EnLIGHTened

The card cover & the bug book's text

It was one of my husband's last random “love notes” to me. I found it on the kitchen table. The cover was a drawing of seven lightning bugs. (I took note of the number seven—the so-called “perfect” number.) The printed text inside: “Every thought of you puts a little sparkle in my day.” He had added: “I remember when you introduced me to fireflies. They lit up my life then and you still light up my life. Your enlightened Favorite Fellow.”

The story behind his comment. When he proposed marriage (after we'd resumed courtship after a gap of some seven years), he was living in central Washington and I was near Chicago. When he flew to Chicago to help me drive back for our wedding, it was summer and “firefly” season in the Midwest. The tiny critters fascinated them with their luminescence.

Throughout our marriage, when we shopped thrift stores, he often gravitated over to the card racks for something that seemed “just right” to keep the romance going. I appreciated that. I didn't care that they maybe cost a quarter instead of the inflated card store price. I'd find notes on the kitchen table or on my pillow. What a guy. After his death, I found his “stash” of future romantic, birthday, or anniversary cards in his desk drawer. Oh, pass the tissue box. Some of them were pretty heavy-duty, but enabled him to express his heart in my love language, which is “written communication.”

That last love note was so precious that I tucked it in the flyleaf of my Bible. Shortly after his death, I was reading a book about bugs to my grandsons. I came to a page about fireflies. The text said: “Did you know that a firefly is a type of beetle? Fireflies are also called lightning bugs. A male firefly will light up when he wants a female to see him.”

Oh, pass the tissue box. Yes, instead of the flickering “male” firefly, this female” “lit up” when I got his love notes. Even after nearly 42 years of marriage, those little perks still meant a lot.

Kind words are not just for lovers. They are the lubricant for all relationships, personal and business. Intimate and casual. I've known the sting of mean words—even invented words, embellished with extra prefixes and suffixes that made them sound erudite and highfalutin. I considered “the source” and tried to move on. But those hurtful times just reinforced my desire to be more proactive about building people up, expressing appreciation, and asking God to help me see opportunities to be more Christlike through my words.

Maybe it's reminders of wounding words I endured in the past from unhappy people, or this difficult grieving time. But in this season of life, I'm asking the Lord to make me more sensitive to kind words. Yes, words that point to Jesus, who connected heart and mouth (or penmanship!): “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

See more at this website: What Does the Bible Say About Kind Words? (openbible.info)

MESSENGER AT 'THE STUPE'

Some might have called her an angel in disguise. I can't even remember her name. I just remember her kind, welcoming smile when I walked into the college coffee shop looking for a place to study between classes. As I looked around for an empty spot in the busy room, I noticed her alone in a booth. Graciously, she waved to me to join her.

I was then a graduate student at Wheaton College, near Chicago, Illinois. I'd started there the previous year on funds I'd saved from working, but both my parents had died months apart. As their still-single daughter, it fell to me to move back to Washington state to empty their home and handle probate. The task would have been impossible for my married sister with her young family and job, living on the other side of the state. Nine months later, the house “empty” but still unsold, caring people urged me to quit waiting around....to resume my studies and to trust God for its sale in a depressed economy. So here I was, pursuing an educational and vocational dream, early thirties, single and very much alone, taking temporary jobs like babysitting and filing to help cover expenses beyond my depleting personal savings.

The coffee shop was known as "The Stupe”--yes, strange, but an acrostic carryover from its former location close to the physical education department: STudent Union Physical Education. The high-backed wooden benches had a classic aura that reminded me of alumni legends like missionary martyr Jim Elliott and famed evangelist Billy Graham. As I slid into her booth, we exchanged names and told about our fields of study. I shared how I'd returned to graduate school after my parents died, hoping to land a job with nearby Christian publishers. She said, “I'll pray for you.”

A week or so later, I returned to “The Stupe” for a study break. There she was again, beckoning to me. As I sat down, she said, “I have a verse for you. It's Hebrews 6:10: 'God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints'” (NASB).

