My friend Jim is a minister. He wears a big cross. He gives a big wad of money away every year. He is devout. He is smart. His children are gifted. And his wife mows the lawn. Naturally, I “despise” him.
Once he went on a trip to Honduras, a mission trip, he told me, to minister to the poor. He needed work boots for the trip, so I lent him a pair of mine.
I have two pair of boots; my motorcycle boots and my snow-shoveling boots. My motorcycle boots are the John Wayne’s of footwear. I pull those babies on, and small children cower behind their mothers’ skirts. No one, I repeat, NO ONE wears them but me. My snow-shoveling boots are part of the Ward Cleaver collection. Thankfully, I haven’t had to wear them since convincing my wife that shoveling snow actually melts fat from the hips and thighs. Jim got those boots!
I drove Jim to the airport. He had never flown before and was nervous, so I pointed out to him that death by airplane crash, though increasingly common, was virtually painless.
Jim was gone for three weeks. He called on the phone when he got back home. “I have good news and I have bad news!” he said. The bad news is that the airlines said they lost all my luggage, including your boots. The good news is that the airlines said they were sure to find everything.”
I lost them, but they were not a loss.
There are losses, and then there are LOSSES. Whenever I see Jim, I reminisce aloud about the best pair of boots I’d ever had. But the truth is, I haven’t missed them at all. I lost them, but they were not a loss. My grandmother, Norma, died right before that and it was an uppercut to the heart. It felt like a thief broke in and stole the family quilt and ripped out the centerpiece. So there are losses, and then there are LOSSES.
A story in the Bible (Luke 15) tells about a man who lost a prodigal son. The other side of that story is about a son who lost a father. Then it hit him that maybe his father wasn’t lost to him after all and he swallowed pride and headed for home.
My friend Jim says that pride can cause us to lose a lot of things — like perspective, and faith, and compassion. He’s right, of course, like he is about most things. Which is, if you don’t know, why I don’t like him. But I’m working on it.
Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor who ministers in Indianapolis. He is married and has two preschool sons. In addition to pastoring and writing, Gulley enjoys spending Sunday afternoons in his hometown.
Title: "Losses and Real Losses"
Author: Philip Gulley
Publication Date: September 7, 2000
Losses and Real Losses
