Dusting Bookshelves

From Dusting Bookshelves to Re-Charging

Kathleen Thach
February 2021
 

Having received an Amazon Fire Tablet as a gift, my old-fashioned book  reading has given way to a more contemporary style of reading.

Consequently, Dusting Bookshelves has given way to Re-Charging.

Re-Charging

“Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:5b

It seems like such a short time ago that I was asked, “How was your New Year?”  I remember giving my stock answer.  “Ok.   Spent it alone.  Went to bed early.  No problem.  I didn’t mind.”

I briefly—very briefly—considered telling the truth, but quickly pushed those ridiculous thoughts aside.  Had I been truthful I’d have said, “I spent New Year’s Eve, part of New Year’s Day and part of January 2nd doing some gut-wrenching, nose-blowing, chest-heaving sobbing.  How was yours?”

You see, I have a long history of saying I’m okay when I’m not really okay. 

No one specific thing triggered my emotional state as I said good-bye to 2020 and hello to 2021.  I had become pretty good at ignoring triggers and fighting back tears.  Waste of time and energy.  But this was the eve of a New Year, and I decided fighting tears was foolish.  I needed a good cry.    And I was going to have one.  

I know I’m not alone.  I’ve been schooled in psychology and theology.  I’ve counseled many people. 

We all have something to cry about these days.  We all try our best to tough it out.   And sometimes we just can’t do it anymore.

Thanks to the Pandemic, we’ve been watching a whole lot more TV.  And we’ve been experiencing a whole lot less time with our friends.   We’ve become overly informed of all the turmoil in the world.   The Pandemic.  Politics.  Suffering.  Sadness.  Loss. Depression.  Despair.  Worry.    

My personal despair included, of course, the state of our world.  Yet it was my own loneliness, my longing to get on with living life as it was before the Pandemic plus my grieving over lost people for whom I care deeply that ripped open my heart.     

My spiritual batteries were being drained.  I had received the notifications and ignored them.  I could ignore them no more.  I was in serious need of Re-Charging.  And I knew it.

Before feeling sorry for me or checking me into rehab, let me tell you that I am glad I ushered in the New Year with tears.  My broken heart was good for me.  Tears have a way of cleansing and unclogging.  Far from being a waste of time, those tears turned out to be the best way to rid myself of the old and to bring in the new.

Throughout those tearful nights, I prayed for real.    I didn’t mince words.  I didn’t edit my prayers to make them theologically or grammatically correct.   I didn’t present myself in the best light.  I confessed hurts and disappointments and doubts and worries and pride and other sins.   And I asked for help.  For re-charging.

I was amazed at not only how He answered but also how quickly.  The fact that I was amazed indicates I was having a faith issue.  I’d allowed myself to doubt that God really cared about my hurting heart and the souls of those I love.  Had I been wrong to trust Him?  Did He really care?   REALLY care?

During the first week of 2021, God provided at least four confirmations of His not only having heard my pleas but of His attending to my needs and the needs of those I love.  Re-Charging had begun.

The first confirmation came from Steven Brown of KeyLife ministries.  I’d been receiving his printed leaflets for quite some time yet rarely read them.  I preferred listening to him on his podcasts.  For “some reason”, I decided to read the latest one.   You Can’t Fix It.   His article focused on our heartache over friends who are lost.  “Wait.  Worship.  Watch.”

The second came from Gary Thomas in When to Walk Away.   I read on my Kindle. “It may be that God’s plan for this person is for you to say one sentence, listen to the objection and then walk away, waiting for someone else to pick it up and perhaps someone better suited to reach this kind of person.”

I thanked God in amazement at His provision of encouragement and “recharging” my spiritual life.

Then a third confirmation came via YouTube.   I’d never heard of Michael Todd, but his words spoke to me clearly:  “Do less . . . I’ll do more . . . .”

Michael Todd continued. “Do what you can do.  He’ll do what nobody can do.  You don’t need what you think you need to do what God wants you to do.”

You can’t fix it.  Walk away.  Do Less.  I’ll do more.  You don’t need what you think you need.

Just as I had listened to Michael Todd because I hadn’t been quick enough to turn off YouTube, I found myself listening to Dr. Dharius Daniels of Change Church.  Once again I hadn’t been quick enough to turn off the TV.

“Don’t give up on them.  Give them up to me. . . . Do you trust me enough to give them up?”   

He continued:  “You can’t help those who don’t think they need help.  You can’t help those who know they need it and don’t want it.  You can’t help those who don’t want it yet.  And you can’t help those who don’t want it from you.”  

I cried again.  This time with tears of joy.

I hadn’t listened to YouTube messages because I wasn’t quick enough to turn them off.  Years before I had this season of grieving and need for re-charging, God had prepared messages for me through these ministers of His Grace.

With renewed joy and hope, I set out on a walk by the Lake.  As I walked, I remembered part of Sarah Young’s January 1st message in Jesus Calling:  “Do not cling to old ways as you step into a new year.   Instead, seek My Face with an open mind, knowing that your journey with Me involves being transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Re-charged!


DUSTING BOOKSHELVES

To Go or Not To Go

That  is the Question

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

Did you ever wake up on a Sunday morning and decide you just didn’t want to go to church today?

Did you ever go through a month, or maybe even a year, with that same feeling?

Maybe you decided you could worship God just as well in your bed or on the front porch or in the mountains or by the lake or at the flea market or at the mall or in front of the TV or on the internet. 

Few of us would be surprised to learn that, generally speaking, people aren’t going to church like they once did.  Nor would we be surprised to learn that most mainline denominations report a net loss over the last thirty years.  Nor would we be surprised to learn that many churches report 40% to 60% of church members are “inactive”.

 And maybe, just maybe, you’ve even asked yourself why you bother going to church anyway.

Philip Yancey asked the question.  He shares “his own personal pilgrimage” in

Church: Why Bother, published in 1998 by Zondervan Publishing House.

I rediscovered my copy on the shelf with other books about church:  Who Stole My Church by Gordon MacDonald, Called to Stay by Caleb Breakey, A New Kind of Church by Aubrey Malphurs, Breakout Churches by Thom S. Rainer, and Simple Church by Rainer and Geiger.

Having so many books about church says something about my own periodic struggles with church-going.  To go or not to go?   Where to go?  I’m glad I haven’t given up on church during those times.

Yancey grew up in a fundamentalist church.   He learned from that experience.   He stayed out of church for a period of time.   He learned from that experience.   He worshipped alongside those of Pentecostal persuasions and those with strong liturgical insistences.  He learned from those experiences.   One of his most memorable and rewarding worship experiences was during his time at LaSalle Street Church in Chicago—an inner-city church with more diversity than most of us could ever imagine.    Borrow my book.   Read all about Adolphus.   What a mess.

