Slow-mo's

About the fastest things at my local county fair are the horses and little kids dragging their parents to the carnival rides.  I’m used to seeing the cows, pigs, goats, sheep, bunnies, chickens and other fowl as youngsters bring their pets to show and hopefully receive ribbons. But I wasn’t prepared for the critters fenced under some shady trees near the commercial exhibits this year. 

Yes, turtles. Huge, slow-moving turtles.  I neglected to ask the nearby people—presumably care-takers—why these were at the fair.  My best guess was for small-fry discovery, as some of the bigger (and noisier) animals can be scary and intimidating.

Not turtles. God’s creation reflects who He is in numberless ways.  And I wonder if He placed turtles among us to slow us down, especially those of us who live in this high-paced technical age where speed is a prized commodity.

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Get there quicker in our brand of car with all its horsepower.
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Lonely? Try our speed-dating service.

But God sometimes works r e a l   s l o w.  This was especially painful for early Christians who wanted the promise of a new kingdom with a righteous ruler—God Himself—as soon as possible.  Life with persecution was already near the edge of “unbearable.”  Jesus’ follower Peter knew the temper of spiritual times well, writing:

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.  The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 8:9)

Lest early Christians think they could relax their fervor for Christ a bit, Peter added:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (v. 10)

When God’s ready, history won’t move at the pace of a turtle. It will happen in the blink of an eye. That’s why we’re to “make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him” (v. 14).

Does that awe you, inspire you, and fire you up?

Glamour in the pen

Whee—pink leopard fashion shirt!  I couldn’t help but stop and smile when I passed by this goat at our local county fair.  I’m presuming this pet-cover helped keep a just-washed animal cleaner for imminent judging. But the animal’s woebegone attitude triggered my imagination. If animals could talk “human-talk,” I wonder what this one would have said. Maybe something of the animal version of: “I’d rather be in jeans with bleach holes.”J

Smiles aside, our culture’s move toward clothing for pets (such as Halloween costumes for Fifi and Fido, usually on 90% off clearance by January) lands in my “that’s incredible” file.  I’ll admit that our ancient cat (now 17 or 18 years old—he was a rescue cat) in earlier years suffered the indignity of being garbed with Cabbage Patch doll clothes.  Alas, he was so portly that they were a poor fit, and as soon as he could, he escaped from his modeling career to the great outdoors where he could freely wear his one-and-only fur coat.

Do clothes make the person?  The fashion world would have us believe that.  But another type of clothing--the inside-type--does communicate a lot about us to people around us. 

The apostle Paul wrote that God’s chosen people—“holy and dearly loved”—should have these clothing choices: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and the ability to bear with others and forgive each other.  Finally, like a coat over all, “put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14).

Peter had a similar clothes shopping list: “Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5, part of it quoting Proverbs 3:34).

Paul wrote the Romans, “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14).  Simple and basic.   But how profound!

Did you catch something about the “clothes” mentioned in those passages?  They’re about heart-conditions that undergo the wear-and-tear of relationships.  How the world sees “Christian-dress” has a lot to do with how we treat people.  No Christian-wear is flimsy. It needs to stand up to a lot of people-and-trials-wear-and-tear. But remember: the label says, “Inspected by John 3:16.”

No clouded perspective

Are you, like me, sometimes overwhelmed by natural beauty? One such time for me came recently as I noticed a cloud back-lit by the sun. I thought of this line:
He makes the clouds His chariot.
My concordance later helped me fix its address: Psalm 104:3. In his paraphrase. Eugene Peterson offers this poetic version:
You…made a chariot out of the clouds and took off on wind-wings.
One of the “ministries”—if I might use that word—of creation may be to help us unclutter our minds. The day I noticed this remarkable cloud formation, my mind was swirling with the usual “to-do” stuff plus clouded with concern for problems facing people I care about. I looked up, and there it was: God’s reminder of His power, His brilliance, His grandeur, far, far greater than a clump of water vapor in the sky.

Blame it on having been an English major in college! But I believe that all of us, within our hearts, have that quiet longing for something pure and magnificent.  And that, of course, is the spirit of God who created us and all that surrounds us.

One of the old hymns that steps back in awe of creation is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” One day when he was about 29 years old, Folliott Pierpoint looked across the spring beauty of his home area of Bath, England. Situated on the banks of the Avon River, rimmed by an amphitheater of hills and blessed by warm springs (hence the name, Bath), the area is well-known for its beauty. But that spring day, Pierpoint, a Cambridge-educated teacher, couldn’t control himself. The sight inspired the hymn that begins:

For the beauty of the earth; For the beauty of the skies;
For the love which from our birth/Over and around us lies:
Christ our God, to Thee we raise/This our sacrifice of praise.
Originally eight stanzas, it was used in the Anglican church for communion services. Coming over the Atlantic, it was often used for Thanksgiving, an American holiday.

It’s an ironic truth that the more we have, the less thankful we tend to be. This hymn reminds us to just stop and look around at what God has entrusted to us in His amazing creation.

There’s one more thing: that light behind the clouds took me to one more event.  Christ left in a cloud (Acts 1:10)—and I wonder, did it gleam with the glory He once came from?  He will come again in a cloud, “with great power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).

Clouds got your attention?  Use that moment to praise God for His creative beauty and eternal plan!

