Joy and Hope

Romans 15:7-13

Hope and joy seem to be hitting me in the face today. If I hope in God then I trust him for my future and that should be a source of Joy.

Some students

Psalms 135

Anna, Rosemary, Janet, Sylvia, these are the names of some of my first pupils. They were good students, they almost always got all their sums correct and never misbehaved. They were good students. I gave them 10/10. Occasionally one would slide a little in her chair and topple towards her neighbour, but that was the worst offence. They seemed to concentrate intently on their lessons but though they had hands I had to write their answers for them. Yes they were my dolls. They were very different from the real life students I have encountered since then.
There is Louis, a member of a very unruly class, who noticed my cracked hands and said "Miss you need to put some lotion on your hands". Through him I began to accept those students as real caring people in spite of their lack of care for mathematics taught in English. Most of them did their counting in Spanish.
There is Brandon who  helped me in my garden and house, we shared religion and politics whilst working together.
Here are just two of the real live students who often got wrong answers to their mathematics but they are in my heart because of their care. Unlike my dolls who are in a box in the attic.

Chasm of Silence

Zechariah 12:1-10

10 And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one^* whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.

Babies are seldom silent. They snort in their sleep and as we all know they cry when hungry or uncomfortable. The death of a baby leaves a chasm of silence in a house. Mourning and bitterness are not reserved for the firstborn though I do not remember feeling bitter, numb but not bitter. In our sorrow God was with us, his compassion and the supplications of our friends.


Your face is white.

No toothless grin

To reflect a smile.

No little fingers

Gently folding,

Grasping mine tight.

The crib is empty.

Little blue clothes

Folded neatly

Diapers unopened.

There is no baby here.

Stretch marks and flab,

Wrinkled stomach,

Abdominals lax.

A baby has been born

But there is no baby here.

He cries.

No ‘tis the sheep’s bleat

Reverberating around the childless house.

There is no baby here.

My arms are empty.

My breasts are full.

Life goes on.

Yours did not.

There is no baby here.

But I see him sitting on God’s knee

Smiling at his Heavenly Father.

No grades to fear,

no adolescent temper.

Mother dear I am alive and well

Living in eternity.

A founder

1 Corinthians 3:10-23

I wanted to tell about George Hoffman the founder of TearFund but I might be hopelessly wrong and really want to discuss the founder of a completely different charity.
George Hoffman was certainly one of the founders of TearFund and my Google search for him has brought me little information which goes to prove the point that I want to make.

There was a founder, or bigwig of a big national/international Christian charity who was the best friend of our priest, Geoffrey Cox, at Wollaston between 1990 and 1992. They had a pact that the survivor would preach the sermon at the first to die's funeral. The content of the sermon was to be Jesus Christ and him alone. Geoffrey was the survivor.
The founders of the charity had an idea, they implemented it and we see the results. The founder is not elevated to a pedestal. It is all about Jesus. It is about sharing the knowledge of him in our life. It is about sharing his love.

Turbulence and calm

Psalm 33


⁷ He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
   he put the deeps in storehouses. 

What was turbulence and distress on Thursday is now stillness and calm.

God is our Creator and Lord as much as he is the wild ocean.
8  Lets us fear him and stand in awe of him 

¹⁸ Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
   on those who hope in his steadfast love, 

²⁰ Our soul waits for the Lord;
   he is our help and shield. 
²¹ Our heart is glad in him,
   because we trust in his holy name. 
²² Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
   even as we hope in you.

To me these verses are a forerunner for the comforting passages in Romans chapter 8. Proof that God is consitendt and working his purpose out.

Romans 8:28 We know that all things work together for good^* for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 


Picture later

Thanksgiving

Psalm 105:23-45

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  This morning I went for a walk on the beach, hood up, umbrella up, gloves on. It reminded me of walks on Broad Haven beach, often in winter clad in hat and coat and wellington boots. Maybe I will recount some of the tales of my youth to Naomi this evening, remembering to give thanks and praise to our creator.

