Memorial Day: How my distant cousin became a cat

© 2017 Christy K Robinson

 

Looking at the photos of friends' cemetery visits this weekend, remembering their immediate families, reminds me that it was a ritual of my godparents to do the same. (They weren't godparents, really, but they were designated as our caregivers if our parents died while we were kids. The man was my grandmother's cousin, fairly close to her age.) Dale and Adrienne Hall would take flowers to Adrienne's parents' graves and have a picnic there, and remember them in stories with the other cemetery mourners. 

The circa-1924 photo is of my great-great grandfather,
Martin Friend Hall, an attractive dog, and Martin's grandson,
Dale Hall.

 

My immediate family didn't have that custom, as we were 2500 miles from our living grandparents, and the great-grandparents' graves were also far away. Because of our Christian faith, we believed we should honor one another in life, and anticipate seeing them one day in heaven. 

 

So today, I'd like to introduce you to my godfather, Dale Hall, 1923-2008. He was born on the Fourth of July, so his birthday cakes were often adorned with blueberries and strawberries on white frosting, in the form of a flag.

 

He was a veteran of World War II, went to my college (La Sierra, in Riverside, Calif.) on the GI Bill, kept my mother as a ward in sunny California during her teenage years when the Minnesota winters threatened to kill her, was a high school business teacher, and very opinionated on church matters. The church forbade coffee, tea, and other caffeinated drinks, but Dale was half-Swedish and from Minnesota, so coffee ran in his veins.
 

 He was an elder in his church, devoted to his two successive wives, was a total sucker for little dogs, a gracious host whenever I wanted a weekend away from university, and he envied the lifestyle of my cats, saying that when he died, he wanted to come back as my cat. So now, when my cat Smetana, born the year Dale died, bites me, I have to wonder about reincarnation... 

 

Dale was a grumpy old man, but most of that was from being a drill sergeant to those high school students. He loved the Bible and he loved the Lord, and I have no doubts of his eternal destiny.

 

Dale didn't have a biological child, though he and Adrienne adopted a son who is lost to the family. Unless a distant cousin laid flowers on Dale's Minnesota grave, I'm the one remembering him today. Adrienne rests in San Diego with her parents and brother, but she was the last of her line.  

 

There. That's Dale Hall, Army veteran, remembered with a grin. I'll see him again, even if he is a cat. 

 

1969: Among other family members, Dale is the one in the
green shirt, and his wife Adrienne is in the purple top. Their
son may have been away fighting in Vietnam.

God with us at the table has sat down

©  2017 Christy K Robinson

When I was a couple of years out of university and recovering from a life-changing injury, my mother and I went walking as good exercise in a controlled, safe environment: the shopping mall. In the housewares department, I found white porcelain plates, cups, and serving dishes with ink drawings and watercolors of wildflowers. I started buying them, a few pieces at a time. Later, I discovered some crystal goblets that were heavy and felt smooth to the touch, and I collected those, too.

Church friends having lunch on my patio.

I was single, and shared a house with my brother. We had separate social lives, but an understanding about entertaining company either separately or together. We had pool parties and barbecues, and hosted my Christian singles group many times. I had friends over after church, having made special foods and laid the table with my wildflower dishes, crystal goblets,  candles and music.

My thought was, Why save my beautiful things in a china cabinet or hope chest, toward a wedding, husband, and children that might never come? (And they didn't!) I should use and enjoy my pretty things instead of hide them away for "special" times.

My dad and his wife, having
chimichangas on my patio.

Time moved on. After I moved from Arizona to California for my job, I had a different set of friends over, and they loved the Friday night dinner for two, or the after-church lunch on the patio under the wisteria, always with the china. They loved my dinners, but they rarely returned the invitations, and after a while, I stopped going to the trouble and expense.

I found a new set to collect, though: blue and white English castles. Some were souvenirs I'd bought in England, and others were from California antique shops. Nothing matched, but everything coordinated, if you know what I mean.

