MY FAITH LOOKS UP TO THEE

A monthly story on a hymn of the faith. 

At age 22, Ray Palmer was exhausted. As a child he was a bright student, but family finances meant he had to quit school at age 13 to work as a clerk in a Boston dry goods store. Still, he gave his work his best effort while getting spiritual nourishment at the Park Street Congregational Church. There, he accepted Christ and felt the call to become a minister. He was able to complete his education and was accepted to Yale.

It was an exhausting time of life for him as he juggled his clerk job, Yale classes, teaching at a New York City girl's school, and studying for the ministry. One night in 1830 in his rented room he read a German poem about a sinner kneeling before the cross. It moved him so much that he added several stanzas on his own. According to one biographer, he admitted that when he finished, he was moved to tears, especially with that poem's last lines: Oh, bear me safe above, a ransomed soul! He later copied the lyrics into a little leather-bound book he kept of private devotional thoughts. It was never his intention that someone else would read the poem that began, “My faith looks up to Thee, thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior Divine.”

Two years later, working on his doctorate in theology, he was visiting in Boston when he ran into an old friend, Lowell Mason, already prominent as a music teacher, prodigious composer, and music publisher. Mason was working on a compilation to be called “Spiritual Songs for Social Worship” and wondered if Palmer had written anything he could use. Though hesitant to share his very personal devotional reflection, Palmer pulled out his little devotional journal and showed Mason the lyrics he'd written.

Mason didn't hesitate. He stepped into a store where he got a piece of paper and a pencil to copy them. When Mason got home, he re-read the words and began writing a tune he named “Olivet.” Two days later, the friends ran into each other again on Boston's streets. Mason blurted, “Mr. Palmer, you may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the author of 'My Faith Looks Up To Thee.'”

A few years later, in 1835, having earned his doctorate in theology, Palmer was ordained to the ministry in the Congregational Church. He held pastorates and church offices in Maine and New York. He was also a popular author of original poetry, hymns and translated hymn texts, publishing several volumes. Probably the best known of his translated works is “Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts,” originally written in Latin by Bernard of Clairvaux 800 years earlier.

Palmer lived to be 79. He and his wife were married over a half century before she died. When he passed away in 1887, after a succession of strokes, three of his ten children survived. We can be thankful that he didn't stay in his first vocation—as a clerk in a dry goods store!

The Vagle Brothers harmonize the hymn is this beautiful YouTube video:

My Faith Looks Up To Thee (Hymns with lyrics) - Bing video

PLUS OR MINUS

I keep this uplifting magnet (a friend's gift)
on a metal surface near my desk. 

When our land-line phone rang one ordinary morning, my "hello" was answered by three words: “I hate you!” After the initial shock, I recognized the voice. An awkward silence, then I replied, “I can tell this is a negative phone call, so I'm hanging up.” Within seconds the phone rang again. Guessing it was the same person with a history of this behavior, I chose to ignore the call rather than risk a frustrating conversation. But the caller had already wounded my spirit. I grabbed my car keys to do errands and get away from the phone. Tears came within the first block. Then, like a God-message, Biblical truths from an old hymn came to mind: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.”

Years later, that hurtful memory resurfaced when I read David Seamands' Healing Grace: Let God Free You from the Performance Trap (Victor, 1988, p. 155). In one chapter he dealt with others' negative input in our lives—statements critical of our “being,” not of instructive corrections. In other words, put-downs that attack someone's character, like “I'm sick of you” or “You make me sick.” Or, as I heard, “I hate you.” In contrast are phrases like “I believe you can do this” or even “Thank you for helping me become my better self.” Psychologists who study “affirmation” have even come up with a formula for positive or negative strokes. It goes like this:

*A positive stroke for “doing” (something we did): one point.

*A positive stroke for “being” (what we are): ten points.

*A negative stroke for “doing”: minus ten points.

*A negative stroke for “being”: minus 100 points!

Yes, negative comments and put-downs are associated with a huge emotional debt. Negatives, Seamands wrote, “hurt us not simply on the outside, for our behavior, but they pierce right into the inside of us, where the concepts and feelings about ourselves originate.”

But I am blessed to also have affirming friends. I have saved some of their “blessing” notes reminding me that I am not what this other person claims. At times I considered tossing the notes—was it vain to keep them around?---but that inner voice said, “No, keep them, read them from time to time as a reminder that you are precious in God's sight.”

