A Word on Words; 4012; River Jordan

taylor says i'm celebrating all things literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a world where is john single and welcome once again to award on words my guest today is river jordan she's a critically acclaimed author of four novels she's also host and producer of a clear story their story radio on the bureau of international he's here today to share a boat praying for strangers an adventure of the human spirit in it she chronicles a year long resolution to reach out to one stranger each day with love and concern welcome river toward onwards thank you this is a minor lovely the heavier and now a lovely to talk about about your book and you know i think out there members of the audience aren't saying what is this about where did this idea come from to pray for one stranger and a risen

inspired resolution and normally i have a resolution every year but it's to remember how to play chess or to write a letter to a friend once a week that was a great resolution i kept them there for a little while it was just something that sort of popped into my spare and aren't my mind like in the title of a bark prefer stranger everyday new year's resolution about that's a great idea but i'm not doing it but obviously at and but you did i'd get out in the process just as you read them the book is as i opened the book at the world a great idea then be fine both on a routine and what of our river jordan howland blazes welcome to get these people out and you know that on a given day you go to the world in the grocery store you may go to a shopping center you make of the church and i go to you maybe have to scoot you may be they had a book signing

people ask me well why didn't want to start doing this or have started doing and said that how do you choose your stranger and i just say you know why go through the rest of your day when you leave this book of them relief this talk go through the rest of your day with your eyes open in saying that someone doesn't stand out to dance a part of the magic if you will i did it and i really believed that one person for whatever reason will stand out to someone like they didn't know that it was always the person i was expecting it was and then there would be a man that was securing an oxygen tank around with them and i think he has to be my stranger that then i really felt like it was this other as it was and how do you approach him i didn't i i really felt like that the one then that was walking out of the post office was the person i was first talked to jews

now it is so it's a mystery and but it's one that i've that i've continued being involved in this mystery now for over two and half years and someone always stands out to me an amazingly those people will say oh funny you should choose made today and then again today let me ask you about there's little saying come from mobile phone they are on bass and animal yes and here comes a homeless woman long stood guard dollar business i know none of the government and is true that still do not been a big change you were there it might have been an hour now i'm always going for a dollar is as a soldier in a woman how one legged homeless woman and you pluck or for about like couldn't believe maintained at the time just like your husband i could not believe you'd take that dollar word moet woman it was the

way that she delivered it and she said when i told her it happening and i didn't have my purse with me was just lying on the blanket and i said i don't have a dollar i don't have a dime and that's when she said look here look at it there's not a day i don't have a dollar for somebody and so she says that's right in that the middle aged and the lag and she said look you're looking and she pulled up a translate into said if you don't you worry i got a medal leg and it i tell my story i get another dollar to know that she will so she gave me this crumpled up dollar and some change and some bits of candy and tell me your story and we have that moment in the park and so when that idea for that resolution popped into my mind standing in the kitchen packing to go visit with my sons i find thought of her i thought investor in and their entire long and i knew what it looked like because i still pray for and collides and wonder if she is still working on that one letter given

those who have given dollars and you say i'm not much room and you watched we don't think this is a man's world and has become more of a ministry and mission because i see how much people are hurting and how much to attach from a stranger it's seems to mean so much to so many people out there so no i it had been an evangelist about having a library card for years and about reading and about you know i can't believe you're going to look whatever in how many books do you read in or you're watching good television series i have been invented was just not about my faith not about connecting with strangers either in in that way in a different way the original program so the way about the read more about people reading about the trust paulson those type of vin scully what some

of this idea and that's just the stores are wonderful you hit somebody and you're blind side somebody ellen again again again you recount how sponsored failed how did you pick me today it is the worst day of my life or is that then need help in my life oh it you don't say it is how many people look at you and say you know when you're not go how much of the need once you a half years and now where's and that story's in the book because i thought that made to be fair once and that was even snarky is the group's you know somewhere that woman is out there and she's listening and she's walking to call me and talked to me anytime that i'm just sad and i don't understand it is that historically yeah i i just

it was we were bad it was margarita night and my son had taken in the mexican restaurant my younger son for dinner and this woman was staring at me and given me dirty looks alike and i think if you'd been there with me so in this light is going to announce on ways it was on her cellphone and i knew that's my stranger for today i just knew but even then she was talking on her cell phone looking through the glass giving me dirty looks at that maybe she thinks i'm some horrible neighbor that used to live next to worse some bodies ex wife or maybe a look like someone that she gets confused with someone else and she came back and sat down my son went to pay the ticket and i whenever knelt down next to or just don't want to tolerate any way and dirty looks or neutered and let's nail down next year and it said it is widely known to mind if i ask your knee and she turns to the man next year and there's shane wants don't know my