Twelve years later, I moved back to Arizona. I donated my silver-plate serving pieces and candlesticks. I decided to sell my wildflower set, but could find no buyers. It seems that everyone uses plastic or paper plates for meals, even at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I must be the last person with lovely dishes.

But it's not just "everyone else." I've been using the same inexpensive, plain blue plates and cobalt glasses for 20 years. I don't use plastic or paper, but I've settled for routine and indestructible. In the 2000s, no one entertains at home--we meet for Starbucks coffee, or go out for Mexican food. In fact, people tell me they don't want a fuss made, that it's easier to eat out. My wildflower plates stay packed, and my blue and white castles get dusty in the china hutch. If I offer a cold drink, people think it's formal for me to pour their bottled water into a glass. And when I eat meals, I don't lay the table. I eat by the computer while I'm writing. Because who's going to care or notice?

Oh, no. I've fallen into the trap that I escaped in my twenties! I think it's time to hide my serviceable, thrifty plates, and bring out the china, the tea lights, and crystal. When it's pretty, I'll be mindful of the blessing of good food, and I'll remember to give thanks. And I'll remember that I've asked the Lord to be present, and he deserves the best.

That scary word, evangelism

An online magazine, Adventist Today, published my article on evangelism.
If you click this link, the article will open in another tab.

http://atoday.org/evangelism-press-or-bless/  

St. Vladimir (the statue subject) was the prince of
Novgorod and Kiev. In 988, he marched his subjects into
the Dnieper River at the point of spears and swords
and pronounced them baptized Christians. He was
canonized for his evangelism techniques!

 It takes way longer than three weeks, but it works much better. 

By Christy K Robinson

Remember when the pastor said, while trying to whip up excitement about personal evangelism, “Shepherds don’t make sheep; sheep make sheep,” and you cringed because you didn’t want to witness door to door, or spread tracts at the park or on car windshields—and you were not about to enlarge the church by giving birth to numerous children? Remember the time when a little booklet about the state of the dead appeared on your doorstep, titled “Our Glorious Dead,” and you were embarrassed that your neighbors received the same piece? Remember the pressure to bring someone to church to hear the sermon, or don’t come at all? (That one didn’t work very well.) 

I worked for an independent nonprofit that specialized first in radio and TV ministry, then concentrated more heavily on short-term evangelism. They sent volunteer teams around the world to preach in villages and towns, and baptized people at the end of about three weeks. The volunteers raised their own funds for travel and the expenses of nightly meetings, but the sermons were not their own. They pledged to use only the words and materials of the scripts they were provided. It was exciting to see scores or hundreds of the attendees come forward to request baptism. Whether we were on scene or supporting back at headquarters, we were part of it.

But we saw some things that disturbed us. The people who were baptized at the end of the meetings weren’t the same ones who had attended our meetings. They’d been in baptismal studies for months with local pastors, and the ones who came to the meetings wouldn’t be baptized until they had taken months of classes themselves. There were claims that 5,000 or 20,000 people had been baptized, but the numbers included people who were already members, being rebaptized. We didn’t know if “our” converts had been allowed to be baptized without completing training in the 28 Fundamental Beliefs.
In some campaigns, along with the nightly sermons, our organization conducted dental or eye clinics, or construction projects like chapels or school building additions. At the close of meetings, our people went home and local churches were to tend and nourish their new brothers and sisters. But when we went back to villages where we’d constructed chapels 10 years before, the buildings were disused and falling apart.  No one remained to worship or learn or pass the torch.

When we heard reports from sister ministries of 20,000 and 50,000 baptisms after their efforts, it put me in mind of Vladimir, prince of Novgorod and Kiev, who in 988 marched his people into the Dnieper River at the point of a spear, and called them Christians. (Vladimir was canonized for his evangelism outreach.) How many of those cold, wet pagans embraced Christianity?

