Another lesson Dr. Lobody mentioned revolved around a story from 9/11. She was teaching at The Methodist Theological School of Ohio then and came onto campus that fateful Tuesday morning hearing the news on the radio. Being from New York, she knew lots of people who lived, worked, and had ministries all around Manhattan and the towers.
After a day of processing and praying with students and faculty (and not being able to really talk at all), she prepared to teach a class on Wednesday. Obviously, the syllabus was thrown out the window for a while.
As she began to lecture the class, tears streamed down her face and she wept as she taught.
A lady in her class was blind and had a service dog named "Walter." Service dogs are working animals and generally one is not interact with the dog like a pet. So each day Dr. Lobody greeted Walter as though he were part of the class but did not pet him.
This day, as Dr. Lobody lectured and the tears streamed down her face, Walter got up from under the table, walked over to her and simply put up his paw. She took his paw and for the rest of the class, Walter simply held Dr. Lobody's hand as she taught.
This is a beautiful picture of the role many of us neglect: the ministry of simply holding someone's hand.
Henri Nouwen, in his book In the Name of Jesus, comments that Christian leaders need to move from competence to contemplative prayer. In other words, we need to shift our focus from being the fixers to being incarnation - the presence of Jesus for those around us.
Sometimes we forget that the most powerful act of ministry is to simply hold someone's hand.
Under the Mercy,
Jason
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