CHILLING THOUGHTS

Just thought with July's higher temperatures, you might need a “cool-down”--thus a photo taken half a year ago in the midst of a January freeze. Brr—probably you don't want to stand under this collection that I spotted across our back fence. Though not lethal, these pointy ice structures could bruise. And what a good picture of human character that would rather stab than heal.

I'm not a great fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), whose many connections included the Transcendental movement, which rejected the Christian view of God. But this Emerson quote surely lines up with the Biblical observation that “whatever a man sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7-9). Emerson's quote, very similar:

Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.

In other words ,your choices can have the potential for long-range consequences that may outlive you.

To relate that to real icicles, given the right conditions, every accumulating drip “grows” the product. In 2017, an icicle 30 meters long and 15 meters wide (think: about 90 feet long and five feet wide) was found in a remote area of northwest China. You wouldn't want to stand under, or near, one like that. Even medium-size ones can threaten. Some winters in my town, I noticed wooden construction “horses” cordoning off a dangerous icicle by a business building.

But in everyday actions and words, we have the potential to be—or not to be—icicle people. That term fits folks who threaten others with icy verbal or behavioral jabs. And they wonder why people within range keep their social distance!

Okay, I'm guilty of breaking off real growing icicles that grow off our roof in winter. No damage done, in fact damage prevented before they grew big enough, say, to bend or break a rain gutter. And their potential to damage often reminds me of the human analogy of how “spiked words” (=mean, accusing, lying) can wound deeper than the speaker realizes.

By the way, I still remember my childhood task (2^nd grade?) of learning to spell “icicle.” It simply looked funny, all those “same” letters. I wanted to pronounce it ICK ICK LEE. My mother (probably) helped me see the music of the spelled out version: I SEE I SEE ELLY. I've never had a problem since!

Sew & Sow: A Mother's Legacy

The "triangle quilt." When
the backing rotted, I took it
apart and sewed a new
back to it. Oh, all those
yarns to place and tie!

When I changed our winter blanket the other day for a spring-weight one my mother made, I relived some memories of her. Composed entirely of triangles cut from her sewing scraps, it reminded me of how she made use of all the “scraps” of her life, including an impoverished childhood and chronic illness. When she died at age 59 of cancer, I told God I felt she died way too young. But I knew in His wisdom He had allowed that, considering her life’s work done.

The phrase “sew & sow” might well characterize that work. A sewing skill that began with the printed cotton bags of Depression-era flour sacks, and ended with tailoring suits for my father, wore out three sewing machines.  When I moved from home, my little 10x10 bedroom became stuffed with sewing paraphernalia previously tucked throughout the house. Her sewing “stash” required an entire estate sale day by itself. Like the noble Proverbs 31 woman, she made sure her family (including the two grandchildren she lived long enough to meet) was adequately (and thriftily) dressed.  Though she didn’t sew for income (Proverbs 31:24) she spent hours sewing for others, including clothes for her disabled mother, and lap blankets for the residents of a local convalescent home. 

As for “sow,” that word covers two aspects of her lifestyle. When my parents had a garden, she overestimated the power of zucchini plants. She could have written a zucchini recipe book. What we couldn’t eat right away ended up shredded in bags in the freezer. But she also sowed spiritually, known as a woman who loved God and the scriptures. Though her formal education ended at first year of junior college, she read her Bible faithfully. One of the cherished Bible versions I keep in the “reference shelf” above my computer is her “Amplified New Testament” with her red-pencil notations.

My mother and me, late 1947

She also sowed a legacy of overcoming. She was born prematurely, in a log cabin, to an impoverished Norwegian immigrant farmer and his polio-disabled wife.  She was the oldest of nine raised in the hardships of eastern Montana dry-land farming. A relative, knowing she had no future at home, sent for her to come to Washington state to junior college. That’s where she met my father. Together they weathered the sparse war years and she birthed my sister and, six years later, me. I think they had hoped for a “John Jr.,” but went with the feminine form of “John,” Jeanne.

I never matched her “sowing” (as in gardening) or “sewing” (as in men’s suits) skills. But she permitted me to grow in the unique ways God gifted me, applauding my achievements and not wanting her poor health (asthma, broken bones, finally cancer) to get in the way of being there for us.

Someone recently wrote about how to honor one’s parents. There are obvious ways, like remembering them on birthdays and holidays, and making sure their needs are taken care of.  But what of parents who have died, like mine both did in 1978, when I was 30?  I think the apostle Paul gave us a clue when he wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). My “sew & sow” mother was no slacker, and I hope I have shown that trait. I am confident she is in the presence of the Lord for that “someday” reunion, when we can compare notes, woman-to-woman, mother-to-daughter, child-of-God to child-of-God.

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 126: Joy and Tears

The analogy: sowing with tears, reaping with joy

Part of a continuing series on selected psalms.

Trapped.  Unappreciated.  Ignored. Rejected. When we experience emotions like this, we’re apt to think that God has forgotten us. Maybe we think our faith has failed us. Ancient Jews, exiled to Babylon, certainly did. The Jews were known for loving their music, but in their misery as exiles they refused to sing for their captors, hanging their harps in the local poplar trees (Psalm 137:2).

