John Fischer The Catch

Hey ho, nobody home,
Meat nor drink nor money have I none.
Yet shall we be merry,
Hey ho, nobody home; Hey ho, nobody home.
— Stookey/Batteaste/Mezzetti

Peter, Paul and Mary made this traditional English folk tune a holiday favorite in the mid-sixties. My personal trophy was learning the guitar part as a high school student and singing this song in my own version of the folk super group, except we were “Jim, John and Gail.” (No wonder we were never famous.)

The song is about the London tradition of poor children caroling in front of people’s homes expecting to be given treats or money in return for their winter serenade. This part of the song is anticipating that in the worst case (nobody home) they will choose to make merry anyway.

Most of our giving at Christmas involves an even exchange of gifts—something appropriate to the friendship or the family connection. We sometimes base our gifts on what we received the year before. But the Bible talks about giving as well to those who can’t give anything back. This is the way God gave that first Christmas. He owes us nothing, yet He has given us everything in His only Son, and He asks for nothing other than for us to believe it and receive it.

It’s such a joy to know that in a week, we will be teaming up with many of you to do this very thing for the women of Isaiah House. Your response has been overwhelming, not only in numbers, but in Spirit. Your cards, notes and messages are heartwarming and genuine. They are a reflection of your love and Marti and I are so honored to be representing you in giving. Perhaps this is just a small taste of what God feels all the time.

The streets are very dirty; my shoes are very thin.
I have a little pocket to put a penny in.
If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’ penny will do.
If you haven’t got a ha’ penny then God bless you.

On October 30, 2010, The Opera Company of Philadelphia along with over 650 members of area choirs gathered unannounced at Macy’s Center City Philadelphia and performed the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah as they milled up and down the aisles of average shoppers on an average Saturday. Undoubtedly many of you have seen the video by now on YouTube. The look of surprise on so many faces is worth the trouble. If you haven’t seen it yet, you must. [See below for a link to the YouTube page.]

It’s been 268 years since Messiah first premiered. 268 years since George Frederick Handel holed himself up in his room for 24 days and wrote and orchestrated the entire thing. Later, as Handel searched for words to describe what he had experienced, he quoted St. Paul, saying “whether I was in the body or out of my body when I wrote it I know not.”

I know the answer to that: he was out. Way out. How else do you explain something that can stop everyone in their tracks in a department store in 2010 with the announcement that the Kingdom of God has come, and that Jesus Christ is the King who will reign forever and ever? All that while a salesperson is checking on the price of a cashmere sweater.

It is the Christmas season when our hearts are stimulated by joyous music and glorious words we can rejoice in. Which makes me think we should carry on the holidays until we are one, together, with the triumphant hope that the King of Kings provides daily.

I seriously doubt the pastors of the world will hear my wife out as they have messages of their own, but for her… she would vote for waking every morning to hearing Handel’s Messiah and the story of resurrection on earth and be challenged by “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” from Isaiah 40, and rise up in the marketplace every time we heard the first notes of the newly adopted national anthem, the Hallelujah Chorus.

The kingdom of this world
Is become the kingdom of our Lord,
And of His Christ, and of His Christ;
And He shall reign forever and ever.

King of kings, and Lord of lords,
King of kings, and Lord of lords,
And He shall reign,
And He shall reign forever and ever,
King of kings, forever and ever,
And Lord of lords,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hal-le-lu-jah!

And here’s a little-known fact. Messiah premiered on April 13, 1742 as a charitable benefit, raising 400 pounds and freeing 142 men from debtor’s prison. Even in the premiere musical celebration of his life, the Messiah is setting captives free.

Maybe you saw it — the photograph of a wooden cross draped with a military dog tag and a purple vestment and crowned with an army helmet. It was a memorial to Capt. Dale Goetz, a chaplain in the US Army who was killed along with four other soldiers by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. He was the first chaplain killed in combat since the Vietnam War.