One used my name for an acrostic of positive qualities (see illustration at right--with its re-spelling of "generous"). Another wrote in an E-mail: “When I think of you, I think of a God- and people-loving woman: creative, musical, frugal, generous, intelligent, fun, funny, wise, scholar, widely-published and much more. When I think of you, I smile.” An older woman who took a writing class I taught handed me this note at the last session: “Your love for the Lord is right where I can see it.”

I share their notes to illustrate healing words. I also want my experience of pain and positives to show how words matter. All around us—especially, it seems, as a consequence of the fears and inconveniences of the pandemic-- are people who likely suffered recently from another's negative words. They need those positive strokes for “being” or “doing.” Your reaching-out might be the encouragement they need that day.

FLEETING

 

Tiny blue star-shaped flowers are the first to emerge in our flower beds as snow recedes. They last only a few days before withering. But during their short bloom time, they're like tiny encouragers as my outlook recovers from the cold, dark winter. Commonly called “Glory of the Snow,” their more formal name is chionadoxa.

As I walk by them on my way to and from our home, noticing them bloom and wither, I'm reminded of this word: fleeting.

That word takes me back to my college days as an English major. I slogged through my five-credit “Shakespeare” class, analyzing such quotes as this from Macbeth: “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more!”

The phrase “hour upon the stage” reminds me of what the apostle James said about people who set up “life plans” for where they'll live and what they'll do to make lots of money during their lifetimes. James dumped cold water on their “hour-on-the-stage” plans with this observation: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

God didn't create people with limited life spans to just play-act. He fashioned us with purpose. James added: “Instead you ought to say, 'If this is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that'” (4:15). A similar message came from Moses, who spent decades drilling the message “obey God” into a huge pack of wandering former slaves: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Sometimes, as in these past months of COVID-19 restrictions, life seemed to drag from day to day. But the reality is that life is short, a blip on eternity's screen. My time to “bloom” for Jesus is very, very short. My place to bloom is very ordinary, like that patch of cold soil where the “Glory of the Snow” emerges for a few days. But He sees me. And He cares. More important—contrary to the Shakespearian character with a fatalistic “heard no more” attitude—I matter to God for eternity!

BASICS

Being around young grandchildren reminds one of all the challenges of learning to read. When we recently visited our pre-school granddaughter across the state, we quizzed her from a box of phonics cards. As she looked at each simple word, she mouthed the alphabet sounds and finally would say the whole word with a big smile. Her boy cousin, just 4 ½, isn't far behind. He goes to pre-school, but when visiting at our home, sometimes gravitates toward an old classroom phonics chart his grandpa picked up at a yard sale.

I'd never spring on them some of the obtuse “classics” I had to read in college! The “readers” I had in my childhood—like “Look, Spot!” and “Dick sees Jane”--gradually prepared me for the killer classes I had in Humanities and English lit. I remember the quarter I enrolled in Victorian lit. The assigned novels were about 4,567 pages long (just kidding) and the sentences went on for pages (just kidding, again). “Period” literature? I searched for the periods! The sentences were comma-heavy.

When young in faith, I had the same attitude toward parts of the Bible, like the prophets. They weren't easy-reads, like the Gospels. Their tone and historical background were part of the challenge in understanding them. I remember in particular this passage from Isaiah that caused amusement and consternation. What did it possibly mean!

“For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little, and there a little.” (28:10)

I learned the prophet was trying to scold his people for being as immature spiritually as barely-weaned babies were, physically. At that time, because of national arrogance, apathy and sin, the people were headed toward destruction and imprisonment by a foreign nation. Despite Isaiah's warnings, they didn't turn back to God.

Yikes! A pretty heavy application point to connect to grammar and phonics! But is it possible that when we get slack about reading and meditating on scripture, we're apt to slip back into the ideas typical of the spiritually immature? Like the (not-in-the-Bible) saying, “God helps those who help themselves.” Wrong. He helps those who admit their helplessness and turn in trust and humility to Him.

Spiritual maturity and Biblical literacy are like good friends. They help each other. But the most important connection point is the Holy Spirit, helping us understand what's being said and how to apply it to our lives. We all start somewhere. Let's hear it for parents who start spiritual training early. At first it may seem as bland as “Spot runs after the ball.” Just think back to when that sentence was hard to read (if you can!) and thank God for the folks who taught you to read--and the others who introduced you to the Greatest Book of all.

