"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5). We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we can choose the attitude with which we meet it, and over time that attitude shapes who we become.
These four stories about attitude, retold in our own words, take us from a French mountain village that sheltered Jewish refugees in the Second World War to a grandmother's general store, a birthday surprise for two very different twins, and a family that learned to celebrate a life well lived. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- The Rainbow of Le Chambon: Goodness Without Fuss
- Change It or Change Your Mind: Maya Angelou's Grandmother
- Where's the Pony? The Optimist and the Pessimist
- A Celebration of Living: "Live Until You Die"
The Rainbow of Le Chambon: Goodness Without Fuss
It has often been said that there are two things human beings cannot look at directly without going mad: the glory of God and the darkness of human evil.
After years of studying human cruelty, Philip Hallie must have felt close to that madness. Hallie was a professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University and a veteran of the Second World War. In one project on Nazi cruelty, he focused on the medical experiments that Nazi doctors carried out on Jewish children in the death camps.
Hallie later described what that work did to him. Across all his studies, he said, the same pattern kept repeating itself: the strong crushing the weak, again and again, until when he was not bitterly angry, he was numb at the endless repetition. His study of evil, he wrote, had become a prison. The bars were his bitterness toward the violent, and the walls were his horrified indifference to slow murder. Over the years, he said, he had dug himself into hell.
During this time Hallie came across a short article about a small town of a few thousand people in the mountains of south-central France, which had become a refuge for Jews in German-occupied Europe.
He read it with professional detachment, trying to classify types of cruelty and forms of resistance. He was about halfway down the third page when he became annoyed by a strange feeling on his cheeks. He reached up to brush away what he thought was a bit of dust, and found tears. Not one or two drops, he wrote; his whole cheek was wet. Those tears, he decided, were an instinctive expression of moral praise.
What Hallie was reading was his introduction to the people of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and their rescue of Jewish refugees, many of them children, during the war. Estimates of how many people the village and its surrounding area sheltered vary widely, from around 800 to as many as 5,000. In 1990, Israel's Yad Vashem recognised the whole town as Righteous Among the Nations.
Hallie went on to tell the story in his book Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed (1979). One of his readers summed it up in words Hallie came to agree with: the Holocaust was storm, lightning, thunder, wind and rain, and Le Chambon was the rainbow. For him too, Hallie concluded, the little story of Le Chambon was grander and more beautiful than the bloody war that stopped Hitler.
What shines through the story is the stubborn courage of the people of Le Chambon. Most were Huguenots, French Protestants whose faith in Christ had been shaped by centuries of persecution; the area had long been a refuge for Protestants. They were led, taught and encouraged by their determined pastor, André Trocmé, and his equally brave wife, Magda.
But what comes across again and again is their character, and the down-to-earth, no-nonsense quality of their faith. Many people in France let themselves be fooled by the propaganda that hid what was really happening to the Jews. The people of Le Chambon simply did what had to be done, what they had been taught to do, what they believed Christ expected of them. They sheltered and saved their Jewish neighbours who were in danger.
The evening Pastor Trocmé was arrested sums up the whole story. As Hallie tells it, the pastor and his wife had been invited to dinner by members of their church. Knowing the Trocmés often forgot such invitations, their hosts sent their daughter to remind them. But when she came into the Trocmés' dining room, she found the police arresting her pastor.
Word flew around the village: André Trocmé had been arrested.
And yet, typically, Magda Trocmé invited the two policemen to sit down and eat dinner with them. Her friends were later astonished, even upset. How could she sit and eat with men who had come to take her husband away, perhaps to his death? How could she be so forgiving, so decent to them?
Magda always gave the same answer. What were they talking about? It was dinner time. The men were standing there. Everyone was hungry. The food was ready. What did they mean with such foolish words as "forgiving" and "decent"?
That kind of reply was typical of the whole village. The people of Le Chambon brushed off praise again and again. They would look Hallie in the eye and ask how he could call them "good". They had only done what had to be done, they said. Things needed doing, and they happened to be there to do them. It was the most natural thing in the world to help these people. An outsider's words of moral praise, Hallie concluded, sat on them like a slightly uncomfortable wreath placed on their heads by a kind but alien hand.
Takeaway: The people of Le Chambon did not think of themselves as heroes. Their goodness had become a habit, a settled attitude of the heart. When faith becomes that natural, doing right in a crisis is simply what comes next. "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act" (Proverbs 3:27).
Source: Os Guinness, The Call, drawing on Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed (1979). Figures and recognition checked against Wikipedia.
Change It or Change Your Mind: Maya Angelou's Grandmother
Maya Angelou became one of America's most celebrated poets and writers. For several years of her early childhood she was raised by her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas, a time of calm and stability in what was otherwise a very painful childhood.
Her grandmother ran a general store, and one thing that really annoyed her was complaining. Customers would come in and grumble about the heat, the cold, and all sorts of other things that Grandmother thought were trivial.
Whenever that happened, Grandmother would wait until the complainer had left the store. Then she would call young Maya over and say something like this: "Sister, did you hear what Brother So-and-So or Sister Much-to-Do just complained about? Sister, all over the world last night people went to sleep, poor and rich, white and black, and they will never wake up again. Those people who died would give anything, anything at all, for just five minutes of the weather that person was grumbling about."