Leashes

James 1: 16-27

26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 

Windermere can be a naughty boy. Currently he is curled up in the beanbag. There is no sound, the only clue to his life is the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. Take him for a walk, meet another dog and one needs earplugs to diminish noise of the screeching and barking as they assault the eardrums. This is accompanied by a straining at the leash to attack the other dog and that fails he quickly turns and initiates a fight with Ernest.
I try to keep my eyes open and search ahead. If I see a distant dog I wind Windermere's leash around my head several times, thus trying to prevent the opportunity to lash out at Ernest. I might also turn aside in the hope that Windy will not notice the dog. all my effort is on controlling the errant dog by his leash and my voice, often having the leash so short that I am at his eye level, thereby trying to control his vision and help him to realize that I am in charge. It is a long and slow learning curve.
Who is in charge of my tongue?

The Plight, not the Flight of the Midway Island Albatross.

Revelation 19:11-21

17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, ‘Come, gather for the great supper of God, ¹⁸to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty, the flesh of horses and their riders—flesh of all, both free and slave, both small and great.’


It's an old story but I only heard about it for the first time yesterday, The Plight, not  the Flight of the Midway Island Albatross. Photographer Chris Jordan taken photographs of baby albatrosses on Midway Isaland, erroneously fed plastic by their parents. Not a very nutritious diet for a growing bird. Midway Island is thousands of kilometres from the nearest land but currents bring our reject plastic bottle tops and toothbrushes, lighters and plastic bags to the albatross feeding area. Lighters look a little like squid, the parents thought they had a treat.

Louis Evely wrote in In The Christian Spirit "To love God is to love the world. To love God passionately is to love the world passionately.To hope in God  is to hope for the salvation of the world." By world I do not know if he meant mankind or the whole created world. I like to believe that it is both and that we need to be a caring example in our husbandry of the planet and our loving of souls.

MARRIAGE

Revelation 19:1-10

I wrote this many years ago. It was inspired by this passage from Revelation

Picture the scene.

The bride is standing in front of the church with her back to the congregation, but we all know that she is looking radiant as she gazes into the eyes of her loved one.  Her black curls fall onto her white dress. The dress is covered with embroidery and pearls. It has a long train.  One of the most splendid gowns we have seen.

Beside the bride stands the groom. He looks at the bride with eyes full of adoration as he dreams of the life they will share together, of the hours that they can spend in each other's company. He is wearing a suit of the most brilliant white, whiter than the purest snow, for he is Jesus our Lord and King.

The bride vows that she will love and obey for ever, as they believe in the love that lasts into eternity. They  know that they will do anything, go anywhere for each other, even unto death. How they look forward to their future life of mutual devotion.

As we expect the honeymoon is wonderful.  Hours spent in each others company, with eyes and cares for nobody or anythingelse.  Time with the person they have chosen,  an intimate and cozy time.  The sky is blue and the sun shines, there is nothing to dim the light of their love.

Returning to their home there are presents, chores and bills waiting for them. The life of roses tends to drift from the fragrant and beautiful blooms to the thorny stem of the bush. Unfortunately she does not realise that the pleasing and the uncomfortable are all part of the same plant. She lets her eyes wonder to other lovers, they all take their share of her emotions.

The presents, although they were the best that their friends could give them are not quite good enough, nor do they satisfy all that society  thinks that they ought to have. She is not willing to follow her spouse's time scale with regard to increasing thier possessions. She wants him to provide more for her NOW.

Then along come the children, offspring of the divine and the human. She begins to devote herself more to the little things that grow ostensibly in his name.  He wants to name the children Praise, Prayer and Charity but she calls them Good Works,  Altar Guild, and Church Bazaar. These children come in the name of the Lord, but insidiously cause the wife to turn her eyes away from spouse.

Above all is the desire to live for herself, to be somebody in her own right grows in importance. She glances back at the time before her decision to give herself to him and sees that the old freedom has gone, there is another person to consider as well as herself. She forgets to look forward to the joy which they anticipated, she forgets to gaze again into his ever-loving eyes. 

There is more dischord when she wants him to be what he is not, to be a visible and powerful king over the whole earth. He wants  to  take possession of the earth through the growth of their love.

The time comes when the only way out of the situation is for him to allow himself to be taken prisoner for her debts and to pay the price for her sins in the hope that she will see his look of compassion as he gazes at her from his cross.  She might then come to him again in their new life together.  This time she might rely on him  to help her to find the person that she really is.

We, the church are the bride (Ephesians 5:25). It is wonderful that this marriage takes place every day of our lives. New people turn to Christ and announce their love for him and he is able to look forward to another loving relationship.  He enters into the relationship even though he knows that we will not be faithful. But we let him down and wonder away from him. He gives his life for us. We can enter into a new marriage with the resurrected Christ. This one will last for ever as long as we keep glancing back at the cross, knowing that he would go through it all again for us. 