He shares his memory of a baptism in Lake Michigan.   Thirteen people.  A husband and wife in the investment industry.  A woman of Cuban descent.  An opera singer.  An 85-year-old black woman.  A pregnant woman.   A medical student.   A former agnostic.  And others.

“We were joined together in a new identity—in Jesus Christ, who broke down the walls of partition.”  Yancey remembers. 

Yancey’s favorite definition of the church comes from Karl Barth.  “{The Church} exists . . . to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to {the world’s} own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.”   What mystery.

Eugene Peterson says church is composed of equal parts mystery and mess.

Throughout Yancey’s varied encounters with church and fellow believers, Yancey became and remains convinced the church has something he desperately needs.  He agrees with Paul Tournier who said, “There are two things you can’t do alone:  get married and be a Christian.”  He also agrees with C.S. Lewis who said, “{Church} gets you out of your solitary conceit.”

I took a break from reading Church:  Why Bother to check surveys on why some people attend church and why some drop out?

 According to a recent Pew Research study, Americans who attend church do so to grow closer to God (81%); to introduce faith to their children (69%); to become a better person (68%); and to find personal comfort (66%).

 Yancey found something in church that met his needs.   He found Grace and more, if there could be anything that trumps grace.  I believe Grace tops the list.  I think he would agree that the reasons listed above are good reasons to go to church.  And yet he invites us to shift our primary focus from what he calls a consumer mentality (what are we going to get) to the worship of God and what pleases him.  He asks, “Who owns the house?”

“By focusing on the externals of worship,” he believes, “we miss the point entirely.”

“If the church fails in worshipping God, it fails.”

So back to statistics and surveys.  Why do people leave the church?  It seems 48% said moving away from the area was their reason.    Another 19% said they left when the style of preaching changed.   Less frequently reported reasons included:  the pastor left, politics, music changes and conflicts.

Why did those who stayed stay?  The theology aligned completely (52%) or mostly (42%) with their beliefs.

Church.  Why bother?

Maybe as Caleb Breakey’s book title suggests, you’ve been

Called to Stay

###


 

Who Am I?

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

They say confession is good for the soul.  So I thought in the interest of my soul, I would make a confession or two.  One:  I’m a procrastinator.  Two: I operate at only two speeds.   Fast and no-go.

Sadly, I’ve been procrastinating and in the “no go” gear in my writing.   But now I can procrastinate no longer.   I must write today.  Tuesday.  (Or maybe tomorrow.)  I promised a finished piece of work by Thursday.       

Apart from my fore-mentioned confession, you already know a lot about me, maybe too much.  I frequently “wax eloquent”.   You probably know that I LOVE the works of C.S. Lewis.  You probably know I’m a retired counselor.   You probably know I have a high regard for Scripture.   And those of you who know me best, surely know I struggle with the same things with which you struggle.  Sometimes I’m just not “happy”.  Sometimes I am.   Sometimes I’m just not “satisfied”.   Sometimes I am.     Sometimes I’m self-effacing.   Sometimes I’m self-aggrandizing.

Enough of that.  I think I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns on confession being good for the soul.  But it has brought me to the point of this writing.  Me.  Self.  Who Am I?  How should I “see” myself?  What should I think of me?   (PLEASE!! These are rhetorical questions!)

Through my years as a counselor, I’ve read books.   Lots of books.   I’ve read both sides of issues.  I’ve spouted off at some authors as I wrote critical comments in margins.  I’ve thanked God for other authors and written “YES!” or “AMEN” in those margins.   I recall writing in one book that there has got to be another book to present another perspective.

One such topic is self-esteem.   Is it okay to respect, admire, and/or value ourselves?  To feel good about ourselves?     

In his book, Christ Esteem:  Where the Search for Self-Esteem Ends, Don Matzat presents a strong case against “self-esteem” psychology and a strong case for Christ-esteem.  With Christ-esteem we focus on Christ and on who we are “in Christ”.  There are many “I am’s” in Scripture.  I am forgiven.   I am loved. I am God’s child.  I am a friend of God.  Christ gives us worth and value.  It is Christ, therefore, who is to be esteemed, Matzat says, and not ourselves. 

Then there’s another book--The Search for Satisfaction:  Getting More for Yourself and Giving More to Others.  The author, Ronald H. Rottschafer, is both a clinical psychotherapist and conservative Christian.  Rottschafer defends self-esteem while also emphasizing Christ-esteem and esteem for others.

Rottschafer believes many Christians have difficulty knowing what to do with “the self” while embracing religious and spiritual values.   “Self is seen by many conservative Christians as evidence of worldliness, as if the self is yet untouched by grace and unredeemed by Christ’s resurrection,” he says.

As I read these words, I thought of the children’s song, “Jesus Loves Me.”    And I saw a contradiction in the way some of us think.  It’s okay for Jesus to love me, but I’m not supposed to love my “self”.   

Rottschafer quotes well-known Christian apologists and writers on this subject, including Bonhoeffer, Lewis and Wells.    He cites John R. W. Stott’s Christianity Today article:  Am I Supposed to Love or Hate Myself?    He credits Stott with giving both sides of the self-esteem debate and for suggesting that it is the unredeemed self we are to deny and the redeemed self we are to love.  God created us in His image.      Christ died for us.   The Holy Spirit intercedes for us.   Are we not of worth and value?  Is it not both self-esteem and Christ-esteem?

 Rottschafer goes on to say that a strong self is crucial to making an impact in life.  “The issue seems best understood as one of perspective,” he says.  “The self only becomes a problem when self-deification overshadows caring relationships with God and others.”  Later, he explains, “Christ is urging us to lose our self-centeredness but not ourselves, for God requires us to develop ourselves so that his purposes can be manifested through us.”

So I’ve been reading and thinking.  I’ve been thinking that maybe I should write a book on self-esteem.

But then the old tape in my head screams, “Who do you think you are?”    The implication, of course, is that I’m nobody, that I’m thinking a lot more highly of myself than I ought.

More than forty years ago, I listened to an audio-cassette tape titled “I Am Somebody” and experienced release from all those shaming words used against me years earlier.    You and I are somebody!   We are children of the Heavenly Father.   Joint heirs with Christ.   I needed to hear that message then, and I need to be reminded of it again and again.

Halfway through the writing of this article, I turned to YouTube for Rusty Goodman’s gospel song Who Am I?    I typed and listened as various artists sang:

Who am I that a king would bleed and die for?

Who am I that He would pray, not my will, thine Lord?

The answer I may never know

Why He ever loved me so

That to an old rugged cross He’d go

For Who Am I?


Judging a Book by Its Cover

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

Parting with books is such sweet sorrow.

I’m down to five shelves of psychology, counseling, and self-help books in what once was my counseling office.  I’m in the process of turning that room into my craft room and have stacks of craft books waiting to be shelved.

I still have too many commentaries and inspirational books and music books to arrange attractively on the ten bookshelves in my Great Room.    Oh, I almost forgot.   I also have a small book shelf just outside the kitchen door in the Great Room.   It’s overflowing with gardening and recipe books. 

