SCREEN TEST

I've heard of “screen tests” for aspiring actors or actresses, to judge their dramatic abilities, but never a “screen test” for....a spider. Yet there it was, clutching the narrow wire of my front window screen, unable to squeeze inside. I found a stick to flick it off, and went on with my life.

But maybe there was lesson, here—and not just showing kindness to a tiny member of nature, who was at a dead end if it really wanted inside. Sometimes “we humans” find ourselves clinging to situations or attitudes we have no business being a part of. I'll let you fill in the blanks. Or just suggest the wisdom of the apostle Paul, writing to a church on the northeast coast of today's Greece. In laying out how a Christian should act, he admonished them, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). The little word, “attitude,” takes in a lot of moral and linguistic territory, as used in Paul's letter to the Philippian church. In a section (chapter 2) packed with admonitions, he urged them to share godly encouragement, comfort, fellowship, tenderness, compassion, and like-mindedness. Doing so meant kicking “selfish ambition” and “vain conceit” out the door. Instead, Paul held up Christ as an example of humility, servanthood, and obedience. Yes, “screen tests” for believers.

I would have loved to be a bug in the ceiling of the room where these Philippians worshiped. Scholars believe this particular passage, listing Christian traits, was a hymn the early Christian church sang. Much of it echoes the prophecy in Isaiah 53 of the suffering servant, who would be Jesus Christ. Paul took it a step further, saying the character Jesus showed (a suffering servant, even to death) should be shown in His followers' lives. Yes, a “screen test,” if you will, sifting out sin to better nurture godly attitudes and behavior.

Half a century ago, I had the privilege of interviewing a then-well-known Christian entertainer, Pat Boone, who was a guest musician for our local spring festival promoting the area's fruit growing industries. I mean, this town went all out: teen queens and princesses, big parades with bands, horses, and floats, and a food fair. As an added attraction, it invited a celebrity as an honorary festival guest. This person would make several public appearances, plus ride the parade route in a fancy car, waving and smiling at fans.

That year, I was a fresh-out-of-college newspaper reporter. My editor wanted me to interview this celebrity pop singer also known for his Christian faith. (Okay, the guy known for wearing white buck shoes.)* The local radio station sent out their interviewer, a college intern. Our quickie interview, right before the celebrity's performance at our local football stadium, took place in this elegant location: the junior high girl's locker room in the gym adjacent to the stadium. (Real class!)

I was a bit star-struck and glad the radio intern had a ready question for the celebrity: “What's your favorite Bible verse?”  Without a second thought, the man quoted Philippians 2:12:

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Just that verse was the perfect “screen test” of that celebrity's character. No hesitation. And obviously, a moment of my journalism career that I have never forgotten.

  *Chronically Vintage: The history of white buck shoes

DON'T BE SO PERI-PATHETIC!

My high school English teachers encouraged correct spelling and vocabulary-building. That involved expanding the typical teen lingo from “yo!” and “hey” to multi-syllable words. Well, just kidding on that exaggeration. But if you want to increase your word (or weird?) power, just check out some common prefixes or suffixes. Or get a book like Rodale's Synonym Finder.

I was thinking about that lately in re-encountering the word peripatetic. Its meaning (“to discourse while pacing”) takes you back to Aristotle's era, when the local “great-deep-thinkers” would pace around while they exposited on their latest twist to philosophy. I experienced a few pastors like that, who used the whole platform to preach, gifted either with a huge, booming voice or that great invention of a wireless microphone that kept up with their pacing!

That weird word (peripatetic) also brought to mind those who meander through life. For whatever reason—physical, emotional, situational—they're pacing around life's stage without going anywhere, or stuck in pathetic habits. That is to say, adjusting the word with an “h”: peri-pathetic. **Disclaimer: I'm NOT pointing any fingers at anyone in particular; we all stand in need of the grace of God!**

This certainly wasn't true of the apostle Paul. Blind-sided (literally) by a life-changing vision from the risen and heaven-returned Jesus, he went out in full-force with a new agenda—to preach the Christ he once rejected. Instead of persecuting Christians, he left all that behind to take on the label “Christian” himself. This was what they call a 180-degree turn, as Paul's “before Christ” life had all the “perks” of Jewish leadership. He was properly circumcised, a card-carrying member of the tribe of Benjamin, thoroughly trained as a Pharisee.