And then she would give the lesson Maya never forgot. "So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain."
Angelou later passed on this advice in her book of reflections, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993).
Takeaway: Complaining changes nothing except our own spirit, and usually for the worse. If something is wrong and we can change it, we should. If we cannot, we can still choose how we think about it. "Do everything without grumbling or arguing" (Philippians 2:14).
Source: Maya Angelou, as reported in Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul; the advice also appears in Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now (1993).
Where's the Pony? The Optimist and the Pessimist
This is a well-known humorous parable. Its origin is unknown.
There were once two identical twin boys. They were alike in every way but one. One was a hopeful optimist who only ever saw the bright side of life. The other was a gloomy pessimist who only ever saw the downside of every situation.
Their parents were so worried about how extreme the boys were, one so cheerful and the other so gloomy, that they took them to the doctor. The doctor listened and then suggested a plan. "On their next birthday," he said, "give the pessimist a shiny new bike. But give the optimist nothing but a pile of manure."
It seemed a fairly extreme thing to do.
After all, the parents had always treated their boys equally. But this time they decided to follow the doctor's advice. When the twins' birthday came around, they gave the pessimist the most expensive, top-of-the-range racing bike any child had ever owned. When he saw it, his first words were, "I'll probably crash and break my leg."
To the optimist they gave a carefully wrapped box full of manure. He opened it, looked puzzled for a moment, and then ran outside shouting with delight, "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's got to be a pony around here somewhere!"
Takeaway: Two people can receive very different gifts and still respond in the opposite way to what we expect. Our attitude often matters more than our circumstances. Hope looks for what God may be doing even when the box is full of mess (Romans 8:28).
Source: Traditional story, origin unknown.
A Celebration of Living: "Live Until You Die"
This is an inspirational story by the American writer and speaker Bob Perks, retold here in our own words.
"It's a treasure more valuable than gold," the young girl said. "I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Her family had gathered for a celebration, they said. Not a birthday, not an anniversary, not the birth of a baby. They were celebrating a death. That's right: a celebration of dying.
To some people that sounds strange. Death is sad and full of mourning, you might say. There is no happiness in losing someone you love. But for some, death can also hold joy. It is a crossing over to a better place, a spiritual completion, a holy event.
For Amy, it meant receiving the best gift she had ever been given.
Amy was very close to her grandmother. They saw each other often and shared some of their most precious memories together. When Amy was very small, they played together and went for walks together, and whenever Amy was sick, Grandma would come and stay with her so that Mom and Dad could go to work.
They loved each other through everything, and they prayed together about their deepest worries.
Like the time Amy tripped while carrying her mother's best vase. Without missing a beat, she turned to her grandmother and said, "It's prayer time, Grandma. This is a big one." Amy seemed to believe her grandmother had as much to do with mending and fixing things as God did.
Maybe even more. That was how much Amy trusted her grandma. Their love could survive anything life threw at them.
But some things cannot be avoided. The day came when old age had the upper hand. This time Grandma could not kiss it better. She could not pray this one away. Grandma was dying. It was her time, and what a beautiful time it was.
It was spring, and the flowers that she and Amy tended together every year were in full bloom. You might think that would be the perfect time to be alive, not to die. But Grandma helped Amy see it differently. At ninety-one she had lived a full life, and she had no regrets, except perhaps leaving Amy behind. But she had taken care of that too.
"Amy," she whispered. "In my closet at home there's a small wooden box with your name on it. Inside is everything I can give you, everything I hold dear. In that box is the secret to living a long life."
She did not leave a fortune. She had no diamonds or pearls to pass on. What she left was her secret to life. On her last day, she called Amy to her side.
They looked back together on a lifetime of love, happiness and faithfulness. They laughed and they cried. And before saying goodbye, Grandma pulled Amy close, kissed her on the forehead, and gently fell into a deep and final sleep, a sleep that would take her home to the greatest celebration of all.
A few weeks after the funeral, Amy went to her grandmother's closet and found the box. She carried it to the kitchen table where the two of them had shared so many happy moments, set it down, and carefully opened it.
Inside was an envelope with the words "My secret to a long life" written on it. Amy's heart raced at the thought that Grandma had gone to all this trouble just for her. She held the envelope to her chest and said out loud, "I love you, Grandma. Thank you!"
Inside the envelope was a single index card. On it were four words: "Live until you die!"
Amy burst out laughing. She ran out of the house and down the street to where her mother was, and the two of them sat together and laughed until it hurt.
Somewhere in all that laughter, Amy and her mother decided to hold a special celebration every year on the day Grandma died. Everyone who had known and loved her would come home for it, no matter where life had taken them.
There is a deep truth in those simple words. Many people stopped living in spirit and hope long ago, even though they are still breathing.
For Amy and her family, it is not a secret anymore. It is a celebration.
Takeaway: Jesus said he came so that we "may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). Living fully, with love, faith and gratitude, right up to the end, is an attitude we can choose every day.
Source: Bob Perks.
Final thoughts
A village that thought goodness was simply normal, a grandmother who would not tolerate grumbling, a boy searching for a pony in a box of manure, and another grandmother who left one instruction: live until you die. Attitude is not everything, but it shapes everything.
What one attitude would you like God to change in you this week?
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These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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