But do those masses of converts stay in the church? In 2013, the General Conference hosted a global summit on the subject of membership loss, recognizing that the world church had lost a third of its members in the last 50 years, but the rate of loss had accelerated to 43 percent in this century.  
There are at least two problems with declining church membership: fewer new accessions, and member retention.

Researcher Monte Sahlin (who is also the executive director of Adventist Today) believes that people don’t leave because of doctrines or church practices, but because the church doesn’t meet their personal needs when they’re going through tough times like prolonged unemployment, domestic conflict, or health crises.  

For the people who do leave because of doctrine or toxic situations, there’s a large online support network of those with similar experiences, in addition to the fellowship and services (and service opportunities) available in community, non-denominational, and mainline churches.

The Blessers
As a professional church musician, I’ve observed the workings of other denominations as well as mine for more than 30 years, from the piano and organ benches, as a teacher and elder, and in committee or church board meetings.

At first, having enjoyed services at university churches for years, I was a snob about the intellectual content of the other, the first-day church, sermons, which could be boiled down to “God loves you and saved you. Go forth and love your neighbor as God has loved you.”  Not for them the distinctions between the covenants, sanctification and justification, or the various eras, empires, and beasts. They’ve never known a time when they feared they’d been lost, or believed that despite all their efforts, they’d never attain heaven. They believed their pastor, and lived and loved as they were loved.

They’d have monthly or weekly Communion services. These Protestant churches initiated backyard fruit harvests that boosted the Catholic food bank; they collected shoebox gifts for homeless and domestic abuse shelters; they prepared food served to street people three times a day; they made meals and quilts and they babysat for people recovering from surgery. They arose before dawn on Saturdays to distribute food boxes to hundreds of needy families a month. They blessed others and were blessed by these works of the Spirit. They would merge choirs with nearby churches for Christmas and Easter without worrying that they’d lose a sheep to another fold, and carpooled members and friends to arenas for women or youth ministry rallies. They didn’t forget their own members’ social needs, either: there were weekly vintage movies, evening Bible study, Tuesday prayer groups, busing the seniors to a museum or sporting event or flea market. They had an interchurch drama group, parents’ night out (while directing the kids in crafts), twelve-step groups and divorce recovery. And there was a committee to learn how best to include gay members in worship services or support them when they’d been rejected by family or community. They never held evangelistic efforts or revivals. Instead, they planted a new church with some of their members.

The Converters
Meanwhile, on Saturdays, I watched people write out checks for ADRA or Community Services projects and seal them in envelopes; teach Sabbath School for 20 years without a break; prepare a weekly luncheon for visitors; move chairs and tables and dust mop the fellowship hall; direct the choir or play keyboards, and many other nuts-and-bolts jobs that helped the local church and wore them out, so they needed an afternoon nap to recover. I remember parents keeping their children in Christian school by working evenings as custodians and handymen. The members worked hard and donated a lot of money to keep their church property lovely. They regularly invited neighbors and relatives to attend services with them.

They often invested in expensive Revelation Seminars driven by guest speakers, in an attempt to bring in new converts. The seminars were sometimes preceded by vegetarian cooking or smoking cessation classes.  Most of the baptisms were church members who were rededicating their lives to the Lord.

As we went over the membership records, name by name, we found that half the names weren’t attending services even once a year. We sent them letters and the elders visited them. A few were content to stay on the books; others said they could be dropped. Even the dropped names went onto colored cards so they could be later invited to a Revelation Seminar or be visited by a Bible worker. While they’d been members, they had been taught that all other churches were apostate, and if you turned from the Light of our distinctive beliefs, you’d be lost. So they didn’t usually join another fellowship. They just stopped anything to do with church.

As a member of the church staff, I was upset to learn that the Conference set goals for baptisms and tithes/offerings, and the pastor could be dinged for not meeting the goals.

I now accompany the choir at a community church that’s grown to three large services (300-350 people each) in only a few months. The choir grew from an octet to more than 30 and they had to enlarge the stage, with standing room only. The board is buying and moving to a larger space in the business park. 