He is the perfect marriage partner, very much married 'for better,  for worse '. 

We are such bad partners when we consider our marriage to Jesus Christ  that we ought to view our earthly spouse with a slightly more tolerant attitude than is often the case. 

Orchestration

1 Corinthians 14:1-12

I have a violin. It sits in its case in the attic. What use is that?
Naomi has a trombone. She plays it often. At home she practices. Out of the house she plays in bands and orchestras. The sounds of the trombone join with those of flutes and harps, violins and cellos, oboes and clarinets. But they do not take their music and play whatever they choose. Together they play what the conductor has chose. Carefully composed, music conveying the sentiments of the composer. Carefully orchestrated, music blending the sounds of the instruments into a beautiful melody.
God takes the odd bods of  his creation and blends us into a symphony of witness. I better watch the conductor and not miss my entry.

Though I walk...

Psalm 23

When I was a young and enthusiastic Christian I thought the 23rd Psalm trite and overused. It was the universal psalm, known by all, true Christian or not. I knew Jesus, I judged that they did not. Now, almost 50 years later I am no less enthusiastic, certainly no longer young but I hope less judgemental of another person's relationship with God.
This psalm is a silken lifeline, as strong as a spider's web at drawing a wandering soul into a relationship with our maker. I now understand that this is not just for the feeble spirited. It is for me.
As I walk through the lanes of life my God is with me.
I have more stories about Psalm 23 but they are for another time.

Mother Jesus

Luke 13:31-35

³⁴Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 


The first day of school is a big day. The big yellow bus came down the street at 7 30am and my little baby girl climbed the steps. I clicked the camera. She was on her own, out in the big world, responsible for her own actions. 
There have been times when I wanted to intervene. There was the day, in high school, when she had Sharpie and gave a wisecrack answer to the girl in front of her. Our baby was hence accused of drug sniffing. We lived in a very strict school district. The consequences were tough. Her father talked to the Principal. But what solved the situation was our baby herself having an adult conversation with the Principal. 
There were no more witty answers in dubious circumstances. A Lesson was learned.

Jesus wants to keep us safe but we are wilful children. He lets us grow and mature all the while wanting to gently nurture his offspring.

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner wearing the Order of Franz Joseph (portrait by Josef Büche)

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-15

44Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
   our ancestors in their generations. 

⁵ those who composed musical tunes,
   or put verses in writing; 

Once upon a time, in far away Austria, there was a little boy. He would run into the forest behind the house. It was a large and seemingly empty forest. He was amazed at the intermingling of the forest sounds. Of course there was the tweeting of the little birds and the  wind whistling through the branches. Above this was the unmistakeable sawing of trees felled for the nearby papermills and in the distance the din of the mills themselves could be faintly heard. But listening more intently there were the sounds that only those attuned to nature can observe- the autumnal dancing leaves spiralling downwards and the not so the gentle plop of chestnuts as they thundered to earth. 
Not all was peaceful in the forest. Wild boar tore through the undergrowth chased by hungry huntsmen. Screeching, or is it croaking, pheasants were felled with a single shot.
Little Anton loved the forest with its melange of oral wonders. Just as the mustard seed grows into a tree so these sounds took seed in the little lad who later orchestrated them into symphonies in celebration of the Creator in whom he had delighted since his youth.
To the city dweller the forest is silent but to those who know it well the noise can be almost deafening. So it was for Anton Bruckner.

Luke 13:18-30

18 He said therefore, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? ¹⁹It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.’

Psalm 74

¹² Yet God my King is from of old,
   working salvation in the earth. 
¹³ You divided the sea by your might;
   you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. 
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
   you gave him as food^* for the creatures of the wilderness. 
¹⁵ You cut openings for springs and torrents;
   you dried up ever-flowing streams. 
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night;
   you established the luminaries^* and the sun. 
¹⁷ You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
   you made summer and winter. 

²³ Do not forget the clamour of your foes,

   the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.

Sometimes Anton would accompany his father to the church organ. He would listen and learn. It was work and worship together. 

