WONDER-BREAD

 “God will provide”--how often have your heard someone say that, maybe glibly or with the strain of unbelief from being in a tight spot? Or maybe that phrase brings up the Biblical account of Jesus feeding the multitudes without any supermarket or even a carnival-style food circus nearby.

Sometimes such questions lead me to a quest to find answers—and this was one. Basic truth: there were two occasions when huge crowds who'd come to hear His teaching found their stomachs rumbling and no fast-food places nearby. And Jesus delivered—not with a little car sporting a “pizza” bonnet on its hood. He acted with divine compassion and provision, miraculously multiplying meals shared in the crude woven baskets of that time.

Both “feedings” occurred in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee, but here are some of the differences.

CIRCUMSTANCES

#1 (5,000)--Jesus had just learned of the execution of His cousin, John the Baptist. Understandably, Jesus and His disciples got away to a deserted place. But even before modern communications, human word-of-mouth traveled like electricity. Soon, multitudes (mostly Jewish) followed, hoping for healing and teaching. Soon, they were hot and famished.

#2 (4,000)--This event took place later in Jesus' ministry, and occurred in a predominantly Gentile region. After three days of healing and teaching, the large crowd was famished with no local provisions.

LOCATION

#1: The 5,000 were fed near Bethsaida, the north end of the Sea of Galilee Just west around the road a bit is Capernaum, where Jesus spent a lot of ministry time. This was also considered Jewish territory.

#2: The 4,000 were fed in a desolate region of Decapolis, southeast of the Sea of Galilee. The crowds here were mostly Gentiles. That general area is where He healed a demoniac plus a deaf-mute man.

FOOD VENDOR

#1. Thanks to a little boy offering his lunch, the disciples had five little barley loaves (typically the size of a hand, weighing 2-3 pounds and one-fourth inch thick) and two small fish among them, barely enough for their own snack. Certainly not enough for the multitude that had swelled to 5,000, sweating and famished in a desolate area.

#2. This time, the disciples had seven loaves and a few fish that Jesus miraculously multiplied.

LEFTOVERS SYMBOLS

#1: From five small loaves/two fish, twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered. Some have noted that those numbers match the five books of the law and the twelve tribes of Israel.

#2. From the seven loaves/a few fish, there were seven baskets of leftovers. Possible symbol: seven days of creation, and the “completeness” of God's work.

DEEPER SYMBOLISM

The events were powerful demonstration of Jesus' compassion, divine authority, and mission to a needy world, including Jews and Gentiles. As the bread and fish were broken apart, they also foreshadowed His own broken/wounded body when crucified to be our new Provider and Sustainer.

My little “digging” about the background of this miracle led me to reflect about how easily we skip over deep truths revealing the power and love of God. Yes, even how a little boy's lunch made history. And--what could He do with my "little," given up?

'SOCK' IT TO ME....

No, all these socks aren't mine. I brought them home from my son's home while they were away for a few days. As a good “house-watcher” for a super-busy family, I add a few “helpful touches” when I go to their house to bring in the mail and check on their pet cat and bunny. Cat is happy if I scoop food into its bowl and “gifts” out of its litter box. Bunny is happy if I reach in his cage, scratch his head, and make sure he has fresh water, enough bunny food, and a quick snack (carrot or celery) from the family refrigerator for a “comfort treat.”

My full-service Mom-Grandma-House-watcher role also extends to sorting baskets of just-washed-and-dried laundry brought up from the basement washer-dryer.  My “rule” when house-tending when they're away is NO going down the steep stairs to the laundry area itself. A fall resulting in a bone-crunch (things you think about as you age) would not be a happy scenario for an all-alone house-checker. But freshly-washed-and-dried laundry, waiting in the living room, is fair game for doing a helpful chore.

This time, as I started in on a full bin of socks, I realized they were still a bit damp. So, I brought them home and hung them on my outdoor clothesline to get “nature's dryer” at work. While doing that, I smiled to think of the colloquial saying, “Sock it to me.” The common meaning is “prove it to me” or “bring it on.” It implies that you're ready for a challenge, or maybe a “course correction” that might not be pleasant but worthy of a kind rebuke to improve your outlook or behavior. Of the latter, Proverbs 17:10 (ESV) observes:

A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.