Toot-n-Scoot!

He’s Gonna Toot and I’m Gonna Scoot!  I couldn’t help but think of that book title by Christian humorist Barbara Johnson as I wandered an old cemetery in Roslyn, a sleepy town in central Washington state.  Just a few days earlier, we’d enjoyed a brief visit from the minister who married us 35 years earlier. Now 83, he told of visiting another cemetery where he buried his wife just last year. This weekend would have been their 56th wedding anniversary. A son and a grandson are buried there, too.  As his daughter helped him leave flowers, he said he thought how people better watch out when these loved ones experience resurrection and zoom out of their graves!  He was referring to the apostle Paul’s letter to the ancient Thessalonians, who were confused about death and heaven:
According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the LORD forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17).

Two sisters, almost 3 and 2 years old.

Once a booming coal mining town that grew to more than 4,000 in the 1920s, today it has about 900 year-round residents.  Its name made news when three movies were filmed there, including “Northern Exposure.”  To work the early mines, immigrants came from throughout the world. But stories of poverty, disasters (45 perished in an 1892 mine explosion) and epidemics are told through the crumbling headstones over 19 acres of cemetery. Many are for infants and small children. I recalled how some of the most poignant scenes of Jesus’ earthly ministry involved common people bringing their children to Him for blessing. He said, “Do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 9:14). Like a shepherd who went to great pains to find his lost sheep, Jesus said God the Father “is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost” (Matthew 18:11).

The Roslyn cemetery’s most distinctive feature is ethnic segregation. Twenty-six sections, like jig-saw puzzle pieces, divide the 19 acres of woods and hills.  Many family plots are surrounded by ornate iron fences, probably to keep foraging cattle and wildlife out.  Ethnic customs were also behind having some plots being raised above the earth, rimmed or covered with concrete, supposedly to protect “consecrated” grounds.  Many cemetery sections were labeled as burial places for those of Eastern European background. One huge section was for African Americans.  Again, I thought of Paul’s reminder about the snare of prejudice, that:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28).  

A baby who died in 1903, not even a year old.
Artificial flowers abound on the graves.

Heavily littered with dead needles from the many ponderosa pines there,  the cemetery was a sobering, sad place. But I was taken back to the “Toot” and “Scoot” image that Barbara Johnson gave us in her humorous book about God’s final plan.  I recalled her story: of losing one son in the Vietnam War, another son to a drunk driver, and being estranged from a third son for many years. Her “Spatula Ministries” (alluding to being shocked to a splotch on the ceiling over family problems), borne of her own trials, helped many find God’s purpose and hope in life’s most difficult experiences. Those hard times aren’t forever. The best is yet ahead.  Paul also wrote, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).  Did you catch that—“called me heavenward”?  What an exciting moment it will be when “toot- and-scoot” happens—not only in Roslyn but everywhere around the world!

All dolled up and nowhere to go

 Cars were parked up and down the block as I arrived at an estate sale that had advertised fabric. I’m always watching for inexpensive flannel to sew baby blankets donated to hospitals for needy families. The two long tables stacked with material didn’t have what I used, but as I moved on through the yard I was astonished by hundreds of dolls and doll paraphernalia. It went on and on....The same was true of ceramic and glass trinkets burdening other tables. Going inside, it got worse. Multiple sets of dishes and other knickknacks were meticulously organized and priced.

I’m thankful that my community has two groups (one benefiting a local non-profit agency) that hire out to conduct estate sales. They relieve survivors of an often oppressive burden in breaking down a household. I handled that task after my parents died.  It was a long and difficult process requiring, in my case, seven yard sales. The most challenging items to sell were my mother’s tea-cup and salt-and-pepper-shaker collections

That recent day, as I inched around heaped tables, I asked one of the helpers if this was one of the bigger sales they had handled.  He nodded and replied, “There’s another sale next week. We haven’t even started in on the basement.”

Convicted of my own “piles,” I came home and loaded a box for the local thrift store!      But I couldn’t get the heaps of dolls out of my mind.  How long had that person collected them?  Did she play with them? Or were they boxed away because she didn’t know what to do with all of them?

Walking past so many dolls, I thought of a girl in Haiti we have sponsored for years through a compassion ministry. Sometimes we sent extra (above sponsor fees for her schooling) for her to buy herself something. Months later we’d get a translated thank-you note indicating she used the extra gift to buy food for her family.  One time she admitted she bought a doll.  ONE doll.

I’ve had recent encounters with real-life hoarders, and it is sad and frustrating. But this estate sale’s piles of dolls astounded me.  I thought of Ecclesiastes 5:10-11, which says, “Those who love money [or what money buys—my add-on] will never have enough.  How absurd to think that wealth brings true happiness. The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it.  So what is the advantage of wealth—except perhaps to watch it run through your fingers!” (NLT). 

This person didn’t live in a wealthy neighborhood. Most of it is smaller “starter homes” that are a half century or so old. But her compulsion to collect dolls and other trinkets was apparently big in her life.

In contrast, the apostle Paul held loosely onto “things.” It was the only way to live as an underfunded traveling evangelist in days when your feet or a boat got you places. “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” he counseled his protégé, Timothy.  “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (1 Timothy 6:7-8 NKJV).