Shall We Gather at the River

On earth and in heaven

Shall we gather at the river, where bright angel feet have trod;
  With its crystal tide forever, flowing from the throne of God?

Refrain:
Yes, we'll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river, that flows from the throne of God.

On the margin of the river, washing up its silver spray;
  We shall walk and worship ever, all the happy golden day.

Ere we reach the shining river, lay we ev'ry burden down;
  Grace our spirits will deliver and provide a robe and crown.

At the smiling of the river, mirror of the Savior’s face,
  Saints, whom death will never sever, lift their songs of saving grace.

Soon we'll reach the shining river, soon our pilgrimage will cease;
  Soon our happy hearts will quiver with the melody of peace.

---

Library of Congress,
Prints and  Photographs Division
 Lomax Collection
LC-DIG-ppmsc-00289 DLC

Robert LOWRY, a Baptist preacher and college professor (March 12, 1826 – November 25, 1899, wrote the words and music of this old gospel song. The imagery is based on Revelations 22:1 (King James Version): "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God..."

Many Christians still love this song, more than a century after it was written, because its simple message of faith, comfort, and hope still resonates. I suspect that the song's lyrics have reminded many Christians of river baptisms where their friends and family gathered.

Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division
 Detroit Publishing Company Collection
LC-USZ62-107755 DLC

"Shall We Gather at the River" was sung at the funerals of both my mother's parents, Harry SEES (1893-1957) and Winnie Violet EATON Sees (1899-1932).

Related:
Robert Lowry (Biography, includes the story behind "Shall We Gather at the River")

I hope you'll enjoy these. I certainly did!
Shall We Gather at the River (Nice, traditional version, YouTube)
Shall We Gather at the River (Tennessee Ernie Ford, You Tube)
Shall We Gather at the River (Banjo and recorder, YouTube)
Shall We Gather at the River (Randy Travis, YouTube)
Shall We Gather at the River (A 1955 baptism)

From a stereoscopic image made by Robert N. Dennis in 1898

A Yard Sale Extravaganza

400-Mile Yard Sale, 2011

This weekend, Kentucky's 400-Mile Yard Sale is taking place along Highway 68/80, a route that passes through Christian County. Keely and I drove out to some sales this afternoon, along the highway east of Hopkinsville.

The Eastview Baptist Church had been advertising on their marquis for several weeks that anyone could set up a yard sale there for free. Today, their property looked like a flea market with a church in one corner. It was full of tents and tables of merchandise! When we arrived, the parking lot was packed with cars, and between sellers and buyers, there must have been 150 people (or more) on the grounds.

When we pulled into the church driveway, a lady welcomed us, invited us to use the restrooms and to get a drink of cold water in the air-conditioned church, and handed us a bright yellow packet. Inside the packet, we found a flyer about Eastview, helpful information about the garage sale, a religious tract, and a free pen.

We heard music playing as we got out of the car, and soon we saw that a band was performing. They played a rock-n-roll version of "This Little Light of Mine" that I really enjoyed. When I looked at the information in the packet this evening, I learned that the band's name is Second Coming. Two more bands -- Mark 'N' Friends and The Glovers -- performed at other times during the day.

Keely bought an entire box of books by a favorite author, and I bought a cookbook. Then we sat in the shade, where a little breeze was stirring the air, and enjoyed the band for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the temperature was in the mid-90s, so we didn't shop or listen as long as we would have liked. It was just too hot!

As a visitor to the yard sale and as a fellow Christian, I give Eastview an A+ for this event. They did a great job of personally greeting us, placing an attractive pack of information in our hands, providing adequate parking, caring about our physical needs, organizing the marketplace, and even offering entertainment to entice us to linger.

Well done, my Baptist friends! I hope you'll do this again next year!

I took several photos of the band, but I didn't get a
single one that shows every band member!

