now I can die in peace." Later that night, John fell asleep peacefully, never to wake up again.