Time for Separating

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Thank God for fall –
The time for letting go
Of all for which the sowing work was done,
The labor in the sun,
The watering and weeding,
The nurture of the seedling,
And praying for the rain,
Through all the spring and summer.
The hope that made the waiting
Worth the wait
Has been anticipating
This fine day
When seedlings stood up strong
On stalks that bore the weight
Of lovely buds and blossoms
Of their own.
And all along we knew
There’d be a separating,
A time when roots reached deep
Into the soil
To nurture what we’d planted.
The labor and the toil –
That happiest of work –
Would be much less demanding,
And there’d be time for standing
In the sunset
Hand in hand.

Photo by Suzanne Jennings

So, here it is, the fall,
The time for separating;
Yet, nothing’s lost at all,
And nothing disappears
This harvest time of year;
And, yes, there’s time
For savoring the joy,
For storing in the heart
And filling up the soul’s wide granaries
With what has grown to be,
The fruit of finest dreams.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

We sift the kernels through our hands
And sing
To find them pregnant with the spring!

--Gloria Gaither from HANDS ACROSS THE SEASONGS

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Make It Real

Our daughter Suzanne wrote the words to the song “Make It Real”, a song that has rescued me more than once as I wrestled a few angels to the ground with my own questions and doubts.  I asked her if she would be willing to write a guest blog for this song.

On Florida beaches that we love, we walk by the quiet shoreline and pick up shells deposited there by a gentle gulf tide.  But on the North Shore of Oahu in the Pacific, there are no shells, only crabs and thick snails which have the tenacity to ride rough currents and hang onto jagged coral for dear life.  The sea here belongs to the few brave souls who respect and willfully challenge its absolute power.  The white caps rolling in from Japan have no mercy, have been commanded to carry out their marching orders seemingly without feeling or compassion.

I have never seen waters so resolved, so relentless.  I have watched from a safe distance in fear and reverence.  Sometimes the winds move in and with them the sudden rains which launch surprise attacks intermittently throughout the day.  The sun teases you with its warmth and brilliance, coloring the sea as aquamarine as stained glass; then after you are lured out into the open, the sky perforates and spits sheets of cold, wet rain and before you know what has happened, you are soaked to the skin and shivering in some reef-rimmed corner.  You become helpless—these elements will not allow themselves to be controlled.  So you sit and wait in the mystery of them.

Maybe that is why I love it there so much.  The coral along that beach has never been removed to make the walking easy; no sand has been brought in to smooth the way.  The vegetation is riotous; the birds exotic and everything natural is unpredictable. 

The surfers understand about living in this “openness.”  They understand the importance of gambling on one amazing ride on a wave perfectly curled.  They get jobs that can be “optional,” wear clothes that can go anywhere, live in huts close to the breathing, living sea.  They eat and sleep solely when the ocean allows them to, and the only supplies they keep on hand are board wax and radios tuned into the local weather station.  They take her on knowing full well that she is a volatile lover, that they may lose skin or arms or consciousness in the process of riding. . . or, she may roll them beautifully into heights they cannot imagine, their throbbing hearts caught up in their throats; she may lay them down lovingly sand-smooth as they wonder what undiscovered world they just experienced.  “Keeping it real,” they call it.  Either way it is her call, her hold on the fragile humanity of them, on all of us.

The North Shore reminds us how vulnerable and mortal we are, how susceptible we are to attack and invasion, to misjudgments—how much we do not know.  It is no coincidence that from that point one can see the lookout station where in December of 1941 incoming planes were detected but ignored because our lookouts assumed they were something else, something benign and routine.  There are lessons taught in this tumultuous school about submission and risk, about knowing and not knowing, about doubting, about assuming nothing and expecting, well, anything.

 --Suzanne Jennings                                                                       

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I'll Worship Only at the Feet of Jesus

It is curious to most new millennium minds that the first and greatest commandment for both Judaism and Christianity is “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Deut.5:7) Jesus echoed this when He summed up all the laws and the prophets and incapsulated His own mission statement by saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18)

The old word for what the commandments forbid is idolatry.  Since we don’t live in a multi-deity culture, we tend to think we aren’t idolaters.  Graven images, sun gods, moon goddesses, sacrifices to the Nile River, sacred cows:  all these seem ridiculous to most religious American minds.  “Of course, we worship the one true God!  Idolatry was another time, another place, right?”

In His book, Addiction and Grace, Gerald May confronts our self-righteousness and calls it addiction, another word for idolatry.  “‘Nothing,’ God says, ‘must be more important to you than I am.  I am the Ultimate Value, by whom the value of all other things must be measured and in whom true love for all things must be found…’ It is addiction that keeps our love for God and neighbors incomplete.  It is addiction that creates other gods for us.  Because of our addictions, we will always be storing up treasure somewhere other than heaven, and these treasures will kidnap our hearts and souls and strength.”

We counter immediately, “I’ve never been addicted.  I’ve never abused drugs.  I’m not an alcoholic,” Yet in truth, attachments to things and relationships other than God Himself usher us unwittingly into “addictions that make idolaters of us all.” 

Idolatry is the opposite of freedom.  Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36 LB) He, Himself, is personified truth.  And anything that tugs us from Him—even so-called good things—can beguile and addict us.  Anything that becomes our pleasure center, taking the place of God as our measuring-stick for joy, is addicting and idolatrous.  Sadly, this loss of balance, this skewing of focus is capable of eventually destroying the very pleasure it seems at first to deliver.

No wonder Jesus said, “Anyone who loves his father, mother, children more than me is not worthy of me.”  Such misplaced focus of our finest love will eventually latch itself on to its object and suck it dry, destroying it in the end.  No husband, wife, child or friend is able to fulfill the deepest needs.  No lover can complete the picture, be our “missing piece.”  Only God is a source so infinite that our needs will not exhaust it.  He is a source so boundless that out of it we can draw the love it takes to nurture all relationships and fill our own deepest longings at the same time.  He is a source of love so boundless that from Him we can draw the love needed to nurture all our relationships and fill our own deepest longings from Him as well.

I have a habit of reading ads and listening to commercials.  Ad agencies are pros at naming the deep spiritual needs we all share, then tying those needs to a promise of fulfillment by some product.  What do we need?  Acceptance?  Happiness? Peace?  A place to belong?  Security?  Love?  To be valued?  Things that promise to satisfy our longings are standing in line.  Our economy runs on convincing us we can’t live without products that didn’t exist a decade ago, last year, last month! 

Yet, we drive the cars, furnish our houses with the couch and easy chair, cover our floors with the carpet or hardwood, send our kids to the schools, wear the designer lines and the makeup, carry the leather briefcases and only grow more restless and empty.

Few of us would actually admit that we think products and artifacts could ever satisfy the hungers of the soul, yet Christians and non-Christians alike, find it nearly impossible to resist the beguiling promises of an “easy fix” and truly simplify our lives, refocus our affections and embrace unadulterated truth without fear or hesitation.

Sadly, instead of keeping God the measuring stick for all joy and pleasure, we all too often let our addictions become the measuring stick for God.  We attach our spiritual hungers to the things we invent to express our worship—our style, modes of expression, theological systems, “aids” to worship, certain emotional or cerebral or artistic experiences connected with religion.

Some of us have fallen for the “high” we get from doing good, helping others, for being applauded one way or the other.  Our “god” might be building churches, holding meetings, moving crowds, creating beautiful liturgy, evangelizing the neighborhood, feeding the poor.  As good as these things are, they are not God, Himself.

