Samuel C. Hughes's Blog
June 14, 2025
Source
(Published in the June 2025 edition of The Christian Century)
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I ignored it. I sat in Denver’s majestic Saint John’s Cathedral, savoring the worship, the sacred space. The caller could wait. For days, I had been at my wife’s side in the hospital. There it was again, the buzz in my pocket. Again, I ignored it. I realized it could be the hospital.
She was fine when I left her the night before. We were there for her chemotherapy treatment and TPN—Total Parenteral Nutrition—the milky white nutrients in a bag her body craved. She had become a thin, frail, near ghostly version of her usual vibrant self. But we had hope—it’s all we had during her six-year cancer journey.
I bolted from the Cathedral, found our car, and motored toward the hospital. My pocket vibrated yet again. This time, I took the call.
“I am sorry. This morning, your wife aspirated, sending harmful liquid into her lungs; she went into severe shock, her nurse initiated a rapid response, and she is now in intensive care, in critical condition. She is intubated. A ventilator is breathing for her, medicine is keeping her heart pumping.”
Her source of life was reduced to machines. I was stunned, suddenly facing the real possibility of losing my beloved wife of forty-four years.
“He is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:27,28)
My wife loved and lived this verse, which speaks of who truly is our source of life. I cling to this verse now, like how my fingers dug into the steering wheel that morning drive back to her.
In a caring and compassionate marriage, something remarkable happens. Two individuals can become more like one, start to look alike, act alike, finish each other’s sentences. It’s beautiful. It’s creepy. More than the sum of their parts, they become sweeter, wiser, achieving things neither could on their own. We had that kind of union.
“We see you have a standing order for resuscitation,” said the voice on the phone. “Would you consider changing that to a DNR?”
“What?” I was jolted into a brutally different world, pulled into a dark, cold space where breathing was suddenly hard. I probed. “Why should I reconsider this? Tell me more.” My foot instinctively pressed into the accelerator pedal.
“At this point, her condition is precarious. Her body is so frail. Her outlook isn’t good. If her heart fails and we resuscitate her, she will most likely not be the person you know. We don’t advise it.”
At that, my heart felt like lead within my chest. I couldn’t believe my next words. “Okay. I’ll change her standing order to DNR (do not resuscitate).” That decision, made while navigating freeway traffic, my mind racing faster than the cars around me, was the hardest decision ever. In a few days, I would face an even harder one.
Arriving at her room, I initially hesitated at the doorway to ensure it was her on the receiving end of all the tubes. She’s been in ICU before, recovering from surgery, so I wasn’t completely unprepared. This felt different. This wasn’t planned. We weren’t supposed to be here, in this room. She was motionless, expressionless. Nurses and interns were busily adjusting machines. With eyes swelled with tears, I leaned into her and spoke.
“Honey, I’m here. I love you.”
Her head awkwardly lunged toward me a few inches; her face still expressionless. Her head landed back on her pillow. I was a bit startled but excited that she heard me, knew I was there, and responded. That would be her last obvious response. Her hands never answered my squeeze with one of her own. Her face showed no reaction as I lovingly spoke to her over the next four days. Her body fought valiantly, her vitals slowly creeping upward before worsening. On her fourth evening, her heart pumped for the last time; the flat line on the monitor mirrored my own sudden emptiness. Nurses entered the room within seconds, followed by the ventilator specialist. The specialist looked at me, awaiting my consent to turn off her breathing machine.
I waited a few seconds, maybe longer. It felt longer. I nodded in approval.
There it was—the most gut-wrenching decision I’ve ever made. It was the right decision, but that doesn’t take away the stench, the ache, the regret. The magnitude of that head nod was immense, adding to my pain. My precious wife was now unplugged from her life source. And so was I.
With our union severed, I’ve experienced something unexpected. I feel less than one. The math is weird. It’s like one plus one was more remarkable than two, yet this greater-than-two minus one has been reduced to less than one, less than me, a lost soul searching for life.
Every day is an opportunity to lean into my pain, my grief. Some days go well. On other days, I’m simply a big ball of weeping mess. That’s the nature of grief, I’m told. So, each day, I do what I must. I accept. I go slow. I listen for my life source, for words of love, ready to leap into a divine embrace.