All bookshelves have been removed from the bedroom and guestroom.  Oh, wait!  There IS a kids’ bookshelf in the guest room.  And, of course, there are a few books on my nightstand.

I say parting with books is “sweet sorrow”.   Sweet, because I do get satisfaction in passing on books to those who will appreciate them.  I like having less clutter.  Sorrow, because I derive some sort of security and identity in having A LOT of books.

With each successful book-parting, I have enjoyed dusting bookshelves and re-organizing books I chose to keep.   As I sorted by author, I found myself eager to re-read books by Lewis and Yancey and Tozer and Packer and Foster and Wright.  As I sorted by topic, I was drawn toward re-reading books on grace and prayer and church and suffering and Jesus.

In preparation for this installment of Dusting Bookshelves, I decided to read more about Jesus:  Lee Strobel’s The Case for the Real Jesus; Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew; Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict; and E.M.  Blaiklock’s Jesus Christ Man or Myth. 

I know.   A very unrealistic undertaking given the size of the first three books.

Where should I begin?  I passed over Blaiklock’s book several times, even though it was a fairly thin paperback.   I’d passed over that book, first published in 1974, many times.   Yet I kept it.   I could tell by my futile attempt at removing the price sticker from the front cover that it was a bargain book on sale for 99 cents.  I didn’t particularly like the cover.  Somehow the bold red, white and blue colors and large typeface screamed at me like a fundamentalist preacher.

And who in the world is Blaiklock?

A blurb on the back cover of the book says Blaiklock, now deceased, “taught Latin, Greek and ancient and biblical history for over four decades and was internationally known for his writing and scholarship in the fields of religion and classics.”

The brief summary title reads “Ancient records support claims of early believers”.

So I decided to start my Jesus-reading pilgrimage with Blaiklock.   I went no further.  It was slow reading at first.  Then it picked up momentum.   And THEN I couldn’t put it down.  And I remembered the folly of judging a book by its cover.

By Chapter Seven (Examining Alleged Faults in Christ) I was saying with great profundity “Wow!  That makes sense.”

Author Blaiklock, through his understanding of ancient texts and context, led me, the reader, to more than one “ah-hah” moment as I came to clearer understanding of difficult passages.

In the John 2:4 wedding story, Blaiklock believes, a more accurate translation than “Woman, what does that have to do with me?” might well be, “This has nothing to do with us, Mother.  It’s not our feast.”   The latter rendering is true to Jesus’ tender treatment of his mother elsewhere in Scripture.

In the Matthew 15:26 report of an encounter with a gentile woman, Jesus had made an unexplained visit out of the territory of Israel.  In gentile territory, Blaiklock believes it might well be that the men travelling with Jesus were grumbling about these gentiles, these “dogs” unworthy of “the children’s bread”.  So when the gentile woman calls out to Jesus for mercy, Jesus seized the opportunity to teach these men an important lesson.  The woman may well have heard the men’s derogatory comments about dogs and children’s bread.   So with a note of sorrow and irony, he may have responded, “I mustn’t take the children’s bread and give it to dogs.”   The woman responded quickly and with wit, “To be sure, but the little dogs eat of the bits which fall from the children’s table.”   Without that context, hearers of the story often judge Jesus to be like the Pharisees he reprimanded for looking down on others. 

Many people have struggled with Luke 14:26 where Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father or mother, wife and children brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” 

Here, Blaiklock reminds us to look for precepts in Scripture.   “. . . the precept which speaks of hatred of one’s parents means only that when affections clash, loyalty to God must come first.”

In citing these and other examples, he says, “If He {Jesus} appears . . . to contradict His nature, the passage must be wrongly reported or wrongly read.  We must lack background or circumstantial context.”  

Blaiklock reminds us of Jesus’ use of hyperbole, irony, metaphor, parable, paradox and other figures of speech common in Jesus’ time.   

Perhaps, more importantly, he reminds us of who Jesus is. 

 

“It is not enough to satisfy ourselves that Jesus was an historical figure, even that He was a unique person without parallel, an extraordinary being of dimensions unknown before in history.  The investigator is presented with a challenge and a choice.  Something is demanded of one who finds that Jesus is no product of His times, an intrusion into history rather than an actor it.  Clearly His words must be heard for His story becomes significant and convincing in the context of His claims and the revelation of His person.”

 


Reflections on the Writings of N. T. Wright

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

A few years ago one of our guest ministers, in the course of his sermon, mentioned N. T. Wright.   I’d never heard of the man, so I made a note in my bulletin to check him out, to read some of his work.   I’m glad I did.

From time to time I have a craving for some solid spiritual food, meat in place of baby food.  I remember another time when I felt the impulse to go up the street to the Baptist Church for the final fifteen minutes of a yard sale they had advertised.  I didn’t know what I thought I’d find there, but it seemed urgent that I go and find something.  And find something, I did!

When I got there, most of the for-sale items had already been packed up, but a table of books had not been packed.   I bought Mark Buchanan’s Your God is Too Safe (Rediscovering the wonder of a God You Can’t Control).   I got several hearty meals from that book.  I need to re-read it, re-digest it.  I’ll tell you about it when I do.

Likewise, when I started to check out N. T. Wright, I didn’t know what I expected to find there.   I know I hoped for some good reading.  I haven’t been disappointed.

First of all, I learned that N. T. Wright is a retired Anglican bishop and “one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars.”   He’s been described as “one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought” and reportedly considered by Christianity Today to be one of the top five living theologians today.

Secondly, I discovered that he ruffles some feathers.  I heard he was “controversial”.

 As I read his Surprised by Hope:  Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church I kept wondering “where’s the controversial stuff?”  I guess a bodily resurrection has always been part of “my theology”.    But then as I read more about Wright, I realized that Wright and the Jesus Seminar folks didn’t see eye to eye.  That endeared me to Wright, actually.  I scanned an article written by Wright in the year 2000:  Seven Problems with the Jesus Seminar.  In the course of tracking down that information, I also discovered that he and John Piper didn’t see eye to eye either.  That caused me a bit more concern.   Until I read that John Piper had some issues with  . . . .   Oh, forget it.  It doesn’t matter.   All theologians have issues.  All lay folks have issues.   I have issues.   Just let me say that it SEEMS a big part of Piper’s issue with Wright has to do with Wright’s views on “what Paul really said” about Justification. 

So, of course, I now want to read that book and “see for myself.”

See for yourself.

Read some controversial stuff by some controversial authors.

On my recent trip to Pittsburgh for the wedding of my oldest grandson, I read most of Wright’s book titled Simply Christian.   And I can see where some find “controversy”.   But I found food for thought.   

Here’s a “sampler” for your consideration:

“A sense of justice comes with the kit of being human.”

“There’s more water available than most churches have let on.”

