GET FOUND KID
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Get Found Kid!”
FAVORITE STORY
One of my favorite stories - that today’s gospel triggers for me – is
found in Robert Fulghum’s Book, All I
Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.
If you haven’t read that book – or any of Robert
Fulghum’s books – hint, hint, great Christmas gifts for those you love.
I have five of his books – one of which is autographed
for me. I have read his books over and over again. I had told my niece Margie’s
husband about Robert Fulghman. Next he spotted that Fulghum was giving a talk
and book signing in Phoenix, Arizona – so Jerry went to hear him.
After the talk, Jerry went up to him with two books with the same title to be
signed.
Robert Fulghum - with pen in hand said, “Who’s this
second copy for?”
My nephew-in-law, Jerry, said, “For my Uncle Andy. He’s a priest and he
loves your stuff.”
Fulghum looks up and says, “A priest? He likes my stuff?
You know I’m a Unitarian Minister.”
Jerry says, “Yep and my Uncle Andy loves your stuff.”
GET FOUND KID
The story I want to report on goes something like this.
Fulghum is in his house. He can hear kids outside playing
one of their favorite games: “Hide and Seek”.
He asks his readers, “When you were a kid, did you ever
have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so well, nobody could find him?”
He answers his own question by saying, “We’d all get mad
and give up – because we couldn’t find this kid.
After a while this kid would show up – all mad – because
we gave up trying to find him.
We’d say he wasn’t playing the game the way you’re
supposed to play it. “There’s hiding and there’s finding.”
He’d yell back, “It’s hide-and-seek - not hide-and-give
up.”
And we’d yell back about who made the rules and who cared
about who anyway.
Well, in this story, there’s a kid in his yard – well hidden
under some leaves. He’s been there a long time. He hears the other kids yelling
after him. They can’t find him and everyone else is found.
Fulghum says he thought about going to the base and
telling the kids where the lost kid was.
Finally he yells out the window, “GET FOUND, KID!”
Fulghum adds that I scared him so bad that he probably
wet his pants and ran home to tell his mother.
Fulghum then adds a message about a man in his
neighborhood – a doctor. He had terminal cancer and didn’t tell his family or
friends – because he didn’t want them to suffer.
“So he kept his secret.”
When he died everyone said how brave he was to bear his suffering
in silence…. “But privately his family and friends were angry because he didn’t
tell them. He didn’t say he needed them and their strength. And it hurt that he
didn’t say good-bye.”
CONCLUSION
Take what you need to take out of that story.
That last message might be the best take out.
In the light of today’s gospel, hear Jesus the Good
Shepherd searching for you. Hear God screaming out, “Get Found Kid.”
Maybe our best prayer
is simply, “Baa, Baa, Bal,” as the old Whittenpoof song goes. But make it loud.
“We're
poor little lambs who have lost our way. Baa, baa, baa. Doomed from here to
eternity. Lord have mercy on such as we. Baa, Baa, Baa.”
