Getting ready for the Parade!

Our great-niece is looking forward to a parade in May. She’s one of ten high school seniors who’s hoping to be “queen” of our local festival, which celebrates spring’s fruit blossoms. The honor comes with a generous scholarship and a grueling public relations schedule. Our “blossom” celebration covers two weeks with parades, carnivals, food and craft fairs, pancake feeds and (for the athletic, or those who ate too many pancakes), a run down the parade route to the river. It’s a big deal in our valley.

Some of my earliest memories are of parades—in my case, the Rose Parade in Pasadena when I was a little girl. My family lived in the then-blue-collar community of South Gate, far enough away that "going to the parade" meant a long drive early New Year's morning through heavy traffic. One of my dad’s co-workers put up a viewing stand on the parade route. I suppose we had to pay for sitting there, but that was the least of my little girl's concerns. I got to see Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and maybe the Lone Ranger, on their famous horses with lots of silver ornaments! Of course, bands and floats also passed by until I was so tired from overload that I fell asleep on the way home. I read somewhere that today's Rose Parade floats altogether use 40 million flowers. It’s hard to imagine.

In antiquity, huge parades heralded military victories. In early Roman times, the conqueror came into the city under a great arch in this order: local political leaders, trumpet players, carts with the spoils of war, white bulls for sacrifice (to the pagan “god”), the arms and insignia of the conquered enemy, the enemy leaders and families, the conqueror’s weapons, the conqueror in a horse-drawn chariot, his adult sons and officers, and finally his army. Curiously, the conqueror’s face was painted red. Sometimes a slave held a golden wreath above his head.

These customs were on Paul’s mind when he scolded the Corinthian church about spiritual pride: “It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena” (1 Cor. 4:9). These carnal, boasting believers thought they had it all and weren’t respecting Paul and other spiritual leaders.

My most favorite parade is yet to be. Revelation 5 describes angels beyond numbers encircling the throne of Heaven, praising Jesus: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise” (5:11-12). The enemy and his entourage won’t be in this parade. Satan and his followers will be long-gone, forever excluded from Heaven. To me—that’s a big deal—the really big deal!

Rose parade? It’s okay. But I’m counting more on seeing (or marching in) the “He-arose Parade”!

This fragile grass

My husband is a substitute teacher, and one recent snowy day he went to the tiny rural school at Palisades, about a 40-minute drive from here. It’s at the end of a narrow coulee carved long ago in the Ice Age. Part of the coulee has been scrubbed of sagebrush for alfalfa fields and orchards. Coming home from teaching, he passed dozens of deer foraging where they could. Going back up there the other day, we counted probably five dozen, chewing what they could out of the frozen turf.

I’d been thinking a lot about Psalm 90 recently, and those hungry deer reminded me of verse 5: “You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.”

Talk about a downer verse! A little background may help. This is the only song by Moses included in the book of Psalms. Though he wrote other songs (like the epic one in Deuteronomy 32), this one must have been significant enough to pick for an ancient hymnal largely featuring the songs of King David.

We’re not told when he wrote it, but I imagine it was near the end of his life as the Israelites finished forty years of wandering before entering the Promised Land. Moses wouldn’t go with them, a consequence of dishonoring God with a temper tantrum at Meribah (Numbers 20). Plus, as judgment on unbelief and cowardice after spies checked out Canaan, all but two who left Egypt (the believing spies, Joshua and Caleb) would miss out on the Promised Land. Thousands of graves dotted the landscape of their wanderings around the Sinai. Now only descendants remained.

If I were in Moses’ sandals, I probably would have said this, too: “All our days pass away under your wrath: we finish our years with a moan” (v. 9).

Psalm 90 has been on my mind in part because of people we care about “finishing their years.” In some cases, it’s been when they’re too young¸ like a talented violinist who befriended my daughter at college. She married a widower with child, had two more children with him, and is now gone in her thirties—of colon cancer. A friend our age is slipping away with ALS. Another couple we know nearly lost their son to a dying heart until a heart transplant gave him extra years. He married, and last week his wife (age 36) had her life turned upside down by strokes.

Three weeks ago I helped an older friend with Alzheimer’s navigate the curb to a car; her funeral is Friday. This week someone died as a result of an accident barely a block away in early December. I remember coming home at dusk after my walk and seeing the red lights of emergency vehicles just beyond my street. A 79-year-old man who lived alone in a little cottage was struck when he jay-walked across the street. He was walking home from the grocery store, as he had done hundreds of times—sometimes nodding to my “hi” when we passed. The police markers of where he landed reminded me how life can change in an instant. I could sing a duet with Moses: “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants!” (v. 13).

Psalm 90 has this discouraging “you-live-and-then-you-die” tone to it—unless you hear the “Hallelujah Chorus” ringing behind stanzas like this: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (v. 14). In this I hear echoes of the Westminster confession: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

Moses would have had a different song if he knew what we now know: that Jesus changes things. And that includes death. Our earthly bodies may be as grass, vulnerable to the day’s heat and dryness (or to the nibbling of starved deer). But Christ has “destroyed death and has brought life and immorality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). We have the assurance that “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) and being with Him in Heaven will be better by far (v. 23).

Moses almost got it all correct. “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us,” he wrote (90:17)—and indeed it does, for those who believe in Christ, and who express that through growing love and service in His name, for however many days allotted on this planet. And then, for God’s children—better by far!

Breath mints or meat?

Thirsty for God as the new year opens? Maybe you feel like the parched deer in the opening phrases of Psalm 63: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?”