“People who have been starved of water for a long time will drink anything, even if it is polluted.”

“God makes his presence known, seen and heard within the sphere of earth.”

“The need which the Christian faith answers is not so much that we need better information, but that we are lost and need someone to find us. . . . With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all.”

“The place where God’s space and our space intersect and interlock is no longer the Temple in Jerusalem.  It is Jesus himself.”

“Despite what you might think from some excitement in the previous generation about new spiritual experiences, God doesn’t give people the Holy Spirit in order to let them enjoy the spiritual equivalent of a day at Disneyland.”

“{Church} is a place of welcome and laughter, of healing and hope, of friends and family and justice and new life.”

“The Spirit is the strange, personal presence of the living God himself, leading, guiding, warning, rebuilding, grieving over our failings, and celebrating our small steps toward the true inheritance.”

“It is precisely when we are suffering that we can most confidently expect the Spirit to be with us.”

“You become like what you worship.”

“Reading scripture in worship is, first and foremost, the central way of celebrating who God is and what he’s done.”

“When we come eagerly {in prayer} to claim such promises, we find that, if we are serious, our desires and hopes are gently but firmly reshaped, sorted out, and put in fresh order.”

“The Bible is there to enable God’s people to be equipped to do God’s work in God’s world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God’s truth.”


Amazing Grace!

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

My heart skipped a beat when I learned we were going to be studying grace, using Dr. Charles Wiley’s book Grace and Gratitude, in Sunday School this summer.    (Pastor Pruitt knows the author from their days in graduate school.)

I’ve frequently told folks that I think GRACE is the most beautiful word in the English language.  

As a young believer in Christ, I learned an acronym for GRACE:  God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.  I also learned GRACE is getting what we don’t deserve, and MERCY is not getting what we do deserve.

Thinking ahead to the upcoming study, I had another one of those rare urges to dust bookshelves.   I pulled out my collection of GRACE books:  AMAZING GRACE (Boice); What ever happened to the GOSPEL OF GRACE (Boice); SIN BOLDLY: A Field Guide for Grace (Falsani);  CHAOS and Grace (Galli); PUTTING AMAZING BACK INTO GRACE (Horton); MESSY GRACE (Kaltenbach); SHAME AND GRACE  (Smedes); GRACE God’s Unmerited Favor (Spurgeon); GRACE UNDER PRESSURE  (Stokes).  SURPRISED by GRACE (Tchividjian); WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE (Yancey).  . 

Reading fiction is, for me, like eating dessert.   I love dessert, but I now recognized my need for some protein to develop my spiritual muscles.

“Grace, grace.  God’s grace.   Grace that will pardon and cleanse from sin.

“Grace, grace.  God’s grace.   Grace that is greater than all our sin.”

“Marvelous.   Wonderful match-less grace . . . .”

With a song in my heart, a cup of coffee, notebook, pen, and my stack of grace books, I settled into a comfortable deck chair and was ready for my summer plunge into grace.   I’d barely begun when Willie, my newest cat addition, decided he wanted my lap and my undivided attention.   Grace fits in there somewhere, I think.

I handled that hurdle and settled into my study position once again.

An hour or so went by and I was really into my grace refresher course.   I was at a “grace buffet”,   sampling from several books.  I was feasting on GRACE UNDER PRESSURE when, as always is the case, LIFE happened.  You know, those incidents that require one to put away the theoretical and begin the application?    Health issues.   Cat fights.  Car problems.  Telemarketers.  Bill-paying. 

Now, once again back into the groove of reading and note-taking and writing and reflecting, I’m ready to buy more books on grace.   Yes, I confess, I’m checking out EBay.  “Lord, I need your grace to quit spending so much money on books when I have more than I most likely will ever need, or read.”

What I’m discovering as I feast on grace is that I’ve underlined a lot of things in books, things that seemed worth remembering, maybe even practicing.  AND I’m still fighting the same battles, needing the same grace, desiring the same spiritual growth.   But then Solomon did say, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”   Didn’t he?

I’d like to share some of the things I’ve underlined in the past that have hit home with me once again in the present.  The following quotes are from Penelope Stokes’ book GRACE UNDER PRESSURE.

“We receive salvation as a free gift of God’s grace.   But then we go on to live as if everything in life depended on us—we act as if our faithfulness, our religious routines, and our good behavior are necessary to prime the pump of God’s loving response.  If we’re good enough, spiritual enough, God will bless us.   If not—well, we’re out of luck.”  (From Chapter One)

“Nothing is wasted in the economy of grace. . . . There are no accidents with God, no useless tears, no unrequited love:  He uses everything to accomplish His purposes in us.”   (From Chapter Two)

“Failure is a universal experience. . . . we need to understand {our failures} in the light of God’s grace and allow Him to redeem them for our good, for His glory, and—ultimately—for usefulness in ministry.”  (From Chapter Three)

“. . . whatever I do, I do at full speed, with full concentration—and, ultimately, with full exhaustion.   I need the balance that God’s grace can bring to my life, my plans, my priorities.”  (From Chapter Four)

“By perceiving “maturity” as an accomplishment we need to attain as quickly as possible, we miss the grace of God in the process of growth. . . . Growing in Christ is a journey, not a destination.”  (From Chapter Five)

“One of the profound truths of living in God’s grace is that we don’t have to “have it all together”.”  (From Chapter Six)

“But just as we wish to receive grace for the difficult task of living with misunderstanding, so we need to extend it to those who . . . malign our behavior and character.”  (From Chapter Seven)

“There is perhaps no greater task the Christian faces than truly embracing the grace of God in suffering.”  (From Chapter Eight)

“When true forgiveness takes place, we may still remember the hurt, but we remember it differently, without anger and resentment—instead, with understanding and the compassion born of grace.”  (From Chapter Nine)

“We live in a graceless, unforgiving world. . . . Grace can interrupt the ambush.”  (From Chapter Ten)

 

I hope you enjoyed the Grace Sampler. 
I’ll be very happy to share the feast.  
Gracious me!  Book borrowers are welcome.     

In My Heart There Rings a Melody

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

Although it was late in the afternoon, I suddenly wanted to dust bookshelves:  music bookshelves.          

 Seated on the floor surrounded by stacks of hymnals, gospel songbooks, sheet music, photo copied music and music composition paper, I reminded myself that the plan was to get rid of some of the stacks of music gathering dust.  

Music, music, music. 

 I leafed through each book before designating it a keeper or a give-away.  In the process, I ended up with a rather large “Not Sure” stack.

Precious Memories.

I remembered singing in so many churches throughout my life.   

I held in my hand “Sunday School Sing”, a compilation of songs published in 1980, celebrating the 200 year anniversary of the Sunday School:  The B I B L E, I Have the Joy, Joy, Joy.

I looked through “Christian Service Songs”, the Sunday School hymnal we used at Steelstown Evangelical Congregational Church when I was growing up.   In memory I could still hear our Sunday School orchestral accompaniment to Since Jesus Came into My Heart.  

