Struttin' their stuff

A series inspired by sights in Kauai.

Native to South Africa, but also found in Hawaii, this Bird of Paradise plant prompted a childhood memory.  In the late 1950s, when my dad’s job transfer took us from sunny Los Angeles to a small town in rainy Western Washington, my mother couldn’t bear to leave behind her favorite hot-weather house plants.  Those included some cacti and her Bird of Paradise, for which Dad built an indoor plant shelf in the sunniest window.  When the “bird” finally bloomed again after the move, she celebrated. Named for its avian look-alike, the plant's stem ended with beak-like head, from which emerged three brilliant orange sepals and three purplish-blue petals resembling a bird “on the wing.”

The avian “bird of paradise” has its own story.  The flashiest one, the “Greater bird of paradise” found in New Guinea and nearby islands, is about the size of a crow.  The male bird has a golden head, emerald green forehead and throat, and maroon wings and tail. Its “wow” factor is the dense mass of plumes, up  to two feet long, which spring from under the wings. The female is a dull-colored bird. But at mating season, the males gather in a tree to impress the ladies by strutting, dancing and spreading their plumes.  

 So here you have two show-offs of nature.  A spiritual analogy?  Perhaps there’s one in Jeremiah’s prophecy contrasting human pride and God’s glory. Paul dealt with the issue when his authority as an apostle of Christ was questioned. He urged the church to evaluate leaders by spiritual, not worldly, standards. Before launching into his autobiography, which verified how much he’d suffered to spread the Gospel, he quoted from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah:

Let him who boasts boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. (2 Corinthians 10:17-18 NIV)

The quote came from Jeremiah’s admonition to seek to better know God and His attributes over the best of human “learning”:

“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
Or the strong man boast of his strength
Or the rich man boast of his riches,
But let him who boasts boast about this:
That he understands and knows me,
That I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
(Jeremiah 9:23-24 NIV)

God isn’t impressed with a flashy faith that, like mating Birds of Paradise, struts about with showmanship religion. Instead, in seeking Him above all else, the quiet beauty of a faith-filled life can emerge. 

Tongue-tried

Part of a continuing series inspired by sights of Kauai.

I’m no botanist—just someone who appreciates beauty—so my reaction to this flower was, “Oh, look at the tongue on this one.” Actually, its Greek name means “tail flower,” and one thing you need to know about this bloom is that it’s poisonous. It contains calcium oxalate crystals, and even its sap can irritate the skin and eyes. In other words, look, don’t touch.  Don’t even think about tasting.

 But, oh—the beauty of the anthurium, native to the rain forests of Central and South America. They do well in Kauai’s humid climate, too, first brought to the islands more than a century ago. Here’s the story of how it happened.  In 1876, Edouard Andre, the head gardener of Paris, spotted an anthurium on an expedition to the rain forests of Colombia. Brought back to Europe, the specimens went from Belgium to the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in England. Then in 1889, Samuel Mills, Hawaii’s Minister of Finance, brought the first anthurium to England, planting it in the gardens of his estate.  A fussy tropical plant, it needs kept between 55-90 degrees F—preferably above 70 degrees.

What I called the “tongue” is actually the flower, which contains the plant’s reproductive system. That fact, I realized, was appropriate in light of truths that come from James’ blunt letter to Christians having problems with their tongues. That unruly slab of flesh in our mouths is prone to reproducing all sorts of negative “discharge,” like complaining, gossiping, murmuring, backbiting, and more. We tend to ignore our “tongue history,” but Jesus came down hard on it, particularly the words that deny the faith:

I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.(Matthew 12:36)

His disciple and half-brother, James, took it further:

The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts…The tongue…is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body…no man can tame the tongue, it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison [like the anthurium!]…Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. (James 3:5, 8, 10, bracketed comment added)

What’s the cure? A constant vigilance and restraint, remembering God hears every casual and negative word. Through Paul, we’re reminded to think (and also speak) of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).  Or, as has been popularized in posters, to consider the acrostic “THINK” before speaking. The letters stand for True, Helpful, Inspirational, Necessary, and Kind.

 Next time, when tried, tested or perturbed, stop and THINK. It will make a big difference.

Booksigning & Soup-stirring

A few blogs ago I wrote about being in my sixth "Chicken Soup for the Soul" compilation, one subtitled "My Very Good, Very Bad Cat." I'll be signing copies and sharing tips about writing for the "Chicken Soup" series at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, at the public library in Wenatchee, WA. There will be freebies for writers, too.  No, I won't bring Augie, who at probably 15 years old (which is senile in cat years) well-deserves his long naps in the corner. Here, he's "modeling" the dreaded injury cone he wore the Christmas morning he got tired of his convalescence from fight wounds, and decided to escape to the wild and snowy world.  After three weeks, we decided he'd frozen to death.  Obviously, he hadn't, and my "Soup" story, called "The Prodigal Cat," should serve up some smiles and wisdom.

Pouring chocolate

A series inspired by sights in Kauai.
Heavy rainfall had turned the usually white-frothed Wailua Falls, near the east coast of Kauai, into thrashing muddy flood.  Still, it was beautiful and worthy of its “must visit” rating as we chose what to see in Kauai.  Most sources say it falls 140 feet; some claim it’s 173 high, others, less than 100 feet.  Despite warnings of safety, some dare to swim in its pool.  In ancient days, Hawaiian men would jump from the top of the falls to prove their manhood.  Today’s that illegal because of the danger.