But from the moment Christ took over his life, Paul had a new agenda: I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. (Philippians 4:8). His conversion took away everything valued by the world (status, reputation, ambition) and replaced it with the righteousness and godly passion from God, through faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9).

Which is to say: he went from a “pathetic peripatetic” non-believing Pharisee to someone “perfected in Christ.” He went from choosing violence against Christians to victory in Jesus, able to say: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

What a life-changing truth—for us, too! As a Christ-follower, I don't have to pathetically wander all over life's stage, getting nowhere (being “peri-pathetic”--my invented word), hoping something I did pleases God and includes a “ticket” to Heaven. My ticket's been issued, stamped with a cross-shaped symbol. Trip and entrance, confirmed!

NOT A ROSE GARDEN...

As I write this, some really challenging things are happening among those I care about, keeping me prayer-aware throughout the day. The other day as I prayed, a surprising thought came via recalling a country singer's pop-song, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” Released as a “single” in 1970, it soon became a "hit."

This rose, surrounded by "lifted-up" blooms
to come, reminded me of Jesus' prediction of His
 death, being "lifted up" upon a cross.

Though the pop song's title and snatches of its tune came to mind, those were soon replaced my trying to imagine Jesus' last night in the Garden of Gethsemane. It wasn't a lovely rose-garden stroll, but a thorny and anguishing prayer-time with His Father, knowing He would face horrific abuse and death. Hardly an hour before, sharing the memorial supper for the Passover with His disciples, He'd said:

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”(John 16:33 NIV)

Yes, I have a rose garden at my home. When I tend it, snipping off dead blooms and watching for aphids, I think of the analogy of “trouble”--although my rose-care analogy doesn't begin to revere the spiritual agony that Gethsemane poured out on Jesus. Sometimes I recall the liturgical church of my childhood, built in the traditional “cross” layout with visual emphasis on the altar and a cross hung above it. The sanctuary cross was artfully built, sanded, painted--not splintered wood and blood-stained, as were those of Jesus' time, used as an execution method. But the ancient, stark symbol of death was there amid the church's flowers, pews, pulpits, and musical instruments.

Decades later, attending a friend's funeral, I entered a huge sanctuary of a church that has another long liturgical history. As I started down the aisle, I paused briefly as I saw a behind-the-altar, life-size sculpture representing Jesus. It wasn't “just Jesus” with His hands outstretched, like I envision Him welcoming the children to Himself. Instead, this image was a mortally wounded man, cross-impaled, head bent down, thorn-crowned, with red paint for blood coming from the wounds in his head, hands, feet, and side. You can be sure I didn't think of the country singer's “rose garden.” Instead, it was Isaac Watts' 1707 hymn, “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed” https://hymnary.org/media/fetch/137189.

My briefly-blooming roses also remind me of another flower called “Rose-of-Sharon.” Contrary to its name, it's not a traditional rose, but a member of the hibiscus family. One of its features is its ability to produce big, colorful flowers in late summer, when the heat has exhausted most other garden plants. There's a message here, too, I think, out of the apostle Paul's prayer-wrestling with his disability (“thorn in the flesh"), which some scholars surmise might have included poor vision. Whatever it was, it made his strenuous, often dangerous ministry hard. God's answer to Paul was this: “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I don't know about you...but I needed that message. To stay strong. To keep blooming for HIM, who shed His blood for me.

THOSE MIGHTY PANSIES

Pansies—they're kind of like those good, behind-the-scenes people who do their jobs faithfully but don't get much notice. Despite their fun faces and brilliant colors, pansies are not high-brow like roses or other fussy-to-care-for plants. I just keep mine watered, dead-headed, and leave them be. They die at the first heavy frost, but some struggle back in the spring, soon joined by fresh bedding plants from a local garden center..

I've learned that pansy petals can be used in salads, desserts, and drinks, though I've never tried that. I can just imagine placing a lovely bowl of salad on the table, boiled eggs and pansies crowning it, and my guests raising their eyebrows, like, Are they poisonous? Are you really a friendly person? Just kidding on the life-threatening “what-ifs.” But the word “friendly” is really good adjective for pansies, as their job description includes "attracting bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects."