I had wet eyes even before I started reading the story. Capt. Goetz considered himself called to this job and volunteered for the position. He was known as one who always went to the soldiers in the field where he could help them “through long days and nights of fear and dread.” His wife, and now single mother of three children under 11, struggles with the loss though she knows he was doing what God wanted him to do.

All in all it’s a poignant picture. A gun used for taking a life has been replaced by a cross on which a life was taken. All the accompanying accoutrements are symbols of war up next to a cross, which is a symbol of forgiveness, sacrifice, loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you. All of this, taken together, just tells me there are other ways to fight.

I’m not suggesting that Capt. Goetz is any more honorable or godly than those whose helmets hang on a gun; I’m thinking of this purely in spiritual terms in the real world where you and I live and work every day. In our world, fighting will get us nowhere. In our world it’s making peace that will make a difference. It’s forgiveness that wins. It’s love that captures all. And it’s losing that brings ultimate gain. And when we are done, our helmet of salvation will hang on the cross of Jesus Christ.

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

Kamala Harris in her victory speech as the new attorney general of California said: “I pledge and make a pledge to work hard every day to make sure the law of this state is on the side of the people of this state.”

Now I must admit I know very little about Kamala Harris so none of my comments bear any weight in regards to her political leanings or her job as our new attorney general. I am only intrigued by her comment about the law being on the side of the people.

It looks to me as if Ms. Harris has been on the campaign trail a little too long. It’s senators and congressmen whose job it is to try and discern what the people in their jurisdiction want. The law, if it is truly acting as the law, will not be on anyone’s side. The law is on the side of the law. The law will only be on your side if you obey it.

I couldn’t help but think that this is exactly what happens when we live by the law, even in a spiritual sense. We start looking for ways to bend the law – to get the law to be a little more to our liking. The Pharisees, the religious leaders in the days of Jesus, were experts at making the law work for them. They basically rewrote it. This is why Jesus came and returned the law to its former power. The law is the teeth of the gospel. It locks us all up in sin so that Christ can release us all to him.

No, the law is not on our side, but the Son of God, who is the fulfillment of all the law, is. So when you get Jesus, you get the law, too. And Jesus understands us. He has been tempted in every way as we have and will be, and yet He said no every time. We aren’t that strong.

The law was made to break us and set us up for the grace and mercy of Jesus. And it is for that reason we wouldn’t want the law on our side, because had it been, we never would have come to know our salvation.

So it all started with a Merry Un-Birthday Party to celebrate the lives of women without homes.  I have to admit, I was surprised at the reaction. I was thinking that in their current situation these women might be inclined to be cynical about celebrations. I was wrong. They loved it. Instead of the usual soup kitchen style meal provided each night by a volunteer group, Marti decided to turn the evening into more of an event and give these women something to smile about – something that would give them a sense of dignity that anyone deserves.

Some had second thoughts about putting my wife in charge of these dinners, but now her vision is being considered a model for others to follow. People are tracking with her as she followed the Un-Birthday Party with “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” a private party “for guests only” with giant walls of windows opening to a sweeping view of Central Park. As the full moon was rising over the city of fables, the jazz band’s drums kick-started with guest’s fingers drummed on the tables. For the next hour and a half, they drank in the music as sustenance and enjoyed the excellent hospitality and the delicious dinner straight off the New York Ritz dining menu.

Now it’s on to Christmas.

As certainly love and generosity and devotion exist, you can see His abounding light increasing as even more volunteers take on Marti’s challenge to face into their fears of homelessness and together begin to extinguish the gloom.

It will be an elegant December evening of Joy with sprinkles and glitter to add to the magic of an imaginative dinner for 90 women without homes that out-beats the Whoville’s Who-pudding and rare Who-roast beast. Every guest, the tall and the small, will stand close together as we stand hand-in-hand and sing, sing, sing!

