GLOWING!

As my spring weeding chores brought me to our home's three azalea bushes, I had a special treat as I crawled under the bush whose yellow blooms seemed extraordinarily brilliant this year. They weren't just “mellow yellow.” Instead, they seemed almost golden as they peaked in their two-week blooming cycle. I thought of the saying, “Spring's first green is gold, its hardest hue to hold.” I'd always associated that with daffodils, tulips, and other early-bloomers, but this time the azaleas illustrated that idiom—and, for me, a Biblical mystery.

My mind went to the first chapter of John's “Revelation” of images of Heaven. He related a vision that included seven golden lamp stands, someone “like a son of man” with a golden sash around his chest, eyes like a glazing fire, feet glowing like bronze in a furnace, stars in his right hand, and a “face Iike the sun shining in all its brilliance.” I cannot imagine how overwhelmed John felt in trying to describe this otherworldly setting of bright and blinding symbolic beauty.

As stunning as our yard's yellow azaleas were this year, they barely whispered the symbolic glory that John experienced in his “revelation.” But as I crawled around in the dirt underneath the bushes, grabbing the inevitable weeds in my yearly flower bed scrub-out, I realized God might be whispering a message to me.

My first thought was that old spiritual cliché: Bloom where you are planted. In other words, in whatever situation or circumstance, in nurturing or difficult relationships, represent Christ. That's the message the apostle Paul continually emphasized in his letters to the early Christian churches. One of my favorite passages with that message is in his letter to the church at Philippi. In our English translations, it's one long and complicated sentence, but every portion glows with golden truth:

And this is my prayer that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.(1:9-11, boldface emphasis added)

The words I boldfaced are my choices for “golden words”--language that expresses the beauty and holiness of the God who created us. The One who defies human description (as John experienced) but who has created us to bring Him glory through everyday, yet extraordinary Christ-focused lives.

To glow for Him.

CONTROLLING ALL I DO AND SAY....

A devotional partnership: Bible text and hymn

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith.
 I suspect that many readers, after glancing at the above phrase, would cringe and click to another web page. Yet it's thoroughly Biblical—the theme that runs throughout Paul's letter to the Philippian Church. It's also a key phrase in a hymn by a little-known Englishwoman who spent her life helping disadvantaged women and children in London. Its title comes from the opening words: “May the mind of Christ my Savior.”

Born in middle England in 1859, Kate Barclay was raised in the Church of England. After her 1891 marriage at age 32 to Frederick Wilkinson (various resources list him as a cashier, clerk and engineer), she spent the remainder of her life in Kensington (part of London) where she was active in her parish's outreach to girls and young women. She also was part of the “deeper spiritual life” emphasis of the Keswick Convention ministry. Her only-remembered hymn, published in 1925 (three years before her death), was “May the Mind of Christ My Savior.”

The poem's music was composed by A. Cyril Barham-Gould, a priest with the Church of England who served most of his life (1936 until his death in 1953) as a vicar at the historic (and still functioning) St. Paul's Church in Onslow Square, Kensington, London. Appropriately—probably because of Mrs. Wilkinson's passion for helping at-risk women and children near the parish—the tune was titled “St. Leonard's,” for the British town named for 5^th century Leonard of Limosin, considered the patron saint of pregnant women and prisoners of war.

When I first ran across her hymn, it touched me deeply. Later I realized how much it was inspired by Philippians, my favorite book of the New Testament, especially Philippians 2:5 (“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” NIV) and subsequent verses (vv. 6-11) which commentators believe was a hymn sung in the early church.

Overall, her hymn lyrics describe how to pray for the mind and love of Jesus and God's peace for our earthly journey. The pre-eminence of Christ is expressed through phrases like “Him exalting, self-abasing, this is victory.”

I can't put my finger on why I love this hymn so much. Maybe because it draws from truths of my favorite Bible book, Philippians. Or that its thoroughly Biblical message and meditative tune draw me close to God. Or that its classic hymn form reaches deeper into my spirit than many of today's shallow spiritual songs with loud and rocky rhythms. It's my prayer-song for devotional times, for being quiet and listening to God and seeking ways to live in humble obedience.