BLUE...

Hydrangeas—especially the blue-hued blooms--are my favorite flower. But I am not their favorite gardener. The profuse bushes of decades earlier in this home have withered and died. Even healthy-looking transplants from greenhouses failed to thrive. Learning that insufficient soil acid might be the problem, I stirred concoctions into the dirt—to no avail. I was left with sticks and distant memories of the blue and purple pompom flowers that once ballooned on the shady side of our home. Disappointed, we planted some strawberries there, and I put a bouquet of fake hydrangea in the guest bedroom.

My horticultural ignorance brought to mind the advice I heard as a young adult, seeking to grow in my faith. I read my Bible, kept a journal, and had a prayer list. I later sat under some great expository preachers (two are still living in their late 80s--and still preaching!). But I wish I'd had more practical spiritual encouragement, like I found in a recent book by a longtime writer-speaker friend.

It's Lucinda Secrest McDowell's Soul Strong: 7 Keys to a Vibrant Life (New Hope Publishers). I met her long ago (okay, forty-plus years) at Wheaton Graduate School when we were both emerging into our early careers. Now she's a well-known speaker and author of many Christian non-fiction books which authentically and winsomely help scriptural truth bloom through practical examples. This book discusses seven character qualities of a vibrant faith journey: Live loved, be authentic, dwell deep, pray always, overcome pain, extend kindness, and share stories.

I hesitate to highlight even one of those qualities to the exclusion of others, but the one about overcoming pain spoke deeply to me. (Yes, me--who allowed beloved hydrangea plants to suffer!) Lucinda and I have learned, in our own ways, that pain is the unwelcome but necessary agent of growing deeper in faith. She admitted once telling a friend, “I don't really trust someone without a limp” (p. 105). By that she meant:….those who have been broken or wounded live differently from those for whom life is a constant picnic. We don't offer pat answers. We listen for what is going on behind the spoken words. We move forward each day even if our healing process is not yet complete. Our limp serves as a metaphor to show that we are real, imperfect people who have learned hard things by following God through suffering.

Lucinda took her book title from Psalm 138:3 (ESV): “On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.” Written with blank spaces for personal or group contemplation, it's a fresh look at growing in Christ and serving Him. Or, to borrow the title from a devotional book by Eugene Peterson (of The Message paraphrase fame): “a long obedience in the same direction.”

By the way, Lucinda also enjoys hydrangeas. She has a plant at her home in New England, and wrote about it here: Maybe It’s Time to Sit in the Shade – Lucinda Secrest McDowell

BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS

This cross sits on a bluff between the towns
of Omak and Okanogan in north-central 
Washington state. See footnote for a
You-tube telling its history.

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith.

We often think of hymn writers as older or mature people, especially when they compose verses about the most sacred event of our faith: the crucifixion of Christ. Not so with this hymn, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” Its author, Elizabeth Clephane, was a frail young woman born to a Scottish sheriff's family. A quiet little girl, she was always composing verse and absorbed in books, and the top scholar in her class at school. Despite her chronic ailments, she reached out to those who were suffering and impoverished. Her compassion for the needy led to her nickname as “The Sunbeam of Melrose,” Melrose being a suburb of Edinburgh. One time she and her sisters sold their horse and carriage to raise money for a needy family. She wrote only eight hymns in her short lifetime before dying at age 39. But they reflected her diligent study of the Bible through her Presbyterian roots.

Her poems could have faded into history after her death—but here the story picks up momentum with the evangelistic campaigns of two Americans: Dwight L. Moody and his song leader Ira Sankey. About five years after her death, Moody and Sankey were traveling between crusade events in Scotland. Sankey stopped to buy a newspaper before they boarded the train. As he idly flipped through it, he noticed her poem titled “The Ninety and Nine.” He tried to interest Moody in it, but the evangelist was too busy preparing his sermon. So Sankey cut out the poem and put it in his pocket.

That evening, Moody spoke from Luke 15 about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. When he finished, he turned to Sankey and asked him to sing an appropriate solo. Sankey's mind went blank. Then he remembered the little poem in his vest pocket. He pulled it out, placed it on his little folding organ, and quickly prayed for divine help. Striking a chord, he began to sing, with the entire song coming to him note by note. When he finished, Moody was in tears. Sankey was in tears. The Scottish audience was visibly moved and many responded to the call of Christ. There's more: during Moody and Sankey's campaign in Scotland, two of her sisters were in the audience. Imagine their surprise and gratitude to hear how their late sister's poem had become a powerful evangelical musical tool.

