The Ridiculous Hour Foundation’s April 2021 Mobile Mission
Copyright 2021 Kat Silverglate
The first time I heard the phrase, it went straight to that place inside that makes your head nod up and down involuntarily. You’ve experienced that, right? Before your brain cognitively registers any form of agreement, your spirit says “oh yeah, I agree with that!”
I’m pretty sure I first heard the phrase in an audio presentation by an Anglican Priest named Nicky Gumble. He described the woman who coined it, Jackie Pullinger, with the admiration and respect you would give someone with hard earned street creds. She had secured the right to speak the words because she’d lived the message. She had lived it to the point of a “hard to argue with her on that one” brand of deference.
In 1966 at twenty-two years of age, Pullinger moved from England to Kowloon, Hong Kong. Which may not seem like such a big deal in 2021, but in the 60’s, the area where she moved was called the walled city because it was cordoned off from the rest of the city and completely unregulated by any formal legal authority. The walled city was run by gangs, it was riddled with drugs and sex trafficking… it was populated by criminals and the poorest of the poor – it was, I’d imagine, the only place most of them could afford to live or to hide. Here’s what she did in Kowloon. To one addict, to one criminal, to one needy person at a time, she gave the love of Christ -- a meal, a shelter, a hug, a prayer, the Word of God. By 1988, so much transformation had taken place in the lives God touched through her, Queen Elizabeth awarded Pullinger the MBE Order of Chivalry -- The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
I’d never heard of this honor before hearing Jackie’s story, but just the smallest bit of research reveals, it’s a really big deal. Anyway, the Jackie Pullinger phrase that caused the bobble-headed reaction in me went something like this:
“God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet. The trouble with so many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.”
Jackie Pullinger
Ouch. Doesn’t that hit something true. And don’t you love the phrase hard feet? What a word picture. Here’s where her phrase transports me.
It was around 2012, 2013. My one and only son was finishing high school and the senior parents and kids were getting ready for graduation and prom and year-end banquets and parties. It was such an intensely joyful time. Except, for this. One of my mom friends was battling cancer. Her only son had been doing the school thing with mine for more than a decade. I’d be in the middle of a joyous moment in the revelry leading up to graduation and then find myself pulling away wondering, how can I “be there” for her? What do I do? What do I say? I actually ended up spending a lot of time pushing too hard to “be there,” doing things that didn’t really seem to help at all, and saying things that seem just embarrassing now.
One day we were sitting, just the two of us, at her kitchen table sharing a sandwich. She must have been sad or telling me something tender, because I instinctively reached over and stroked her arm with my hand. I didn’t think about it in advance. I just do that sometimes. I watched my mom do it a lot. When she wanted to show someone, “I’m with you.” It’s what I do with my husband or son or sister or just about anybody I sense needs the assurance, you’re not alone right now. I’m here.
I could feel her stiffen up. She got a bit rigid and in the most forced-gentle voice, she said something like this: “That makes me feel like a cat. When you do that, I feel like a pet. I don’t want to be pet like a cat, Kat.” I stopped immediately, withdrew my hand, said “got it” like it was no big deal. And then I started to fight the awkward silence. Not knowing how to move past it. And then finally, something like this popped out.
“So, what do you wish people knew about the way you want to be loved through this journey?” I asked.
Well, the only way to describe her reaction to that is to say that it seemed to unlock some pent-up place in her. Like the question was just the crack the dam needed to crush the wall holding the water. The flood came out. A flood of sharing. A flood of connection. A flood of release. It was the Niagara Falls of what not to do with her during cancer: “What do I wish people knew,” she started.
“I don’t want to go to a group of strangers and sit in a chair while people put their hands on me and pray. I don’t want to hear about the green powder miracle diet that is going to cure everything. I don’t want to try the holistic thing that worked for your buddy Dave. I don’t want to be stroked like a pet.”
It was so beautifully raw and… well, kinda funny. She wasn’t mad. She just felt safe enough in that moment to actually let out what had been building up inside.
We started laughing which made the half-chewed food we were eating spill out of our mouths, which only made the whole thing that much funnier.