No wonder Jesus said to those who scoffed at Mary as she “wasted” the precious perfume of her love at the feet of the Master: “She has done a beautiful thing to me.  The poor you will always have with you.”  (Matt. 26:10b-11 NIV) He knew that helping the poor would naturally result from adoring Jesus, but when helping the poor becomes the focus, it would turn us into idolaters who have lost the joy of the journey with Him.

In the classic tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, Arthur begins with the search for the Holy Grail—the cup that his Lord had offered to his friends that night in the upper room.  It would be a tangible reminder to Arthur and his knights to drink the cup of sacrifice and service, calling them to righteous living and noble deeds.

The search leads them into all kinds of adventures and conquests.  In the process, the search for the grail becomes such an all-consuming quest that the dear Lord, Himself fades from view.

As good as these men aspire to be, as urgent as their search becomes, they lose sight of the face of Jesus and His hands that held the cup.

The book of Hosea the prophet is a call to us all who have ever gone off on our own adventures of misplaced affection.  There is dear yearning in the voice of God that even rings through the warnings of destruction.  Listen to the lover of our hearts:  “I don’t want your sacrifices – I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me….  Oh Judah, for you there is a plentiful harvest of punishment waiting—and I wanted so to bless you!”  (Hosea 6:6 –11 LB)

But what a merciful God we have!  In spite of our unfaithful fickle hearts, His love calls us always back to the true center where we can find healing and wholeness.  His resurrection has brought us the cup of joy.

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Why We Stay

Photo courtesy of Christopher Stephens | The Herald Bulletin

We recently attended the life-celebration of a long-term friend, our neighbor and our dentist.  He wasn’t just a dentist, but an exceptional, innovative dentist who used the most up-to-date equipment and methods.  He belonged to several state and national dental associations and organizations, including membership in the Pierre Fauchard Academy, whose membership is by invitation only and whose purpose is to select outstanding leadership in the various fields of dentistry who exhibit excellence, integrity, and ethical practice within and outside of their professional arena of service.

Dr. David Steele began his life in our town as a Methodist preacher’s son. As a young boy he delivered newspaper to our community, but soon developed a love for photography.  By the time he was in high school, he had a thriving business taking the pictures of his fellow students for special honors, sports events, and graduations.

After graduation he headed for college, then on to pursue his Doctor of Dental Surgery degree and to start his 47 years of service to our town.  He liked to say he had either delivered papers, taken the wedding pictures, or fixed the teeth of every person in Alexandria.

Dr. Steele and his son.

I could write much more than a blog about the humor, service, and impact this man had on every aspect of our community, from education, governance, and beautification of Alexandria to making us laugh at ourselves by playing jokes on those he loved the most.  So, it was also a community of sadness that we shared when this brilliant generous, witty man began to lose his memory.  Alzheimer’s disease is, as Presidents Reagan’s daughter called it, “a long good-bye” that takes a loved one a little at a time.

Bill and his dentist

At the celebration of his life what was most obvious and impressive was that this little town had been the keeper of his memory all along.  We had his back. From the “groundhog society” he invented, the mystery of the giant hairball he denied propagating, and the gold tooth he gave his cat, to goading the city council into beautifying Harrison Street with new storefronts, hanging flower baskets, and light-encircled Christmas stars, everyone who paid tribute gave his family the assurance that nothing was forgotten. We had kept every smile he ever gave us, not only on our faces but in our hearts. It was also obvious that for a person to give forty-seven years to one profession in one place, he had more than an occupation; he had to have had a calling.

“Why do you and Bill stay in that little town?” we are often asked. “Why do you live in the house you built 57 years ago when you were teaching at the high school two blocks away?” Why do we still live where some people still call Bill “Billy Jim” and where we know who sells the best eggs from chickens they raise in their back yards?

I guess we stay here because if a song doesn’t ring true at the Bakery, it probably won’t be sung around the world.  We stay because in a town like this we have to create our own magic out of regular things on regular days.  We stay because we are the keepers of each other’s memories, and we have made a silent pledge to show up on some dark day to remind each other that the light we shine just might lead someone home. 

Kevin Williams, Jeanne Johnson, Vestal Goodman, Jake Hess, Larry Ford - Old Friends [Live]

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I Heard It First on the Radio

Bill grew up on a farm in a part of Indiana where the land is flat and the corn, hay, soy bean, and wheat fields stretch clear to the horizon. This is the region where the prairie begins, reaching across Illinois and on through Nebraska--the breadbasket of the world.

So many Indiana farm boys like Bill grew up learning to bale hay, thresh wheat, and shuck corn--by machine, of course. Many a midwestern farm boy took over his father’s farm before small farmers were squeezed into oblivion by huge agribusiness investors. Other boys aspired to attend technological schools, hoping to secure management positions in one of the auto-related industries that pumped lifeblood into the midwestern economy.

Bill, however, was something of a mutation. Allergic to the hay fields and not the least bit mechanically inclined, he spent his Saturdays and after-school hours pretending to broadcast to the neighbors out of the upstairs window of the old farmhouse where he grew up. Mornings and evenings, while milking the cows his father raised, he would tune in one of the "clear channel" stations from Nashville, Atlanta, or Memphis on the dust-covered old barn radio. That's where he first heard the rich harmony of the quartets and family groups from the South.

At first it was just the rhythms and the harmonies that captured his heart. But the more he listened, the more the messages began to sink in. The radio became his lifeline to another world, another reality. 

Although they didn't completely understand this strange child, his parents encouraged his dreams. When he went to school in the mornings, young William left instructions for his mother to record on their wire recorder (the forerunner of the tape recorder) the gospel music radio shows that came on in the afternoon. If a group he loved came on while he was in the fields helping his dad in the summer; his mother would run across the farm to let him know.

Family vacations became trips to hear these groups in person at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville or the Quartet Convention in Memphis. Never did he miss an opportunity to attend the "singings" at Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis when the groups came to Indiana.

Meanwhile, Bill was becoming involved in his local church and teaching his little sister and younger brother to sing harmony. He was learning the words to the songs the best groups sang, words with meaning and content.

Many influences play a part in bringing each of us to a personal encounter with God: pastors, teachers, godly parents, old saints, great writers and communicators who express God's love with passion and compassion. But Bill would probably tell you that the singing groups he heard on the radio were among the most important influences in his young life.

Over the years we have received many letters and e-mails telling us stories of the part radio played in someone else's conversion, encouragement, healing, or enlightenment. New communications technology emerges every day. But for countless thousands like Bill Gaither, it was, and continues to be, radio that carried the message that changed their lives. Only eternity will reveal how many will be assembled around the great white throne because they “heard it first on the radio."

I, too, grew up with great songs that have become a part of my life and experience. In writing the words to this song, I made a list of the songs that have influenced us both. Fitting their content and words into a new poetry was a crossword puzzle of a challenge, but how I love to hear again the texts that have been the themes of or our spiritual journey.

 I Heard It First On The Radio

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so—
And I heard it first on the radio.
This love of God so rich and strong
Shall be the saint's and angel's song
I heard it first on the radio.
Amazing grace-how sweet the sound—
The lost and lonely can be found,
And grace can even save a wretch like me!
No other love could make a way;
No other love my debts could pay,
And I heard it first on the radio.

Needing refuge for my soul
When I had no place to go—
I heard it first on the radio.
From a life of wasted years,
He gave me peace and calmed my fears—
And I heard it first on the radio.
Had I not heard, where would I be
Without this love that lifted me
When I was lost and nothing else would help?
Just as I was without one plea,
Sweet Jesus came and rescued m—
And I heard it first on the radio;
Yes, I heard it first on the radio.