First Church of the Nazarene in Ainsworth, NE

Postcard from the 1950s

Some of the Nebraska folks who read this blog may recognize the building on this postcard even though it no longer exists. It is the First Church of the Nazarene in Ainsworth, Nebraska. The photograph was probably taken in the 1950s. About 1960, this building was torn down and a larger, stone building took its place on the corner of Third and Elm.

The building in the photograph is where I formed my earliest memories of going to church. I think I was about 3 years old  (definitely not more than 4 years old) when we started attending church there.

I don't remember Sunday School classes at all, though I am sure I attended them. I do remember the church basement -- how interesting! You could go down the steps in the church, walk through the basement hallways, climb the steps at the other end, and come out in the pastor's house.

I remember sitting with my parents in a big room in the basement and singing "This World Is Not My Home". Everyone sang, "The angels beckon me from heaven's open door..." and that reminded me of my Aunt Becky.

Outside this church, one night after prayer meeting, my brother Dwight punched a little boy who wouldn't let go of me. I was very thankful to be rescued. I asked Dwight about this a few years ago, and he still remembers it too.

Another time, one of the little church boys threw a tin can from the trash barrel at me. It cut my forehead between my eyebrows, and I have a small, faint scar from it to this day. I won't tell the names of those naughty little boys, but I still remember who they were.

At the Church of the Nazarene, people called each other "Brother" and "Sister". I believe I remember a Brother Roy Morrow who was the pastor when I was very young. (Hadn't my mother cautioned me that "roy" hamburger would make me sick? How odd that a man had that word for his name!)

After that, Brother James Tapley was the pastor. (Sister Tapley, his pretty, young wife, put a band-aid on my wounded forehead.) Later, as I recall, Brother Hiram Sanders was the pastor.* These pastors served in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The various parts of the worship service were planned and orderly, but there was always room for the Holy Spirit to move. People said "Amen!", "Hallelujah!", and "Praise the Lord!" whenever they especially liked the singing, praying, or preaching. Sometimes after the sermon, people went to the front of the church, knelt at the altar, prayed aloud, and cried, while the piano played softly on and on.

My mother was brought up in the Methodist church. My father was not brought up in any named church, but there were Holiness and Pentecostal influences in his childhood. I imagine that when he and my mom decided to start attending church, the Church of the Nazarene felt familiar and right to him.

My parents became members of the Ainsworth Church of the Nazarene about 1954 or 1955. We lived south of Johnstown, then. In 1957, we moved to the Duff Valley in southern Rock County. We still went to church in Ainsworth for a while, and then we began attending the little E.U.B. (Evangelical United Brethren) Church at Duff, just a few miles from our house.

The Ainsworth church was my parents' first Nazarene church. In the early 1980s, they helped to found a Church of the Nazarene in Wheatland, Missouri; it was their second Nazarene church. In other times and places, they attended various other churches, but they remained members of the Church of the Nazarene throughout their lives.

- - - - - - - - - -

*Brother Sanders was a pastor at the Ainsworth Nazarene Church after we moved to Rock County. He is remembered by my family for getting spectacularly stuck in the mud when he came to visit us one spring day.

Brother Sanders was from the East, and he had heard that, on the Sandhill ranches, a road might be nothing more than a faint trace of wheels. He was driving down our ranch road when he saw our house on the opposite side of a low, wet meadow. He decided he should leave the graded road and drive straight across the meadow to our house. He thought he could see a "road". Soon his car was buried in mud.

Brother Sanders walked to our house, but no one was there. He waited for a while, and still no one was around. Finally, he decided to start a tractor and pull his car out by himself. Soon he had the tractor stuck in the mud, too -- and then, another tractor. When we arrived home, he was thinking about starting the crawler. 

My dad winched his car out and got him headed back to town before dark. The ruts in the meadow are probably still there!

Peace in the Valley

Comfort in God's promises

There will be peace in the valley for me, some day
There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray,
There'll be no sadness, no sorrow,
No trouble I see,
There will be peace in the valley for me...

--Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)

My father has been on my mind this Easter, as he always is at this time of year. He loved Gospel music, so I chose the song lyrics above with him in mind.

