Lyfting Me Up

I loved childhood fables. I was blessed to have parents who loved to read to their children. We read the classics, fairy tales, novels, “The Silver Sword” a story of children surviving the Holocaust. As a narrative theologian/preacher it has given me a store house to draw from. One of the stories I remember:

A poor shoemaker and his wife had fallen on hard times. One night, he cut his last piece of leather and left it on his workbench, planning to finish it in the morning. When he woke up, he found a beautiful pair of shoes already made—perfectly crafted. He sold them for a good price, which allowed him to buy more leather. Again and again the same thing happened: each night he prepared the leather, and each morning the shoes were finished…soon they were no longer poor. 

Curious, they decided to stay awake and see who was helping them. At midnight they saw two tiny elves enter the shop and work through the night, leaving beautiful shoes. Seeing that the elves were poor they decided to repay their kindness. They made the elves warm clothes and little shoes. When the elves returned they found the gifts and were overjoyed. They put on their new things and danced out the door never to return.  

The shoemaker continued to prosper with a grateful heart.

This ship has 2,400 passengers and 1,003 crew members. There are the “important people” who wear uniforms with stripes on them. But there are a whole lot of people who wear name-tags and sweep the floors, make the beds, serve the food, and are always asking how they might help. I have had great conversations with many of them. They come from villages, big cities and far off places. They are truly the diversity of this planet which is our space ship where we all are crew members (a paraphrase from our female Artemis II astronaut).  

They are quietly working day and night to make our trip special. My cousin Billy was in last days of life with Melanoma. We went down to the “River Walk” in Pueblo where he owned 60% of all the property surrounding it. He walked up to a gardener who was picking weeds. He struck up a conversation with him to share how much he appreciated how beautiful he kept the walkway. Our world works because of the millions of people who do the quiet work of keeping things going. They get up at three in the morning to milk the cows, pick up the trash, prepare the food, drive the school buses, care for the children, polish the rails, clean up our messes, and a thousand other things that make life work. 

I will gladly pay the “staff gratuity” charge at the end of our trip… and I am wearing my new shoes as I head to Belgium.

Onward and Upward,

Mark