—Samuel C Hughes
September 7, 2022
Mary’s Yes
Mother Mary. Our Lady. The Mother of Jesus has many titles. Queen of Heaven. Full of Grace. Dare we say, Mother of God? To the tribal people from the small village perched on a hill in Galilee, more concerned with the daily tasks of baking bread, gathering water, sifting grain, or hitching up oxen to plow a small field, the little girl was simply Miriam. Oh, what a couple of millennia can do. This Galilee girl with the common name is now the best-known mother on the planet.
It could have been different, except for those precious words she bravely whispered,
See, I am the servant of God; so, let’s do this thing!
That may not be precisely what she said. Yet that was the meaning she spoke to that ominous and mysterious figure who lit up her hut and pricked her heart, pronouncing that she was about to notice a bump in her belly. Her consenting “yes,” let’s call it, changed the course of history.
Learning to say yes to those unmistakable sacred callings in our hearts would be invaluable for our growth. God is always, and I mean, always inviting us to go ever deeper into an ever-growing and ever-expanding relationship of love. If only we can answer with a yes.
Before fully understanding Mary’s yes, though, we need to notice what’s most often overlooked. God did not really ask Mary if she wanted to give birth to his Son. He told her she was going to! Let’s look and see.
“… the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, … And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored One, the Lord is with you!”
… behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
…And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1)
Notice, that the angel declares “You will conceive a child, you will give birth to a son, you will name him Jesus.” Sounds more like a done deal to me. That hard-to-miss, angelic messenger told her she would get pregnant. God hand-picked Mary for this task and Gabriel simply delivered the news. Yet God—ever the gentlemen—does patiently wait for our consent in life. He did for Mary as well.
This gentle-yet-firm prompting from God is important to notice. Why? For one, it’s a common divine strategy seen in Scripture—God showing up and telling someone they’ve been hand-picked for a task. God didn’t ask Moses, for instance, to venture back to Egypt, you know, the place where he was a fugitive? God said, “I will send you to Pharoah!”
And for Jonah, God said, “Arise and go” to Nineveh. Then there is Gideon. God said, “I’m sending you to fight the Midianites, so Go!” Same thing for Jeremiah. “I appoint you as a prophet!” Done deal. And Mary’s call was said in a similar fashion.
There is one striking difference, however. The difference is in their responses!
You may know where I’m going with this. Each one of these cowardly, pillars-of-faith men tried to squirm their way out of their calling! In a rather hilarious display, Moses and Jonah attempted the “I’m not a good speaker” excuse. Gideon insisted on a few miracles first, so God could be trusted. (I hope you see the humor in this!) Meanwhile, Jeremiah claimed he was too young.
Now before I heap too much unsavory dirt on the graves of these men, I must admit that I’ve used many of these same excuses. Maybe you have as well.
But Mary? She was different. She was very, very different. She straight away said “yes.” “Let’s do this, for I am God’s servant.”
God needed a mother for his son, and he picked the tender, 14-year-old Miriam. She was his chosen one for the task. She was full of His grace. She was very young herself—especially for today—for such a task and could have pointed that out. She didn’t.
Mary was going to get pregnant and angel Gabe simply came to explain how it would play out. So, if it was a done deal, what was the “yes” all about?
Her “yes” signified her acceptance of it. Her embracing it! Mary fully embraced what God asked of her! And, by the way, this embrace of her calling, this “yes” from Mary, this “let it be,” was simply awesome! It birthed Jesus into the hearts of you and me!
Mary’s willing acceptance should speak volumes to us. Why? We all face do-we-embrace-it or run-from-it challenges in life, don’t we?
For starters, God made me a certain way. God made you a certain way. We had little choice in how we started out. God could have birthed us in a myriad of ways, in a different time, in a different family, or in a very different culture. We could have had a different skin tone, body shape, or with completely different aptitudes and skills than what we now possess. But he created us exactly as we are! The question is do we accept who we are? Do we work on embracing our truest self?
But let’s return to Mary. It was certain Mary would get pregnant. God would make sure of it.