I can't recall if she just gave me the reference, or a card with that verse written out. But it was as if someone had summoned a wind to fill my drooping sails. She was God's messenger to remind me that despite the negative circumstances that had dragged me down, God was still on the throne. He remembered what I had done and what I hoped to do to honor Him.

Our “encounter” came in wintertime. I don't recall seeing much of her the rest of the school year. But that verse she shared kept coming to mind as I struggled through reading lists and piles of assignments, wrote my graduate thesis, and sent out resumes that brought disappointing “thanks, but no thanks.” And finally, just three days before I had to vacate college housing with nowhere to go, I got a phone call from a prominent editor offering a job I'd thought impossible to land--along with the editor's plan for my temporary housing.

God had not forgotten me. Hebrews 6:10, come true. Shared in a booth at a campus coffee shop by His unexpected messenger.

TEACH ME....

"Teach" in the title, a ruler.... reminders for
a hymn about learning God's ways

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith.

Some big media names in our times include Gordon Ramsay, the outspoken television chef (his name spelled with two A's), and Dave Ramsey, finance advice personality (his name with an A and E). But does the name “Benjamin Mansell Ramsey” ring a bell? Probably not. Maybe the title “Teach Me Thy Way, O Lord” does.

The history of hymnody includes many who wrote just a few hymns, and one rose to the top. Such is the case for Ramsey's “Teach Me Thy Way,” Born in 1849, he was known as an organist and amateur composer in his hometown of Chichester, in England's southeast coastal county, Sussex. Hugging the shoreline of the English Channel, the city had a colorful history going back to medieval and Norman times, as a Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement. It was also the seat of the Church of England's Diocese of Chichester, boasting a cathedral that hailed back to the 12^th Century.

Ramsey spent his life in that area, moving in music circles. He taught music at a local school, served as an officer in the local music association, and conducted local orchestras, one of which he helped establish. His musical output included a children's cantata about Robinson Crusoe and another titled “Clouds and Sunshine: A Fairy Play.” His other hymn to become better known was “Lord, Bring Some Wanderers Home.”

Little was written about his private life. His daughter Lillian was a published writer of children's books.

But what of this hymn? Perhaps its endurance is its meditative tune, and how it expressed the teachings of several Bible passages. One is 2 Timothy 4:2, Paul's last known “goodbyes” to various friends who helped him and is charge to Timothy to persevere in preaching and living out the Gospel:

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.

Maybe these verses also influenced this hymn's lyrics:

Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. (Psalm 27:11)

Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. (Psalm 86:11)

Thought he suffered poor health in his old age, he organized and conducted a choral society in Chichester before dying at 74. It's worth noting that “Teach Me Thy Way” ends as he lived:

Until the race is run, until the journey's done,

Until the Crown is won; Teach me Thy Way.

Stunning photography accompanies this YouTube featuring “Teach Me Thy Way”:

Teach me Thy way, O Lord - with Lyrics - Bing video

BAA, BAA....

That's me--20 years ago--with a friend's black lamb

My home has a reproduction of Warner Sallman's famed painting, “The Lord Is My Shepherd.”* Because of copyright laws, I won't include a copied image in this blog. But you know the one: white-robed Jesus, holding a lamb, other sheep around him. See an image and discussion at this link: TheLord is My Shepherd | The Warner Sallman Collection Notice the rocky hills and “still waters” in the background. Then, to the left of Jesus, a little black sheep, nudging the folds of His robe, as though saying, I want to stay close to the shepherd.

The scene reminds me of the 1874 hymn “Close to Thee” by prolific (and blind) hymn-writer Fanny Crosby:

Thou my everlasting portion, more than friend or life to me,
All along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

Refrain:Close to Thee, close to Thee,/Close to Thee, close to Thee;
All along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

“Black sheep” have gotten something of a bad rap in our English language. The term has come to mean someone who doesn't “fit in” with society or family. Crankiness, conflict, criticism—the negatives of human relationships seem to dominate their personalities. Why “black sheep” came to be associated with this, I don't know, except that the color “black” is often associated with sin. But real, woolly “black sheep” aren't that way because of any personality issue. Their “blackness” is a genetic thing. Sheep carry one recessive gene which provide a one-in-four chance of emerging black. If both parents have this one-in-four gene, and both “go-black” genes randomly end up together, the lamb emerges black.