Anton's father also took him to school. He worked hard there striving to be a good student and succeeded. He became a teacher. But perhaps most of his striving was in his composition. He was continually making revisions. Is our spiritual life the same? Are we always reaching to attain the life of Christ? Did Bruckner not write organ music beyond the first piece because he knew that in his later years he had mastered that instrument?

Bruckner was a striver. He reached genius level because he worked hard to reach his goals. he reached goals that would have satisfied most of us but he was always looking to be better. He is a product of the reaction against the rationalization of the Age of Enlightenment. The straight lines of Georgian architecture gave way to ornate Victorian. Write it all down, include everything, leave no instrument out. Did I miss something? Should I change that? How difficult it is to be 100% perfect.

photograph
This work is in the public domain in the European Union and non-EU countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years or less.

All creatures great and small

Ecclesiasticus 43:23-33

²⁵ In it are strange and marvellous creatures,
   all kinds of living things, and huge sea-monsters. 


We took our eighteen month old daughter to the zoo. She was sitting in her pushchair as we arrived at the rhinoceros enclosure. "WoW" and she stood perirously to gin a better view of this out of her world creature.

Last week I was watching  programme about icebergs. I was fascinated of the excitement of the eminent scientist on seeing tiny living creatures that he had never seen before.

The world is certainly full of marvels.

Praise God the creator of us all.

My fig tree

Luke 13:1-9

This is my fig tree. I bought it about  eighteen months ago. This spring I repotted it. I thought if I give it a bigger pot perhaps it will grow. During the summer, maybe it had two leaves. Next spring I might try planting it in the ground. I know that Belgium does not have the best climate for figs but I bought the tree from our local vegetable grower so I am sure he has nurtured the tree from birth.
There are indeed two figs, they have been there and this size for most of the summer. Throw the tree on the compost heap? Never, unless it is well and truly dead, it is my baby. I will continue to nurture it.

I pray that God will do the same with me. I am his child after all.

Stress

Luke 12:49-59

What did you do today?
I missed my bus. The next bus was two hours later. I did not want to wait one hour and fifty-nine minutes. My options were wait until the next bus, walk eleven kilometres or wait half an hour and walk five kilometres. It was raining. We think of stress as a modern illness. We overload ourselves with commitments. I I took option three thus getting home at least an hour later than I have originally intended but with the same workload awaiting me on my arrival home.
I was not  happy camper though my plight was alleviated slightly by one of my classmates from yoga giving a ride part of the way home. I have been trying to finish some time, getting on for ten months. I had planned that today I would actually get the material under the needle of the sewing machine. But no, I had to recover from my cold and wet walk. Then there were other chores which had to be done, one of which was also making up for a mistake that I had made. I am frustrated with myself. There is no way that I will get to the sewing machine today. Maybe if I had not decided to share this thought. Will I ever finish the curtains?


⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 

Jesus knew stress. I thought it was a modern illness, unique to our over committed life-style. No Jesus had a job to do and it was weighing him down. My frustration is not caused by anything so important to mankind as the mission which Jesus had to fulfil can now believe more fully in the verse which claims that Jesus new our temptations.

Hebrews 4: 14-16
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Ready

Luke 12;32-48

Have I locked it? I don't know, I better do it again. And since our car key behaves differently on the second click of lock I unlock the car and then press lock again. I am this neurotic about locking the car because one Sunday night somebody took our fuel card out of the car and used it, used it many times to our cost. We do not know how they got into the car but I expect I had not locked it. This of course did not give them licence to open the car or to take or to use the card.
Now I need to be as particular in following Jesus. I do not know when he is coming. I want to be prepared for him coming now.
Jesus loves me and he loves you.

Anxiety

Luke 12:13-31

I was brought up to eat what I was given whether I liked it or not. The result was that I grew up not knowing that one could dislike food. I went on a Brownie holiday and won the prize for the 'best eater'. 

I believe that the food that we are given is a gift from God, it is part of the world in which I live. I hate waste. of any kind. Perhaps that is why our house is full of artefacts that might be useful one day. 

I see each drip of water that comes out of the tap as a gift. It is easy to take water for granted in Belgium where seldom a week goes by without rain. We are too busy being anxious about amassing our wealth and keeping our precious time to consider our use of those mundane natural resources which we have at our disposal. Our concerns of course would be irrelevant without the natural resources which we take for granted.

I pray that on my striving towards the kingdom  will be a walk of justice and kindness to mankind and humbleness towards God trusting him for my needs.

(Micah 6:8)