But it wasn’t necessarily a given that Mary would carry this Immanuel baby full term. Did I hear you shudder a little? Startling as it may sound, another rarely understood fact about the culture of the day is that Mary could have ended her pregnancy. In Mary’s day, there were ways to induce a miscarriage.
Various herbal recipes existed to end an unwanted pregnancy. Among the most widely used was the fennel plant. In small doses, it was used as a contraceptive. In larger amounts, it served as a “morning-after” pill. The plant would come to be called “the virgin’s plant.” Other herbs used were artemisia (wormwood), berries from the chasteberry bush, or seeds from wild rue. Rue, crushed and brewed like tea, is still used by Bedouin and Indian village women today.
You see, Mary was going to get pregnant, but she wasn’t necessarily out of options. Mary could have done the unthinkable. Yet, Mary answered her divine calling. And she outdid the men by a thousand-fold in doing so! Can I hear a resounding, yes?
Mary deserves our admiration for sure! The “yes” of Mary gave creation their creator. Her “yes” was the beginning of a great love story between the Word and his world!
We surely can’t or shouldn’t say yes to every prompting. The harm in doing so would far out way any good. And when we detect a sacred prompting, it’s ok to think twice about it or even squirm a little. Remember, God is ever the gentlemen. He is patient. He is kind.
But when we’re sure of a sacred prompting—as sure as if Gabriel lit up our hut and called us his favorite—it would do us good to model our response like that of the Queen of Consents.
Like the girl Miriam and her sweet “yes.”
“The only thing keeping us from intimacy is our own self-sufficiency.”
—Samuel C Hughes
February 1, 2022
A Great Love Story
Every good love story has certain elements; tools of the trade for hooking you in and retaining your attention. There must be a reason to keep you turning those pages.
There is the overlooked heroine, neglected or even mistreated. She may be a little quirky, but her quirkiness is adorable. She is smart and strong and has big dreams. And it goes without saying she is beautiful. Her story is so intriguing, you simply must stick around to see if she finds true love.
There is the rugged, strong, and handsome hero. He’s not your typical dude, he’s uniquely kind, sensitive, and even charming. It may take a while for the hero to see the heroine for who she is, but when he does, he is awestruck, and he endeavors to win her over.
A villain—or a cultural or emotional impasse—keeps the two apart. Their journey towards love is intriguing and irresistible. They have much to overcome before they can be together. The storyline is a fun, gripping adventure that keeps you full of hope that things will work out. And, yes, love prevails in the end, leading to the happy-ever-after ending.
God’s love story is a bit different. Our infinitely loving hero loves us from the get-go. We don’t have to win God over! There is no question about it. All we need to do is sink into that irresistible cozy chair of loving embrace.
We may not feel especially pretty, witty, or wonderful, yet God adores us. God has us clearly in his sights as the “apple in His eye.” We may not feel especially brilliant or talented or possess a particular whatever we think will make us worthy, yet God desires nothing more than our hearts.
“I have always loved you.” Malachi 1:2 (GNT)
“Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family.” Ephesians 1:5 (MSG)
(Isn’t the Message version fun, the way it reads like a fairytale?)
We may not even want to admit that God exists, or we may curse him for his lack of apparent goodness, yet God seeks our company anyway! God has always loved us. There is no earning his love. There is no need to become anything other than who we are. Our heavenly hero loves us, plain and simple. This isn’t rocket science. God crafted us just the way he wanted to, so why wouldn’t he love what he made?
In the typical love-story narrative, the distant lovers long to be together. They dream and scheme of life together. “If we could just get away us two, life would be a fairytale,” they say. In God’s love story, our ever-present hero is always with us.
“Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5 (NIV)
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love.” Zephaniah 3:17 (ESV)
In a typical love story, one of the characters might be consumed with “making it,” gaining a certain status, becoming successful enough, or good enough, to seize the love they seek. This subtle and ugly villainous way of thinking can also sneak into our heads. So much of life is transactional, we tend to think gaining God’s love must be the same. I must become what God desires before he will approve of me, we not-so-cleverly think. But here is the thing. There is no need of becoming anything other than who we are! God loves the real you! Furthermore, our perfect hero loves us as we are, not as we should be.