Daddy went to eternity with the Lord on April 3, 1996. We buried him on Saturday, April 6, and the next day was Easter. The scriptures of that Resurrection Sunday pierced to the heart: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (I Corinthians 15:55)

On that intensely bittersweet Easter morning, we didn't know that we would lose my oldest nephew and my mother in the next 14 months. God in his mercy spares us the knowledge of what our futures hold. I was sustained during that dark period of my life by prayer and by the Biblical promises of heaven and eternal life for those who have a true, heartfelt trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Helping Haiti

Some efforts to ease the suffering

If you have not yet contributed to the Haiti earthquake response efforts, one good charity to consider is Lutheran World Relief. They hope to raise $1,000,000 to help provide food, water, and shelter for Haitians and to help in the long-term recovery of the nation.

Lutheran World Relief is a highly efficient charity with 91% of its funds going to the relief efforts. It has an "A" (excellent) rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy. To contribute to Lutheran World Relief, click here. You can also donate by phone at 800-LWR-LWR-2,  or you can mail a check or money order to:

Lutheran World Relief
Haiti Earthquake
P.O. Box 17061
Baltimore, MD 21298-9832

If you have Thrivent insurance or a Thrivent financial plan, Thrivent will match your contribution to any of the four main Lutheran charities ( Lutheran World Relief, ELCA Disaster Response, LCMS World Relief and Human Care and WELS Committee on Relief. ) For every $2 contributed by members, Thrivent will contribute another $1, up to $250 per donor. More information is available in a news release from Thrivent.

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has posted a list of material donations that it is collecting for Haiti. The list includes such staples as dried beans, peanut butter, first aid ointment, band aids and bedding. These items can be sent to two Lutheran churches in Florida, and they will be sent in shipping containers from there to Haiti.

Ominous Odometer

666, thrice.

On my way to town tonight, I pulled up to a stopsign and glanced at the dashboard. The odometer had such a surprising number that I photographed it --66666.

The number 666, traditionally associated with the "number of the beast" in Revelations, appears three times within the number 66666. If I believed in bad omens, I suppose I'd be worried about even seeing that number.  

But maybe 666 isn't even the correct bad number. Recent research on ancient Biblical documents indicates that the number of the beast might be 616, not 666.

Furthermore, there are several views among Christian theologians as to the real identity of the beast. My church (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod -- LCMS) teaches that the beast was a symbol of the Roman Empire that was persecuting Christians mercilessly at the time that Revelations was written.

For more information about the book of Revelations as the LCMS understands it, see "A Lutheran Response to the Left Behind Series" (pdf, 908KB).

That odometer reading does worry me a little though. My car's a few miles overdue for an oil change, and I need to get that done soon!

The Lord Is My Shepherd

A favorite psalm

Yesterday in church, we sang "The Lord's My Shepherd". It's one of my favorite hymns.

Our hymnbook uses the melody "Belmont" (by William Gardiner, 1770-1853), but several melodies are associated with the hymn. You can hear a very nice recording of " The Lord's My Shepherd" sung to the hymn tune "Crimond" at Psalm 23, a British site.

During his sermon, Pastor talked a little about the comfort that many Christians find in the words of Psalm 23. He brought unexpected tears to my eyes, because I immediately thought of my mother reciting the 23rd Psalm as she went under anesthesia for surgery.

I think I was about five years old when my mother helped me memorize Psalm 23. Then, I best understood the part about the shepherd and the water and the green pasture. Those were things I could easily imagine, having seen the cows in my father's pasture.

Now many years later, the rest of the psalm is within my experience, too. I understand why paths of rightousness are better for me. My soul has needed restoring countless times. I have had enemies who wished me ill. I have passed through the valley of the shadow of death a few times, and I have had times of great happiness when my cup overflowed with God's blessings.

David wrote the Shepherd's Psalm 2000 years ago (or thereabouts). His world was vastly different from mine, but his words are still intensely meaningful to me. Timeless truth underlies each image in the psalm. Like the parts of the Iliad that made me cry when I read them, the setting may be ancient, but the truths are eternal.

