I’m glad you found my blog at this new site at WordPress.com. If you traveled from Blogger, thank you for daring to hit “Yes” button to leave Blogger, even though you were warned this new site was not checked for spam, viruses and malware. Now you’re here, and it’s safe. WordPress offers more options, without losing Blogger’s pluses. I’m anticipating WordPress will serve me better as I seek to serve others through this blog. But now, to what I want to share with you.
Reading Dr. Richard Crossman’s book, I Will Stand and Sing (Richard H. Crossman, 2005), I came across an excellent example of what I want to accomplish with this blog. It was the story of Annie Sullivan, hired to help the young Helen Keller, who was struck both blind and deaf before she was two years old. Dr. Crossman shares about watching the movie of this remarkable story, The Miracle Worker, and later seeing the stage production of the same drama. He wrote to explain the doorway of discovery experienced by Helen Keller because of the skill of Annie Sullivan. Annie attempted to teach a rebellious and difficult Helen, who had never been disciplined before in her life. Frustration and strain was evident for both of them. Dr. Crossman described the telling moment of discovery . . .
“Then came the famous pump scene in which Helen acted out the experience of feeling the cool water pour into her hand from the pump’s spout. In the dramatization, Helen expresses a sudden recognition of some distant memory, and attempts to speak the word water which sounds something like ‘wa-aaah.’ Immediately Annie runs to her and taps out the letters for the word water on the back of Helen’s hand. And for the first time, Helen perceives the connection between the tapping on her hand and the meaning. The tapping becomes a word for naming things and for gaining the meaning of an invisible world around her. Helen, finally, discovers a doorway through which she can make sense out of the invisible and silent world in which she had been imprisoned. It is the skill and patience of Annie Sullivan which opens the door.” (Clossman, page 160).
This is a good example of what I hope will happen to readers of this blog. That occasionally, they will find themselves doing what my tag line suggests: discovering what we might have missed, that matters most. In Helen Keller’s life, the water aha moment opened her to a new world that had been, before that moment, only a closed, dark closet to her. Each of us has aha moments now and then. Some discoveries point us to an untraveled path that take us to new places and experiences. Others open vast rooms to explore and where new meaning is found. Some discoveries unearth new ways to respond to a bad situation where we feel imprisoned. Or our aha moment may give us a new manner of relating to someone with whom we always seem to clash. We can have a breakthrough that we can forgive ourselves or someone else. It could be the major discovery that God is not only there, but someone with whom we can have a relationship. Or possibly, through self-reflection, we gain a new insight and suddenly have fresh understanding of who we are and what we are passionate about. And it fills us with new energy.
That’s my goal with this blog. I want to ruminate about my discoveries, what I have missed, that matters most. A life-altering realization is that our days are filled with such hidden treasure waiting to be found.
Dr. Clossman says the Helen Keller/Annie Sullivan tug-a-war was an epiphany for him. Epiphany, a word from the formal Church calendar, commemorates the revelation of Christ to the Wise Men when they visited Jesus after his birth. Today, epiphany is often used more casually. An unexpected answer, scientific discovery, resolution to a stubborn problem, or a fresh insight that changes our perspective, is called an epiphany.
In less profound ways perhaps there will be an epiphany from time to time, for readers of this blog. Perhaps, it will open you to your world in fresh ways. By God’s grace may it be so.
RANDY'S RUMINATING 
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