Gingerly speaking

A series inspired by sights of Kauai.
Gingerbread men—have you savored that scent lately? This being Christmas, no doubt you have.  Believe it or not, this flower, which looks festive enough to hang on a Christmas tree, is ginger!  Like hydrangea, red ginger puts out floral “bracts” at the end of stems.  The actual flower is a tiny bloom that emerges at the tip. So prized was this plant in early Polynesian history that leis of red ginger were worn by royalty for important occasions.

Well, today, I can think of a royal Person, who enjoyed the worship of angels in Heaven, yet visited earth in the form of a helpless baby. His true birthday, believed to be sometime in early spring, was officially “affixed” to December 25 at the end of the Third Century. That time of year already had pagan festivals honoring Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture) and Mithra (Persian god of light). Church officials apparently thought a same-time Christmas holiday would help non-believers accept Christianity as the empire’s official religion.

Before that, the significant Christian celebrations were Epiphany (Jan. 6) for the Magi worshiping the baby Jesus, and Easter (Passover time), for Jesus’ resurrection. Long ago, token gifts to one another celebrated the Magi’s gift-giving to the star-heralded baby. Those wealthy, foreign visitors didn’t know it, but the gold, frankincense and myrrh they left could be sold to finance the little family’s flight to safety in Egypt. The original idea of gift-giving didn’t come with furious shopping and debt.

As for ginger and Christmas, I think the idea of ginger leis is right on target. While we ought to be giving all to Jesus, He gave all to us, including the designation of a “royal priesthood.”  When I first read this verse in 1 Peter 2:9, I had to stop and think about what all of it means for me.  What we think we’re giving to Jesus, we might as well be offering dirty rocks wrapped in old newspapers. God sees His children this way:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

It’s more than I can imagine, more than I deserve. But God, the greatest Giver, has abundant red ginger leis to drape around the necks of His children. The only requirement is to accept His offer of salvation through His son, and live out one’s connection to Jesus:

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:12)

 The day God visits us? It could be tomorrow!

Never say never

Part of a continuing series inspired by sights of Kauai.
Feral chickens run all over the Hawaiian island of Kauai, in part because their natural enemy, the mongoose, was never introduced onto this island.  Go in a tourist shop, and you’ll find chicken-themed souvenirs right next to the shell beads and Hawaiian shirts.

For me, the birds prompted remembrance of that sad, cool night a panicked man tried to keep near his spiritual leader. The man had once vowed he’d never deny a connection to his leader.  But his leader, wise beyond this world, predicted, “Before the rooster crows twice, you’ll deny me three times.”

 

The unthinkable happened:  the wise, gentle leader was arrested by thugs.  The man crept behind them as they took his leader to an official’s house.  The night was chilly, and someone had lit a fire. Cold, probably trembling with fear, he slunk near the fire to warm up

A servant girl—not a well-armed thug—noticed him and said, “This man was with the arrested man.” The man shot back, “I don’t know him.”

A little later, someone echoed her hunch, “You also are one of this man’s followers.”

“I am not!” the man insisted.

 

About an hour later, someone else voiced suspicions: “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.” The man declared, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just then, a rooster began crowing, and the man remembered his boast. His arrested leader, a captive of ruffians and perturbed religious officials, turned and looked at the man. It was more than the follower could bear.

The man, named Peter, left the scene, heaving with bitter tears. Peter had failed his Savior, broken his boast, revealed the flaws of his character. Like any of us.Peter learned his bitter lesson well. Two letters he wrote after he rose to become a leader in the new sect of “The Way” (later called Christianity), are full of practical ways to follow Christ. I wonder if Peter was thinking of his rooster-announced failures when he wrote:

In this [living hope in Jesus Christ, vv.3-5] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7) 

Will we ever face the test of the rooster’s crow? When opportunity comes to share about our faith, will we shrink back? Or use innocent idioms? 

At the Oregon junior college shootings in October, the random victims were asked to state their religion.  Those who said “Christian” got a killing bullet.  I may never face that extreme test. But every day brings tests to act and speak as someone not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

Spout and moan

A continuing series inspired by sights in Kauai.
Volcanoes were the contractors for the Hawaiian chain, all now dormant except for those on the “big island” of Hawaii, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Those of Kauai’s volcanic history include Mount Waialeale (elevation 5,080 feet), one of the world’s rainiest spots with an annual precipitation of 460 inches. The beaches continue to witness to the island’s volcanic origins, and one tourist spot is “Spouting Horn” on the southeast shore. Surf channels through a natural lava tube, releasing a spout of water with a big hiss and moan. Depending on tides, the “blow” can go as high as fifty feet.
 