The pastor’s sermon last week was about evangelism. I sat up straighter in my chair.  “What? This place holds doctrine seminars?”

He talked about some of the outreach going with church members: a fundraising golf tournament for families of seriously ill children, preparing and serving food to street people, and other initiatives. “Um, what about the framework of teachers, preachers, support personnel, and audiovisual equipment you need for evangelism?” I wondered.

And then—as if he couldn’t discern my puzzled thoughts—he spoke about a book called Finding Your Way Back to God, which reports a research study done in Thailand. Half of the 12 “business as mission” organizations had a goal of converting people as they worked in the community, and the other half of the missionary businesses focused on creating jobs and small businesses, and benefiting the Thai economy.

The latter group, the blessers, made more money, hired more Thai employees, and—surprise!—had a 48 times greater conversion rate than the converters.

What made the difference? The blessers practiced the acronym BLESS:

Begin with prayer.
Listen.
Eat.
Serve.
Story.

They determined to evangelize by seeking God’s direction to the place and the people he had in mind. They listened to the joys, sorrows, and needs of the people they targeted. They ate (fellowshipped, practiced hospitality, etc.) together, as Jesus did with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and everyday neighbors. They served one another in ways that built personal relationships and partnerships. And finally, after getting to know these people as close friends, they could tell the story of what Jesus has done in their lives.

As the pastor finished, he thanked the congregation for their sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s leading, and charged them to go forth and bless.  It sounded a lot like those simple sermons I’ve heard every Sunday for 35 years.

---

More on blessers and converters:
5 Habits of Highly Missional People
BLESS Missional Practices as Sideways Step into Evangelism
Five Simple Practices for Putting Your Church on Mission
Finding Your Way Back to God, by Dave Ferguson and Jon Ferguson 

__________________________
 Christy K Robinson is a self-employed editor, author, music teacher, and church keyboardist. She is the author of the five-star reviewed books: We Shall Be Changed (2010), Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013), Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014), The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014), Effigy Hunter (2015), Anne Hutchinson, American Founding Mother (coming in 2018)

Sabbath and The Book of Sports

I wrote a feature article for Adventist Review in March 2016, and it was published in March 2017. 

Clicking the link (title) will open a new tab. 

 How Sabbath and the Book of Sports drove 35,000 Puritans to New England 

by Christy K Robinson

**********  

Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

Smells like a miracle

© 2017 Christy K Robinson

What a remarkable day! I have to tell you what a blessing just occurred. On Wednesday afternoon, I was going to my dental appointment and noticed my right-front tire was half flat. I drove a bit over a mile to Discount Tire so they could fill it. (I bought two new tires last August when the sidewalls cracked from the hot, arid climate, but still had two bald ones.) 

In the evening after my choir rehearsal job, I went out to check my front tire before driving home. The tire was still fine, and well inflated, though as bald as ever! Life Church's choir members (and twin sisters) Jan DeJarnetta and Jeannie Redon offered to follow me home to make sure I got here safely. I gave them a jar of jam I had in the car’s trunk. That was a guardian angel thing, but then they went above and beyond! 

The next day they went into a Discount Tire and paid for two new tires for my car (the same brand as I'd bought previously), and today I had them installed. The store manager who called to tell me what happened was very impressed with their kindness, and he gave them a price break in honor of their loving act. And now I get to repeat the story. WOW!! What a blessing they were, and they only met me three weeks ago. 

As I unloaded the groceries from the car in my garage, I wondered for a second what smelled so strongly of rubber. Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Smells like "miracle." 

 

*****

Christy K Robinson is author of these books (click a highlighted title):

We Shall Be Changed (2010)

Mary Dyer Illuminated Vol. 1 (2013)  

Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This Vol. 2 (2014)

The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport Vol. 3 (2014)  

Effigy Hunter (2015)  

Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)

And of these sites:  

Discovering Love  (inspiration and service)

Rooting for Ancestors  (history and genealogy)

William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

Editornado [ed•i•tohr•NAY•doh] (Words. Communications. Book reviews. Cartoons.)