Alas, some people have sullied the good reputation of this bright little flower, by applying its name as slang for someone who is weak, timid, lacking in courage, or not masculine enough. Good grief. I'm just glad that God's Creation Manual didn't stop at “plain plants.” Though not stout, striking, or huge like some of the plant kingdom, these little flowers (compared to monkey faces) certainly have a rightful place in horticultural life. They're not like the bad-boy flowers on botany's “nightshade” family—whew! (You can do your homework about bad-boy plant relatives at this site: dangerous common flowers in the nightshade family - Search )

I can see some spiritual analogies as I read about their care. They need full sun to partial shade, just as I need the full sun of God's love, and the partial shade of God's protection. They do best in well-drained and slightly acidic soul, just as I don't want to be flooded by negativity or wilt under potent, acid accusations. Slightly acid, sprinkled in love—okay. Who of us doesn't need the “brace” of deserved, loving spiritual correction?

Their best soil conditions are moist but not soggy. Just as I need the water of God's love and Word sprinkled into my life, I have to be sure my pansies get regular water. Not floods, not an arid desert, just enough for their “makeup” to keep growing and blooming.

Oh yes, their flowers are short-lived and need dead-heading. That compares with my “spiritual pruning,” known as confession, allowing God to take away that which doesn't contribute to “blooming for Him.” Withered habits and weary attitudes need snapped away and dumped to make room for new, healthy personal growth. Who of us hasn't been in need of that?

Otherwise, these little flowers do a decent job of “Bloom where you are planted”--  which, of course, is a phrase still used in conversation and apt to show up on a mug in a souvenir shop. And, thanks to pansies, a saying that continues to come to mind as they smile from the soil. 😊

THE LOVELY 'LONER'

Roses have cycles of blooming and rest, and those in my front-yard rose garden are no exception. Some are more than four decades old; one, just a year old. They're a symphony of color in spring to fall, somehow surviving my amateur horticultural skills.

The other morning, this lone red rose caught my attention. And for some reason, the contemporary worship song, “In Christ Alone” (Keith and Kristyn Getty, 2006) started playing in my mind. Full lyrics of the 2006 song are here: Bing Videos. (I won't publish them here verbatim, in respect for copyright laws, but I hope you'll click on the link.)The lines that replayed in my heart proclaimed that until Christ returns to earth, or if He calls me Home beforehand, I'll still stand in His power. Its truths mirror what I have chosen as my life verse:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now life in the flesh, I live in the power of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20).

In some ways, the spiritual walk is like the annual life cycle of a rose. There are times of glorious blooming, but also times of temporary rest in fall and winter. About November, as I prune back the frost-blackened stems, they're not any less a “rose.” It's the cycle God planned. Bloom. Rest. Renew. Re-bloom.

Similarly, there are times when my faith walk is expressed in more “outward” ways, but I also need the “down time” to rest and spiritually refuel. The priority of a daily “God-time” in reading scripture and trusted devotional materials, plus prayer, are that re-fueling. Maybe I don't bloom gloriously every day—hardship and sadness are like aphids or damaging winds. But that doesn't take away God's purpose for my life: to glorify and serve Him with the attributes He embedded in me. He intended me to be as a lovely rose, bringing Him glory....not a human stink-weed (which, by the way, I fight in another flower bed every year!).

So let's hear it for roses....for all the enjoyment their beauty provides. For the messages they convey when cut and gifted to someone. For the reminder that I'm to “bloom where I am planted” by the One who came up with the idea of “roses” in the first place!

GOD'S CANVAS

One of my favorites of Mother's oils

My mother's childhood and youth provided little opportunity for creative growth. She was the oldest of nine born (in a log cabin!) in arid eastern Montana to an impoverished immigrant farmer and his polio-disabled wife. Relatives with “means,” seeing she had little hope for a better future after finishing high school except to help with the large brood of siblings, asked her parents to send her to them—all the way from Montana (near North Dakota) to the southern border of Washington state.

The relatives promised to take good care of her—which they did in helping her attend a local college (for secretary skills) and—more important—a church. There she met a young man from the other side of Montana (Missoula) who had headed to the same town to begin the career in forestry for which college prepared him. He saw a jewel and put a jewel on her finger with the “death-do-us-part” wedding vow.

Their marriage bloomed with his nurturing love. She had untapped art skills, which he encouraged her to develop with lessons and equipment. As a result, our home became the museum for her works, many of them picturing the mountains that my dad, raised in the shadow of Montana's Rockies, loved. I wonder if, while painting this one, she imagined the fish under the waves that he would have hooked to bring home for supper!