That is to say: consider your response to correction and guidance. Do you bristle with defense of your challenged behavior? Or are you willing to consider a necessary change? Another thought: is the person who is pointing out a “soiled” attitude or behavior, a godly example themselves? Are they reaching out in love and care as opposed to selfish offense?

One more thing about line-pinned laundry (the clean type). When I've hung out laundry on a sunny, breezy day, there's a special sense of inhaled “freshness” when I gather the dried results. I usually pair-up socks when I pin them to the line, saving a step when they're dry and taken down. What if I can't find a “match”? Well, orphans happen in a busy household. That's why they have a special basket for the all-alone socks to hopefully someday reunite with its mate. And maybe there's a lesson here, too, about patience. Or letting-go.

THEFT PROTECTION

I think one of my grandsons is a blueberry fan. He recently inspected my half-dozen berry bushes behind the garage, asking when he could eat some. I told him later this summer, when green berries turn blue! Oh, disappointment. The bushes are currently draped in netting to discourage birds from early sampling. Last year I had a pitifully small crop. This year will be better—if the robins pay attention to the net “barrier.” One year the birds were so eager for a taste that they wiggled at ground level under the net to steal!

Maybe there is a correlation between my net to discourage robins from sampling my berries, and the mental and spiritual “net” of scripture memory I try to use in my own life to discourage "spiritual-fruit-robbers" and to encourage spiritual growth. From the beginnings of “memory verses” in childhood Sunday school class, the practice took on deeper meaning when, as an adult, I was exposed to the scripture memory disciplines advocated by The Navigators ministry. 

This ministry began in 1933 after a California lumberyard worker named Dawson Trotman experienced a personal conversion to Christianity in his late teens. Leaving behind habits of theft and alcohol, he took his new faith seriously, focusing on evangelism among teenagers and U.S. Navy sailors (hence the ministry's “Navigator” double-meaning name). His Bible studies, emphasizing mentoring and spiritual multiplication, would spread throughout the world. One distinctive ministry tool was its business-card-size plastic pocket containing verses to memorize and review.

Two ways to do it: 3x5 cards or
smaller cards in a pocket packet

Trotman eventually worked with many other evangelical leaders of his day. His life ended in June 1956, at age 50, at a conference at a New York state lake. A camper who'd tried to water-ski began drowning. Though not a swimmer himself, Trotman plunged into the lake to save her but drowned himself. As his wife Lila suddenly came on the scene, a close friend shouted, “Oh, Lila...He's gone. Dawson's gone.” Instead of breaking down in shock and sorrow, she replied calmly with the heart-guarding, memorized words of Psalm 115:3: “But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.”

My observation: like that blueberry net, “spiritual theft protection.” Not a life lost, but a redemptive life lived. A mature fruit, picked, used by God, for nurturing others to spiritual maturity. A man who practiced “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

*This web page about The Navigator has a biography and photo of Trotman: History of The Navigators

LABELS

I still chuckle over certain scenes from the 1965 film, “The Sound of Music,” featuring an inexperienced but perceptive novice-turned nanny, “Maria,” played by Julie Andrews. She's come to the mansion of a widowed military captain and his seven children, who are are summoned (by military whistle) to line up like soldiers, by age, to meet her. 

One by one, they step forward to announce their name, plus the behavioral labels either their father or previous nanny had given them.(1) One of the boys says, I”m Friedrich and I'm impossible.” Another says, “I'm Kurt, I'm eleven and I'm incorrigible.” Then he asks the new nanny, “What does 'incorrigible' mean?” The new nanny replies that it's a term for “someone who wants to be treated as a boy.”

In viewing that movie clip recently (oh, the warm fuzzy memories of that film) I found myself remembering labels others gave me. Graduating high school in the top ten of my class, I glowed under the labels of “scholar” and “concert-mistress of the orchestra.” As the years progressed, with more education and jobs, I was encouraged and motivated by those who recognized my passions, hard work, and desire to work as a “team member” in the company or academic setting.