In contrast to the roar and volume of the Wailua Falls, I recalled my study a few years ago of the water-pouring ceremony associated with “Feast of Tabernacles” in ancient Jerusalem.  Priests would process to the city’s “Pool of Siloam,” a reservoir created in King Hezekiah’s time, holding water brought 1,780 feet through a conduit hewn from rock from a small spring outside the city.  One day Jesus watched the priests go through their ritual, then shocked everybody by saying with a loud voice, “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  The “living water” to which He referred, would be the Holy Spirit, to be poured out in magnificence at Pentecost to help Christ-followers (who include us today) to live out their faith with refreshing power. An old hymn by Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), Scottish preacher and hymn-writer, has one stanza that speaks of this:

I heard the voice of Jesus say, ‘Behold, I freely give
The living water-- thirsty one, Stoop down and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, And now I live in Him.

This “living water” is what keeps us going when life sends us reeling with its muddy flows of destruction and disappointment.  In recent weeks, as I’ve prayed for troubled loved ones, another hymn has flowed through my heart like a life-giving, cleansing stream.  At times, just a few words of the chorus helped to settle my heart and trust God again:

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more.

Hymn books name the lyric’s authors as Louisa Stead, who penned the entire verse in 1882. Born in England, she became a Christian at age nine and as a teenager felt the call to mission work. A revival meeting at Urbana, Ohio, confirmed that on her heart. But when she applied to go to China, the mission board felt her health was too fragile.  She married and had a little girl. But when her daughter was about four, her husband drowned trying to save someone.  Muddy waters!  But shortly after, she and her little girl sailed to mission work in South Africa! Widowed, alone, in a foreign culture—that’s when she wrote these lyrics. During her fifteen years there, she married again, but poor health meant a return to America where her second husband pastored a Methodist Church.  By 1900, her health restored, they returned to Africa, this time to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) as missionaries!  She retired in 1911 (about age 61) and died six years later. 

Of her last work in Rhodesia, she wrote in her journal, “In connection with this whole mission there are glorious possibilities. One cannot in the face of peculiar difficulties help saying, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ But with simple confidence and trust we may and do say, ‘Our sufficiency is of God.’”

Louisa Stead could have allowed her faith to be drowned in the floods of disappointment and a spouse’s death. But she trusted in Jesus, and “proved Him o’er and o’er,” living in the power of His living water.

Chase away the clouds

A devotional series inspired by sights in Kauai
Storms hang over even paradise. Our four-day visit to beautiful Kauai in the Hawaiian islands came at the end of a series of tropical storms, treating us to gray skies, rain, and mud. One morning, my husband had to take off his shoes and wade through several inches of standing water to reach our rental car in the hotel parking lot.  These clouds lingered through the day.  As we explored nearby sights, I could have dwelled on the gray clouds. Instead, I marveled at the lush green vegetation that the clouds sustained. Back home in parched eastern Washington state, just months earlier, a scary summer of wildfires included one that torched a neighborhood just a mile away from ours.

The Kauai sky that day reminded me of the “Lit’l Abner comic strip,” which ran in newspapers across the nation during 1934-1977.  One of the minor characters, named “Joe Btfspik” (the comic artist “pronounced” it like a rude sound), wandered the story line with a perpetual rain cloud over his head.  The world’s worst jinx, everywhere he went, something bad happened.  It was an amusing caricature, but, sadly, I know people who live in a constant “cloud” of negatives. God stretches me in trying to help them look for the sun that’s trying to break through.  Some of their “weather reports” go like this:

 “The sun will never shine on me like it does others.” This “poor-me” outlook imagines that people reject them because they have some terrible flaw. The truth is that we’re all imperfect, but we’re people in progress as we draw nearer to the radiance of Christ, whom Malachi 4:2 called by the prophetic label, “the sun of righteousness.” One source of this distortion is popular culture, which uses media savvy as a measure of personal worth. Interestingly, a recent study by the University of Houston found a link between depression and Facebook-“lurking.” If virtual comparisons foster “nobody appreciates me” reactions, it’s time to quit the social media.

 “That thunderhead might produce a terrible storm that destroys my home!” Fear and exaggeration are not of God. Caution is. Near Kauai’s coastal areas, we noticed huge sirens ready to warn people of coming tsunamis.  But gloomy people always think the worst, revealing their fears that God won’t help them if it does happen. One published counselor suggested that such people may be reading about, listening to, or watching the news too much. All these media sources tend to emphasize the worst of any disaster. Reporters on live media (radio, TV) have a practiced, intense tone in their voices, adding to the sense of urgency. The counselor suggested: quit your news intake for a while until you can get your what-if’s under control.

“My life is just a big fog bank.  I’m hopeless and stuck.” Where I live, we can expect gray, foggy, frozen days in January and February.  It can be quite depressing unless we choose to find spots of cheer. Some simple things I do: wear colorful clothes, open the curtains, eat healthy, and connect with other people. Bringing order to the physical clutter where I live also helps.  But emotionally fog-bound people aren’t proactive in simple lifestyle things. They’re paralyzed by “I can’ts,” instead of asking God to help them overcome excuses. They’re so down on themselves that they may interpret a harried store clerk’s reaction as a snub on them.  Too much emotional analysis can lead to behavioral paralysis. Their “fog” may be a clue to a chemical imbalance in their bodies that needs medical treatment. But there’s also a spiritual aspect. David had this “future” perspective for his “fog” times, a phrase repeated several times in Psalms 42 and 43: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!”

Hopeless, fictional rain-cloud Joe Btfspik didn’t enjoy what believers have for life’s storms: a God who promised: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2, emphasis added). By the way, we did enjoy some blue skies before flying home across the ocean. As an old Gospel song puts it, “Sunshine after the rain.”