Alas, and did my Savior bleed
That captive spirits could be freed
And I heard it first on the radio.
My soul has found a resting place
Until I meet Him face-to-face,
And I heard it first on the radio.
I love to tell the story true,
And those who know still love it too;
Oh, what a precious Friend we have in Him!
And when in glory saints will tell,
‘Twill be the theme they love so well—
And I heard it first on the radio.
Yes. I heard it first on the radio.

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither
Copyright ©1999 Gaither Music Company. All Rights Reserved

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I Just Feel Like Something Good is About to Happen

Bill is an optimist. He always thinks things are going to get better, or at least resolved. He believes problems are for solving, mountains are for climbing, and impossible isn't a very useful word. I tell him he's like the kid who got a barn full of manure for his birthday and was so excited because he just knew there had to be a pony in there somewhere!

Bill can make an adventure out of a convertible ride in the country and a celebration out of the first white Indiana peach to ripen in the orchard. He's made our children, and now our grandchildren, remember the times they "camped out" under the dining room table spread with a blanket to make a tent more than they remember the trip we took to Paris.

He believes in people and in the treasure of talent he sees buried in them. Even when they disappoint him and sometimes betray him, he always hopes they will learn from their mistakes and believes that God isn't finished with them yet.

Now don't get me wrong. Bill isn't naïve, and he doesn't avoid confrontation. He's an old teacher, and although his patience is much longer than mine, eventually, he is not fooled by "shenanigans," as my dad would say. When he feels the time is right, he will bite the bullet and, if he can, use a negative situation as an opportunity to teach, still believing that human resources are the most valuable creation of God and that they should not be wasted.

Many times in our lives we faced circumstances--business reversals, failures, disappointments--that might have made other men give up and quit. But Bill's nature is not to consider an obstacle a dead end. It might take a detour, but there is always a way. At times like these he always quotes an old football expression; "Just stay in the pocket."

Someone once asked Chuck Swindoll for the secret of his and Cynthia's incredible ministry--the number of books he has produced, the powerful media impact of their broadcasts. He said something like this: "Well, our main secret is just to show up for work." Bill loved that. Just keep doing what you know to do, and do it with all the energy you have.

There is a wonderful line from a well-known poem by Kipling, titled "If" that says, "If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same." We often quote those lines to young people who think they're winning or losing big. We often say, "The truth is, you’re probably not winning as big as you think you are, and when you fail, you're probably not losing as big as you think you are, either." Both great successes and huge failures are impostors in our lives. Real life is the regular days. It is in the ordinary that we must find something magical, like diamonds embedded in black coal.

Scripture is full of soothing and encouraging words; it is full of instruction. But the verses that get quoted most around our house include these:

 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love
him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV)

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39 NIV)

Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things
that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others.
Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about. Keep putting
into practice all you learned...and the God of peace will be with you.
 (Philippians 4:8_9 TLB)

Genesis 1 tells us that God saw the light and said it was good. God said the land and the sea were good, the plants and flowers and trees with their fruit and flowers and seeds were good. God said spring and summer, fall and winter were good, the sunshine and stars and moon were good. He said the squirrels and birds, geese and wolves, woodchucks and butterflies were good and that it was good they could make babies and reproduce themselves. And then He made people and said they were very good.

God Himself found miraculous delight in things we stumble over every day and never say, "My, how good this is!" Things such as our homes, our children, the peaches and tomatoes, friendships and stars, snapdragons and water, bumblebees and business associates. Bill is right! In all that, if we "stay in the pocket," show up for work, and love God with all our hearts, something good is bound to happen.

I Just Feel Like Something Good Is About to Happen

  I just feel like something good is about to happen!
I just feel like something good is on its way!
God has promised that He'd open all of heaven,
And, brother, it could happen any day.
When God's people humble themselves and call on Jesus,
And they look to heaven expecting as they pray,
I just feel like something good is about to happen,
And, brother, this could be that very day!

 I have learned in all that happens just to praise Him,
For I know He's working all things for my good;
Ev'ry tear I shed is worth all the investment,
For I know He'Il see me through-He said He would.
He has promised eye nor ear could hardly fathom
All the things He has in store for those who pray;
I just feel like something good is about to happen,
And, brother, this could be that very day!

Yes, I've noticed all the bad news in the paper,
And it seems like things get bleaker ev'ry day;
But for the child of God it makes no diff'rence,
Because it's bound to get better either way.
I have never been more thrilled about tomorrow;
Sunshine's always bursting through the skies of gray.
I just feel like something good is about to happen,
And, brother, this could be that very day!

Lyric: William J. Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither
Copyright © 1974 William J. Gaither. All rights reserved.

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Hear the Voice of My Beloved

Maybe it’s because our lives have always been so public. Or maybe it's because I'm a hermit at heart. But the times I treasure most are private, intimate moments with those I love. Oh, don't get me wrong. I love a party, and massive "happenings" are fun to plan and a thrill to experience. Bill is the event champion of the world! Show him an arena and his mind will go off like a rocket, planning a celebration to fill it. No one can touch him, in my opinion, at putting together an evening, programming talent, and making everyone "win." It brings him joy to see artists use their gifts in the best possible setting so that no one is the star but the total experience is life-changing for audience and performers alike. It's what he does best.

But when the lights go out and the building is an empty cavern, when the posters are crammed into gray plastic trash bags and the popcorn is swept from the hallways, I long to slip away with Bill someplace where no one knows our name. I want to walk with him beside the sea or climb through the woods at the top of a cliff or simply walk under the archway of willow boughs that weep beside our own creek in a little Indiana town.

I never get enough of times like those, and I can't stop my longing for them. Sometimes I feel selfish. I reprove myself for wanting to leave the throngs and disappear into the desert... together, alone.

Many times in our marriage I have felt guilty for wanting Bill to myself. "Ministry" can be a challenging rival. How could I be jealous of "God's work"? Most of the time it was work we chose and did together. Yet just when I felt our love needing nourishment, the schedule was already set, the concert advertised, and the worship planned; I knew in my heart we were going to be ministering out of our own need, not out of our plenty. Those were the times we simply had to admit our emotional bankruptcy to ourselves and to God and rely on the knowledge that God’s storehouse is always full. Amazingly, we would come away not drained but restored, and we knew the multitudes were fed as well.

We have always loved the Song of Solomon. We love it not just as a metaphor of God's longing for His church, His bride, but as a very passionate and human poem about two lovers who can't get each other off their minds. Even in the marketplace, they search for one fleeting glimpse of the object of their affection. The night breeze carries her perfume to him; the lambs nestled on the hillside remind him of her breasts. Everything she does to make herself beautiful is for him; the sound of footsteps below her window arouses her hope that he is coming to their secret place.

I truly believe that the sweetest of intimacies on earth--the marriage of two lovers--is the nearest we can know of the intimacy God longs for us to experience with Him. On the job, in the street, in the crowds, in the commerce of life, His presence is always hovering on the periphery of our consciousness. He makes no bones about His affection for the beloved of His heart. He is jealous of all other loves; He will have no rivals! And in return He will withhold no good thing--even His own Son--to woo back the affection stolen by lesser gods. When He has our exclusive allegiance, He showers every good and perfect gift on His bride, and He spares no expense to make her perfect and bring her home to His singular presence.

On my finger I wear a ring Bill had made for me of eighteen-carat gold in the land where the Song of Solomon was written. On it is an inscription I will never be able to resist. I don't hear it often enough, and I can't get enough of it.