Next I picked up “Spiritual Songs”, a Pentecostal Hymnal and remembered the music at First Assembly of God in Cleona, PA.  That’s where, at the age of 16, I heard The Couriers, and became a fan of gospel quartets.  Not only did I come alive with the harmony of quartet singing, I enjoyed the congregational singing.   All these years later, I can still hear the refrain of “Yes, I know, Yes, I know, Jesus blood can make the vilest sinner clean.  Yes, I know, Yes,  I know . . .”   

I spent quite a long time going through books published by the Rodeheaver Company with copyrights as early as 1922.   The fly sheet of “Gospel Songs” stated it was available in round and shaped notes with orchestration available.

Next, I poured over R.E. Winsett books with copyrights in the 50’s and ‘60s.  “Joy Divine”, “Visions of Glory”, “Sacred Chimes”, “Love Divine”, “Songs of Infinite Love”. 

During my teens and early twenties, my mother and I sang (to our own accompaniment of accordion and guitar respectively) in various churches throughout our community.  Many of our songs came from the Rodeheaver and Winsett books.

 

         

Kitty, age 4 in 1947, with her first collection of musical instruments
 

Kitty's Mother, Arlene, and Kitty, age 14,
on March 17, 1957

I Want to Be Ready was on page 65 in “Sacred Chimes”.   At the top of the page, mother had written in pencil:   “Kitty, high part”.  Each of us enjoyed harmonizing and would frequently switch parts in the middle of a song.  That confused more than one listener.

In “Spiritual Hymns of the Brethren in Christ”,  mother had written  “Kitty Solo” and circled verse three on the song Give Me Jesus.

In “Songs of Praise” copyrighted in 1935, my mother had written on the inside cover “Given by my mother-in-law, Sallie Yorty Light”.   Sallie Yorty Light, my paternal grandmother, died when I was 8 years old.

I kept that book, too.

I remembered other singing partners and accompanists as I leafed through Tom Fetke’s “Duet Book”, Brock Speer’s “Favorite Gospel Songs”, “Inspirational Classics”, the “Gaither Song Book”, “Popular Praise”, “Ceaseless Praise”,  “The Best of Gospel Hymnal”, “Worship and Song”,  and “Modern Worship Hymns”.     

I paused and reflected on how so many individuals and churches influenced my musical style and ability.  I remembered experiences of freedom of the Spirit in singing and experiences where I felt shackled and confined by technicalities and formalities and rigidity.

I remembered being known in at least one choir as the choir member who knew every song in the hymn book.  I remembered times of depression when my “therapy” was to sit at the piano and go through the hymnbook from beginning to end and play and sing each song, whether I’d known it previously or not.

I remembered vividly the time of congregational singing when the words to Higher Ground became my sincere prayer and how I still desire higher ground.

Recently I read Gordon MacDonald’s  book “Who Stole My Church”.  MacDonald presents a fictional account of a church where music had become a divisive factor in the church.   The seniors loved the hymns; the younger adults loved the contemporary sound and formed their guitar bands.  Neither group “got” the other.  Then, through the coordination of their pastor, the two groups mingled and talked about the “why” of their fondness for certain types of music and certain songs in particular.  Almost without exception the favorite songs were connected to life experiences.  The focus shifted from music to getting to know each other and building relationships.

My love of hymns, passed down to me by my mother and grandmothers, has been passed down to the next generation.  My daughter loves the hymns of her childhood and has taught a hymns class at her church in the Phoenix area for the last few years.

Last year she gave me a copy of “THEN SINGS MY SOUL” (300 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories) by Robert J. Morgan, published by W Publishing Group in Nashville, TN in 2011.  I’ve been spending many retirement hours playing and singing my way through this book.

I have granddaughters who also love hymns and are accomplished musicians.

Dusting bookshelves is on hold for now.   I’ve given many song books away.  I still have some in the car, in case I change my mind and want to sneak them back on my bookshelves.  Either way, once again I’ve been blessed by dusting bookshelves.

“In my heart there rings a melody.

There rings a melody with heaven’s harmony.

In my heart there rings a melody.

There rings a melody of love.”

Copyright 1923 by Elton M. Roth


Me?  Read Fiction?

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

Retired for several months now, I have been getting the usual questions and comments.

“So how’s retirement?  You are retired now, right?”

“What are you going to do with your time, now that you’re retired?”

“Now you’ll be able to . . . volunteer . . . play cards . . . go to the senior center . . . read . . . take naps . . . enjoy your yard . . . travel . . . .”

Most of those retirement activities do sound enjoyable to me.  Some are sounding better all the time.   Yet, I must confess, I’ve been diligently guarding my “retirement”.  In fact, I’m afraid I’ve been way too “snippy” with some of my responses.

I’ve had visions of friend and foe trying to fill up my calendar with things I have no desire to do, at least not right now.  And I go straight into defense mode.

Over Christmas, I was blessed to spend time with some “old friends”.     One of their daughters and one of my sons have been married for twenty-seven years, and we like to “rub it in” that we knew each other before our kids knew each other.

Mary asked me, as she has asked before, if I like to read.  I started with my automatic, well-worn response to such reading inquiries.    “Well, yes . . . but . . . not as much . . . I’m getting rid of books . . . I have LOTS of books . . . bookshelves in every room.”

Mary went on to talk about how she, too, was getting rid of things and how she had some books she needed to re-home.   She shared with delight the joy she had found in reading the Tearoom Mysteries, published by Guideposts. 

 “I’m more into non-fiction.,” I protested.    “Theology.  Psychology.  Philosophy.   Biographies.  Inspirational.   Self-help.  Serious stuff.   But not fiction.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually read fiction.”

 A little one-upmanship in my attitude, maybe?

As I eased out of defense mode and relaxed a bit, I found myself in a rather reflective mode.

I reflected on how difficult it has been for me to transition into retirement, especially during this cold winter.  I reflected on how difficult it has been to relax and enjoy a slower---much slower—pace.  I reflected on how great it felt when I actually slowed down and reminded myself there was no need to rush through eating or cleaning or cooking or walking or reading.  Maybe I never really had to rush through life at all, but I seemed to be good at it.  Maybe I really didn’t need to be so serious so much of the time.

So as I struggled through a response to Mary’s inquiry and her enthusiastic comments about the book series, I knew I needed to do that.  I needed to read fiction, to lighten up a bit.  I told her so.

“You know, Mary, I really would benefit from reading fiction.  That would do me a lot of good.”

To my surprise, she not only loaned me one of the books in the series, but she gave me Volumes 1 through 15.  

Now, a month later, I’m an avid reader of Tearoom Mysteries.   Fiction.   I just finished Volume 5 and actually read another volume out of sequence, before I realized there was a sequence.