Holocaust Remembrance

© 2004 and 2017 Christy K. Robinson

Holocaust Remembrance Day is kept every year, in thoughtful commemoration of a very dark period in human existence, the 1930s and 40s obliteration of more than 13 million people, six million of them European Jews. We particularly remember the attempt to exterminate the Jews, because it was a war on their religion and culture. 

Though we think such a hideous, inhumane atrocity might never happen to us in modern times, we have only to remember the Bosnian genocide of 1992-95, where 8,000 Muslims of Yugoslavia were massacred in a sanctuary town by Serbian Orthodox Christians.

We live in a frightening, blood-soaked, war-crazed world, even now, decades after the Holocaust. It’s one thing to read the news of war and genocide in another hemisphere or era, but it’s another thing to realize that there’s warfare all around us: police officers and children are shot to death because of drug trafficking or domestic violence; pension funds are lost and home mortgages swallowed up by bankers because of callous greed. Crazed shooters rampage through schools and businesses. Dare we say that we’re living in a spiritual Holocaust now? The flames feel pretty hot, don’t they?

In 2 Corinthians 1:20-22 NIV, God “anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The Holy Spirit guarantees our salvation and protection of our souls. The seal of God is the Holy Spirit Himself!

Christians and others of many faiths pray every day for those with family problems, for relief from pain and sickness, that people will get a job or victory over addictions, or that they will discover God’s will for their lives. There are battles going on all the time. We don’t have divine promises that we’ll have miraculous deliverance from these temporal pains and struggles.

But Jesus has won the war. He loves us so much that He voluntarily laid down His life for our salvation. He came to live in our skin, and paid the death penalty of sin so that we could have an infinity of forevers, living with Him. We live this life with hope of eternal salvation because Jesus rose from His tomb, triumphant and victorious over sin and its effects.

So while we soberly remember the Holocaust, and vow that its evils should never be repeated, we must remember that we are living—right now—in the spiritual Kingdom of God, as citizens. Our Savior has promised that one day soon, He will return and personally wipe away our tears. We will spend eternity with Him, in perfect peace and joy.

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
There is none other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:31

UPDATE, 2017:

I wrote this article in 2004, for a daily devotional book called We Shall Be Changed. At that time, we were saying, “Never forget” so another Holocaust would be impossible. In solidarity with Jews around the world, we mourned the loss of millions, and try to recognize the seeds of racism, oppression, and fascism, to root them out before they can flower and produce seed. We thought a repressive, fascist regime could never come to America. Even if we were not of the same political party as the President or Congress, we all trusted that America had a good system of checks and balances; prejudice and bigotry, virulent hate, and ignorance would be overcome by the rule of law and the Constitution.

And then came Donald Trump. In his army of admirers he counts white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, those who fear and/or hate Muslims and foreigners with brown skin, those who impose their narrow religious beliefs on all people, those who gravitate to a powerful leader, violent thugs who punch black people at Trump rallies, those who shame women for their appearance, those who tear off a Muslim woman’s hijab and threaten her life, and sexually assault women and then laugh about it. Perhaps most surprising is that millions of right-wing Christians support Trump and his policies.

The Christian Right are unconcerned about Trump’s lies and “alternative facts” because some fundraising mega-millionaire religious leaders (James Dobson, Jerry Fallwell Jr., Franklin Graham) say Trump is born again, God is still working on him and we need to give him a chance.

The proof of change is in a changed life, changed speech, changed behavior. Trump hasn’t changed a bit in the year and a half since they decided he was born again. He said himself that he has nothing to confess! The lies, the insults, the threats and the dog-whistle incitement to assassination say he hasn’t changed.