Promise vs. Hope

A few words about faith

Worshippers gathered to celebrate the promise of Easter

Easter is a time of some poignance to me because my father passed away at Easter time. His funeral was on the day before Easter, 12 years ago. We didn't know that we would be back in the same little Kansas church for two more family funerals within the next 14 months. Truly, it's a mercy that we don't know what the future holds for us. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthew 6:34b)

When I went to tell my Mennonite neighbor that we'd been gone a few days because my father had died, she questioned me about his faith. I assured her that he had been a devout Christian for many years. "Then he had the hope of heaven," she said.

Many times, I've remembered that conversation and pondered the difference between having hope and having a promise. Hope is just an emotion, and emotions come and go like the weather. When the thief on the cross beside Jesus professed his faith, Jesus didn't say anything about hope. Rather, he promised, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)

I struggled with my Christian faith for many years until I finally understood a great truth. My emotions and feelings have no effect whatsoever on what God has promised to do. I don't need to have a special "glorified" feeling all the time to know that I'm a Christian. I can rely on the promises in God's Word.

Palm Sunday Stories

Palms and processionals

Palm Sunday was celebrated this morning across the Christian world. In my church, the little crosses above were given to the worshipers as part of the observance.

Each little cross is made from a folded palm leaflet. We carry them into the sanctuary in a procession that represents Jesus's arrival at Jerusalem. (As you probably remember, the people greeted him carrying palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!")

Woven palm fronds in La Paz

The palm crosses and the procession at our church always bring to mind a couple of Palm Sundays spent far from home, years ago.

In 1981, we were teaching school in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and we were traveling over our Easter vacation. We spent Palm Sunday in La Paz, Bolivia. That morning, in the oldest part of La Paz around la Iglesia de San Francisco (the St. Francis Church), Aymara vendors were selling palm leaves to the churchgoers.

The leaflets of each palm leaf were loosely woven into several square shapes, so each leaf looked like a stem that had sprouted a series of miniature mats. I bought several of those palm leaves, and I still have them. They're not green anymore, of course, but they're still interesting. (UPDATE: I had always imagined the woven palm fronds to be a South American custom, but I learned this morning that even Pope Benedict XVI carried a woven palm frond on Palm Sunday.)

Palm Sunday procession in Germany

I also remember the Palm Sunday of 1988 in West Germany. We were living in a little Bavarian village called Kleinwallstadt am Main. I read in the free German newspaper that everyone who was in the Palm Sunday parade should meet at a certain place.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I decided that little Keely and I should go and watch. The parade turned out to be a procession, led by the priest. A brass ensemble was next, and dozens of worshippers followed. They walked through the streets to the church, accompanied by stirring music.

I think Keely and I were the only observers. Everyone else was participating. I took Keely home, feeling rather lonely and left-out.

By the next Palm Sunday, we had been transferred to Berlin. There, I began taking Keely to an English-speaking Lutheran Sunday School, and to make a long story very short, that is how we came to be Lutherans (LCMS) today. God, in His wisdom and in His time, brought us to a Bible-teaching church that was right for us.

Hillcrest Baptist at Sunday Sunset

A Hopkinsville church

Hillcrest Baptist Church in Hopkinsville, KY

The steeple on Hillcrest Baptist Church was looking very pearly when I drove by it this evening. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Hillcrest is located at the intersection of Highway 41 and Skyline Drive, near the Trail of Tears park, in Hopkinsville, KY. The church has grown rapidly over the time we've lived here. The parking lot was packed with cars tonight.

Hillcrest Baptist recently purchased the Colonial Bakery building just west of their parking lot. They now have a three-building complex: the new sanctuary, the old sanctuary which is now a Sunday School building, and the large Colonial Bakery building.

When they built this new sanctuary about six or seven years ago, they waited several months before they put on the steeple. It was rumored that the architect, David Jones, had failed to clear the building's design with the airport. (The airport is over a quarter-mile away, on the opposite side of Little River and the Pennyrile Parkway.)

