Religion in Daily Life

 © By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

A baby giraffe has a tough time as he enters this world. He falls about ten feet from his mother’s womb. He lands on his back. The mother giraffe checks her newborn baby, positions herself, and, with a swift kick, sends the baby rolling head over heels. She kicks the baby until he stands up on his wobbly legs. Then, she kicks her baby off his feet again. The baby needs to learn how to get up again. Getting up again and running will save the baby from the jaws of lions, hyenas, leopards and wild dogs. In a similar fashion, this is vital for humans, too. “Even if good people fall seven times, they will get back up again” (Proverbs 24:16).

Dennis Franz learned to get up again. Born near Chicago in 1944, Dennis started his acting career in high school. At Southern Illinois University, he majored in drama. In 1969, he enlisted in the army. He spent eleven months on the front line in Vietnam. He came home in July 1970. Then in his mid-twenties, Dennis was haunted by nightmares. For two years, he fell into drinking and drifting. It was his love of acting that helped him to get up again. In 1983, he got a recurring role in the TV drama “Hill Street Blues.” In 1993, he started playing Detective Andy Sipowitz in the TV police show, “NYPD Blue.”

John Forbes Nash, Jr. learned to get up again. In 1947, this mathematical genius from West Virginia entered Princeton University. Nash developed an economic theory that contradicted 150 years of accepted thought. He earned his doctorate and went on to teach at M.I.T. There he met Alicia Larde, whom he married in the 1950s. In 1959, Nash became a “paranoid schizophrenic.” Though plagued by this brain disease and its auditory illusions, Alicia’s love helped Nash to get up again. In 1994, John Nash received the Nobel Prize. The current movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” is based in part on his life story.

Jesus’ apostle Thomas learned to get up again. Thomas tended to look on the dark side of things. At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his friends, “You already know the road I’m taking.” Thomas replied despondently, “Master, we have no idea where you are going” (John 14:3-5). When the others told him about Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas fell into disbelief. The others could have shunned this disbeliever into separating from them. Instead, they loved him back into the fellowship where, with Jesus’ help, Thomas learned to get up again and take his place in the infant Christian Church.