Eventually, she volunteered this story about one of her best “comfort” moments during cancer. She’d mentioned in passing to a friend that her feet hurt from all the chemo. Something about the treatment made the pads of her feet thin or sensitive or I don’t know exactly what. But no matter what shoes she wore, they hurt. One day the friend showed up on her doorstep with a pair of Birkenstocks. “Try these,” she said.
Here’s the essence of how my friend described that moment with the shoes: “Kat, they were wonderful. Just what I needed. What relief. All I said to her was ‘my feet hurt’ and she took it on herself to find a way to ease my pain. She cared about my feet. My feet! She cared about my pain. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so loved.”
Of course, I’m paraphrasing, but that last phrase, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so loved” -- those were her exact words. She’s been gone now for several years, and I miss her dearly, but if I close my eyes, I can hear them coming out of her mouth in her unique voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so loved.” Over a pair of shoes. Well that certainly rocked my midget minded boundaries on the phrase “never so loved.”
The Scriptures talk about the impact the Lord has on our hearts and in our hearts. Maybe this is the verse that inspired Jackie Pullinger to coin her memorable adage about soft hearts and hard feet. I don’t know. It’s from Ezekiel 36:26-27 and it goes like this.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.
Ezekiel 36:26-27
That sure sounds like soft hearts and hard feet, doesn’t it? I’d spent plenty of time talking to my friend about Jesus. Tender sweet conversations. Awkward hard conversations. And now, she was essentially saying that she could see Jesus in this tender-hearted friend with the hard feet. Feet that walked a mile to ease her physical pain. It was really beautiful.
And it made me want to have hard feet. To skip the pedicure. To watch the callouses form. To celebrate the shocking reality that the Spirit of the living God that offers to come and dwell in our hearts points us to where He’s walking. Listen to the words… I will give you a heart of flesh [that’s soft hearts] and I will cause you to walk [that’s hard feet]… That’s Jesus. Coming in the flesh walking amongst us here on earth.
Our mission this month, is, you guessed it, simple, but not simplistic. In your mission pack last month (we sent them early), you received two small hard wooden feet and one small hard wooden heart. Go ahead and pull those out now. And if you don’t have a set, just drop us an email and we’ll be happy to send em along. [email protected].
- First: Consider beginning each morning in the month of April with a prayer. A prayer for a soft heart and hard feet. Lord, you remove hearts of stone and give hearts of flesh. Only you know my heart. You promise to come and dwell with me. You came and made your home here in my heart. Lead me where you’d have me go. I want to be at home with You. I want to go where you’re going. Where you’re lead me. Give me a soft heart sensitive to You, Your call, Your ways, Your nudges, Your Spirit, Your character, Your promises, Your truth. Make me defenseless against those good things. Let the knocking break everything down that needs to be broken. Amen.
- Second: find a way, your own way to use those symbols – the hard feet and the hard heart – to prompt you to make a deliberate choice when the Lord starts knocking. He won’t ask you to do anything that isn’t consist with his Holy Word and if you have any doubt, you should pause, seek Godly counsel, talk to your pastor, pray. Here’s a practical way you might use those symbols. Put the heart in one pocket and the feet in the other and when you feel a nudge from the Lord, you might put your hands in your pocket and pray that God would help you choose hard feet to walk toward His voice. “Cause me to walk Lord.” “Help me to take a step Lord.” “Lead me to Your good purposes for my life.” “Help me trust you.” Or you might put them by your computer so you can see them, or in a place where you pray or you journal. Make it your own.
- Third: Consider this. Hard feet become hard and calloused because they take firm deliberate steps in a direction of a call. But that starts with one firm step doesn’t it? Perhaps you know where God is calling but you don’t know how to begin. Think about Hard Feet in terms of a firm step. Stand up right where you are and take a firm step over to a place where you can pray, or journal or write down what’s happening. Write down one firm step in the direction of the call and then take it. He’ll meet you there. And then another. He’ll meet you there too. And so on and so on. It may be a baby step, but it’s firmly planted in the direction of God’s nudge.
We’d love to hear your hard-footed story! Feel free to contact us here on our webpage through the contact link.
Here’s to a ridiculously hard-footed April! Amen.