The two daughters that their marriage produced didn't result in more artists (rather, a teacher and an editor). But upon our parents' deaths we had canvas reminders of their roots. When my sister and I divided the family artwork after their deaths, this artwork was one I wanted to keep. Not just for the raw beauty of the mountains, but also for how it reminded me of this scripture:

I will lift up mine eyes until the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

The rest of the psalm affirms God's protective and preserving power—attributes I clung to when, at age 31, I found myself orphaned. Mom died of cancer, and six months later, Dad of a heart attack. As I moved into their home to empty it and prepare it for sale, that meant all my mother's artwork needed re-homed. My sister and I kept some and offered others to interested relatives. Hard to believe, now, that this happened nearly five decades ago.

Art is such a strange occupation. At one time, there were true craftsmen whose works almost replicated photographs (unheard of in their centuries!). Then came an era of scribbles and scrabbles that the artist claimed, “This shows what I felt inside.” I'm glad Mom chose to represent God's creation “as is,” in all its splendor. I must add that my Dad—the more “left-brained” of their marriage (meaning logical) was definitely the contrast to mother's “right-brained” (creative) side.

And that's also a reminder that “labels” about our personality aren't always accurate. God made each of us unique blends...there's not another like us on the planet. The same could be said for the untold number of landscapes (or portraits) that artists have attempted to transfer onto canvases, to “freeze” the moment of beauty. None are the same.

I've heard it said of someone who struggles with life, “Well, he (or she) is really a 'work in progress.'” But isn't that true of all of us, especially those who believe in, trust in, and desire to follow God's ways? The best part of it is this: He holds the brush, we are His canvas, waiting for His amazing plan to be brought to life.

My dad, born in 1915, would have been 111 this past week. He died at 63. Here's a fun fact of their courtship. After a date, they'd be sitting in his car as the night (and curfew) came. The relatives she stayed with would send out a little daughter to sing under the car window, "Good night, Irene, goodnight"--a song of that era.

STEPPING ON SHORE....

The words in this blog's title have been in-and-out of my heart lately. One reminder is an oil painting hanging above my guest-room bed, featuring a seascape at either dawn or sunset. From my perspective of living on the West Coast, I think “sunset” (over the Pacific) is correct. But each time I see it, the lyrics of a contemporary song about heaven come to mind—the one that urges us to think about stepping ashore somewhere, and finding it heaven. Having said those “earthly goodbyes” to dear loved ones—parents, in-laws, spouse, other much-loved people—the song is especially poignant to me.

So how did I acquire such a lovely painting? Well, it was a gift, a very unexpected one, from a block-away neighbor with artistic talent who also had a studio to teach others in her home. Now, she is “on her way “Home,” her skills eroded by the inevitable decline of body and brain, living out her last days in a care home.

But memories remain, and some of them are quite fun. When that neighbor and her husband went away on vacation, they looked around and decided my kids were the best candidates for “house-watching.” So the very important key to their lovely home came to us, along with instructions of how to test the in-ground pool's water and add chlorine. She wanted the water “stirred up” once in a while, which was a euphemism for “go ahead and swim, just make sure an adult is there with kids.” My then-early-teen kids were thrilled.

Did I mention our duties also included kitty-cat care, twice a day? My son, the ultimate cat-lover, assigned himself that task, gaining the affection of their fluffy alley cat, named “Ninety-nine” for getting to be so old. She didn't just want to be petted. When my son pulled off his tee-shirt to “stir up the pool waters,” the cat was soon thoroughly sniffing his shirt with all its wonderful youthful perspiration odors. Not just sniffing. Rolling herself all over it with somewhat warped enthusiasm. It was a good, fun memory.

Someone else now lives in that house. The former owners are in a care facility, a safe place for those whose minds and bodies are fading. Soon to step on the “spiritual shore” of Heaven. Thus I recall the music and lyrics to a 50-year-old hymn named “Finally Home,” which begins, “when engulfed by the terror of tempestuous sea.” Don Wyrtzen and L.E. Singer are credited as the musician and poet for the song, copyrighted in 1971. Here is one online video of its performance: Bing Videos

What will happen to this lovely, framed gift when I've stepped on that “shore”? I don't know. I'm just grateful that for many years, it's provided a quiet reminder that there's something more when we “sleep in death.” And how ironic, that its place of honor is above....a bed.