Last weekend, as the first chapter in my current sabbatical, — I went to Portland with Rabbi Marc Sirinski of Temple Emek Shalom. We'd — been planning this trip for six months. We went to hear another Rabbi, — Lawrence Kushner, for whom we both have a very high regard. Years ago — Rabbi Kushner wrote the following poem. I think it's one of the wisest — things I know:

—

—

Each lifetime is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

—

For some there are more pieces.

—

For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.

—

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.

—

And so it goes.

—

Souls going this way and that

—

Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

—

But know this. You do not have within yourself

—

All the pieces to your puzzle.

—

Like before the days when they used to seal

—

jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Insuring that

—

All the pieces were there.

—

Everyone carries with them at least one and probably

—

Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.

—

Sometimes they know it.

—

Sometimes they don't.

—

And when you present your piece

—

Which is worthless to you,

—

To another, whether you know it or not,

—

Whether they know it or not,

—

You are a messenger from the Most High.

—

—

Rabbi Kushner repeated his poem in Portland and then ventured — to say to us that he believed that most people are missing an average — of seven puzzle pieces. He also said that he believed those pieces we — give away and receive do not necessarily go to (or come from) people we'd — even want to associate with. Sure, our spouses have a piece of our puzzle — as we have a piece of theirs, but sometimes, for our own puzzle to be — complete we need contact with some people and ideas we find awfully foreign. —

—

Asked whom his greatest spiritual teachers have been, — the Dalai Lama of Tibet said with no hesitation, "the Communist Chinese." — He learned to love human kind from his mother, no doubt, but when push — came to shove and the Chinese booted him out of his homeland and killed — hundreds of his brother monks, the Dalai Lama found his idea of what universal — love is mightily tested. Without that experience to coax him to redefine — his spiritual boundaries, without that puzzle piece, he would not have — become the model of forgiveness he is today.

—

Kushner believes that people on this earth are often chosen — to be messengers of God without knowing it. We go about our lives, full — of busyness and preoccupation, when in fact we may be carrying out the — will of the Almighty. "I do not know how many times in one's life one — is a messenger," he writes. "But for everyone it is at least once. — Remember — only that you are not always going where you are going for the reasons — you think you are." We go about our heavenly errands in what Kushner calls, — "holy anonymity." The gravity of our tasks is unknown even to us.

—

But once in a while we find out. As a student I served — a little white steepled church in Myrtle Point. Two years later I was — ordained a minister and a group from that church came to the service in — Eugene and the reception which followed it. One of those was a grandmotherly — lady called Jean. Jean took me aside at the reception and said, "You really — helped me back then." I didn't know how, so I asked her to fill me in. — "Remember when you called me up that December and asked why I wasn't at — the party where we decorated the church for Christmas? And then you came — and got me?" Yes, I vaguely remembered that. "Well," she said, "Before — that day I had decided I was too old to be going out anymore at night. — I thought I ought to just go out for groceries and Sunday worship, that — was all. But I had such a good time that night; it made me think. I decided — that perhaps I was being too hasty in retiring from life. So I went back — to my doctor and said I'd like to go ahead with those gold treatments — on my arthritis he'd been after me to try. And, you know, they worked! — I felt so good I decided I'd go on a cruise. Well, I met a man on the — ship and we fell in love and then we got married and ?"

—

Everything for Jean had changed and she had chalked it — all up to a phone call from me; the kind you make most every day without — giving it a thought. What do you make of that? Perhaps you'd say, "She — was ready to make that decision; she just needed a little nudge." I agree, — but then a nudge is still a holy nudge.

—

—

Scott Dalgarno is pastor of Ashland's First Presbyterian — Church.