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.”Jeremiah 31:3 (ESV)
“His steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 136 (ESV)
(Just so we get the point, the Psalmist says it 26 times! Sometimes, I still don’t get it.)
Yet, here is a fascinating twist. When we know God’s radical, unconditional love, it will cause us to want nothing less than to live in that love! We will naturally show love to others! To be who we really are! God couldn’t do anything else but love us because that is his essence, his character. And we can’t help but become little beacons of love ourselves as we bask in our hero’s love for us!
Some are afraid to admit to such a dangerous truth of unconditional love, in fear it will enable people to live however they want and somehow make a mockery of God. The last thing God needs from us is to be a watchdog for him. He can handle things quite well on his own.
These past couple of years have not been easy. We’ve endured a worldwide pandemic. In America, we are at odds with ourselves to such a degree that it feels unprecedented. And now, a war is raging in Europe. Many feel as though our church has let us down through these hard times, being too busy pointing fingers instead of lovingly meeting the needs of the hurting. Many are rethinking what church should even look like and sadly if they even belong there.
What keeps me turning the pages of my devotion to God is his never-ending, always engaging, radical love for me! I am so thankful God’s love story for me overcomes what any villain can throw at me. I am also especially thankful God is forever faithful to me even when I’m the villain!
Even if I turn my back on Him and figuratively go to bed with something less—as did Gomer—God will lovingly take me back time and time again. Even if I squander away a wonderful relationship with others or my Savior—as did the prodigal son—he showers me with love and welcomes me home. Even if I get lost along the way and am desperate and all alone—like the one lost sheep—God will come and find me! My hero is always seeking, always forgiving, always loving.
Like me, you may at times question how loveable you are. If that’s the case, remember who it is who loves you no matter what. It’s God! And God is love. It’s what he does! You are the recipient of your hero’s grandiose, radical, makes-little-sense love.
That my friend is a page-turner! And it’s no fairytale, it’s for real.
“The only thing keeping us from intimacy is our own self-sufficiency.”
—Samuel C Hughes
October 15, 2021
Remembering
Journeying back into our memories. This can be such a rewarding exercise of renewing and reconnecting to our beginnings and to who we really are.
My wife and I recently took a road trip of remembering. In honor of our anniversary, we headed back to our beginnings—a little farming town in Wyoming. It had been 40 years since we’d been there. We were delighted to see the iconic water tower still standing tall. Our favorite restaurant is still serving their delightful prime rib. The town park where we would let our rambunctious puppy run free was as beautiful as ever. The very first church we called home was an even sweeter country chapel than we had remembered. Its steeple rising to the sky, as if to say, “Here I am, worship here.” And our special little house. It took a while to recognize it, but there it was! We pulled it up online to see inside and recall special times we had inside. We were so very young and naïve, but we thought we had the world by its bootstraps. What a fun time of remembering!
As these times are in the rear-view mirror, we can only go back in our memories. But in those memories, they are forever etched.
The practice of remembering—especially a fond memory—has many health benefits. Research has found it can improve a mood and stimulate inspiration. Remembering can provide a window into your authentic self (a series of 2015 studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).
Remembering can give a greater sense of meaning and purpose to your life. It helps weave together the threads of your life story. A 2018 study found that remembering even helps enhance the emotional health among people with dementia (U.S. News, Dec 26, 2018, Stacey Colino).
In the process of daily living, we are caught up in a subtle form of forgetting without realizing it. We have deadlines to meet. We have messy-at-times relationship challenges, hardships to hurdle, and the mundane daily challenges of too many red lights or a parking space seemingly impossible to find. Let alone, when life throws us a big curveball. All these hurdles cause us to feel separate and disconnected.
What we need is a practice that enables us to slow down, take a deep breath, and enjoy a moment of remembering who we are, what we are about, and where we are going.