"Arise, my love, and come away" (see Song 2:13). It says in Hebrew, "I will arise, my Lord, and come.”

Hear The Voice Of My Beloved

Hear the voice of my beloved
Gently call at close of day,
"Come, my love; oh, come and meet me.
Rise, oh rise, and come away."

"Winter's dark will soon be over
And the rains are nearly done;
Flowers bloom and trees are budding
Time for singing has begun."

I have waited through the shadows
For my Lord to call for me.
Now the morning breaks eternal;
In its light, His face I see.

"When you see the fig tree budding,
You will know the summer's near.
When you hear the words I've spoken,
You will know My coming's near.

"Keep on list'ning, my beloved,
For My coming's very near."

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither and Ron Griffin
Copyright © 1985 Gaither Music Company and Arose Music (admin. by EMI Christian Music Group.) All Rights Reserved.

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That's Worth Everything

I have heard a statement credited to a great theologian that went something like this:

"The longer I live, I find I am believing fewer and fewer things but believing them with greater and greater intensity." Bill and I have quoted that statement often because it has become so true in our own lives.

As new believers, it seems we have rigid ideas about everything. We are often very quick to make rules for others, to have ready prescriptions for what "they" ought to do. Sometimes we're very hard on ourselves, too, and feel as if every failure is fatal. How beautiful it is to learn that grace isn't fragile, and that in the family of God we can fail yet not be failures. We begin to learn that the particular paths God leads us along are tailored for our personal growth in Him and that He can lead others, too. What a freeing relief it is to discover that we are not responsible for someone else's growth but are called only to love, encourage, and be fellow pilgrims along this journey! We learn that there are fewer absolutes than we once thought, but that those absolutes are more absolutely worth dying for than we ever could have imagined.

Bill and I have never been very attracted to playing it safe with life. A life worth living should be one of reckless abandonment to something worth abandoning oneself to. Bill says it this way: "I'm more than halfway through this life, so I should be more than half used up. And if I'm not, then what in the world am I saving myself for?" Perhaps the most important and all-encompassing words Jesus said are these: "Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matt. 16:25 RSV)

Not long ago we sat down to make a list of those things that were, at this stage of our lives, worth everything. Our list was very short.

This list became a song we called simply "That's Worth Everything.” We have discussed this list in our family and applied it in many ways. Our daughter wanted Bill to sing this song at her wedding as she started a new home with the man with whom she had chosen to spend her life. I don't know how Bill got through the song, but somehow he did.

When trying to prioritize our time and energies, it has been helpful for all of us to ask ourselves and each other, “Will it last forever? Does it have any eternity in it?" Or the way I phrase it for myself is: "Think 'forever!'" People are forever. Relationships are forever. God's Word will endure forever. But the "forever" list is short indeed.

When Bill and I breathe our last breath and leave behind whatever we have done with our days, I hope this epitaph will ring true: "They gave themselves away for things that last forever." If that could be the case, then the "eternity" we've recognized and embraced here will simply open into the eternity we will embrace there, and we will be at home in the familiar presence of Him who is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last. And that will be worth everything.

 
THAT’S WORTH EVERYTHING

Some men will trade the warmth of home and friends
For just a taste of fame;
Some men will risk their reputations
That men may know their name;
But just to know that all is clear between
My soul and God's dear Son,
And hear Him say, “Well done,”
Oh, that's worth ev'rything.

To know when tiny feet walk in the path
That I have left behind,
That they will make their way to Jesus,
Contentment there to find;
And just to know down deep within my heart
That I have wronged no man,
To fit my Master's plan,
Oh, that's worth ev'rything

  Just to know the future's His forever,
Just to feel the freedom of a child;
Just to know the past is gone and sunshine's here to stay,
And He is Lord of all,
Oh, that's worth everything

Lyric: William J. and Gloria Gaither
Music: William J. Gaither
Copyright © 1974 by William J. Gaither. All rights reserved.

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Broken and Spilled Out

The pressure to produce is a constant companion of writers and artists. The consuming public is fickle. A novelist is only as valuable as his or her latest book; a singer is measured by the success of the latest release and how many songs '"charted." Painters and sculptors are always pulled between creating pieces that express their souls and compromising their creative skills to comply with the current trend that "sells" or conforms to the most influential new school of criticism.

Many young recording artists have started out with hearts full of inspiration and passion to communicate a message in a style unique to them, only to be told by some record company or agent that they must dilute their message, revamp their style, and reshape their image. Few are mature or financially confident enough to withstand the implied threats not to re-sign them to the label if they refuse the "expertise" of those who "know the market."

One day on the bus, traveling to a concert, Steve Green and I were talking about the pressure to produce. While feeling frustrated by his busy schedule and the expectations to create a new solo project that could get "radio play," he was also exhilarated by the part-time jobs he and Marijean had, working with the youth of a local church. He wanted to record and sing songs that would relate to the lives and problems of these teenagers and their parents, whether or not the songs worked for hit-driven radio.

As for my frustration: I was feeling a need to write without the pressure of a deadline. I wanted to create what was in my heart without regard to its sales potential in the current Christian market. I had recently gone off to our cabin in the woods where I write, and, at the end of two days, I had written only some personal poetry and entries in my journal. I had read, walked in the woods, talked to God and, in general, restored my soul. What a rich time! But when I returned home, I couldn't help feeling guilty for having to tell Bill I hadn't moved ahead on projects to which we had committed or finished songs we had started!

Steve listened to me and then told about the Wednesday night prayer meeting the week before at their local church. "Marijean stood up, so moved by the presence of the Lord, and talked about her deep hunger and thirst to really know Christ in His fullness;" Steve said. "She confessed some faults and asked the people to pray for her that nothing would stand in the way of a pure and intimate relationship with Jesus. It broke our church apart. In her sweet honesty, she was able to minister in a way I seldom can.”

We talked about what amazing things God does when we can totally get out of the way and love Him with the innocence and abandonment of a child.

“What would happen,” I wondered, “if I wrote my very best poetry for no one but Jesus? I long to give Him the very best knowing it will never be published, to lift my gift like a burning incense to Him alone.”

"And how I long," Steve said, "to be able to give God my best performance as if no one could hear but Him."

We talked about Marijean's brokenness and how, like Mary who broke the perfume vessel to bathe Jesus' feet in its precious contents, Marijean had, through her vulnerability, bathed the church in the sweet fragrance of her pure hunger to serve God alone.

"Write me a song about that," Steve said. "I'd like to record a song that would always remind me what my ministry should be: an irresistible fragrance that can come only from a vessel broken."

He went back to talk with the others on the bus. I found a yellow tablet and began to write. The lyric that resulted was "Broken and Spilled Out." It moved me. I wanted the music for it to capture the deep longing to give Jesus the best part, the most perfect offering of the heart. Bill George, an outstanding keyboard artist, set the lyrics to music and Steve recorded the song.

It has been a very special song for me. It constantly reminds me that only a love that has no regard for vessels and jars, appearances or images—only a love that will lavish its most treasured essence on the feet of Jesus can produce the kind of fragrance that draws cynics and believers alike into His presence.

Broken and Spilled Out

One day a plain village woman,
Driven by love for her Lord,
Recklessly poured out a valuable essence
Disregarding the scorn.
And once it was broken and spilled out,
A fragrance filled all the room,
Like a pris'ner released from his shackles,
Like a spirit set free from the tomb.