Watching it reminded me of the Bible’s do’s and do-not’s regarding “overflows.” Like the “Spouting Horn” we have blow-holes that originate in our hearts. In two Gospels (Matthew 12:34-37 and Luke 6:45) Jesus observed that we speak and “do” out of the overflow of our hearts. Good people speak and do good things, evil people, evil things. On judgment day it will be rehearsed.  We’re doomed—apart from the blood of Christ covering our confessed sin (1 John 1:9).

But there are hopeful, even joyful, teachings about “overflows”:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.  All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. (2 Corinthians 4:14-15)

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. (1 Thessalonians 2:12)

 Hope, thanksgiving, and love—they won’t come “moaning out” like “Spouting Horn”!

Big trees, bigger choice

Continuing a series inspired by sights of Kauai, which we visited on a trip gifted to us.
They’re sometimes called “trees on steroids,” the huge Moreton Bay Fig trees that grow seven times faster in Kauai than in their native Australia.  This tree, growing near the hotel where we stayed, is a youngster next to ones featured in the south-shore Allerton-McBryde botanical gardens. One, called the “Jurassic Tree,” was featured in the dinosaur movie “Jurassic Park,” whose filming began on Kauai in 1992. In the story’s plot, dinosaur eggs were found at its base, and from there ensued the high-drama conflict with wild mega-beasts. I never saw the film, but its theme song (which I heard in an Olympic figure skating competition about that time) was scary enough for me.

Tourists today can find the fictional “egg nest spot” amidst the Jurassic Tree’s huge buttressing roots, many as tall as a person.  These trees can grow to 200 feet high, have evergreen leaves, and impair growth of other trees around them.

Learning that reminded me of two similar passages about trees, one in Psalm 1 and the other in Jeremiah 17. Both tell of trees planted by a water source, unbothered by heat, reliably producing fruit. The analogy is to a believer, grounded in God’s Word, sustained by scripture, and producing spiritual fruit.  Then both swing to the negative:

“Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.”  (Psalm 1:4)

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Right now, two trees grow, as it were, in life’s garden. One is good, bountiful, beneficial, made up of Christians who believe they are called to serve their Lord through service to others.  Then there is an unruly tree that strangles anything around it. As Matthew Henry said long ago in his classic commentary:

The heart, the conscience of man, in his corrupt and fallen state, is deceitful above all things. It calls evil good, and good evil; and cries peace to those to whom it does not belong. Herein the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate.

Calling “evil good, and good evil”—is nothing new? But it’s not a terminal condition. . Those who’ve lived apart from God can turn to Christ. So turning, Henry wrote, gives them “new desires, new pleasures, hopes, fears, sorrows, companions, and employments. [Their] thoughts, words, and actions are changed. [They] enter on a new state, and bear a new character.” 

Psalm 1 ends with the fate of those who reject God:  “perish.” I consider that destination more horrific than an imaginary monster story filmed in Kauai.

Just beautiful

A continuing series inspired by sights in Kauai, which we visited early this fall on a trip gifted us.
“It’s just beautiful,” I told my husband as we paused by an orchid plant blooming outside the headquarters for the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. On that hot, humid Kauai morning, it beckoned more than a glance with its pure, delicate color and structure.  Later I learned that there are about 20,000 varieties of orchids, of which I’d seen barely a dozen in my life.

Beautiful.  I wonder if, at times, we overuse that word.  A movie star or pageant contestant may be called “beautiful.”  The same for a radiant bride. To some, a spiffed-up classic car can take that adjective. Or a restored mansion, an intricate quilt, Persian rug, or even a smile after the braces come off.  (That last comment comes from a mom who had two kids in orthodontia!)

But a hymn learned in childhood takes me to my favorite use of “beautiful,” the word prominent in the fourth verse:

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature, O Thou of God and man the Son!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Thou my soul’s glory, joy and crown!

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, Robed in the blooming garb of spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus shines purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host;

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer, Than all the angels heaven can boast.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all nations! Son of God and Son of Man!

Glory and honor, praise, adoration Now and forevermore be Thine!

 The hymn’s origins are sketchy.  Some date it to the 12^th century, saying German Crusaders and their children sang it during the long, weary trek to the Holy Land. Another connects it to a band of persecuted believers, followers of reformer John Hus, who settled in what now Poland during the Reformation era.  It was finally written down and published in the mid 1850s. Nobody knows for sure who later translated it into English.

