REFLECTIONS
May 7, 2006
 
 
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Colossians 3:16
 
 
Debt of Gratitude
               
The day that I sent it to others, I mailed Bora a copy of it the Reflections I wrote about him. When I saw him last, he was so glad to see me and he was filled with enthusiasm as he thanked me. The repetition of “thank you” suggested that he could not find words adequate enough to express his appreciation.   I felt a bit embarrassed by his persistent expression.  But you just never know what to expect. 
Shortly after that encounter, I learned that Bora had died. No one expected it. He seemed too young to be called home. Yet this man no longer walks among us. His life was swept from us though his work seemed unfinished. The wonders that he could do with a suit of clothes are left for someone else to learn and to do. Someone else will be called to carry on his mission to make people feel good about themselves.
 As I think of it, Bora never fit me for a suit of clothes. He never performed for me the great skill that he was blessed with. He didn’t have to. Bora gave me something even more special—his story. He told me how he came to this country unable to speak the language. He told me of his father, also a skilled tailor. He told me how he felt about his work and how it motivated him. And in his wildest dreams, he could not have imagined how his story would reach beyond the world he lived in daily. He could not have imagined how his story would touch lives he would never see in ways he could never dream. He could never have dreamed that his story as an ordinary tailor would be one of a ministry to others to inspire them to excel in the worlds in which they lived by making them feel good about themselves.
Because he was a man that defined an ordinary job in an extraordinary way, Bora made lives different and better. He had no idea that the end was so near, none of us do. That’s why it is so important to live today in ways that will allow Jesus to reveal himself through our lives. That is our role in making other lives different and better. And when we do, the difference reaches further than our eyes can see or our minds imagine.   
That day Bora had no idea how he touched my life. And he certainly didn’t know that he was touching yours. From him we learn that our stories can be powerful too. And for that lesson, we owe our Lord a debt of gratitude for the way Bora’s life touched ours.
 
“You are the light of the world,”

Richard Ì


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