            Broken and spilled out just for love of You, Jesus.
My most precious treasure, lavished on Thee;
Broken and spilled out and poured at Your feet.
In sweet abandon, let me be spilled out and used up for Thee.

Whatever it takes to be Yours, Lord;
Whatever it takes to be clean-
I just can't live without Your sweet approval,
No matter what it may mean!
I throw myself at Your feet, Lord,
Broken by Your love for me;
May the fragrance of total commitment
Be the only defense that I need.

Lord, You were God's precious treasure,
His loved and His own perfect Son,
Sent here to show me the love of the Father;
Yes, just for love it was done!
And though You were perfect and holy,
You gave up Yourself willingly;
And You spared no expense for my pardon-
You were spilled out and wasted for me!

Broken and spilled out- just for love of me, Jesus.
God's most precious treasure, lavished on me;
You were broken and spilled out and poured at my feet.
In sweet abandon, Lord, You were spilled out and used up for me.

Lyric: Gloria Gaither
Music: Bill George
Copyright ©1984 Gaither Music Company and New Spring Publishing/ Yellow House
Music (admin. by BMG Music Publishing, Inc.). All rights reserved.

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What Others Hold Sacred

My parents were pastors of a small church in a tiny Michigan village surrounded by farms.  There was little age discrimination in the church made up of families that often spanned at least three generations, so the younger generation that made up the “youth group” was kids from ages 10 to 18. Those over 18 and the young parents made up the team of youth sponsors, leaders, and activities organizers.  My mother was the youth minister and most youth activities took place at our house and yard and the bank of the St. Joe River that ran behind the church.

There were many fishing expeditions with fish fries afterward. There were nights we all met my mother in the city park equipped with our flashlights to catch night crawlers to fill our coffee cans with bait for catching catfish on our next night of fishing the cold river.

Three or four times a summer we loaded our trunks with fixins for a cook-out up on Dixin Hill where we would roast hot dogs to go with the baked beans and potato salad mother and the other parents had prepared.

But most of the time the campfires were in the empty lot beside Daddy’s big garden, where we unfolded camp chairs or threw down old quilts to sit on after we ate to have our singing and devotions and prayer.

Across the street from our garden and orchard lived a Seventh Day Adventist family with a daughter about my age and a younger toddler about two years old.  Linda and I often played in our yard and sometimes in hers, swinging on the big swing that hung from the huge oak tree in their yard, catching fireflies or playing croquet in ours.  Sometimes her mother would offer us peanut butter cookies fresh from the oven.

In fact, their house smelled of peanut butter because their diet was mostly vegetarian and used peanut butter as a protein source.  They gave a lot to “missions”, Linda told me, so ate only chicken and fish if it was given to them.  No beef, pork, or game.  They, too, had a big garden, as big as Daddy’s, and her parents picked and canned vegetables and fruit for the winter.

One Saturday night we had a big youth party at our place.  There was a big bonfire and a table set with food for a hot dog roast—green beans from the garden, baked beans, chips, and a huge bowl of mixed fruit and berries to have with the s’mores that were a youth night dessert staple. 

While everyone was roasting hot dogs, Linda came across the street with her little brother in their red wagon.  Their sabbath had ended at sunset, so now that it was dark, she was free to come over. I was about seven years old by then and remember feeling sorry that we were having hot dogs that their religion wouldn’t allow them to share.  I snuck around behind the circle gathered around the fire and broke off a chunk of hot dog and gave it to little David.  Oh, my!  He loved it!  His little eyes lit up as he savored every forbidden bite!

But what I didn’t know was that my mother had missed me and had circled around to find me. She had seen the whole thing and suddenly took hold of my arm and said, “Come with me.”

She led me inside our house where she sat me down in a kitchen chair.  “Sit!” she said.  “Now you listen to me. Don’t you ever let me catch you violating someone’s conscience by encouraging them to do something against their convictions.  You knew Linda was old enough to reject meat, but innocent little David wasn’t old enough to understand.  If his parents don’t eat meat, you must respect that!  They are doing what they think is right.  You have totally overstepped their boundaries.  Now, you sit here by yourself for a while and think about that!”

Well, sit I did—missing the fun, missing my friend, and sorry I had caused her little brother to do something against her and her family’s principles.  I also learned later that night around our own family prayer circle something that Jesus said that I’ve never forgotten: “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to sin, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” 

Mother knew, she said, that I didn’t mean to cause a child to sin, but there was another verse I needed to know while I was young.  “A person who knows to do right and doesn’t do it, to him/her it is sin.”

“Now,” mother said, “Now that you know, always respect another person’s understanding of what is right and sacred.  Never be guilty of causing them to betray what they believe God wants them to do.”

We prayed as a family, and now that I understand the sacredness of our promises to God, I asked God to forgive me, and later confessed what I had done to Linda and asked for her forgiveness, too.

What I learned that night is that Jesus really does love the children, whether the children are literally young in age or babies in the Faith.  And that that included me, too.  The innocent of the world must be protected and never violated.  Yes, Jesus really does love the children!  They are a priority to Him.

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Crisis Management

For ten years of my childhood, my family lived in the parsonage my parents rescued from the mice and disrepair.  It was situated on a curve of Michigan Highway 60 (M-60) in the tiny village of Burlington where my parents hallowed out a congregation in that farm area of southern Michigan.

Gloria in front of the house on M-60

M-60 was the main truck route between the automobile plants in Detroit and the car markets of Chicago and beyond.  This was before the Interstate Highway system, so M-60 was still a two lane road.  In front of our house there was a line of mature, well-established hard maple trees that most of the time kept semis, loaded with cars, from crashing into our front porch when their drivers went to sleep at the wheel in the middle of the night.

Gloria and her sister

I say “mostly” because a few trucks managed to go between the maples, in which case our front porch became the barrier that protected our living room.  Accidents on that curve were common enough that we had a family protocol for such emergencies.  I was the youngest, so my job was to run to the linen closets for towels, blankets, and sheets.  My sister Evelyn was a teen-ager who was assigned calling the ambulance and police, while mother and daddy ran to assess the injuries and do what they could to save lives until help could arrive. Sometimes this meant their trying to stop bleeding and cover the injured truckers with sheets and blanket for shock and for warming them against the cold of Michigan winters.

Sometimes the drivers were ejected on impact.  Other times the drivers were brought out of the rain or snow to our living room floor if the truck was in danger of bursting into flames. Whatever it took, saving a life was the objective. 

I remember one accident that happened during a torrential rain storm.  The driver’s lip was split from his nose through his upper lip, causing such a loss of blood that my mother had to hold his lip together while Evelyn brought towels and blankets and Daddy covered them both with a tarp to keep the man from drowning in the rain and his own blood

One time a girlfriend of Evelyn’s was spending the night, when sometime around 2 am we heard the familiar crash into our stalwart maple trees.  While we each ran to carry out our assignments, this girl began to scream and ring her hands and (as mother would say) run around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Mother stopped long enough to grab the hysterical girl by the shoulders, shake her to attention, and say, “Stop!  How dare you?  This is NOT about you.  This is life and death.  This is no time for you to demand attention!  You can fall apart when this is over, but for now, we have lives to save!”

Gloria in Burlington

I was about six years old by then, but I never forgot that a crisis is no time to be hysterical.  It was the time for self-control and unselfish behavior.

In the last few years, Bill and I have made the trip back to this tiny village and the church on M-60 my parents and that sweet congregation built there.  The parsonage that my parents turned from a rat’s nest to a beautiful, welcoming home is still there. The porches that stretched across the front and side of the house are gone; just a small entry stoop remains. And I know why the wrap-around porches disappeared.  They were lost in battle, sacrificed to a higher life-saving cause.