On this same trip of revisiting our beginnings, I experienced “looking back” in a stark way while zipping along in our little Mini Cooper on a windy two-lane highway. I was entirely focused on what was ahead. I spotted a vehicle in my lane headed straight for us, passing the approaching cars. This car cut it way too close! He was on the wrong side of a double-yellow line—you know the one informing him he shouldn’t cross! I slowed down to give him space. Yet, to my surprise, there was another car behind him passing as well! Now I had to hit the brakes hard to give this second car enough room. My moment of feeling relief was interrupted by dreaded braking sounds. The cars behind us were aggressively stopping as well. I fearfully watched in my rear-view mirror the string of vehicles, including an 18-wheeler trying their best to avoid a pileup. Thankfully, there were no collisions.
It was another lesson in the need to remember what’s behind.
I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She encourages us to remember. Mary did her best to soak up all the amazing events of the childhood of Jesus and her special times with her son. After the shepherds visited her newborn in the stable, excitedly telling Mary of their angelic encounter, it is said she “pondered” these things (Luke 2:19). She reflected on it, trying to piece it all together and make sense of it. The root meaning of the word ponder is “to meet or to join.” And that’s the benefit of the practice of remembering, we piece our story together and make better sense of things. And not only did Mary ponder the memories of her son, she “treasured” them!
Remembering can become for us a wonderful prayerful practice as well. Let me explain:
Take one of your favorite childhood memories and grab a journal and pen. With a prayerful heart, ask God to help you remember the details of a special childhood memory. Journal your experience. Recall every loving moment. What were you thinking and feeling? Why was it so special to you? Who was there? Feel the joy in your heart once again. Be thankful for that beautiful event in your life.
Now, once again go to your special memory, and this time ask Jesus (with an open heart to hear from Him) what He was doing behind the scenes to help make it so special. That’s right, He was there too! How did He help orchestrate that moment just for you? What was He feeling at the time? Journal what you hear and praise Him for His infinite love for you!
What can we do to remember who we are? Turning a special memory into a prayer is one beautiful way. Try it and see.
October 1, 2021
Remembering
“What can I do to always remember who I really am?” – Juan Ramon Jiminez
Journeying back into our memories. This can be such a rewarding exercise of renewing and reconnecting to our beginnings and to who we really are.
My wife and I recently took a road trip of remembering. In honor of our anniversary, we headed back to our beginnings—a little farming town in Wyoming. It had been 40 years since we’d been there. We were delighted to see the iconic water tower still standing tall. Our favorite restaurant is still serving their delightful prime rib. The town park where we would let our rambunctious puppy run free was as beautiful as ever. The very first church we called home was an even sweeter country chapel than we had remembered. Its steeple rising to the sky, as if to say, “Here I am, worship here.” And our special little house. It took a while to recognize it, but there it was! We pulled it up online to see inside and recall special times we had inside. We were so very young and naïve, but we thought we had the world by its bootstraps. What a fun time of remembering!
As these times are in the rear-view mirror, we can only go back in our memories. But in those memories, they are forever etched.
The practice of remembering—especially a fond memory—has many health benefits. Research has found it can improve a mood and stimulate inspiration. Remembering can provide a window into your authentic self (a series of 2015 studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).
Remembering can give a greater sense of meaning and purpose to your life. It helps weave together the threads of your life story. A 2018 study found that remembering even helps enhance the emotional health among people with dementia (U.S. News, Dec 26, 2018, Stacey Colino).
In the process of daily living, we are caught up in a subtle form of forgetting without realizing it. We have deadlines to meet. We have messy-at-times relationship challenges, hardships to hurdle, and the mundane daily challenges of too many red lights or a parking space seemingly impossible to find. Let alone, when life throws us a big curveball. All these hurdles cause us to feel separate and disconnected.
What we need is a practice that enables us to slow down, take a deep breath, and enjoy a moment of remembering who we are, what we are about, and where we are going.
On this same trip of revisiting our beginnings, I experienced “looking back” in a stark way while zipping along in our little Mini Cooper on a windy two-lane highway. I was entirely focused on what was ahead. I spotted a vehicle in my lane headed straight for us, passing the approaching cars. This car cut it way too close! He was on the wrong side of a double-yellow line—you know the one informing him he shouldn’t cross! I slowed down to give him space. Yet, to my surprise, there was another car behind him passing as well! Now I had to hit the brakes hard to give this second car enough room. My moment of feeling relief was interrupted by dreaded braking sounds. The cars behind us were aggressively stopping as well. I fearfully watched in my rear-view mirror the string of vehicles, including an 18-wheeler trying their best to avoid a pileup. Thankfully, there were no collisions.
