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October 21, 2002 Dear Gabby,I'm not at all Christian. Actually, I have no faith in
anything. Is there any hope for a 17 year-old guy like me to start believing in
all the stories of the Bible? I
have so little knowledge on the subject. Unbeliever in Iowa Dear Mr. Iowa,
One of my parents’ most fascinating guests came to stay
at our house the summer I was nine years old.
It wouldn’t have happened at all if not for the fact that Dolly’s
Diner and the town’s only motel, Pleez Kum Inn (which was next door to
Dolly’s,) burned down. The night
before our guest was scheduled to arrive on the train, Bud Cooper, the town
drunk, got angry with Dolly’s cook Gilmer, and, in a fit of drunken rage, Bud
threw the oil lantern at him. The
whole town (except Bud, who was in jail,) came out to fight the fire. Needless to say, when the train arrived the next day,
depositing the speaker for the Ladies Auxiliary’s annual Scientific Social,
people were exhausted. Although
they remembered that he was coming, no one had remembered—until the last
minute—that he was supposed to stay at Pleez Kum Inn.
My sweet Mama’s home was volunteered by the president of the Ladies
Auxiliary. “Yours is the only one that’s clean every day of the
week, no matter what,” she told my Mama.
“And, if you’d be willing to keep Mr. Bell, we’d be ever so
grateful. And that’s how America’s most famous inventor of our
time, Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, came to stay for a couple of days at our house
the year I was nine. He was an old man by then but still so full of knowledge
that I just wanted to listen to him speak instead of help my Mama with the
chores. My wise Papa and Mr. Bell
sat in the front room while we prepared dinner that first night.
Little Stanley played with his toy soldiers at their feet and my snide
little sister Susannah (who didn’t have to help much, since she was only
seven,) hung over the arm of Papa’s chair, asking questions.
I heard snatches of conversation, but not nearly enough.
I kept finding reasons to fetch things out of the front room, so I could
eavesdrop. “Mr. Bell!” Susannah said, in her piping little girl
voice. “My teacher says you have
a ‘dreaming place’ where you figure out all your inventions.
Is that so?” I stopped with the pretty gravy bowl I was fetching out of
the front room cupboard, anxious to hear what he’d answer. “Yes, my dear,” he answered patiently, smiling at her
with his tired eyes. “I sit up on
a hill above the river and ponder the possibilities.” “And did you ponder the telephone up there, too?”
She asked. “If you don’t mind,” my Papa added, “I’d love to
hear that story, too.” Although he’d obviously told the story many times in the
past, and was scheduled to tell it at the Science Social the next afternoon, Mr.
Bell leaned forward to relate the story. “I wondered if there was a way to transport sound,” he
began. He told us about his beloved
wife and his mother (who were both deaf) and how he wanted to find a way he
could make a difference for people with that problem, He’d spent most of his
life up to that point, working with sound experiments—mostly as it related to
the deaf—so if there was a way to transport sound, he wanted to discover it. “So I made a decision to believe that transporting sound
was possible. I had no idea how it
might work, but I knew that if I believed it was possible, then it was just a
matter of figuring out the hows and the whys.” My sweet Mama quietly stepped into the room, took the gravy
bowl out of my hands, pushed me down into the chair I was standing by, and
disappeared back into the kitchen. “One hot summer day, I was up there at my ‘dreaming
place’ when a sudden flash of inspiration came to me.
And I knew! I just knew how
to go about making it work!” His
face lit up and we all leaned forward to get the details. As it turned out, his sudden inspiration didn’t mean that
the telephone was there already, it just meant that he had the idea.
What followed was hours of conversation with his father, who believed Mr.
Bell could succeed, discussing all the aspects of the idea.
He also spent months experimenting with his friend and partner, Thomas
Watson. But the telephone was born
in his mind that day up on the hill over the river in his “dreaming place.” What a story Mr. Bell told us that evening!
I’ve never forgotten the look of him or the sound of him, and every
time my phone rings during my nap, I confess, I feel annoyed at him! Mr. Iowa, I think maybe Alexander Graham Bell’s
conversation with my family may help you in your questions about God.
Like Mr. Bell, maybe it’s time for you to make a conscious decision to
believe that the existence of God is possible—and then, take all the time
necessary to understand the hows and whys.
Find believers to chat with about all aspects of the issue. Who knows? Maybe,
like Mr. Bell, you’ll have a sudden flash of inspiration.
Or you might just slowly, but surely, embark on a journey to find God,
until He begins to make sense. I
can promise you this, if you search with an open heart, you will find the
answer! And, I can also promise you that, unlike telemarketers,
(something Mr. Bell probably couldn’t have imagined, even in his most
inventive days), God isn’t in the business of annoying napping people! Sincerely Sincere, Dear Gabby,Should Christians (or their kids) just ignore Halloween or
is there a way to enjoy certain aspects of the holiday without displeasing God? Parent in Pennsylvania Dear Mrs. Pennsylvania
My beef stew never tasted as good as my mother-in-law’s.
Harry’s mom’s stew was the most delicious I’ve ever had. One day, early in my marriage, when I asked her about what
she did to make it taste so good, Mother Van Burden gave me a very short answer.
“A dish is made up from the ingredients you put into it.” My answer to you, Mrs. Pennsylvania, is similar to
Harry’s mom’s answer to me that day. A
holiday is made up of what you put into it.
It’s as good or as bad as you make it.
If you want to use that day to dress up in fun costumes and eat candy,
what’s wrong with that? (As long as you don’t tell the dentist.)
If the ingredients that make up your Halloween are filled with the
glorification of evil, then it’s bad. It’s like the difference between my beef stew and Mother
VanBurden’s. Sincerely sincere, ninetyandnine.com © 2002, ninetyandnine.com --------- Gabrigail Van Burden has been offering advice for longer than most of you have been alive. Email your practical Apostolic life questions to Gabby@ninetyandnine.com and be prepared for some straight answers!
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