There have been more than a few nights where I’ve been wide awake at 2 a.m.  I have come to cherish that time as prayer time, yet I all too frequently have had difficulty leaving concerns for myself and concerns for others with God.   That part isn’t conducive to sleep.  Oh, I tell Him that’s what I’m doing, leaving those worries with Him.  But that always seems to be easier said than done in the middle of the night.

 I’ve discovered reading “light stuff” is a beneficial sleep-aid and goes well with prayer, soft music and chamomile tea.  The Tearoom Mysteries have been a good prescription for distraction from worries and cares and futile attempts at getting back to sleep.  In fact, reading about Jan and Elaine and their tearoom in Lancaster, Maine, and all the mysteries they’ve helped to solve,   I’m taken back to my childhood and teen years when I read Little Women, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, and other classics.  Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, Nancy, Bess, George, Freddie, Flossie, and other characters in these series became “friends” as the reading hours and cares flew by.  

I recently read a report from the University of Minnesota on the value of reading as stress relief.  “Reading can even relax your body by lowering your heart rate and easing the tension in your muscles.”    The report explained that reading only helps reduce stress if the reading material is enjoyable and doesn’t upset you. “Pick a novel where you can escape into another world.”

I hate to admit this and even more so I hate to commit it to writing, but I think I had become somewhat of a “snob” when it came to reading material.    Everything had to have meaning and purpose, and what meaning and purpose could there be in fiction?  

Well, let me tell you about that value!

(Never mind.  I already told you.  Senior Moment, I guess.) 


The Presence of God

By
Kathleen L. Thach
 
 

I just came back from a walk by the Lake, not a sunrise walk, but a sunset walk.  I thanked God with just about every step for His presence, His rest, His peace.  All was quiet, except for the occasional sound of a bird or a duck or of the breeze blowing through the leaves of the trees. 

As I neared the end of the walk, I sat on a park bench and took in the view of sky and trees and water.  I closed my eyes and delighted in the breeze blowing through my hair, cooling me, soothing me.  I prayed, “Lord, thank you for the breeze, the cooling, calming, soothing breeze.  Father, as this breeze blows over me, may the gentle breeze of Your Spirit flow over me.  Fill those nooks and crannies that are vulnerable to hurt and fear.  Blow through the cobwebs that stifle my spirit, my will to serve You, my will to press on.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Our Saturday Ladies Bible Study group has made it a practice to study only books of the Bible, verse by verse.   This summer we made an exception.  We’ve been focusing on prayer, using Richard Foster’s book titled Prayer.  

My last installment of Dusting Bookshelves focused on the same book, on Foster’s chapter on The Prayer of Relinquishment.  Our most recent Saturday morning study was on The Prayer of Rest.  I’ve been very mindful of my need for rest.

Throughout his book, Foster shares stories from his own experience, stories of how these different types of prayer have changed his life.  In the Prayer of Rest chapter, he told of a time when he left his study group for a morning break and took a canoe to a small island, discovered a chair on a platform on the island, and climbed up into the chair.  As he sat there, looking out over the waters of the Pacific Ocean, he recalled what his wife had said to him as he left to go to this Study/ Retreat:  “Come home refreshed”. 

As he continued to sit on the chair,  he prayed, “Lord, refresh me.  I want to come home refreshed.”

He sensed God telling him He wanted to teach him Sabbath Prayer.  Foster responded that he didn’t know exactly what that was, that God would have to lead him, to teach him.

All he got from God was “Be still.  Rest.  Shalom”.  The same words came to him every time he tried to ask what or how.  Thoughts intruded, thoughts of how he was being irresponsible to be gone from the Group for so long, thoughts of how the Group would worry about him if he didn’t get back to the Group soon.  But the same words prevailed.  Be still.  Rest.  Shalom.

In time, having experienced stillness and rest and peace, he returned to the Group, only to discover he had scarcely been missed.

How often I’ve allowed all the doings of my life to interfere with simply being in the Presence of God for stillness, rest, peace.

Now, back from my walk, and my spirit ready for renewal, I dusted off some other books.     

I was blessed by excerpts from The Practice of the Presence of God, the Christian Classic by Brother Lawrence who lived in the seventeenth century.

Brother Lawrence declared that he felt much closer to God in his day-to-day activities than most people ever believed to be possible.

If we only knew how much we need God’s grace, we would never lose touch with Him.”

“I honestly cannot understand how people who claim to love the Lord can be content without practicing His presence.  My preference is to retire with Him to the deepest part of my soul as often as possible.  When I am with Him there, nothing frightens me.

“It isn’t necessary that we stay in church in order to remain in God’s presence.  We can make our heart a chapel where we can go anytime to talk to God privately.  My day-to-day life consists of giving God my simple, loving attention.”

“Think about God as often as you can, day and night, in everything you do.  He is always with you, just as you would be rude if you left a friend who was visiting you alone, why abandon God and leave Him alone?”

“Let us look to God with these eyes of faith.  He is within us; we don’t need to seek Him elsewhere.  We have only ourselves to blame if we turn from God, occupying ourselves instead with the trifles of life.  In the Lord’s patience, He endures our weaknesses.  But just think of the price we pay by being separated from His presence!”

“What could please God more than for us to leave the cares of the world temporarily in order to worship Him in our spirits?  These momentary retreats serve to free us from our selfishness.”

“The presence of God is the concentration to the soul’s attention on God, remembering that He is always present.  The consequence is an inexpressible state of the soul—gentle, peaceful, respectful, humble, loving and very simple . . . filled with a faith that equips to handle anything that comes to us.”

Brother Lawrence says two of the blessings of the practice of the presence of God are a livelier faith and strengthened hope.

Who of us could not use a more lively faith and a strengthened hope?

“Be Still.  Rest.  Shalom.”

 


Really Hungry

  By
Kathleen L. Thach
 

From time to time I get really hungry for substantive spiritual food.  Sometimes I find it in sermons.  Often I find it in books. 

Spiritually hungry, I recently dusted off Richard Foster’s book titled *Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.

Back in the summer of 2012, I was fed spiritually and physically during Music and Arts Worship week at Lake Junaluska.  The speaker for the week, Reverend Clarence Brown, Senior Pastor at Annandale United Methodist Church, challenged us each morning to practice the Christian disciplines.  He referenced Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and his book on prayer.

Now, lest somebody object to a reference to Methodism in a Presbyterian blog, let me say that my spiritual nourishment has come from Christians of just about every denomination.  Richard Foster is of the Quaker tradition. 

My 2012 reading of Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home came on the heels of a mountain-top experience—literally and figuratively-speaking.    My 2017 reading of the book came on the heels of some dark nights in the valley.

2017 had gotten off to a rough start in some ways.  I had begun to “feel old”.  It seemed decisions—those I knew would present themselves someday—were staring me in the face now.  What would I do in retirement?  Where would I live?  What would my health be like?  My finances?  How long could I “live alone”?  What could I count on?  Who could I count on?

