The Critter and the Day of Resurrection

Maundy Thursday began in such an interesting way. As I was feeding my cat, she and I both heard a strange noise coming from the chimney. The damper was closed and wedged shut so there was no way anything was getting inside. But, the noise was spooky and it freaked us both out.

I ran upstairs to wake my husband. My parents were also visiting. So, down came the men to see what was going on. No one wanted to open the damper to let out whatever was in there. It would have been impossible to catch a bird if that flew out of the chimney. Or, most likely it was a squirrel. If one of those rushed out into the family room, I'm sure furniture and books would have gone flying as we tried to catch it. Imagine Chevy Chase chasing the squirrel in National Lampoon's Christmas. That would have been us!

Instead, we decided to leave it there and see if it could get out on its own. We put an end table against the glass doors to keep them shut just in case it got by the damper. Then we waited.

All day Thursday it continued to make terrible scratching sounds. Thursday night, it grew silent. When the sun came up on Friday, it began again. Were we just going to leave it there and wait for it to die?

That sounded like the only option available to us. Until I googled, "how to get a squirrel out of your chimney."

The suggestion I found was to put a rope down the chimney and wait until it climbed up the rope on its own. Since my husband is afraid of heights, my father climbed the ladder, dropped a rope down the chimney, and tied it down. Then, we waited.

We waited until Sunday afternoon. We hadn't heard any noise from the chimney since sometime on Friday. My dad climbed back up the ladder and untied the rope. Then, my husband slowly opened the damper to see if anything would fall out.

Nothing!

The chimney was empty!

Thankfully, the chimney was empty and whatever was in there managed to use the rope to get out! I thought a lot about this incident that paralleled the Easter weekend. The critter became trapped on Maundy Thursday. While it didn't die, it wasn't until Easter afternoon that we discovered it was free. It felt horrible to know that the animal was going to die unless we could find a way to free it. I am thankful that my dad was visiting so he could climb the ladder and tie the rope which enabled the critter to escape its potential tomb.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter Sunday filled with the promise of new life.

The tomb is empty! Thanks be to God!

The Old Rugged Cross

We were standing in a nursing home in Philadelphia, Mississippi wondering what we were there to do. The youth crowded near me as this was an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Volunteering in the nursing home was a little bit of a surprise for us. The mission trip's purpose was working on the Choctaw Reservation, painting houses. Not volunteering in a nursing home.

The residents were excited to see us. Fresh young faces. They smiled at the youth and began talking with them. Some of the youth opened right up as they realized the wrinkled faces were no different from their grandparents. Others were still unsure.

A man with a guitar showed up and began to play music. Soon everyone began to sing. We sang all kinds of songs: religious songs, funny songs, songs from their youth. Many of the youth joined in and happily sang along.

At one point, Tabitha reached over and tapped me on the shoulder. "Look at them," she said. I turned and saw an elderly couple sitting in the back. They were holding hands, obviously still very much in love. Tabitha said, "I want to find love like that. That is so sweet."

The song leader asked for requests and someone wanted "The Old Rugged Cross." I'm not sure exactly what happened next. Somehow, Caitlin and I ended up at the front singing a duet as we led the group in "The Old Rugged Cross." It went painfully slow as we sang all four verses. Caitlin looked at me with eyes that said, "Can't we speed this up?" We could only sing as fast as the accompanist played. It was almost as if Caitlin and I were killing Jesus ourselves.

Yet, as we looked into the eyes of the residents, we knew it spoke to them. It spoke of their faith they had nurtured their entire lives. A faith that was real and present to them as they faced the illnesses that plagued them in the present. A faith that gave them hope for the days they faced ahead. Especially the day that was closer to them than they wanted to admit. The day of their death.

As I prepare to sing this song in worship today, my mind returns to that nursing home in Mississippi. I see that couple who had experienced a lifetime of love and still held hands deeply in love with each other. I see a wrinkled face that found hope in an old rugged cross. I see the faces of youth who learned that love and faith are powerful ideals that can carry us through whatever we may experience in this life. I see hope that empowers us all that came to us from a hill far away. For that rugged cross on the hill far away, I am very thankful.