Its anonymity means more focus on God, not the human messenger, for its memorably-composed message of basking in God’s gifts of beauty, and letting praise replace complaint. 

Beautiful Savior! Sometimes when I walk alone, I go with that “woeful heart” mentioned in the hymn’s second verse.  The things of this life—the troubled people and situations I care about-- weigh me down.  Then God brings my attention to something that’s a part of His creative magnificence, and the truth that, “Jesus is fairer, Jesus shines purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing.”

Let the sea resound!

A series inspired by sights in Kauai.
Beautiful and restless, mysterious and marvelous, the ocean never fails to fascinate. One of many in Kauai, this is “Anini Beach” on Kauai’s east coast. Each beach has its personality—some better for surfboards, body-surfing, swimming, or snorkeling. A few are tame enough for children. At this point in my life, I’m as likely to learn to surfboard as I am to drop out of a plane with a parachute. But I can sit on a beach and gaze a long time at waves breaking, thinking of the God who created this world with its massive bodies of water.

At times I recall hymns that mention oceans, like “Wide, Wide as the Ocean,” which I learned in Sunday school. Its author was C. Austin Miles (1868-1946), who gave up a career as a pharmacist to write hymns and help publish them. Some twenty may be still recognized by hymn-lovers, including “Dwelling in Beulah Land, “I Have a Friend,” “A New Name in Glory,” “Win Them One by One,” and the well-known “In the Garden” (it begins, “I come to the Garden Alone”).  “Wide, wide as the Ocean” begins:

Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the Heaven above;
Deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior’s love.
I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care;
For His Word teaches me that His love reaches me everywhere.

Another well-known song referencing the ocean is “The Love of God,” by Frederick Lehman. He was a pastor in the Midwest, but financial problems led him to southern California where he worked in a citrus packing plant. One day in 1917, a song formed in his mind as he worked. During breaks, he sat on a wood crate and wrote down words. That evening at an old piano, he came up with a tune to the two verses he’d written. But hymns of his era always had three verses. Before long, he thought of lines he’d heard in a recent sermon. As he’d heard the story, they were found on the wall of an insane asylum by an unknown inmate. But it’s now known that a Jewish poet in Germany penned them in the 11^th century. Thus, the “borrowed” words that conclude Lehman’s hymn:

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade.
To write the love of God above, would drain the oceans dry,
Not could the scroll contain the whole tho stretched from sky to sky.
 

And we can’t improve on psalms:

Let the sea resound, and everything in it. (Psalm 96:11, 98:7)

Garlands of grace

A series inspired by sights of Kauai.
Abundant in Hawaii, the fragrant plumeria blossom is popular for picking and stringing into floral garlands called leis. Here on the mainland, I’ve noticed some graduates wearing leis at commencement exercises. On celebration days in Hawaii, statues of historical figures are often draped several deep with leis. I remember being given a lei many years ago. As it was lowered onto my shoulders, I felt very honored.

Best known in Hawaiian and Samoan culture, leis share with other cultures, even from ancient times, the idea of a garland signifying honor and celebration.  Two verses in Proverbs are worth considering:

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck. (Proverbs 1:8-9, NIV)

Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom, though it cost all you have, get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.  She will set a garland of grace on your head and present you with a crown of splendor. (Proverbs 4:7-9, NIV)

These verses presume that a parent’s advice and life example are worthy of emulating, and walking in their footsteps will bring honor and moral beauty to a young person. When parents are unable to fulfill their spiritual training role (because of distance, their own failures, or death), God can use other parent-figures to do that. I was reminded of that truth in recent weeks when two older friends died.  Lorna, a pastor’s wife, was 76, her abilities eroded her last few years by dementia. But beginning with my young adult years, she lived out before me the character worthy of God’s garland. At her funeral, many mentioned her steadfast, accepting love, and her wisdom.

Lorraine, at prayer in 2013 (then in her mid-nineties)

The other friend, Lorraine, died at 97, full of years and loved by her huge family and many friends. I met her when she came from Michigan to Washington state to visit her daughter, who lives in my town and is a close friend.  I am blessed by how her godly character lives on through that daughter. A few years ago while visiting her aging mother in Michigan, my friend quietly took a photo of her mother at prayer. Eyes closed, hand raised, her mother was absorbed in her extended daily prayer time on behalf of family and friends around the world. My friend keeps that photo by her kitchen sink.  Oh, that all of us had such a visual reminder of faithfulness! 

One more thing about plumeria: their perfume, like the “fragrance of life” that should emanate from us as Christ-lovers:

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. (2 Corinthians 2:14)