name and i thought about four years sober so i think i think if you margaret is about oil and i just powder on the names and you know i don't need to know your name i pray for a stranger every game before going to sleep tonight because i don't pray with people in public normally and i i decide before i go to sleep tonight we bring blessings free alive for all good things she said is a bad suite and a well yes good ear so i am you know i think the amazing thing was i had no animosity towards i really then i said a prayer then she would have love in her life and thank goodness and healing and i really know at this level of compassion that i would expect myself to have her to fail for a stretch in the book there are three you very short

stories travels and criminals one two and three was that about oh my and my precious little current that i was an american red light i get attached money you know but at one point you start for india so that the fliers and that's that story about that i want to go to a junkie it fell apart the lawyers defending two hundred and something thousand miles on a lot of having memories on the road too and thirty thousand i was trying to edit the three hundred year the noise or when i printed up in the part of london and many miles from many miles from nowhere and when i turned it and i went oh that's our name and eye i made it to another story about walk inside nice ad where am i and deny have a gps of the time so i know people looked at me like

you are also insanely where a young plane and there's a no way does anyone know anything about cars and then there's retired know it turning came out with a young man in the military and they open the clinton okay bring corrupt and when i did that but i know that doesn't sound and you're not going much of anywhere so it is that occurrence led me to like three days of being broken down and there it around it that didn't that long road that was i went to one one man led me to and he resented <unk> business he would be limited in a place where you thought they might be able to help me with my car and they came out and said crank her up and then basically they said i know and it sort of exploded you know beyond that so it was really that bravery and lightly attach like i had to come and that i stayed at this a taliban attack securing into the classes hotel which was one where i literally pushed the furniture

in front of the door in jazz or outside that because outside the beer cooler drink and beer and then they'll invite me to come to have a beer with lebanon as i know was a label up at her hotel dates and taboo for a law that's pretty scary and the guy that are not that was the desk clerk hadn't read everything we started talking about fiction novels and i thought the city was under huge arab a he was passionate and i thought if all people so i really determined in the middle of those travails that i was in england stepped up my prayer life and and just pray for everybody in my path i was so determined not to get bogged down in what was happening and how i had special sort of reservations difference cabin in the woods and i can finish my next novel when i was they're way behind schedule and getting there and so one thing led to another are filing

made it but i mean it was travels and travails and i'm a lot of beautiful people along the way i think of you setting <unk> bookstores in this country and the line is clear and one after another people as for your autograph thoughtful note for some aluminum and announced ending how do you decide which ones work for you you meet so many people deeply doing what you do who are just saliva or who seemed just a lie and they're all looking for the same thing you this again an audience listening to you talk about what you've written

and that's what brought them there or they are going through the villain looking for your as i find i think i write in the book that one of my goals is to get to the point and that i move through life as if i'm living for a waiver prayer silent worry it would be nice to you know wave of for a wave of prayer just to be able to live your life in it and in a perpetual kind of prayer for the people that you meet i'm wanting even though they're strangers for that person to be safe and be blessed and for the people they love to be protected by i think that would be paramount ms oatley you're just tuning in i'm talking with river jordan about her book praying for strangers on one idea what it do you think you know there's a there's a there's a quote from yiddish proverb first or blessings come down you believe that fits in the palm i

believe that i i believe i believe the world can be changed by a prayer and i believe that there's something really significant about people praying for people that are big on their own my for you know the people that i loved the people that i know and of course if you believe in prayer you're going to pray for those people but when we began to live a life of prayer that has to do with strangers we don't know how they vote what zip code they live in they don't know who they're married to we don't know what the problems are and we're not trying to find out what their problems are so we can put them on a special prayer chain that we share with others we just really have that moment of concern and compassion for him and then i think that on that level praying for strangers makes all the difference in the world or i began and i think in our shoes are like me you are in there is the resolution resolution resolution

but in january at least one has gone very worried to march by live forget it is it's a good chance to start over but here you can you kept a resolution sale and not just for a year and the va do a nigerian it started out as a resolution and i have to tell in the stories in there there was one day that i pulled up with the flu in the parking lot and as the resolutions are made to be broken i'm done with this and second the one that needs a prayer i develop and i went in the store to get a sneezing as madison you know i heard all over manson i remembered i needed milken went to the back of the store and that's when i turned around and saw that moment and just like and i was like ah and mr delivery to that woman literally

was like ok look lady i do this day i pray for strangers and today your kid again she must not have heard the sarcasm and sickness in my voice because your tears in her eyes of man and child being thanked me and thanked me and thanked me and i think you really don't need to be thanked majors back off her daughter thank me so i intended to quit that resolution that day and did not at the end of the year i thought it's the only resolution i've ever felt i usually last week writing a letter to a friend every week is the only resolution i kept up for dinner for three months it was a postman iran and then something having going into the day a year and it was the compassion fact i began to look at other people and i thought oh i can't stop this and have contributed to that it's again the ship and then i thought well now it's become the spiritual discipline it's a discipline like yoga i'll be disciplined and this is my discipline really is not explicitly