It was another lesson in the need to remember what’s behind.
I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She encourages us to remember. Mary did her best to soak up all the amazing events of the childhood of Jesus and her special times with her son. After the shepherds visited her newborn in the stable, excitedly telling Mary of their angelic encounter, it is said she “pondered” these things (Luke 2:19). She reflected on it, trying to piece it all together and make sense of it. The root meaning of the word ponder is “to meet or to join.” And that’s the benefit of the practice of remembering, we piece our story together and make better sense of things. And not only did Mary ponder the memories of her son, she “treasured” them!
Remembering can become for us a wonderful prayerful practice as well. Let me explain:
Take one of your favorite childhood memories and grab a journal and pen. With a prayerful heart, ask God to help you remember the details of a special childhood memory. Journal your experience. Recall every loving moment. What were you thinking and feeling? Why was it so special to you? Who was there? Feel the joy in your heart once again. Be thankful for that beautiful event in your life.
Now, once again go to your special memory, and this time ask Jesus (with an open heart to hear from Him) what He was doing behind the scenes to help make it so special. That’s right, He was there too! How did He help orchestrate that moment just for you? What was He feeling at the time? Journal what you hear and praise Him for His infinite love for you!
What can we do to remember who we are? Turning a special memory into a prayer is one beautiful way. Try it and see.
“The only thing keeping us from intimacy is our own self-sufficiency.”
—Samuel C Hughes
July 31, 2021
A Cone and a Giggle
My granddaughter loves to sneak up on her “Papa” and pounce on him. She loves surprising me, although I typically see it coming and she knows it. So, why does she do it? She craves the tickling she gets from me after the pounce. She loves to laugh. And I love it too.
After spending a few days with our kids, it was time for our drive home. That means traveling through Jicarilla country, and it often means stopping in a small village along the way. Why would we regularly stop in an unassuming town in the middle of nowhere? We stop for ice cream, that’s why! What’s better than ice cream to give a tired body the boost it needs for the last stretch of driving.
So, here we were, in line for ice cream with several Jicarilla. In fact, we were the only white-faced folks in search of our favorite flavors. It occurred to me how similar we all were at that moment in time. Each of us similarly craved the cold, creamy, savory tastes on our tongues.
My attention went to a delightful mom tickling her cute, young girl. The girl laughed and laughed. She would ask her mom to stop, yet everyone in that line knew she wanted more. Why not, every giggle session ended in a warm embrace from her mom. I giggled along with them, thinking of how I had tickled my own granddaughter that same morning. We all shared a craving for a cone, yet we also shared the sacred experience of a mom’s love and a young girl’s delight.
And yet, our cultural history and heritage could not be more different. During white man’s conquest of America, the atrocities we caused Native Americans were innumerable. It is estimated that the North American Indian population was anywhere between 5 to 12 million in 1500. By 1900, the population was only 237,000. A part of me wants to somehow make amends for it all. I would not know how to begin.
One thing I enjoy and appreciate about Jicarilla culture is their appreciation of story. They pass down wisdom to each generation through story. Here is an exampled of one such story. It’s a Jicarilla story of a great flood.
Many years ago, people lived under the ground. There came a time when there was no food, so the people sent a hummingbird up to see what he could find for them to eat. He saw the deep roots of a grapevine, which he followed up to the surface of the earth. The people went up through the hole and began living above ground.
One day a man looked down into the hole made by the vine, through which the people had entered the upper world, and saw that water was rising up through it. The wise ones knew that a great flood was coming and that something had to be done to save humankind.
They cut down a great tree and hollowed it out to make a canoe, placing a young girl in it. The tree-trunk canoe floated high on the waters until nothing, but water could be seen in any direction The wise ones had warned the girl not to leave the vessel until it touched land, even if she heard the waters going down.