So many life lessons I learned in that house, in that little community, and in that church!  Our family moved from there when I was fourteen, but it is the church we chose to go back to for our wedding when Bill and I were married.  So much of what shaped me into the person he married and still am to this day happened in that place.  But that is at least another book.

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I Will Go On

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Touch and See

There is a line in one of my otherwise favorite hymns that I am not able to honestly sing exactly as the hymn writer wrote it. It goes, “If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out…”

Thankfully (and mercifully), I have been rescued by another line.  This one was spoken by our Lord himself, and it was spoken to the most famous doubter in the New Testament whose very name has come to be a synonym for doubters —Thomas.  This line turned out to be the last beatitude, and it was not spoken in the “sermon on the mount”, but to Thomas himself where the disciples had barricaded themselves after the crucifixion. 

Jesus has appeared alive to several of the men and women disciples, but Thomas wasn’t buying their story and had said so in no uncertain terms!  “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

Then in spite of the locked doors, Jesus showed up.  Not only Thomas, but also the others were there as well, but after greeting them with “Peace!”, Jesus turned his focus to Thomas. Thomas must have hoped that what he had said hadn’t gotten back to Jesus.  He probably expected condemnation.  But Jesus instead held out his hands to Thomas, reaching all the way to the core of Thomas’s doubts: “Put your finger here; see my hands,” he said.  “Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting, and believe.”

Thomas did believe.  “My Lord and my God!” he said as he embraced the evidence with his heart.  But that wasn’t the end of this episode.  Jesus then threw a lifeline to me and to all of us who can’t stop our minds from asking questions.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed,” Jesus said to Thomas and the others in the room.” (Now comes the last beatitude.) “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Those outstretched hands tell me that whatever it takes, Jesus will lead us to the place where we can honestly trade in our questions and doubts for faith — even if we never see until He comes again when we can trade all doubt for certainty.

Meanwhile, we are not condemned for our questions; neither is God intimidated by them. I’m convinced we can’t come up with any questions He hasn’t heard before. After all, He made the mind with which we question.

I have a feeling that those who never have big questions may not have very deep faith, and sometimes the bigger the price we pay for our faith, the stronger that faith is to withstand the hard times that inevitably will come to test our faith into the next rung of spiritual maturity.

I still love the old hymn, but I sing the more honest words these days: “If I trust Him through my doubts, He will surely bring me out.” Now I’m working on the next phrase: “Take your burdens to the Lord, (I can do that) “and leave them there.” (Now, that is not so easy!)

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I Can See

       Easter week has passed and I am living in the glory of the resurrection.  This is the week of glimpses of the risen Lord – the confirmation that he is alive in the daily of our lives. 

       We are walking home from work and he catches up with us – just some guy who wants someone to walk with.  We are intent on our own conversation but we pause just long enough to acknowledge Him, then go on talking.

       “We’re discussing the assassination,” we say. “We’re sure you’ve heard about it, how strange it all was.  This man called himself the Son of God, the King of the Jews, and the government ruled he was a blasphemous heretic.  But he quoted the prophets while he was dying and told the criminal beside him he’d see him later that same day – in paradise.  He forgave his executioners because of their naivety and made sure some man was given the responsibility of taking care of his mother.”

       Then our walking partner begins to point out things about him we hadn’t noticed ourselves, drawing parallels to what the prophets had said about the Messiah.  We were drawn to this fellow pilgrim like one is drawn to a child telling the truth.  We invited the guy home for dinner. 

       Then, at the table, our table, he stands up and takes the loaf of bread we’ve baked the night before, breaks it into pieces and serves it to us.  We both have this wave of déjà vu, like we’d been here before, and then he is gone.

       A bunch of our friends are hiding in a room because the inner city street vibe is very unsettling.  We are discussing again all we have heard him say and seen him do in the last few years.  The door is bolt-locked.  Someone even shoves a bench against it.  Then, all at once, he is there – with us.  Tom has no more than gotten the words out of his mouth, “Not me!  I’m not a sucker for rumors and tricks. I won’t believe he’s alive unless I can jam my fingers into the gashes in his hands and side…”  And there he is with us. 

       “Go ahead,” he says.  “If touching helps you believe, then touch.”

       Upset by the grief and exhaustion of the whole execution thing, a bunch of us decide to go fishing.  Fishing always seems to get things into perspective.  We leave in the evening when the fish are usually starting to bite, and we stay out in the boat all night, talking and being still by turns.  When the light of dawn starts to break over the horizon, we start in with our catch.  There on the beach we can see a fire and someone hovering over it, cooking breakfast.  As we get closer to shore, the figure stands up, and we recognize the Lord. 

       “Come, have some breakfast,” he hollers when we get close enough.  It’s just like old times, like nothing ever happened on Golgotha.  He is grinning and laid back. 

       Then he has a very interesting conversation with Peter, asking him if he loves him.  Because of Peter’s behavior the night of the crucifixion, Peter is taken back at first with the questions and eager to let Jesus know he’ll do anything to make it up to him.  But Jesus just gives him responsibility for leadership and then hands him some hot fish and fresh bread, as if he wants to erase all the bad memories from Peter’s mind and make him know that he is still in.

       There are other times, too.  All of them involve doing regular things:  walking, talking, grilling, eating, fishing.  I think it is important that we all know that the risen Jesus is a part of our regular lives, so we won’t make some fantasy or legend of him, some religion or fable. No, this is the week of the real Jesus in real places.

       For me, I see him walking across the yard laughing, helping the little ones find Easter eggs.  I see him in a long conversation about choices and options over coffee with our college graduate grandson.

       I sense him with me when I am trying to prioritize our schedule, choosing what to say yes to and what to eliminate.  I feel his wisdom when I am trying to wrestle into words ideas that can’t be said in words.

       I sense he is speaking when I am listening to two friends whose faith has been damaged by charlatans and feel him assuring me that all I have to do is to love them and be real.

       He shows up alive and in person when I feel too afraid to trust him with my fears.  I give him our children – now grown – once again.  I give him Benjy’s anxieties about his film project and his excitement about recent auditions; I give him Suzanne and her many faceted writing.  I give him Amy’s acting and her trying to hold in tension all her loves—her husband, her professional choices, her almost-grown children, her heart.

       And Bill.  I trust this Christ to walk with him, too, and to lean on him when there’s no way to talk, to love him better than I can when he hurts.

       “Do you love me more than these?” I hear him ask.  “I do, Lord, even more than these.”

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Stopping to Say Thank You

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The Bakery

The original bakery in the 50’s

The Alexandria Bakery was an institution.  Owned and operated by two generations of the McClung/DiRuzza family from 1951 to 2001, it was the gathering place of our small town in central Indiana.  The Bakery was a microcosm of the American melting pot, where the high school janitor and the mayor, the piano teacher and her grown-up ex-students, the Methodist preacher and the dentist, the banker and the can-collector all shared tables and booths to start their day with coffee and a caramel roll.

Oh, those caramel rolls!  The taste was legendary.  High schoolers on the way to classes, farmers headed to the fields, women who had just dropped their elementary children all stopped by the Bakery—some to taste and talk, some to pick up and go.

The Bakery was also where one could order butter cookies with colorful icing for graduation receptions or baby showers.  Secretaries popped in to get a box of fresh glazed or chocolate frosted donuts for the office coffee breaks, PTA meetings, or 4-H Fair planning commission.  Churches made sure to have bakery donuts and pecan rolls on hand for the “gathering’ between Sunday School and church. 