about russia's of selectivity again again i read that you approach someone who well might have thought crazy so awful it is something quite different what brought you to me today this day when ex happen or what happened there at least half dozen examples of that in the book where on that day something has touched their lives now you think they're out there that just aren't alone it happens to so many of money you think there is some life into getting us the canola so the shaft of divine light that says look this way i'm a believer so not

been a discount the fact that i'm a believer i'll always although i've always been quiet about that it can read it without my live you a believer death when you when you read the yiddish proverb you know the west have come down right but there have been instances now out now on the grand scale i think you could turn to fifty people today and said today you're my stranger and they'd all say funny you should take me today i think that is the nature of humanity and where brad right now that people are hurting but they're putting on their stranger faces and going out and pretending every single day that nothing hurts an everything's ok so the first time someone turns and says hey today he stood out to me are special it touches the day everyone needs that touch they are have been though a number of incidents that are in the book where someone says funny you should choose me today because it's the anniversary it's my daughter's murderer and she died a few months ago and this is the first brit they account without her servant

those kind of things you would think and there was just slightly and a little divine intervention you know lighting things up if you will and i never make a big deal out of approaching people if it if i came off to someone like i was testifying or like i was trying to get them to believe as i do if you are the victim the period and then jupiter usually i have a black cultural lighting was pretty young then it and none of that has net effect only once and that was a woman who read my hands at a rest stop they said oh please pray for me an ad and i was the one yep i don't do it like that right but then when i looked at her eyes and solid and the depth of her pain i just said what is it what's wrong and that's when she said my son just bought an iphone i forget about mine in her comfort zone list authors mistake her for mo if there's one anecdote in the book where somebody is really hurting and probably need to

prayer that said everybody thinks any prayer but this group want when you decide to brave or at what point you can sometimes you know lambs sometimes as i read a new way toward night's normal way i don't ever prevented been in public he's the only person that i did i might just patently tell me their story and say bless you know be remembering in i've had girls hang up that when there were the drive thru window and yell at me as i'm driving off don't forget and i you know it really cheer among yelling i don't want and i don't plan and summons him would you do forget i said you know i'm not legal ways to cry i pray for my members from it the next morning you know i'm a pray for them and the next red light after i mean it's not ni fasting for a

wait for this person in going into my prayer closet and just focusing on them and considering them an and truly and them wanting what's best for the life and wondering whether you think in the process of selection do some elements into a prayer so quickly john that i don't think about it anymore and that's one thing i don't sit back and contemplate people when i first thought about this resolution before i started doing that i looked at this sea of humanity and store and thought how will i ever choose she needs prairie needs prayer that can inspire and then the amazing thing was it's as if i act before have time to think i am i see someone gets the guy behind the deli it's the housekeeper in the hallway and it's the person next to me in line case really throughout the book your ears

popped up with a common thought so there's a real life to talk about that the ones you think of what even a resolution to earth marrow i have to say the first any sense that that's a great idea for a bar i know i got my writer friends he said well yeah but i would come home and telling stories and say guess what happened today and the very first time was the one time in the bus station in nationalized at my mother in law was being stubborn and wanted to ride the bus home to panama city saw a trigger the bus and reid has been working with me and i'm looking for someone in and i think this is a good place to put a stranger in need you go looking sometimes it does happen you now both know when you meet somebody almost every day and tell someone every day but i tell people that three four times a week and when i went down in one was the

first one i'd ever told and i wince little nervous and kind of you know when interns had you mind if i ask your name and if you're feeling horrors of gotten over my soul a virtue and a half years it's like you know i've really because the valley has become so ingrained to me and in my experience of people's reactions that i no longer feels oily but they're pretty woman i said you mind if i ask your name and she told me and i usually ask people i think i think i should and she knows me and you and then isolate even yet ray you know i just want to let you know that i have this resolution i just started and i pray for a stranger every day and today in my stranger and then she looked at me with a wonderful kentucky accent and that's when she say and to know how to do you know i was praying for other people this morning i stopped and i asked god has a nobody in the hall where a prayer from maine and it was shocking to both of us

and there was another moment where you know she had tears in her eyes and hugged me and said have a great trip back to kentucky and she said no i will now i think that was a defined set up if i've ever seen one because it encouraged me to go on and tell of the people that that reaction was so over the top it wasn't just like a thank you or an ipad or appreciate what at you know sometimes things that's going to live here of the book is written you will a minute i have to have time to fight by our own what's and so he won but the fiction i am working on a novel and it's called the city of truth it's been a novel in the works for ten years said the deep set up two new ten years was able i was a time in swat have one bare foot character named sugar babies sit on the porch you very frustrated tappan have thought for a long time

you should be asleep all these people if you get this book out my dear i tell people on facebook in africa people can post their own stories and on the web site now people have gone to post their stories of how they prayed for stranger to stranger they prayed for them and so it's wonderful that spring for strangers stock hundred people can get their own poster store and share stories allowed people upset and white you know praying for you to dance and one of the leaders and wonderful it is to have you here they could become a thank you so much and they saw you for watching for word on words and john simko or keep reading this is big