But God wasn't finished with me. He led me into other chapters of life around people who couldn't push past life's difficult places, and who unfairly blamed others for their failures and unhappiness. I wearied from dealing with their anger issues and blaming behaviors. These trials also pushed me closer to my Heavenly Father, Who knew my heart and also heard my continuing prayers for such people. His Spirit's role as “Comforter” became more real.

This topic has recently returned to my heart as I re-read a classic Christian “journey” book. Most people know about John Bunyan's allegory, “Pilgrim's Progress” (first published 1678) and its main character's refining trials on the journey to the “Celestial City” (Heaven). The book I read, Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard (copyright 1955), is much like it. The main character named “Much Afraid” journeys through danger and hard terrain to the “High Place” that is an analogy for Heaven. “Much Afraid” doesn't travel alone, but with two companions named “Sorrow” and “Suffering.” After she reaches the summit, conquering her many fears, she returns to her valley of service, transformed by her trials and now given a new name by her loving Shepherd.

As you might guess, the Shepherd is symbolic of the Lord Jesus, and her journey up the mountain (to grow in faith through trials) is simply preparation to return to her valley in service to Him.

If you've never read these books, consider doing so. Allegories about the Christian walk are powerful teachers—and incentives for our own “pilgrim's progress” which may push us onward through the tedious spiritual journey of “this world” to the heaven-pointing “High Places” closer to God. It's what turns “incorrigible” into the “possible” of a mature relationship with God. To a someday celestial scene where we can step forward and say, “I'm (name), and I am beloved in His sight.”

Speaking of names, don't forget the golden clue Revelation 2:17 gives us about names in Heaven: “To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on it, which no one knows except the one who receives it.”

By the way, the main character of Hinds' Feet on High Places, at the end of the book is given a new name. No longer known as “Much Afraid,” she becomes “Grace and Glory.” How fitting, How beautiful.

(1) Enjoy this memorable “Sound of Music” movie scene again online: Bing Videos

HOW BEAUTIFUL...

Yes, how beautiful, the first roses of spring in my yard. Each a unique creation, with delicately painted petals that display water droplets like diamonds.

I guess I'm in a poetic mood this morning, surveying the flowers and grass, noticing the gray sky will probably provide the “watering” today instead of my yard hoses. I've lived or worked earlier in life in what would be called the “concrete jungles”--the packed together office buildings, crowded sidewalks and congested, grimy streets. Now, I'm grateful for dirt and grass...and flowers.

It's not perfect. Vermin—rats--have dug under my house and I'm diligently trying to get rid of them. Yes, it was unnerving to realize this—when I heard “skittering” in the hall ceiling and then a stampede up the wall between the bathroom tub and kitchen sink. The battle of “bad bait” began. It seems to be working.

For all the decades I've lived in this small city, this is my first big experience with the “yucks” of rodents. At one time, there was a huge vacant lot behind my home. No doubt “critters” abundantly homesteaded there. Our cat nabbed a few! Then the land was bulldozed to put in stacks of townhouses. Guess where the disturbed vermin migrated.....

Yes, I sense a lesson in this. How we want our lives perfect, free of care and danger that “chew” at our well-being and leave emotional debris behind. But we live in a word tainted by sin and people who chew at what we value: our “person-hood” and self esteem, our safety, our hope. We want full “eradication” of such spiritual enemies. It's in the Divine Plan—but not yet. Only in the perfect spiritual timeline when Jesus returns to reign.

From time to time, science and photography provide us with breathtaking photos of our home planet, like these: photos of earth from space - Search Such views were unimaginable to people among whom Jesus lived during His earth-time, eking out a living in a mostly-barren landscape.

Our globe still has places where few can live: deserts, dangerous swamps, and places destroyed by war.

But we still have places where we can plant beauty. Not just flowers and crops (ever marveled at the wind pushing waves across a field of grain?), but the everyday living of kind words and actions. Refusing to let the “vermin” of ill will or unrealistic expectations spoil the possibility of peace and harmony. And then—how beautiful, the family of God.

Listen to Twila Paris sing “How Beautiful” here in a 2011 recording (skip through the first unrelated ads):

Bing Videos

GOT GUTTATION?