And what is a peppermint stick without a cup of steaming hot chocolate following a delightful dinner? Especially when waiting for that jolly old elf to appear. Thanks to your early generosity, he has already RSVP’d.

Consider joining your early Catch responders and add to the gifts of dignity we require. Together we can begin to push back the curtains in the lives of these women who, at this time, have very little by offering a personal and slightly impractical $25-$35 Christmas-wrapped present from the hair and skin care, make-up, or perfume categories. A Catch member suggests Bath & Body Works that offers $10 off any item (promotional code when ordering – F102785).

Besides – it is Christmas!

Send your wrapped gift to:
John Fischer
1278 Glenneyre
Laguna Beach, California 92651

Of course we are pleased to serve as your elves if you prefer to send a financial gift by December 12th to the same address, designated for our women without homes.

“The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” – Mother Teresa

In her thoughts on homelessness yesterday, Marti brought up something we would do well to spend more time discussing. It’s this idea that homelessness may be closer than we think. Not so much that anyone of us could find ourselves homeless given the right set of circumstances, but that there is a type of homelessness that goes on even in the most secure of homes – a kind of absence of love that leaves family members fragmented and alone. Homelessness is having no one there to love you in your own home.

So disheartened are we who do not know every neighbor on the street much less their stories. When did our God-given consciousness no longer recognize our neighbor as our responsibility? When did we stop caring? Was it during the time we stopped treasuring our families with warmhearted concern and started arguing with each other until we dissolved into faceless fragments of our own isolation?

This has been one of the glaring inconsistencies in evangelical Christianity for some time. Everything revolves around evangelism and yet our homes are falling apart from the inside. So much focus on “outreach;” so little “inreach.” You can’t love “out” if you can’t love “in.”

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) Inner love stimulates an outer revelation. As Mother Teresa admonished us, let’s start addressing the poverty a world away by remedying the poverty in our own homes.

The majority of us only think of homelessness when someone tries to clean our windshield at an overpass intersection or holds out a cup for spare change.

But homelessness happens in other ways, too. In many cases we are just inches away from no longer having a door to lock at night or covers to keep warm.  And then there are those of us who live in a home, but begin to discover that we exist in a homeless state of mind – finding it easier to care for complete strangers on the other side of the world than to serve those starving for love right under our own roof, where many family members may believe they have no options and no other place to go, just like the homeless.

Every person who is homeless remembers his or her first day on the streets. Can you recall the first day you stopped caring for anyone but your own feelings of fear? Were you absolutely terrified in its loneliness or were you so detached from the love of the Lord that you hardly even noticed?

We can choose right now to wake from these nightmares of regrets. We can play a part in providing second beginnings for all sorts of reasons to those within our families and around the neighborhood, always toward connecting one to another, to us.

The homeless have a gift in the Salvation Army that offers just enough security to rest while figuring out options and the next step to take. For the heartless as well as the homeless there is the gift of Christ’s salvation in its pardon, and through the transforming power of the Spirit, the ability to see through His eyes and act out in His love to those who have contributed to our pain and loss.

The first step in all of this is simply to introduce yourself. Here… I’ll start: “Hello, my name is Marti and I no longer wish to live in a homeless state of mind. My heart hurts for you. Won’t you come in and make yourself comfortable?”

So how was your Thanksgiving holiday? I must admit ours was difficult.

After a tradition of scads of people over for a seven-course Thanksgiving celebration including my older son and daughter’s friends, neighbors, and relatives from out of state, this Thanksgiving was reduced to Marti, Chandler and me out to dinner. Anne was in Colorado on rotation for her medical school degree; Christopher, in his first year with the L.A.P.D. had to work his beat (the running joke around here is that Christopher brings them in and Anne sews them up), and our last living parent – the inimitable Grandma Vi, the life of former Thanksgivings – passed away a year ago. Before even the main course could arrive, Chandler, feeling the separation from a brother, a sister and a grandmother he loves, announced he wanted to go home. We walked out of this fine restaurant with most of our Thanksgiving dinner in bags. It’s still in the refrigerator.