This You-Tube offers a meditative sing-along:

May the Mind of Christ My Saviour (Tune: St Leonard - 5vv) [with lyrics for congregations] - Bing video

DAD'S TOOLS

I couldn't recall when I last saw it, but my late father's vintage brass nesting screwdriver set was definitely lost. This unique tool –I'm guessing it dated to the 1950s--had a screw-off cap that hid more tiny screwdrivers. I do know he stored it in the kitchen “junk drawer” with screws, nails, pliers, a small hammer, and other quick-repair items. Cleaning out after my parents' deaths in 1978, that was one tool I “re-homed” for myself in one of my kitchen drawers in a special box for small tools.

I'm usually careful about returning tools after use, but for some reason last year I lost that screwdriver. We searched fruitlessly in my my husband's tool boxes and through other kitchen drawers. I was sad to lose it . Not only had I kept track of it for almost half a century, it was a poignant reminder of my dad who died too young at 63 of a heart attack, just months after my mother died of cancer. At that time, I was only 31, still single, and not ready to be an “orphan.”

But I had my dad's tools, and a heritage of his gritty, don't-give-up determination nurtured in the Great Depression. He faithfully fulfilled his role as husband, dad to two daughters, and patient caregiver to two demanding Siamese cats. Every Sunday our family was in church where he belted out (off-key!) the hymns he loved.

He was a steadfast employee, working as a chemist and quality control person most of his adult life for a mill that produced cardboard boxes. When he came home from that noisy, stinky mill and changed from workshirt-and-tie into his “chore clothes,” he'd “chill” a while after dinner. But those dad-tasks would eventually beckon: yard and house care (sometimes using that multi-piece screwdriver), reading to his young daughters, and paying the bills. For that, he entered the electronic era, balancing the checkbook with his hand-size calculator powered by a 9-volt battery.

When I came across it on his desk after his death, I knew I wanted to keep it as a memory as well as something practical for me. Though its functions didn't go beyond square root, it did get me through a grad school statistics class. Now it helps me balance our checkbook.

I have other mementos of my parents, but the screwdriver and calculator seem to especially remind me of my good family heritage. Of fixing things. Of the virtues of budgeting. Of the blessing of being raised in a home with a caring, responsible husband and father.

By the way, I did find that screwdriver this spring when uncovering patio furniture on our deck. It had sat all winter on a bagged cushion propped against the kitchen window whose screen I'd pried off to wash it. Probably distracted, I left it behind and forgot about it. Finding it (a bit rusty but still useful), I remembered my dad's humble, diligent lifestyle.

So yes, I'm celebrating my “found” multi-piece tool. But this Father's Day, I'm also celebrating my dad—he'd be 107 had he lived—who passed on the genesis of growing faith that “tooled” me to live for Jesus.

OF SAINTS AND SENIORS

Graduation time—and also time to dust off the seasoned march music for graduates filing in for the diploma ceremony. In my era of high school, that meant two occasions: baccalaureate (for which I, a violinist, played as part of the school orchestra) and commencement (its music task taken by the school band). In all these years, I never gave much thought to the what-and-why of those traditional marches. But behind them is quite a story.

Baccalaureate—perhaps because of its religious emphasis—has faded in many communities. In my hometown, the “marching-in” of robed soon-to-be-graduates was accompanied by a march known as “Sine Nomine.” The foreign title, I learned, was Latin for “No Name”! Some of us snickered about calling it “Old Faithful,” because the sheet music was so old it was quite tattered.

I had no idea that the 1906 tune, by famed musician and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, would become the music for the hymn that begins, “For all the saints who from their labors rest.” The lyrics were written by William Walsham How (1823-1897), the Anglican bishop of Wakefield, a historic city in Yokeshire, England. His hymn was designated for fall's “All Saints' Day,” celebrated the first Sunday of November. The tune and words would make their way into some 200 hymnals

The other graduation ceremony, commencement, retains much of its pomp and circumstance, although I'm disappointed by the rowdy student and audience behavior I've witnessed in recent years. There's something about the marching-in song that honors the solemnity of the ceremony. That occasion's music was the work of famed composer Edward Elgar in 1901, and used for the 1902 coronation of Britain's Edward VII, son of long-reigning Queen Victoria. Wait—there's more history involved. It's just one of six marches by Elgar inspired by a scene in Shakespeare's Othello involving, of all things, the unfaithful wife of a soldier.