On the one-week mark of his new presidency, Trump signed an executive order that was almost certainly written by his adviser, Steve Bannon, a white supremacist. The order bans Muslim refugees (including women, children, and the elderly) from the war-torn Middle East, and it favors Christians, which violates the Constitution’s first amendment, where the US government can’t establish or favor one religion over another. Even permanent residents with “green cards” will be exiled if the Supreme Court doesn’t stop it.

The order seeks to prioritize refugees fleeing religious persecution, a move Trump separately said was aimed at helping Christians in Syria. That led some legal experts to question whether the order was constitutional.

One group said it would announce a court challenge on Monday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the order targets Muslims because of their faith, contravening the U.S. Constitutional right to freedom of religion.

"President Trump has cloaked what is a discriminatory ban against nationals of Muslim countries under the banner of national security," said Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-refugees-idUSKBN15B2HL

Trump and Bannon are planning to deport millions of Hispanic people who were born elsewhere but brought here by their parents, and who know no other country or home but this one. Homes and lives will be ripped apart so Trump can build a fence or wall that’s easily tunneled or flown over.

On the same day as Holocaust Remembrance, January 27, 2017, the anti-abortion March for Life was held in Washington, DC. Vice President Mike Pence was there, and said triumphantly, “Life is winning in America.”

A Syrian refugee weeps at the loss of one of his children.

But it’s not winning in Syria for those fleeing war and death, the same grieving, horrified, helpless people we were told by Jesus that we must visit in their confinement, tend when they’re sick, feed, and clothe because they were the “least” of his brethren (siblings). He said to love the “stranger” (foreigner) among us as we love ourselves. He said that those who do care for the helpless will enter his kingdom. 

Many conservatives claim to be Christians who are pro-life for fetuses (and that's fine), but when it comes to their own countrymen, much less the foreigners among us, they’re remarkably callous and cold. Because their health insurance is high-priced, they’re angry that they have to help subsidize other peoples’ health insurance. “Let ‘em die!” they shout at political rallies.

In addition, Trump and his temporary ally, Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan, are overturning the Affordable Care Act, to drop 30 million Americans from healthcare. Without diabetes or cancer meds, how many millions will wither and die? Without care for burns, or small tumors, or without flu shots, how many people, how many seniors in delicate health, will die? The mind boggles. These people who care only for themselves are not worshiping the real Jesus Christ—they’re following the money idol, and false messiahs. "Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.” Matt. 7:15

Here's a verse you may have learned as a child, and thought it was only about cursing: "Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain." That's not about cursing. It's about the way you represent God's character ("name") to the world.

You know what, conservatives? The world is watching you. They’re observing your testimony of Christianity, and they’re rejecting it. Atheists are sickened by your attitudes and your false prophets, and they throw your false Christ on the dung heap. Who else is sickened? The liberal (which means "generous and open-minded") Christians who do follow Jesus’ commands. And it’s highly probable that without a change toward Love, you won’t be found in the Book of Life.

It may require a change of local church or denomination, and deprogramming the lies you’ve been taught on TV and radio. It may mean changing party affiliation. But ask yourself if the conservative ethos is biblical, if your eternal life is worth following such unloving fake Christians off the cliff.

For there is a holocaust waiting for people who are not loving others in the same way God has loved you. There's a four-letter word for that.

Those with whom he is pleased

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14

With whom is he pleased?

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 1 John 4:10,11

That means you. God is pleased with you.
PEACE.

All We Like Sheep

© 2016 Christy K Robinson

Every December, I listen to hours of Christmas music in a mix of styles on an mp3 player hooked up to my speakers. I have a huge variety of artists, from Celtic bagpipes to Mannheim Steamroller, James Taylor and Steven Curtis Chapman, Brooklyn Tabernacle and Casting Crowns, Harry Connick Jr. and Point of Grace, Sting and Barbra Streisand, and probably 20 other soloists or groups. I don’t like the Santa, snow, or “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” party music, but I do have medieval to contemporary music from numerous countries, so it doesn’t get stale or repetitive.