The answer, of course, is anywhere the Word of God can reach your heart deeply. Americans are blessed with an abundance of helps to study and apply the Bible. But we’re also plagued with spiritual apathy and impatience. We’re prone to want the quick fix, the minute (or less) devotional, a spiritual “tweet,” as it were. We want a spiritual breath mint in the morning (or evening) rather than something meaty we need to chew on.

For those just starting their life with Christ—or exploring Christianity—those quickie devotional guides are helpful. A quick quoted verse, maybe 200 words of story or discussion, and something of scripture touches you life in about a minute. But a minute is also pronounced mine-OOT, as in “small.”

But if you’ve come to the point of wanting more, of looking over the shoulders of saints who’ve thought and prayed deeply, may I make some suggestions?

Streams in the Desert (two volumes) and Springs in the Valley by Mrs. Charles Cowman. Since the first publication in 1925, this has become one of the best-selling devotionals of all time. Combining her writings and others’ meditations, poems, hymns and stories, its overriding theme is discovering hope and God's higher purposes through suffering. If you are going through difficult places, you will resonate with many of the daily entries. Lettie Cowman and her husband Charles helped form the Oriental Missionary Society in the early 1900s during their work in Japan and China. His poor health forced their return to the United States in 1917, and he died six years later. Her experiences and heartbreaks form the backdrop of her selections. She died at age 90 in 1960.

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (copyright 1935). Born in Scotland in 1874, and a gifted artist and musician, Chambers sensed God calling him to the ministry during college. Eventually he came to the United States, teaching six months at a Cincinnati, Ohio, Bible school. Then he went to Japan, visiting the Tokyo Bible School founded by the Cowmans (see above). His world travels marked a transition to fulltime work with the Pentecostal League of Prayer. He was serving as a YMCA chaplain to British Commonwealth soldiers in Egypt, 1915-1917, when he died of complications from an appendectomy. His wife, an incredible note-taking help-meet, compiled his writings into devotional books. When you read Chambers, prepare to be challenged to a more God-focused life and to identify subtle sins that stand in the way. A more recent collection of his writings is Devotions for a Deeper Life, edited by Glenn Black and published by Zondervan (1986).

What am I using this year? First Light: Morning Conversations with God by William S. Stoddard (Multnomah, 1990). Alas, this one is out of print, but available from used book dealers. Stoddard, a pastor who ended his career at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church, has written a meaty volume of 181 sections that focus on going deeper in prayer. Instead of a quickie verse like “breath mint” devotionals, he sends you into lesser-read Old Testament passages and their complementary portions in the New. Then comes a discussion of the passages and a transparent prayer. So far, I have covered a fourth of the book, and I will admit to a deep—yes, weeping—reaction to some of the topics. God is doing a work in my life through this book.

There’s a smorgasbord of devotional literature available. Billy Graham’s classic Unto the Hills has encouraged and challenges millions. Another on my shelves (Near to the Heart of God) collects readings from spiritual classics, including the “church fathers” and others from the first thousand years after Christ.

Whatever you choose, don’t rush through the devotional without thoughtful time in the scripture it references. Go for meat, not a “breath mint.”

Howdy Doody Time

Back in television’s more innocent era, a red-haired, freckled puppet dominated children’s programming. “Howdy Doody,” who took his name from the Western-style greeting, wore cowboy clothes and had the voice of “Buffalo Bob” Smith. He and his cohorts (like Clarabell the Clown) were most popular in the 1950s. We’re talking my childhood, although I was more a fan of the “Sheriff John,” a Los Angeles-area children’s program. I’d forgotten about the cowboy puppet until one morning at church, when someone greeted me with, “Howdy Doody!” I had to smile and start a conversation.

Like many churches, mine has volunteer “greeters” at entrances. You’d think only outgoing people would take on that role, but a recent article in our church newsletter told me otherwise.

This woman, the article said, considered herself shy, “and in years past has wondered many times why people didn’t make more of an effort to greet her or get to know her. One day she realized that she needed to be the one to initiate conversations and make contact with people. And that’s the day she was done with waiting for someone else to start the conversations.”

Another part of her story was more than a decade of intense emotional pain after her husband died. The article continued, “She learned from experience that isolation is deadly when we are in crisis. Learning to reach out was part of her journey toward healing.”

Thus, she volunteered to greet.

However you say it—“Howdy doody,” “Hello,” “Hi,” “Welcome,” “How are you? My name is…”—those first words are the key to breaking down barriers with strangers. Just the effort to reach out, rather than waiting for others to reach out first, is nothing less than imitating the example of the Lord Jesus.

I think that’s why I’m especially drawn to the Gospel of Mark. Matthew and Luke slide into the story of Jesus via his birth. John begins with theological heavies about “The Word.” But Mark, after introducing John the Baptist, jumps into accounts of the Lord immediately mixing with people, calling men to be His disciples and healing multitudes. Jesus didn’t stand back thinking, “Nobody’s friendly down here on earth. Father, take me back to Heaven, ASAP.” He pursued what He came to do, and that was showing us the Father and then dying so that we can have fellowship with a holy, loving God—now and in eternity.

In the past, “shrinking violet” may have described my behavior around folks at church. I began to see it as a selfish attitude, and sought ways to reach out. Certain people I want to greet with a holy hug (my version of “holy kiss”—1 Cor. 16:20), like a special-needs person my age whose parents died long ago. I know that means a lot to her. I touch base with others for prayer updates.

And I confess that I’ve let “greeting” spill over into everyday life. When I go through a checkout when shopping, I try to genuinely greet the clerk and offer some sort of positive remark. I may be just one of hundreds he or she serves that day, but I want our minute or so to be a bright spot in the day. I think Jesus would do the same.

So, ready for your “Howdy doody” challenge?