Besides “The Ninety and Nine,” she is also remembered for her lyrics for “Beneath the Cross of Jesus.” Although she wrote it a year before her death, it wasn't published until four years later. Her diligence in Bible study is reflected in the hymn's Biblical allusions:

*”The Mighty Rock”--Isaiah 32:2

*”The weary land”--Psalm 63:1

*”A home within the wilderness”--Jeremiah 9:2

*”A rest upon the way”--Isaiah 28:12

*”Noontide heat”--Isaiah 4:6

*”Burden of the day”--Matthew 11:30

Unlike the spontaneous way the music was written for “The Ninety and Nine,” the tune to “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” was by Frederick Charles Maker, one of the outstanding organists of his day and a contributor to a Scottish hymnal of his times.

Two things to note in the lyrics of “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”:

*The references to the sunshine of Christ's face—no doubt remembering her nickname as the local “sunbeam”

*The two wonders she confessed: Christ's redeeming love and her unworthiness.

Sing along:

Beneath The Cross Of Jesus - YouTube

Guy Penrod, The Nelons - The Ninety and Nine (Live) - YouTube

The story behind the hilltop cross in photo at top of blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8v0NUx5zk&ab_channel=ChristiansinAction

TREASURE CHEST

Reenactment: cash stash

I had just emptied my can of baking soda when a memory flashed: of my dad, on payday, rolling money into an empty red baking powder can that he hid in a dresser drawer. That was his routine for saving out cash for ongoing household expenses. He just kept just a little money at a time in his wallet, gave some to Mom, and replenished as needed from the hidden can. 

My dad (1915-1978) reflected the frugal practices of his time, when money (to most) came with hard labor. Cash ruled, not credit cards and online finances. I do know that as the sole breadwinner, he budgeted carefully, saved for a rainy day, and used-up and wore-out to stretch the family income. He also faithfully set aside a tithe, supporting the church and a special mission.

In Bible times, without locked doors and other security we enjoy, some folks buried their money in fields! That practice colored Jesus' teaching about real treasures: 

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19)

Centuries later, people still had odd (and often insecure) ways to “hide money.” Some people used a sock! That included an older woman in the 1850s whose granddaughter had married a hard-working but impoverished guy with undeveloped music talent.

Born into an impoverished but devout home, Philip Bliss was ten years old before he heard a piano for the first time. He was trying to sell his family's garden produce in a wealthy neighborhood when he overheard a woman practicing a piano in her parlor. Curious and intrigued, he slipped into the home to hear better. She quickly shooed him away. But as he grew up, taking hard labor jobs, he held onto his dream of learning to play music and compose Gospel songs. Music training would help. This was a financial pipe dream until his wife's grandmother, believing in his talent and calling, pulled an old bulging sock from a hiding place. Maybe her dresser! It was filled with coins she'd saved that added up to $30. In today's money, it wouldn't seem like much, but in those times, $129 was the average wage for a year. It was enough for him to enroll in a six-week music school. And the rest is history.

Bliss went on to become one of the most famous Gospel musicians in America. He tragically died (along with his wife and about 90 others) in a train wreck. Only 38, he was already well-known as a musician associated with famed evangelist D.L. Moody. And it was Moody who sadly officiated at the couple's funeral, for which 8,000 filled the hall and another 4,000 stood outside in bitter winter weather.

Some of the dozens of hymns associated with him: “Hold the Fort,” “Jesus Loves Even Me,” “Almost Persuaded,” “Hallelujah, What a Savior,” “Wonderful Words of Life,” “I Will Sing of My Redeemer,” “Let the Lower Lights be Burning,” and the tune to Spafford's famed “It Is Well With My Soul.”

Had he lived longer, there would have been more. Still, it's worth remembering that a simple old “sock bank” of coins—his wife's grandma's legacy—propelled him toward the role God had for his life. It also should cause us to stop and think: what has God entrusted to me? Something buried in the ground (or knotted away in a sock of fear or stubbornness), or responsibly shared? It can't happen if we hide our “God-money” of ability and faith.

P.S. Interesting: my dad's humble red baking powder can (long-ago tossed) now sells for $11-58 on antique resell web sites!