Unless you're a biology whiz, I'll bet you've never heard the term “guttation.” It has nothing to do with cleaning the innards (“gutting”) of a freshly-caught fish, in preparation for cooking it for dinner. Instead, “guttation” is the releasing (the scientific word is “exudation”) of drops of fluid from the tips or edges of leaves of some “vascular plants” and fungi. The “vascular plants” are so called because they have tissues that help a plant transport water, minerals and nutrients—something like the human body. These include species like club-mosses, horsetails, ferns, and some seed plants. If this subject gets you excited, you can learn the basics at this web site: typical vascular plants - Search

This photo doesn't nail it for illustrating “guttation,” as the plant shown didn't necessarily have the “veins” to release all this hydration—just a waxy surface to hold rainwater droplets for a while. But “guttation” is a real thing in the plant world. It's also somewhat of an analogy of a Biblical principle, that giving from overflow reflects God's abundant blessings and generosity.

Probably the best-known Bible verse of abundant giving is this:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” (Malachi 3:10)

Others:

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38)

“God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20)

My head spun a bit to learn about circulation systems in growing green things. I took biology in high school and college, but the facts I absorbed didn't apply to my vocation. They got buried (like dead plants!) Still, there's a whole world of discovery out there regarding God's immeasurably complex and delightful creation. Like plants that have “transport systems,” akin to the veins and arteries threading through our own bodies.

To bring this to a spiritual close--”Got godly guttation?” Am I responding to God's overflow of blessing, hope, and ability by reaching out to my parched world?

NATURE'S PARADE

Azaleas in my yard

As I write (early May) it's festival time in my valley. Every year, in celebration of spring and my home valley's orchard industry, promoters put on an “Apple Blossom Festival” with teen “royalty” and three parades (classic cars, youth-focused entries, and the grander 100-entry state-wide floats and marching bands). Oh yes, also a food festival which takes over the huge, well-groomed courthouse lawn for a couple weeks. (It recovers, thanks to diligent groundskeepers.) The influx of tourist dollars helps the economy. And yes, it is a sort of “whew” that bids goodbye to winter's chill and hello to spring and summer delights.

I smile to see my son continue some family festival traditions from his childhood. One is buying his family the finger-dusting pastry creation that's basically a glob of dough dribbled into hot oil, then sprinkled with powdered sugar. We know it as “funnel cakes”; it's a variation of the Italian chiacchiere-- messy to eat, but who's to quarrel with an annual tradition​?

It's sensory overload—all the classic cars, floats and their waving community “queens,” bands, drill teams, horses, carnival food, plus a real visiting “carnival” at one end of town with its classic array of noisy thriller rides.

Our local event reminds me of the first parade I remember attending, probably around age five, in the early 1950s. My family at that time lived about an hour's drive from the famed Rose Parade in Pasadena. My dad was able to buy reserved bleacher seats, which enabled us “little ones” to really see the parade going by. I have dim memories of my television Western heroes—Roy and Dale Rogers—waving while riding the same beautiful horses used on their then-black-and-white TV Western adventure show.

Yes, parades are exciting and glamorous. But there's a quiet parade I enjoy even more. It happens every spring in my yard when the grass, shrubs and flowers awaken from their winter naps. Color returns—not just green, but red, orange, pink, yellow. I recall this quote by Thomas Merton (1915-1968), an American Trappist monk, mystic, poet, and author:

Let us come alone to the splendor that is all around us, and see the beauty in ordinary things.

Rhododendron in my yard

Those “ordinary things” include nature's floral beauty....plus things like the morning light, a bird singing a greeting to the sunrise, a shared meal, and quiet connections. It's simpler life without the television blaring or fighting rush-hour traffic on the highway.

It's okay to come together as a community and celebrate. Besides my city's festival, another city about 30 miles west celebrates even more. Leavenworth has a spring “Mai fest” with the ribbon-winding pole dance. Its “Oktoberfest,” besides the ooh-and-ah of mountain landscapes turning yellow and red, amps up the Bavarian music with performances of the long alpenhorns. Its “Winter Karneval” with half a million downtown lights marks a German tradition back to the 13^th century.

Community spirit is a good thing. But beyond such celebrations, we should never lose sight of the ability to celebrate heaven's blessings. All around us are good and celebration-worthy gifts: sky, water, plants and trees, friendships and family--generously God-provided.