beautiful explanation of death

A terminally ill man had been visiting his pastor. As he was preparing to leave, he turned to his pastor and said, "Pastor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side."

Very quietly, the pastor said, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" the man asked incredulously. "You're a Christian man, you're a preacher. Don't you know what is on the other side?"

The pastor had been holding the handle of the door to his study. From the other side of the door came a sound of scratching and whining, and as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness.

Turning to his parishoner as the dog ran to the center of the room and stood by the nice new ottoman, the pastor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear. I know little of what is on the other side of death, but I do know one thing: I know my master is there, and that is enough."

And then he kicked the dog for piddling on the furniture.

May today there be peas within you,
And lettuce and watercress too.
May you trust God that you are exactly
Where you are meant to be,
Unless you're in Harrisburg, or
Just outside Augusta, Georgia,
In which case you're probably screwed.
I believe that friends are quiet angels
Who quietly bear us along when our wings
Have trouble remembering how to fly.
(So please don't drop me. It's a long way down.)

pumpkin philosophy

My sister-in-law sent this to me. I thought this was so sweet I wanted to share it with the world.

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff, and throws it into the compost pile. Then he smashes you up, mixes you with some other ingredients, and puts you in a pie pan. Once he's done that, he tosses you into the oven for a while at 350 degrees, and when you're done cooking, he has friends over for dinner and they eat you.

This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch. Happy fall!

Or you can read the original version if you prefer.

Copyright © 2006 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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"footprints" revised

I still like the version I wrote for Chicken Soup for the Soulless about five years ago, but this one is also excellent. I received it via e-mail from someone who found it on a livejournal blog:

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that for many times in his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened to be at the very lowest and saddest times in his life. At still other times in his life he could see only a single footprint, with a circle-print where the other foot should be, and a straight line between them. This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it.

"LORD, you said that once I decided to follow You, You'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only ONE set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed You the most You would leave me."

The LORD replied:

"My son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

The man felt much better, but was still perplexed. He asked: "But what of the footprints with the line and the circles? Where did they come from?"

"My son," said the Lord, with compassion in His voice, "that was when we were joined by a one-legged pirate with a wheelbarrow."

Brothers Grinn: back in business?

I sent out the first Chicken Soup for the Soulless piece for the first time in over a year, yesterday. It feels good to be back in the saddle.

Chicken Soup for the Soulless grew out of those annoyingly saccharine e-mails that people forward to everyone in their mailbox, about the meaning of life, footprints in the sand, and how God loves America more than any other nation in the world. I started making improvements and sending them back to the people who had first shared them with me, sold a few to The Wittenburg Door, and soon found myself running a mailing list with my friend.

The highlight of our run when was when Chicken Soup for the Soul threatened us with a lawsuit.

In addition to the lawsuit (which got us attention from The Home News-Tribune, The Times of Trenton, NJ Biz, the About.com Christian Humor site, and a Trenton-based legal journal), we were getting links from all over. We had readers in the military, the government, Youth Specialities, and God only knows where else. Plus, we had readers in Cambodia, China, Singapore, Russian, the United Kingdom, Australia and probably more than a dozen other countries with Internet access.

For various reasons, having to do rather somewhat with the labor-intensive nature of the list -- we wrote all our own stuff, and never made any money on it -- we took a long break, starting about two or two-and-a-half years ago. We wrote a few and distributed a few things during that period, but mostly the list was silent.

Not surprisingly, we lost about 250 readers during the most recent hiatus, an attrition due simply to people changing their e-mail addresses. I'm wondering if we'll take an even bigger hit when people check their e-mail and find themselves subscribed to a list they barely remember, if at all.

Well, I have hopes of getting the list's momentum back. I sent out a new mailing on Sunday evening, a little piece that turned an inspirational vignette about how heaven wouldn't be heaven without your dog, into a piece about SUVs and the people who drive them.

I'm working on a mailing for Tuesday or Wednesday about the Bush administration's solution to the growing energy crisis. After that I have plans for a murder mystery that I might be able to stretch into a couple weeks. We'll see.

My job at WCN was a bitch, and really ruined writing for me. It's good to be getting past that at last. I hope I can stay the course this time and get over them.


By the way, if you want to subscribe to the Brothers Grinn, we're hosted by Topica.


Copyright © 2005 by David Learn. Used with permission.

staff devotions

I've never been a big fan of daily devotions when it comes to matters of faith, especially when we're expected to lead them with one another.

Devotions more typically are shallow readings of Scripture or similarly light stories intended more to make us feel good than they are intended to challenge us to think more deeply about God or a life of holiness. Poems like "Footprints" are popular material for devotions. They reassure us that God is in control of things, and no matter how it seems to get, everything will turn out all right in the end.

We had daily devotions at Central Christian Academy in Bethlehem, Pa., when I taught there, and man the other teachers hated when it was my turn. I've always felt that the purpose of reading the Bible is to discover something new about holiness and our pursuit of God; and that we should share what we've been learning, rather than repeating the same homilies everyone knows and shares all the time.

In other words, I couldn't just be normal and light and fluffy, no, I had to do something different and sometimes even downright bizarre.

So one time I shared Orson Scott Card's different versions of the woman caught in adultery. In one the teacher spares the woman's life because he is corrupt, and sees an advantage in sparing her life; and in the other telling he kills her to uphold justice. That got a horrified gasp from one teacher, but I enjoyed Card's point that Christ strikes the perfect balance between justice and mercy, and that's why we strive to follow him and his example.