After its royal use, it was chosen four years later for the Yale University commencement where Elgar was given an honorary doctorate. However, it wasn't “walking in” music but played as Elgar walked off stage.

Next to use the tune were Princeton, the University of Chicago, and Columbia. Then more colleges chose it as appropriate graduation music. One researcher said the tune lent itself to such occasions because of its regal melody, stately tempo, and warm tone colors. Now, it's the standard music for the sea of robes and tasseled mortar boards (who invented those? Painters? Just kidding) coming down the aisles.

Bet you didn't know all that! But my heart thinks ahead to another celebratory occasion. The apostle John wrote of an out-of-this-world vision of heaven. Uncountable angels, inexplicable beings, and finally every creature in heaven and earth, under and on the sea, singing:

To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever. (Revelation 5:13)

Honor, not to the graduates (and their families), but to the God of the universe.

One online video of “Pomp and Circumstance” (the address should be embedded when you click);

Bing Videos

Online link for “Sine Nomine” (just magnificent choir and organ, presented as hymn “For All the Saints”:

"For All the Saints" (SINE NOMINE) - Bing video (skip preliminary ad)

ROLL WITH IT

A family fav around our house—especially for a soup meal—are “cheesy biscuits.” I prepare biscuit dough, knead it well, and roll it out. Then, instead of cutting circles of dough for the baking pan, I go into “cinnamon roll” protocol. I roll the dough flatter, spread with margarine or butter, sprinkle on shredded cheese, roll up into a tube, then slice off inch-and-a-half sections for the baking sheet.

While doing this the other day, I thought along the lines of “if dough could talk.” Would the dough complain about being pushed and rolled flatter and flatter? Or would it better submit to the hard strokes of the rolling pin if it had a vision of the final project? In other words, “roll with it” in the process of becoming usable? Could there be a spiritual analogy.....

The English idiom "roll with it” means to adapt to a situation that comes with unexpected circumstances or challenges.” Our human tendency, however, is to want our own way, not to adapt, and say “no” to God's ways that might be harder, inconvenient, or just not “fun.”

Enter one of the Bible's poster children for “rolling with it,” the apostle Paul. When he left the reasonably cushy life of a respectable member of the Jewish hierarchy--laying it all aside to follow Jesus—his lifestyle changed drastically. No guaranteed income. No permanent home. His passion for Christ led to discomfort and danger. He was beaten and flogged, stoned, mobbed, reviled, jeered, endangered by robbers and enemies, nearly drowned at sea, fled for his life via a basket dropped over the city walls, had a besetting physical problem (some think poor eyesight), endured cold, hunger, inadequate clothes, and was constantly concerned for the fledgling churches.

Of all that, he essentially said, “Not to brag, but I had a rough time after deciding Jesus would be number one in my life.” But he also said that Jesus reminded him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Paul responded that as hardship shaped him into the character of Christ, he came to be able to even delight in these difficult experiences. “For when I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).

Okay, the process of making “cheesy biscuits” seems a strange illustration for life's trials. But maybe such everyday symbols can also remind us of how the pound-push-pull-press of daily life experiences, including the heat of refinement, are inevitable parts of a growing walk with God.

(By the way, the biscuits are truly delectable with a dollop of jam on top.)

SAFE IN THE ARMS

If kittens could talk, this one might have quite a tale (notice I wrote tale, not tail). This winter some relatives noticed a stray cat shivering at their back patio sliders. Taking her to a vet, they learned she not only had a tapeworm but was pregnant. Before long she gave birth to a half dozen kittens, one deceased. Another, already dead, came later. (Poor Mama Cat!) We finally met the Meow Tribe a few months later when they'd been weaned and potty-box-trained (more or less) and would soon be adopted out.

I hadn't been around kittens for years. They are light as a feather and bounce around like autumn leaves on a blustery day. But they also will sit still for some lovin'--as in this photo I got of one that my husband held. I like this photo because is says “protected” and “safe” to me. It also reminds me of scriptures that express God's attributes to us in human terms.