As night followed day, “everything” seemed overwhelming: transitioning into retirement, paperwork, housework, yardwork, home maintenance, finances, health care, friends, family, cats . . . .  Yet in the midst of these night-time anxieties, a still small voice reminded me of other bad times—many of far greater difficulty—and God’s having brought me through them all.  I would pause in my “worry” and marvel at God’s grace and provision.  And then I would pray, affirming my faith in Him and knowing He was “the same—yesterday, today and forever.”

And I would pray for just about everyone I know—by name.

In an effort to get some sleep, I practiced what had become my routine of “letting go”.  As people and situations and concerns came to mind, I reminded myself I am not God, I am not responsible for all creatures great and small—not to mention people.  And I released all to the one who is God.

During this time, I benefited greatly from Pastor Dan’s preaching and teaching.  Yet his time of ministry at our church was coming to a close.  Someone asked if I’d consider teaching the adult Sunday School class for a short transitional period.  I did the usual hemming and hawing, not wanting to come right out and say “no” and to my own utter surprise actually feeling a pull toward saying “yes”—should I be asked “officially”.

I was only a few days into “recovery” from what seemed to me—the licensed counselor—to be a near breakdown.  Yet I began thinking of taking on this responsibility.

I reminded myself of how I had given up everything in prayer just a few days earlier.  How I had let it all go.  Included in the “everything” had been my calling to serve Him through the gifts of singing, teaching, writing and hospitality. 

In a matter of minutes I now began to feel re-energized and ready to serve.  I prayed and rather quickly found an answer. 

Prayer.   Study prayer.

Home from church, I headed for my bookshelves devoted to inspirational works.  I picked up E. M. Bounds volume on prayer.  And I picked up Richard Foster’s book.

“Slowly we are being taken off of vain securities and false allegiances.”

Oh, my!  I had prayed about my feelings of abandonment, having experienced changes over the last year or so in pastors, doctors, accountants, financial advisers, the death of friends, a neighbor and, yes, cats.  I thought I had planned so well for the future.  Had all my ducks in a row.

“Our trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so that we can learn faith in God alone,
through our barrenness of soul, God is producing detachment, humility, patience, and perseverance.”

 

I voraciously read through Foster’s chapters on the Simple prayer, the Prayer of the Forsaken, the Prayer of Examen, the Prayer of Tears, and when I got to the Prayer of Relinquishment, I was stunned. 

Relinquishment.  Praying “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Foster referenced “the school of Gethsemane”, an unparalleled expression of relinquishment.

He described “the incarnate Son praying through tears and not receiving what he asks.”

He continued, “Struggle is an essential feature.  Jesus’ prayer struggle lasted long into the night.  Relinquishment is no easy task.”

Foster also makes clear that Christian prayer is not fatalism, that our prayer efforts are a genuine give and take, a true dialogue with God and a time of struggle.  Relinquishment is a release of hope in which we are “buoyed up by a confident trust in the character of God.”

He says “God is inviting us deeper in and higher up.  There is training in righteousness, transforming power, new joys, deeper intimacy.”

Sometimes the very thing we relinquish is given back to us, and sometimes the release is permanent.

“A settled peace, in fact, is the most frequent experience of those who have trod the path of relinquishment.”

Foster concluded this chapter with suggestions for the Prayer of Relinquishment, including the prayers of self-emptying, surrender, abandonment, release, and resurrection.

As for the official invitation for me to teach?   It never came, yet there was real purpose in my having been asked.  I believe it was God’s method of directing me toward dusting bookshelves and re-reading books full of substantive food, so important to my hungering and thirsting spirit in 2017.

So again I pray the closing prayer in Foster’s chapter on the Prayer of Relinquishment:

“O Lord, how do I let go when I am so unsure of things?  I’m unsure of your will, and I’m unsure of myself. . . .

That really isn’t the problem at all, is it?  The truth of the matter is I hate the very idea of letting go. 

I really want to be in control.  No, I need to be in control. 

That’s it, isn’t it?  I’m afraid to give up control, afraid of what might happen.  Heal my fear, Lord.

“How good of you to reveal my blind spots even in the midst of my stumbling attempts to pray.  Thank you!

“But now what do I do?  How do I give up control?  Jesus, please, teach me the way of relinquishment. ---Amen.”

 

*Foster, R. (1992). Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.  HarperSanFrancisco (a division of HarperCollinsPublishers).


Christmas Memories

by
Kathleen L Thach
 

Twas the night before deadline, and all through the house

Were books stacked on bookshelves and books left to browse

I searched for the right one, the one sure to please

Readers of columns and blogs such as these.

 

Books have been my friends since early childhood.   Someday I want to sit by the fireplace and reread  Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau and John Greenleaf Wittier and Robert Frost.  But today I want to sit at the piano and play carols from my childhood Christmas Carols* book.  As I retrieved this beautifully illustrated book from the piano bench, I was carried back to a different time and place:  my childhood Christmases in rural Pennsylvania.

I never truly believed in Santa Claus.  Grandma read Twas the Night Before Christmas to me, and I imagined those reindeer on our tin roof.  Yet it seemed more plausible to me that Pappy was the gift-giver on Christmas Day.  And for good reason.  Sometime shortly after Thanksgiving, I would ride with Pappy and Grandma to Lebanon.  We called it “going to town”.   I remember the novelty of putting a nickel in the parking meter.   I remember the excitement of going to the basement in the Bon Ton, where Santa sat in one corner on his throne-like chair. Toys lined the remaining walls.  A big train village filled the center of the room.  I remember the excitement of showing Pappy which toys I really wanted and then sitting on Santa’s lap and telling Santa, too.

My family attended the Christmas Eve service at church.  Children, dressed in their finest Christmas clothes, sang and “said their speeches”.     Our family tradition included opening gifts on Christmas Eve.   I remember getting lots of books: Black Beauty, Little Women, Heidi, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, Hans Brinker and so many more.  

On Christmas morning, we drove to Pappy and Grandma’s farm.  Over the River and Through the Woods rang in my ears and warmed my heart.  As we pulled into the barnyard, excitement mounted.  The first one out of the car, I bounded through the gate and up the hill to the back porch and into the kitchen.  The smells were tantalizing.  Pumpkin and mince pies.  Molasses cookies and sand tarts.  Roast Goose.  Sweet potatoes with a molasses glaze.  Dried corn.  Home-made “filling”. 

After the Christmas dinner and clean-up, we gathered in the small living room to open gifts.  There were presents under the tree, and sure enough there was one for me, and it was always “just what I wanted”.  One year it was a Glockenspiel.   

Then, Pappy disappeared for a short time and returned with lots of penny candy, which he dumped on the kitchen table.   Mary Janes. Chocolate drops.  Caramels.  Nonpareils.  Kitts Taffee.  Root Beer Barrels.  Peanut Butter kisses.   He gave each of us a small paper bag and told us to pick out whichever candies we wanted for our own bag of candy.  He beamed with joy at bringing us such joy.