In such times, Psalm 126 comes to teach and encourage us. The setting is the release of Jews from captivity in Babylon, with permission to return to their homeland. Never before had a captive people been allowed to relocate “back home.” But not all returned—according to Ezra 2:64-68, about 50,000. That’s a sizeable number, but was only a portion of those taken as spoils of war. Those who opted to leave faced an arduous desert journey of hundreds of miles. Once back in their destroyed homeland, they were on their own.

Psalm 126 replays both ecstatic joy and tearful hope in these circumstances—emotions that we, too, may experience when life takes an unexpected, positive turn, or when life tries to drain us of hope.

ECSTATIC JOY

Several decades ago, while working at the headquarters of an international mission, I witnessed a dramatic re-enactment of the opening verses of Psalm 126. For nearly eight months—232 days—we’d prayed for a missionary couple and their small daughter, captured by rebels who herded them through the jungles of Southeast Asia. As the months dragged on, we gathered regularly to intercede for their safety and release. Then one morning, a special chapel meeting was called. It could mean only one of two outcomes: death or release. The mission’s Southeast Asia director began the meeting by reading from Psalm 126, his voice choked with emotion:
When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. (vv. 1-2)
By then we knew they had been released!  He continued:
The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. (v. 3)
Newer translations clarify verse 1: “When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.” The prophet Isaiah had foretold this, even down to the name of the yet-unborn leader, Cyrus, who’d buck custom and release them (Isaiah 44:28). Having this actually happen was like their wildest dream coming true. They probably retrieved their harps from the trees to celebrate this amazing turn of events! Our cultural lens makes it hard to understand the intense emotion of being able to return to one’s historical homeland, steeped in the history of the patriarchs.

The glad declaration of verse 3 is how we should respond to God’s amazing blessings. It’s a witness to those around us (as is was to neighboring nations, v. 2c).  In her book The Satisfied Heart (Waterbrook, 1999, p. 171), author Ruth Myers remarked how it’s refreshing to be in the company of a “glad person.” Such a person can brighten an entire room. Likewise, it’s discouraging to be around someone who regularly gripes, complains, and seems trapped in a gloomy mindset.

TEARFUL HOPE

Upon learning of our colleagues’ release, tearful prayers of thanksgiving flowed freely during that chapel hour. Though thin and sick, they were still alive. But they’d face many adjustments plus the grief of losing their precious manuscripts of the New Testament in a tribal language—the reason they were in that country. This was the ‘70s, when “saving” information in an internet “cloud” was the stuff of dreams. It was all on paper. As I recall that loss, I think of another couple I know who have devoted their entire adult lives—almost half a century—to translating the New Testament into two dialects of a South American tribal language. They endured deprivation, serious illness, cultural issues, government pressure, apathy and the plain hard work of learning an unwritten language. Recently I watched a video they sent of their second New Testament dedication. As I watched them join their joyful tribal friends, holding their New Testaments aloft as they did a celebratory dance, I thought of this portion of Psalm 126:
Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (vv. 4-6 KJV)
 

Jews who returned to their homeland faced great hardships. The land was in shambles, the temple burned, and the left-behind occupants hostile. No wonder they prayed, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord” (v. 4, NIV, ESV). They had to build homes and plant crops, using the precious seed they brought from Babylon. If they scattered generously, there would be less to grind into flour for bread for their families, and even less later if those crops failed. No wonder the farmer wept as he planted. He had no guarantee of a crop, only trust in God to provide.

No doubt they remembered that God had covenanted to provide adequate food for His people (Deuteronomy 28:1-14), and were claiming that promise in the midst of uncertainties. They were counting on God’s abundance to be as remarkable and refreshing as the rare downpours in the desert of the Negev (v. 4), which temporarily produced torrents that greened up nearby land. They were also trusting God for the time when a heavy heart of uncertainty would become the light, glad heart of joy as they gathered a harvest.

Beneath this picture of sowing and reaping actual food is the spiritual picture of sowing and reaping for God’s kingdom. Spiritual crops take waiting and tears. I try to remember that when I open my prayer notebook and pray again, and again, for loved ones who have rejected Christ or His better plan for their lives. Tears may come as my intense desire to see them spiritually whole overcomes me. Nineteenth century preacher Charles Spurgeon remarked, “Winners of souls are first weepers for souls.  As there is no birth without travail, so there is no spiritual harvest without painful tillage.”

Besides starting over with life’s necessities of housing and crops, the returned exiles faced rebuilding their temple. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell of the opposition and disappointments they faced, and how steadfast trust that God got them through it all. A lesson from that for us if that if things came too easily, we wouldn’t feel our need of God.  Perhaps that’s why we need the balancing exultation and agony of Psalm 126. True joy—deep, hard-won joy—comes from acknowledging that every good gift comes from God.  We sow daily through diligence in our work or studies, building good friendships, parenting the best we can for God, and staying faithful in prayer and Bible study. The journey may bring disappointment and tears. But as Psalm 30:5 reminds, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” As we sow in God’s strength, we’ll reap in joy, and give Him the glory for it. Songs of joy, says the psalmist. Or to use the more recent lyrics given us by Fanny Crosby: “To God be the glory, great things he has done!”

 

Next: Psalm 130