Isaiah 41:10 portrays God's promise to help us in the image of his strong hand:

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 63:3, expressing God's desire for His people to have a fresh, holy, and God-honoring reputation:

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of God.

In John 10:28-29, Jesus used the metaphor of God's hand to express eternal security for true believers:

I give them [His followers] eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand; My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

And of course, the Gospels give us the tender picture of Jesus welcoming children to His lap, laying His hands on them and blessing them (Mark 10:16).

Besides those scriptures, the tiny kitten in my husband's hands reminded me of a hymn of yesteryear with a poignant story behind it. The hymn is “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,”written in 1868 by Fanny Crosby, prolific hymn-lyric-writer who was blinded in infancy and lived to her 90s. One little-known fact of her life is that after she married another blind person (whom she met at her school for the blind), she became pregnant. But the child—reportedly a little girl—died shortly after birth. Fanny would carry that sorrow close to her heart for the rest of her life. But she also penned the words that would comfort untold numbers who needed to feel themselves wrapped in the arms of God:

Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast,

There by His love o'ershadowed, sweetly my soul shall rest.

Hark! 'tis the voice of angels, borne in a song to me,

Over the fields of glory, over the jasper sea.

The last verse ends:

Here let me wait with patience, wait till the night is o'er;

Wait till I see the morning break on the golden shore.

Sometime, somewhere, somehow, all our lives will be marked by times of difficult parting. Of letting go. Death, disappointments, lost opportunities, fading health—all enter this fragile place called “life.” But the end of the story will come, someday. We'll find ourselves gently spilled out of the rough earthly hands that cupped us, and led by a celestial hand as we walk wide-eyed into Heaven's royal banquet hall.

This YouTube chorus video with scenery and hymn text features Mrs Crosby's tender hymn:

Safe in the Arms of Jesus - Bing video

THINE BE THE GLORY

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith

Who would have guessed that an opera tune intended for secular audiences would connect with hymn lyrics that exalt the risen Jesus Christ? Yet that's the backstory for the hymn “Thine Be the Glory,” which came from the pen of a French-speaking Swiss pastor, Edmond Budry.Born in 1854, he studied theology in Lausanne. (About 120 years later, in 1974, that Swiss city would host more than 2,400 participants from 150 nations for the “First International Congress in World Evangelization.”) He became a pastor in the “Free church” movement that broke away from the Swiss National Reformed Church. He served parishes north and east of Lausanne, staying at his last parish for 35 years before retiring in 1923. He died at age 78.

Not just a preacher, he composed several original hymns besides translating hymns from German, English and Latin into French (including “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”).

But it's his hymn about Christ's ascension (reportedly written after his first wife's death) that's best remembered and which cemented its place in hymnody when it was included in the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book. The lyrics celebrate Christ's resurrection and reference several Bible verses: Isaiah 25:8 (“He will swallow up death in victory”) and 1 Corinthians 15, especially verse 55 (“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”).

As for the tune, it comes from the militaristic chorus in Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus. That dramatic vocal work retold events of 170-160 B.C., when loyal Jews sought to throw off the rule of the Seleucid empire, which tried to coerce them to worship Zeus and eradicate traditional Jewish faith. The hero of that story was an elderly priest who tore down a pagan altar and rallied Jews to oppose the Seleucids.

Handel's militaristic music for that scene was a good match for the lyrics of Budry's hymn, which depicted Christ as the victorious warrior over death and the powers of evil.

The hymn's popularity spread beyond the church to royal occasions. The original French version would be used for funerals and weddings of the Dutch royal family. Across the channel in England, it was often chosen for Easter church services involving the British royal family. It was also played during a special service commemorating the late Queen Elizabeth II's 80^th birthday. Outside of royal occasions, it was listed as a funeral hymn in the Church of England service book.

The hymn's best fit is “Ascension Day” which in the church calendar is marked 39 days after Easter Sunday. In many countries (including mostly Muslim Indonesia) it is a worker's holiday, celebrated on Thursday with many businesses adding Friday as an “off” day to make for a long weekend.

Organ and orchestral instruments lend majesty to this singalong version:

Thine Be the Glory (Tune: Maccabeus - 3vv+refrain) [with lyrics for congregations] - Bing video