But are they loners like their human namesakes? Not really. Sheep are actually social animals, comfortable in groups and generally getting along. Even the black ones can be found in the midst of a white woolly crowd. The greatest social attribute of sheep is a “herd mentality.” They stick together.

As for the black wool, go back to the nursery rhyme about “Baa, baa, black sheep.” The speaker wanted to buy the black wool which, according to what I read, was valued for the dark color woven into plaids. But the white wool was more versatile as it could be dyed into other colors.

But what of the little black sheep in Sallman's art, leaning into Jesus? The more I think about it, that's where the black sheep belonged—as close to the Savior as possible. That's true of us, too, regardless of whether we tend toward the rebellious or antisocial behavior that humans now label “black sheep.” All of us need to stay “close to Him.” Some for correction of behavior. Some for comfort. Some for simple companionship. And the Shepherd still speaks to His flocks. His Words are now in a Book. One in which He called Himself, “The Good Shepherd” (John 10). In staying close to The Book, I stay close to the Savior.

I'm reminded of a little poem by England's William Blake (1757-1827) which begins,“Little Lamb, who made thee?” The poem probes the spiritual symbol of lambs, God the Creator, and Jesus, the Lamb of God. This gets into heavy theology—a surprising thing packed into a seemingly simple verse. But it reminds me that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, also the Lamb of God who died for my sins, still beckons me to the safe place by His side. And sensing, as it were, my head nudging His robes, I am content to be “close to Thee.”

CHOICES

My Grandma “thing” when my grandsons have birthdays is to sew them pajamas of flannel fabric they choose. A few weeks ago, that meant our local fabric store rocked with excited boys going up and down its flannel aisles.

I could predict the soon-10-year-old's choice: cats. The third-born (6 the end of September) usually followed his middle brother's choice of dogs. (Grandson #2, born in January, will get his shopping trip later this year.) But this time, to my surprise, #3 insisted he wanted the fabric that showed the sun and the planets of our solar system! I matched the PJ bottoms fabric to ready-made tee-shirts. Oh my, the grandson who chose the SUN chose a blinding orange shirt.

Choices! Not all of life's choices are as easy as the favorite flannel for pajamas. But because God gave us free will to choose—not wanting us to be celestial robots—our history has rocked with bad choices. The ones that His Son visited earth to die for. Whenever I read First Corinthians, I can imagine Paul gritting his teeth in sorrow over the sin prevalent in that city. Sexual immorality flourished and new believers were having a hard time separating themselves from that lifestyle. 1 Corinthians 5-6 record the debauchery of that ancient city: immorality, greed, swindling, idolatry, drunkenness, excessive lawsuits, cheating.

Are we much different? Does our culture run by the rule, “Everybody's doing it, why not?” Paul answered (especially in regard to immorality): “Flee it” (1 Corinthians 6:18). The problem is...the problem is all around us. We're fed it in the media: movies, television, public performances, the entertainment and connections offered in privacy via the internet. Subtly, they shape our thinking.

We make choices: to indulge or reject. Paul's advice 2,000 years ago still fits. He emphasized that while we have free will to make choices, not everything in our fallen culture is right for us. “I will not be mastered by anything,” he wrote (6:12). I think of that when I read how those who idolize high-profile entertainment figures are so crushed when a concert is sold out or canceled. Or even how social media can encourage attitudes and reactions that are far from “what would Jesus do?” Paul's long-ago warning still applies: “Not everything is permissible for me [as a Christ--follower]--You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19b).

Oh my, from kid choices for pajamas to life choices in the bazaar of life's bizarre stuff. I did get off on a tangent. My grandson's flannel choices for PJs will last them about a year as they grow. But the big life choices they make—between good and evil—will have years-long, even life-long, consequences. So this grandma prays as she sews, that they will sow choices that lead to righteousness, in all they do and say.