When Bill and I married in 1962, The Bakery was an assumption in Alexandria.  Our kids grew up knowing breakfast at the Bakery; their grandmother took them there when they were little, and when they were in high school that was where they met their friends on Saturdays.

When in 2001 the DiRuzzas closed the Bakery and retired, the town was sad.  The old brick building with the tin ceiling was more than a location; it was a symbol of community that held us all together.  When the crumbling building was demolished in 2010, more than a few tears were shed.  I think many feared that small towns of America were somehow crumbling, too.

It was gone. The Bakery was gone.

The city made a “green space” where it once stood and tried to use that space for Christmas decorations, Santa’s Shanty, or booth space for Fall Festival.  But in spite of our best efforts, the hole on Harrison Street stood like a missing front tooth in the smile of our “friendly small town”.

Twenty years had passed when the grandson of the original owners came to Gina Brisco, our manager of Gaither Music, and the conversation began about maybe using the space that had been Gaither Family Resources to house a revival of The Alexandria Bakery.  Andy DiRuzza began work on repurposing the place, creating a kitchen for dough mixers, long wooden kneading tables, ovens, and all that a bakery would demand.

Rumors began to giggle their way around town, and excitement was high.  At last, in December the bakery was ready for a trial run—a two-day opening to see if this idea would fly.  At 6:00 am that day in December the line of those waiting stretched across the front of the building and down the parking lot. The DiRuzzas ran out of product by 9:30.   Yes!  The town of Alexandria was ready!

When the DiRuzzas opened for real in February, it was obvious that the Alexandria Bakery hadn’t been gone after all.  It had always been there in the solid institution of our memories.  At the first taste of the famous caramel rolls, eyes closed and a groan of ecstasy would come from deep inside.  “Ummm, just like I remembered....”

Because Bill and I both have March birthdays, all three of our grown children came home during March.  I’d like to say they were most excited about being back on the hillside where they grew up, but in reality, I think they were more excited about the Bakery. We watched as one by one they took their first bite of their favorite pastry, then we heard that groan.  “Ummm, just like I remembered.  The taste of my childhood!”

I am coming to believe that the Bakery was more than a disintegrating building and some makeshift booths and tables.  It was more than buttery cookies and warm pecan or caramel rolls.  It was something parents wanted to pass on to their children.  It was grass roots belonging to a community that had your back, a knowing you were somewhere safe and accepted.  It was tastes and smells and sounds that come from shared warmth and laughter and experiences.

When our youngest grandchildren were here for Spring Break, Benjy talked Andy DiRuzza into taking Liam and Mia on a “tour” of the bakery process.  They got baker’s aprons to take home and the chance for a photo op in front of the chalk board wall and the observation window.  They even got to put on sanitary gloves and add sprinkles to the freshly frosted donuts.  The tables out front were full that morning of people (and their children) who remembered this gathering place and the tastes that warmed their spirits and bodies so long ago.

And I am thinking that Leonard Sweet might be right when he predicts what just might save the Church and our country.  “Bring back the table!” he shouts.  Have more meals and fewer committee meetings, more pitch-ins and fellowship around a banquet table and fewer marketing strategy planning sessions.

In all those years of the Jewish dispersia—the scattering by persecution of the Jews to foreign countries when they had no country of their own--they carried their nation on their backs.  Their sacred traditions, their language, their shared history, their certainty of chooseness—all these turned out to be portable.  After carrying these all those years, what they needed was just a plot of land, and, voila! They were a nation!

Maybe, just maybe, all the divisive vitriol and efforts of extreme factions to tear our nation and our communities apart have not been so successful after all.  Maybe, just maybe, a bakery here and a church pitch-in there and a family reunion in a field somewhere else might reveal that our beloved community, our homeland, and our citizenship in an eternal Kingdom were always there in our hearts.  Maybe a sweet taste or bit of music or the sound of laughter or a child’s prayer at night might just give us the hope that the Nation on a Hill and the Church Triumphant are alive and well.  Maybe what we most need is a big table, some dough filled with yeast, and candle or two to light our way back home.

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Easter Everywhere

It is still soggy in Indiana.  The ground has thawed and the creeks are swollen.  The bottom land is too muddy for a walk, and in some places, there is so much water standing in the fields that the mallards are confused about where to build their nests.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

But the smell of earth tells me that I can start clearing the thick layer of last fall’s leaves from my raised garden frames and maybe prepare to stir some additional fertilizer into the black dirt underneath. 

Photo by Angela Kellogg

The daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips are in full bloom; the forsythia bushes are an outrageous shade of yellow, and the tips of the redbuds are bright pink along the edges of the Indiana woods.  If I tightly hold the branches of the lilacs in my hand, I can feel life, almost a pulse of sap pumping up the stem to the swollen tips of each twig.

I use my small hand rake to carefully move the leaves away from the soil in my vegetable frames.  I work my way from one corner to the other, putting the leaves into a basket for mulching until I reach the opposite corner.  What is this? A wad of hair tangled in the decaying leaves makes me stop.  I carefully lift the tangle. A nest of tiny pink bunnies, tightly intertwined, move.  The mother rabbit has covered them carefully against the chill that is still in the air.  I quickly replace the leaves and the fur she has pulled from her own body to keep them warm and hidden. The moment is almost a prayer.

Life is throbbing everywhere.  No wonder there have been ancient rites of spring: dancing and music and the weaving of blossomed branches into halos and crowns to make princesses and princes of all who spin to the glory of new life!  No wonder we, too, who celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, hold chicks and bunnies, cherry blossoms and lilies-of-the-valley just to experience the pulse of the living!  No wonder we hold eggs in our hands like they are sacred and paint them with flowers and crosses and empty tombs!

Photo by Angela Kellogg

How can anyone frown and call “pagan” the joy of all nature, singing to the eternal victory of life over death?  I hear the voice of the risen Christ, speaking Mary’s name, calling her back to her true self again, she who once was split into seven personalities. Can you feel her fear that without her Lord she may splinter again?  But He speaks her name.  Mary.  She is whole again and forever.  Then He speaks again, this time with the gentle command, “Now, go and tell the disciples—and Peter.  I am risen from the dead.”

Don’t we all in the dark days of despair, in the winter of our discontent, feel ourselves sliding into the pit of doubt, questioning everything we were so sure we believed?  But then comes the morning. Night turns into day!  Our stone is rolled away!  Hope comes with the dawn.  Yes!

Winter cannot win.  Death is doomed. Every lime-green blade of grass, every thawing stream, every insistent sprout declares the power of Life!  So, yes, dance!  Weave crowns of daisies and dandelions.  Cuddle the furry bursts of pussywillow catkins and smell the fertile warmth of a fistful of earth.  Cheer every unfolding sprout that bursts through the brown skin of a seed!

Jesus has risen to rename us, empower us, and to dispel pessimism with hope and joy and the strongest, deepest peace.  HE IS RISEN!  Our Lord is alive, and, thank God, so are we!

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As Perceptive as a Jackass

Donkeys seem to be famous for being dense, stubborn, and quick to balk at the slightest provocation.  On a good day they can carry heavy loads and shoulder more than their share of responsibility.  But perceptive? They are certainly not famous for that! Yet donkeys seem to have shown up at pivotal moments in the story of redemption. 

When the children of Israel were making their way into the Promised Land, they camped along the Jordan River across from Jericho on the edge of Moab.  The Moabite leader Balaak (son of the king) was petrified when he saw this huge encampment. He had heard how God had given Israel the victory over the neighboring Amorites.