The gala celebration of Christ’s birth ended as Grandma, Mom, Aunt Alvena and I gathered around the piano in the parlor and sang Christmas carols.  One of my favorites was I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

 

*Selected and arranged by Karl Schulte with illustrations by F. D. Lohman and published by Whitman Publishing Company, Racine, Wisconsin; copyright MCMXXXLII.


October 2016
 

During a lengthy hospital stay in the ‘60s, I “discovered” C.S. Lewis through Letters to an American Lady.  Despite his reportedly strong dislike for letter-writing with his “rheumatic hand”,  he not only wrote more than a hundred letters to this woman whom he had never met, but he also wrote a hundred plus letters to other correspondents.  

He began this series of letters when he was 51.  He died at the age of 65, on the same afternoon of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

Gold Nuggets

mined from

Letters to an American Lady by C. S. Lewis*

Stewardship

Lewis “believed taking time out to advise or encourage another Christian was both a humbling of one’s talents before the Lord and also as much the work of the Holy Spirit as producing a book.”   (Editor Clyde S. Kilby)

 
Forgiveness

You surely don’t mean ‘feeling that we are not worthy to be forgiven’?  For of course we aren’t.  Forgiveness by its nature is for the unworthy.  You mean ‘Feeling that we are not forgiven.’  I have known that.  I ‘believed’ theoretically in the divine forgiveness for years before it really came home to me.  It is a wonderful moment when it does.

I hope now that you are forgiven you will spend most of your remaining strength in forgiving.  Lay all the old resentments down at the wounded feet of Christ.

 
The Past

We must beware of the Past, mustn’t we?  I mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and usually bad for us.  Notice in Dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past!  Not so the saved. This is one of the dangers of being, like you and me, old.  There’s so much past, now, isn’t there?  And so little else.

 
Grief

Don’t weep inwardly and get a sore throat.  If you must weep, weep a good honest howl!

 
A Broken Heart

The allegory sense of her (Mary Magdalen) great action dawned on me the other day.  The precious alabaster box which one must break over the holy Feet is one’s heart.  Easier said than done.  And the contents become perfume only when it is broken.  While they are safe inside they are more like sewage.  All very alarming.

 
Fear and Dread

Fear is horrid, but there’s no reason to be ashamed of it.  Our Lord was afraid (dreadfully so) in Gethsemane.  I always cling to that as a very comforting fact.

For it is a dreadful truth that the state of ‘having to depend solely on God’ is what we all dread most.  And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things.

 
Prayer

I suspect that what we feel to be our best prayers are really our worst; that what we are enjoying is the satisfaction of apparent success, as in executing a dance or reciting a poem.  Do our prayers sometimes go wrong because we insist on trying to talk to God when He wants to talk to us?

 
Growing Old 

We have always been forgetting things; but now, when we do so, we attribute it to our age.

I’m afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us.

As for the bug-bear of Old peoples’ Homes, remember that our ignorance works both ways.  Just as some of the things we have longed and hoped for turn out to be dust and ashes when we get them, so the things we have most dreaded sometimes turn out to be quite nice.  If you ever do have to go to a Home, Christ will be there just as much as in any other place.

We must both, I’m afraid, recognize that, as we grow older, we become like old cars—more and more repairs and replacements are necessary.  We must just look forward to the fine new machines (latest Resurrection model) which are waiting for us, we hope, in the Divine garage!

The machine is wearing out. . . . It was not meant to last forever.  Still, I have a fondness for the old rattle-trap

 
Death

There is no way out of it:  either one must die fairly young or else outlive many friends.

There’s nothing discreditable in dying.  I’ve known the most respectable people do it!

What a state we have got into when we can’t say ‘I’ll be happy when God calls me’ without being afraid one will be thought ‘morbid’.  . . . If we really believe what we say we believe—if  we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home’, why should we not look forward to the arrival.   

Can you not see death as the friend and deliverer?  It means stripping off that body which is tormenting you; like taking off a hairshirt or getting out of a dungeon.  What is there to be afraid of?   Your sins are confessed and absolved.  Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret?  There are better things ahead than we leave behind.

Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace.  Relax.  Let go.  Underneath are the everlasting arms.  Let go, I will catch you.”

 

 *Copyright 1967 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 


September 2016

 

I once was sure I had placed ten twenty dollar bills between two books for “safe-keeping”.   A friend and I went through all the books on the shelf, determined to find the money.  We didn’t find the money in the books.  (I found it later between photo albums in another room on another shelf.)  

I rarely find money in books.   I actually find gold nuggets in books.   Sometimes it seems like I’ve found a gold mine.

First in a Series

Gold Nuggets

mined from

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

 

“Rereading books, we said with immense agreement, was the mark of the real lover of books.”

(“We” refers to C. S. Lewis and Sheldon Vanauken in conversation with one another.)

Quotes are from Sheldon Vanauken unless otherwise specified.

 

  • “Most of the people who reject Christianity know almost nothing of what they are rejecting; those who condemn what they do not understand are, simply, little men.”

  • “Christianity had come to seem to us probable.  It all hinged on this Jesus.  Was he, in fact, the Lord Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, the Christ?  Was he, indeed, the incarnate God?  Very God of very God?  This was the heart of the matter.  Did he rise from the dead?”  (“Us” refers to the author and his wife, Davy)

  • “Today, crossing from one side of the room to the other, I lumped together all I am, all I fear, hate, love, hope, and, well, DID it.  I committed my ways to God in Christ.”   (Davy Vanauken)

  • “I did not, I thought, resent her being a Christian.  I resented her acting like one.”  

  • “There might be no certainty that Christ was God—but, by God, there was no certainty that He was not.”  

  • “It is not possible to be ‘incidentally a Christian’.  Being a Christian must be first or nothing.”  

  • “I wanted life itself, the colour and fire and loveliness of life.  And Christ now and then, like a loved poem I could read when I wanted to.  I didn’t want us to be swallowed up in God.  I wanted holidays from the school of Christ . . . .  I didn’t want to be a saint.”

  • “ . . . I’m not going to believe this damned rubbish any more.  Lies, all lies.  I’ve been had.  Up I sprang and rushed out to the country.  This was the end of God. Ha!  And then I found I could not reject God. . . . One discovers one cannot move a boulder by trying with all one’s strength to do it.  I discovered—without any sudden influx of love or faith—that I could not reject Christianity.  Why I don’t know.  There it was.  I could not.  That was an end to it.”

Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy is a human love story within the divine love story of God and his children, Davy and Sheldon.  The telling of this compound love story includes the exchange of letters between Vanauken and C. S. Lewis.

 

“Goodness and love are as real as their terrible opposites . . . .
But love is the final reality; and anyone who does not understand this,
be he writer or sage, is a man flawed in wisdom.”