Another time I shared a passage from Don Richardson's "Eternity in their Hearts" about the redemptive analogies found in pre-Christian cultures, that missionaries connected to the gospel story so that Christianity would grow organically in the culture rather than being imposed from outside with its Western baggage. I was a former missionary and found this sort of thing fascinating; the other teachers found it tedious and pointed out how long it was taking.

These were not normal fare for devotions, I guess, but then it was my turn to lead devotions, and I found them both more interesing and inspiring that hearing that damn "Footprints" poem again.

Then of course there was the other school, Cradle of Life Christian School in Haiti. We had staff devotions there only twice a week, as I recall, and when I shared "what God was teaching me," it was about the obligation we have to the poor. I offered no answers, only the questions I was asking, and what I was seeing in Scripture and in literature.

No one in the staff objected to my knowledge, but the administration really didn't like that. I was put on probation the next day, and at the end of a month I was fired.

I'm not a fan of devotions, but I'm pretty confident I did that one right.


Copyright © 2003 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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gold for glurge

I finally have found a use for stupid e-mail. With just a little effort, I recently earned a few hundred dollars on it.

I classify stupid e-mail into three distinct categories. First is the senseless petition for a nonexistent cause, like saving "Sesame Street" from Chechnyan rebels who want to sell Big Bird for $4.99 a pound on the open market to buy munitions.

Second are bogus alerts about viruses that will cause planet Earth to wobble uncontrollably if you open an e-mail titled "Help a poor dog win a free vacation!"

Third are warm, fuzzy inspirational vignettes. These are the worst, and surely originate in the very pits of hell, where Bill Gates -- numerologically identified as the Antichrist in several e-mails I have received and on many Web sites I have visited -- has assigned a mail-daemon, third class, to fill the Internet with inane messages about God, the meaning of life and e-mail tracking giveaway offers.

These pieces of inspiration typically go something like this: A boy is walking down the street, when he is crushed flat by a falling piano dropped out of the cargo hold of a Boeing 747.

It's very sad of course, and the boy can't figure out why no one else notices the bright shining "birdies" who keep flying around him and playing Don McLean's "American Pie" on their harps.

Anyway, as the boy stands there, listening to the "birdies" sing about Bob Dylan and the Scopes Monkey trial, a dog comes by and licks the face of the boy, who comes back to life and begins his divinely appointed task of telling everyone all about those beautiful "birdies."

After this heartwarming tale comes the kicker. We discover at the end of the story that the dog was actually God, who was walking backward for some reason, thus reversing the spelling of his name and effecting a disguise.

We're also asked to forward the letter to everyone we know. (If you've been deeply moved by this tale, I won't mind if you dry your tears before you read on.)

These e-mails usually are preceded by personal messages from 23 people you never heard of before, all of whom claim to be deeply touched by the inspirational message. "I hat [sic] to send frowards [sic], but this was so beautifull [sic] I just cried and had to pass it on to you!" is one common motif.

Another is, "I never liked dogs before, but after I read this e-mail, I bought a black Lab. The next day, I went to the hospital for a checkup and my tumor was gone!"

I'm sure these people have been touched by something, but I don't think it was the story.

I tried to stop getting these forwards, and sent several messages telling the senders how much I really didn't want to get them. "Mom," I wrote, "I've seen these things a million times before and they annoy me. Please stop sending them to me." It never worked, though.

So a while ago, I decided I had had enough. It was time to fight back. If I couldn't stop them, I was going to perpetuate them, but I was going to do it my way. I took these pieces of inspiration and began to rewrite them, making what I think of as "improvements."

One of the first I personally hit was a touching (there's that word again) vignette called "The Cracked Pot," a title I probably should use for this column.

In this story, a water-bearer has two pots, one of which miraculously has developed intelligence through a trip to Rhode Island in the trunk of a 1992 Buick Century with a rubber band and a can of mushroom soup. The pot feels guilty because it spills water through a huge crack in its side.

In the original, the servant uses that leak to water flowers along the path, and then the writer goes into a touching (there's that word again) homily that God uses our imperfections just like that blah blah blah blah and so everyone should be a crackpot.

In my version, among other things the servant smashes the pot for its impertinence, and then slips in the spilled water and breaks his neck. It's much more satisfying than the original.

Something clicked deep inside when I finished this rewrite. I had found a voice. In the months since then, my best friend and I have rewritten literally dozens of forwarded e-mails, including urban legends, poetry and more than a few inspirational stories.

Some people find them hilarious, but others are concerned they aren't entirely appropriate.

"Aw, you can't make fun of 'Footprints!'" a friend of mine objected. I suspect he is the inspiration for that particular story since he frequently dreams about walking along the beach with God.

"No I will not send you any more devotionals," my brother Ward wrote me when I asked for more fodder. "To be honest, I find some of your 'spoofs' quite blasphemous and anti-God." (Ward backed down from that stance once I explained my satirical intent, and now just says I have no social skills. Well, duh.)

I found the perfect vehicle for expression in "The Door," a magazine of religious-themed satire I subscribe to. A few months ago, I mailed "The Door" my renditions of three classic pieces of inspiration, including the ubiquitous "Footprints" poem.

Last week, my copy of the magazine came, vignettes on the center pages, along with a check for $300.

It's a nice feeling, especially since most of the writing already had been done for me. Now I just need to find a way to cash in on those stupid petitions and virus alerts.