So Balaak called a soothsayer (a prophet misusing his gift) named Balaam to put a curse on Israel so Moab would be able to easily overtake them.  God told Balaam not to go with the Moab team, but (follow the money!) they offered him a delicious reward.  The “prophet” said he wouldn’t put a curse on Israel “because Israel was blessed”, but agreed to go with the messengers just to check it out in case he heard something different from God.  God was angered by this compromise.

On Balaam’s way to meet Balaak, the donkey he was riding stopped in her tracks because she saw a fierce angel of the Lord with a drawn sword in his hand blocking the road.  She went off the road into a field, so Balaam (oblivious to the angel) got off the donkey and beat her back onto the road. Back on the road which ran between two walled vineyards, the donkey was again confronted with the armed angel. She pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it.  Balaam beat her again.  This time she lay down in the road with Balaam on her back and refused to move. Still oblivious to the angel, he beat her again.

This time the “dumb” animal spoke. “What did I ever do to you to make you beat me?”
“You humiliated me,” said Balaam. “If I had had a sword, I would have killed you.”

“Remember me? I’m your faithful beast of burden who has carried all your loads my whole life to this very day!” the donkey retorted.

Then God gave Balaam a wake-up-call, and he saw the armed angel blocking the road to keep him from playing games with the enemy of God’s intensions.

Now, fast forward to the next time a donkey shows up.  It is again to carry out God’s intensions to get His people to a new place—to bring His own Son to earth to become the promised Messiah who would “save His people from their sin.”  A young woman is riding on a donkey with her husband-of-promise to register for taxation.  She is nine months pregnant and ready to deliver.  We don’t have an actual account of this donkey, but since the couple is poor and the distance is long, we are pretty sure they got to their destination by means of the transportation available to them.

Evidently, their donkey is willing and obedient, carrying its load to a stable where both the couple and the donkey will find a place to rest.  The young woman will give birth to the promised Messiah in that stable on that quiet night.

The third time a donkey plays a vital role Jesus and his disciples have come to Jerusalem.  They get as far as Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, when Jesus tells two of his friends to go into a nearby settlement, and there they will find a donkey and her colt tied up.  “Loose them and bring them to me,” Jesus tells them, “and if anyone questions this, just say, ‘The Lord needs them.’”

Did this ring any bells with any of the disciples?  Did anyone remember their schooling in the prophets?  On their way did the two disciples recall the text they had had to discuss in class: “Tell the daughters of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”?

It would have been donkey-like for these “dumb” animals to balk at a couple of strangers trying to lead her and her colt away.  But evidently, they both came willingly and did not freak out when Jesus rode through the crowded streets full of cheering throngs waving palm branches.

So.  This holy season of Easter, this is my prayer:  

Lord, as a follower of this Messiah make me at least as sensitive to eternal things and as perceptive to your plan as a jackass.  When I look up synonyms for jackass, I find “dunce, blockhead, nitwit, dummy, numbskull.” Yet, in the story of the rescue and redemption of God’s people, you spoke to a donkey, and it heard, it saw, it was obedient, it did not balk. If a donkey can see an angel in its path, help me to be at least that perceptive. If a donkey can be untied and led by a stranger who walks with Jesus, please let me be as willing and obedient as that. 

This Easter, make me alive with resurrection power so I will be as responsive as a dumb donkey when my Lord has need of me.  Let me see the invisible Kingdom you came to establish in the hearts of those least likely to be the perfect container, and let me be willing to carry whatever load that that vision might require.

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Free at Last!

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held slavery by their fear of death. (Heb. 2:14)

The law had punishments.  And the laws were so comprehensive no one could keep them all, so most of the time people lived in fear.  

But Jesus—oh, Jesus! Without breaking or banishing the law, He circumvented it, and at the same time satisfied justice by drawing a bigger circle—the circle of a dying love-gift, so that all those in the long line of punishment could go free.  He cut in line, died and paid the ultimate price, served the ultimate sentence.  Love swallowed vengeance. Love ate the sin and swallowed it whole.

Just when justice had the whole human race climbing the steps to the guillotine blindfolded, Love offered His perfect head for us all.  Now everyone is dancing in the street!  Praise music is being played on every instrument imaginable!  

The old Law System has been bought for the express purpose of destroying it, so that the Joy System could be put in its place.  Satan has been made to watch his plan breaking apart—agony for him.  But the ultimate agony is that Satan himself and all his tricks will be burned at the stake.  Gone forever! 

Free at last!  Free at last!  Thank God almighty we’re free at last!

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What to Give Up for Lent

What are you giving up for Lent?  During this season I hear this conversation-starter in restaurants and in other social settings.  Various answers follow:

“I gave up Chocolate.”

“Well, I gave up TV baseball.  I don’t like it that much anyway; I just watch it because my husband watches it, and if I’m going to be with him, I have to watch baseball.”

“I’m swearing off shopping at Walmart.  Whenever I’m there, I end up buying a bunch of stuff I don’t need.”

I find myself asking where did Lent come from, and why do people give up things for it? I can’t find any such religious observance mentioned in the New Testament account of the early church after the resurrection. When did Lent as an observance start and how did it get institutionalized as a Christian ritual?

What I found out is that Lent became a mandated observance at the Nicaean Council held in 325 C.E., a gathering of Christians from various areas where the church had spread in the then-known world.  It seems that at that point it had a self-denial and sacrificial emphasis, to somehow make oneself worthy of redemption and to self-atone for sins and shortcomings. 

Most historical traditions seem to relate Lent to the forty days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness as he battled Satan’s enticement to succumb to the lure of materializing His mission by seeking power, provision, and notoriety of an earthly kingdom.  If this is indeed the basis for Lent, it must demand far more than giving up chocolate or going on a diet for 40 days.

Fasting as a form of physical, mental, and spiritual purification has a long history in Jewish law and is a discipline of many world religions.  So the days leading up to Jesus’s arrest, trial, abuse, and crucifixion is certainly a sobering and appropriate time for followers of Jesus to fast.  The effort to somehow comprehend the suffering of the Master and, as Paul says, to “fellowship in his suffering” can bring us to a more acute awareness of the agony the disciples experienced as they all too often failed to supply the support Jesus needed, especially when their own safety was at stake. 

It is important to realize that Jesus’s followers did not know the outcome of those days.  Even though Jesus had given plenty of metaphors for what was to come, there was no comprehension of a coming resurrection. Those last days with Jesus was their own testing in the wilderness.  Would they succumb to the pressures of the power structures of the ruling strongmen or the ecclesiastical politic?

I hear some people say they are giving up certain “sins” for Lent, like gossiping, drinking, gambling, cheating on a spouse, or lying.  Others say they are going to give money to a charity or volunteer for a good cause.  It seems the implication is that as soon as Lent is over, they can go back to old behaviors, that Lent is a temporary discipline but not a permanent change. 

But the resurrection did come!  And the resurrection is all about new life and the power to live it.  We are no good at atoning for our own sins, and good intentions to change ourselves are always too weak.  Oh, but if Lent can be a turning, an about-face from where I have been to where I long to be, a turning from the regrets of my failures to a vision of the Resurrection and a brand-new life and a fresh attitude and perspective, then a “time” for that turning is a good thing. 

In deciding what to give up for Lent, I think of the end of Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts.  Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (LB)

If God points out the things in me that make Him sad, and I willingly give them up for Lent, I know the Lord of Lent will give me grace for each moment as I leave those things behind and choose Life for tomorrow—and forever.

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