There are sometimes when there is nothing you can do about sadness except feel it. I’m thinking especially of those who have recently lost loved ones, as well as the families and friends of servicemen and women who must feel this pain many times over every day, but especially around the holidays.

I have included a family picture with this entry to prove that I have one. This was taken at Anne’s White Coat Ceremony when her class received their white lab coats marking the beginning of their service rotations in the field, the last step in her degree from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. It was a proud day indeed and our faces show it. I can’t help but think of the hundreds, no thousands of lucky people who will receive a healing touch from Anne, just like there is no face I’d rather see in a time of crisis than Christopher’s.

So I guess you’re getting my Thanksgiving right here, right now. And the good news is: it looks like we’ll all be together for Christmas. Chandler can’t wait.

Much to the chagrin of some, this will probably not be the last word about Roses on Wednesday – at least by me – and today it is not the eve of Wednesday, but of Thanksgiving Day – a day I choose to thank the Lord for those who walk in the shoes of Christ – you, John’s faithful readers, and the true contributors to our Joy and Gladness.

Roses are as old as time itself. The Sumerians made the first written record of the rose. It is the national flower of the United States of America.

The rose has been used by many a poet. It was Shakespeare who said, in Romeo and Juliet – his sad and transcendent tale of lovers whose lives are destroyed by circumstance and society – “A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.”

The colors of the rose have many meanings:

•  Red Roses are for Love and Respect
•  Deep Pink Roses speak of Gratitude and Appreciation.
•  Light Pink Roses signal Admiration and Sympathy
•  White Roses are for Reverence and Humility
•  Yellow Roses reflect Joy and Gladness
•  Orange Roses symbolize Enthusiasm and Desire
•  Red and Yellow Blended Roses mean Gaiety and Joviality
•  Pale Blended Tomes of all colors are for Sociability and Friendship

I have learned the best things I know about roses from a single mom who died much too young for my liking or the liking of her two teenage children. She tried with great patience to teach me how best to tend to the roses in my own garden. While my roses made a meager showing this year, out of respect to Kay, they are presently sleeping under a blanket of winter while I warm my hands in anticipation, readying myself to receive their new life.

Kay taught me about Grand roses and Hybrid Teas, Miniatures, Climbers and Bountiful roses. All are different, she explained, but all are also identical from that same rose at the beginning of time.  The story of the Rose is many-colored and filled with drama and revelation.

Just as true, we are from the beginning of time and have all the emotional colors within us.  Each rose is a story of its own with many children.  So too the story of woman and her many children who have held to the earth and to God for life and love for generation after generation, and who, like Juliet and her Romeo, have had their beauty destroyed by circumstance and society.  If it weren’t for Christ and his love, like any delicate beauty, they, and we, would die.

Okay gentlemen. It’s Wednesday and you know what that means. Time to get your wife those roses you’ve been thinking about.

Speaking of which, how did you do last week? I hope you did better than I did, because I forgot. Oh I had a great excuse. I was too busy running around town picking up supplies for our “Puttin’ on the Ritz” event at the homeless shelter, but then again, I’ve learned something about “forgetting.” To say you forgot something is only shielding a deeper, much more painful truth: you didn’t care enough to remember… and that’s worse than forgetting.

Yes, I didn’t care enough to remember, and I’m the guy who came up with this “Roses on Wednesday” secret, at least I’m the one who passed it on to you. Proof of the fact that preachers, teachers and authors don’t always practice what they preach. Just because we can articulate something doesn’t mean we do it. Actually, being able to articulate something can give you a false sense of actually doing it when you haven’t done anything at all. Jesus told us to be doers of the word, not writers of it.

With Thanksgiving a day away and guests in town and so much to do and prepare, your wife will not expect you to be thinking of her. And anyway, it’s just Wednesday. Nothing special happens on Wednesday. Not until now…