But as beautiful and touching as the songs are, the best are the choruses from Handel’s oratorio Messiah. One album is a traditional choir with soloists and string ensemble, and the other is an album from the traveling show in the late 1980s, Young Messiah. The latter has Christian contemporary artists doing the solos and duets, with a choir singing the choruses. (When the show came to my city, I sang in the chorus, and it was fabulous!)

I love the Messiah’s choruses for their majesty and drama, and how their repeated phrases allow us to think of familiar scripture verses in different ways.

One of them is “All We Like Sheep.” The chorus parts, so merry and cheerful and unmindful, chase each other around like spring lambs—let’s do whatever we want because we have no cares, and no one's the boss of us. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way.”

Then the tragic consequence of selfish hedonism, and the sudden change of tempo and mood. It’s like a lightning bolt, or a sudden death: “and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Instead of running off the cliff onto the sharp rocks below, we are saved, pulled back by the crook of the Shepherd. But he saves us by taking our rebellious sins upon himself, being separated from the Father in death, and then rising from the tomb to assure us that he is victorious over death.

Handel wrote the oratorio in three weeks’ time. That doesn’t seem humanly possible. Many people, including me, believe that the music was given to him by the Holy Spirit. And for 30 years, I’ve had a sort of time-space continuum notion that when Jesus returns in clouds of glory, the victorious trumpet sound (predicted by John in 90AD) we’ll hear will be from Handel’s oratorio, “The Trumpet Will Sound.” And then we millions and billions who are changed into glory will sing Hallelujah from Handel’s pen.

It may be a fanciful notion, but one never knows… 

Simple gifts, deep gratitude

© 2016 Christy K Robinson

At New Year's in 2015-16, I wrote of my intention to be more than thankful--I wanted to be grateful. Some people would argue that thankful and grateful are the same. They may be. But to me, grateful goes the extra distance and recognizes the giver for giving up some "thing" of value, whether time, talents, advice, hugs, or of a tangible nature like a service, physical object or money.

Accepting a gift with grace and gratitude is not easy for some of us.

• Maybe we've taken pride in self-sufficiency and being able to work hard and earn the things we need, so taking "charity" feels shameful. 
• Maybe we think so little of ourselves that we don't believe we deserve a gift.
• Maybe we think others need the gift(s) more than we do. 
• Maybe accepting grace upon grace is overwhelming and the emotions are too powerful. 
• Maybe we've been given so much and so often that we're a bit jaded. 
• Maybe we've been given something we didn't want or that didn't suit our tastes. 

If we have a modicum of good manners, we'll say "thank you" at least once, and possibly write a note of thanks.  To live in a state of gratitude is different.

As a recipient who understands the grace and love of the giver, and recognizes that they want the gift to encourage us and give us hope for better times, that they sacrificed something of value (time, money, work, empathy, etc.), we enter into communion with them. We set aside our pride and submit to their grace and mercy, and we return their love with a grateful heart. We "come down where we ought to be." We remember that if we'd earned it, it would be wages; but a gift is given in love and can't be earned.

Ephesians 2:4-9: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast." 

I think gratefulness recognizes that gifts come out of love. Love of a friend or family member. Love of a church or nonprofit that takes up special collections or cultivates special donors for extraordinary needs. Love of God who has done his utmost to save everyone who will accept the gift. As the song says, "To bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed."

To be grateful is to accept grace that we couldn't earn or deserve--it's a gift from a loving heart, a gift they won't take back.

Learning to be grateful has opened my eyes to not only the value of the gifts I've received, but it's shown me the multiplicity of gifts I've been given. And, of course, when I'm feeling rich in love and awash in goodwill, I have a greater desire to give, and be a blessing to others.

Because giving or receiving gifts is never about the thing.  It's the experience between us. 

'Tis the gift to be simple  'Tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
It will be in the valley of love and delight

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right