Finally, the tree-trunk canoe touched ground. When the girl emerged, all the world had been drowned. She wondered whether she would always be alone. She went up to the mountains to rest. As she lay down, the sun shone on her, and warm water dripped down on her body from the rocks. This magic water impregnated her, and she later gave birth to a daughter who conceived in the same way. All of us are descended from her.
At first glance, you may be struck by the odd nature of the story. We also may be quick to judge the Jicarilla story as surely untrue. But this simply demonstrates what the typical western mind does. We tend to be concerned about details and whether a story is true or not. In contrast, the Jicarilla don’t worry about that—instead they listen for a message and allow the story to touch their hearts. I believe Jesus told His stories hoping we too would be less concerned about details and accuracy, and instead, listen for a truth to live by.
What I personally hear from the Jicarilla flood story is that God always allows for a redemptive “do over.” He is always nudging us to move upward, to rise above the fray of our own unawareness. Underground, buried in our ego, we are blind to the sunshine of His love above.
One of the greatest compliments we can give someone is simply to listen to them. The Jicarilla are taught to listen. Our society today needs racial reconciliation—making amends for past and present injustices. It must start with listening. Listening to the other’s journey without judgement, through ears of love and understanding.
I wish I could somehow make things right for my Jicarilla friends. Individually, I can at the very least, appreciate and listen to their stories. I once ran alongside a jovial Jicarilla man on a trail run which traversed several miles. Mile after mile, I listened to his stories. That was a good day.
And in that line for ice cream with my Jicarilla friends, I knew I had few answers. I only had that beautiful moment of an ice cream cone and a shared giggle. Yet, in that day, for that moment, that felt like enough.
“Simply put, there is no room for labeling in love. If we look down on others, we look down on God!”
—Samuel C Hughes
June 30, 2021
I Love a Good Trail
I love trails, whether it’s a special trail leading to a new, breathtaking place of wonder in the outdoors, or, better yet, a spiritual trail leading to a deeper realization of who I am and who God is. Most often, we feel the end of the trail is the goal, that perfect spot or that sacred time. And in a way it is, yet if our only focus is the end, we miss out on so much along the way. You see it’s time on the trail itself that is special and sacred. Our journey is sometimes glorious and good. Other times it’s brutal. Yet savoring the journey itself—easy or hard—is what makes a life well lived.
I happen to think Jesus also liked trails. He sure walked a lot of them! And along Jesus’ journey, He told stories. That’s right. He made the journey more fun and meaningful by telling stories. And His curious stories are intended to make our trail time more enjoyable as well. What makes our journey infinitely better is if we experience the Infinite and His love along the way. Jesus Stories helps you do that.
“God is always patient with us. We need to be as well.”
—Samuel C Hughes
May 31, 2021
A Treasure Hunt
Understanding the parables of Jesus may feel as difficult as finding buried treasure. Are His parables riddles to solve? Are they mysterious allegories where every character represents something in our lives? The original listeners also wondered. “What did that story mean?” they asked. Jesus’ answer was telling. “Are you that dull?” That’s a not-so-subtle response if I ever heard one! I think what Jesus meant is that we often try too hard when interpreting His stories. He intended for us to listen for a simple and personal message, as a child listens to a bedtime story. And as that child may think, I want to be just like the hero, we too are to imagine ourselves in His stories.
One of Jesus’ fascinating parables is a set of two little tales of hidden treasure. In one, a person finds a buried treasure and does everything he can to secure it for himself. In another, a treasure-hunter is on a life-long quest for the greatest of all pearls. Jesus invites us to ponder these tales.
I think the invitation is to ponder what our treasure is. What is it for you? Is it family? Is your treasure a certain position you’ve been striving for? Is it early retirement? Is it a deeper friendship with God? The most remarkable thing is to realize that God has His own treasure that He pursues—and it’s you! Remarkable indeed. How could I be that important to God, you may wonder. I wonder the same thing. And getting lost in the wonderment of this truth just may be the treasure hunt to be on! Jesus Stories will help your hunt.
“The only thing keeping us from intimacy is our own self-sufficiency.”
—Samuel C Hughes