According to the rumor, the church wouldn't be allowed to have a steeple because it would be in the path of incoming and outgoing aircraft. Of course, that was all nonsense. The steeple was added in due time, and now it's hard to imagine the church without it.

I've been in the new sanctuary a few times for concerts. It's a very nice facility. I'm not a Baptist, but I wish the church well. I hope they will faithfully preach the Gospel there, and I hope for God's continued blessing upon their ministry.

Almost Spring

Daffodil days are at hand.

Today has been such a lovely, warm sample of spring. Some of my daffodils ("buttercups", as they say in Kentucky) near the house are starting to bloom.

It doesn't sound like tomorrow or Tuesday will be good days for taking pictures of spring flowers. Tomorrow (Monday), we're supposed to get heavy rain. Tomorrow night there's supposed to be more heavy rain, and then we have an 80% chance for rain and/or sleet and/or snow on Tuesday. A flood watch is in effect tomorrow and tomorrow evening.

It may slow the daffodils down for a day or two, but they'll be in glorious bloom by this time next week.

The Savior, More Beautiful than Spring

At church this morning, we sang "Beautiful Savior," a 16th-century German Jesuit hymn that has a nice verse about spring. Here's verse 2 as translated by Joseph A. Seiss (1823-1904.)

Fair are the meadows,
Fair are the woodlands,
Robed in flowers of blooming spring;
Jesus is fairer,
Jesus is purer;
He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

If you're not Lutheran, you may know the hymn as re-translated by Seiss, some years later: "Fairest Lord Jesus."

Infant Baptism and the Anabaptists

A point of divergence for Lutherans, Baptists, and Mennonites

Windows in the Parkway Missionary Baptist Church in Hopkinsville, KY.
(In Peartree Park, between Hopkinsville Electric and the Pennyrile Parkway.)

These windows in a local Missionary Baptist church contain some common Christian symbols. The cross represents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. The doves represent the Holy Spirit, who descended in the form of a dove when Jesus was baptized, according to the Gospels (Matthew 3, Luke 3, Mark 1.)

Missionary Baptist churches teach that Christian believers should be baptized as a symbol of their repentance, faith, and commitment. On several Missionary Baptist websites, I found the following statement of their belief about baptism (emphasis added):

We believe that there are two pictorial ordinances in the Lord's churches: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Scriptural baptism is the immersion of penitent believers in water, administered by the authority of a New Testament church in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Lord's Supper is a memorial ordinance, restricted to the members of the church observing the ordinance . (Source)

Baptism of believers has always been an important issue to Baptists. The origins of this Baptist belief can be traced back to the Anabaptists. In the early 1500s (shortly after the Reformation), the Anabaptists decided that Martin Luther had not gone far enough in reforming the church. They taught that infant baptism must also be abolished. Baptism was only for believers who knew that their sins had been forgiven. All believers who were baptized as infants needed re-baptism because infants can't understand what baptism means.

The Mennonites (and related groups such as the Amish, Hutterites, Swiss Brethren, etc.) also originated from the Anabaptists. The histories and theologies of these groups have diverged over the 500 years since the Reformation. However, they all still agree with the English and American Baptists that infant baptism is a misuse of God's command to baptize.

This is very different from Lutheran teaching about baptism. We believe that baptism is a sacrament; that is, a person who is baptized receives God's grace and blessing through it. (Grace, in the Christian sense, means God's acceptance and forgiveness.) Because baptism is a means by which God creates faith, Lutherans think it's right and important to baptize babies. (So do Catholics, the Orthodox churches, Methodists, and various other denominations, for similar reasons.)

Safe and Secure from All Alarms

Skittles and her can

Skittles is such an intense little cat. When she decides she likes some particular place to sleep, she sleeps there fervently and often. Some of the places she favors are a little odd. For example, she's always been fond of sleeping in the trash can.

Recently, she took a liking to the little rug in front of the kitchen range. That didn't work out too well because people stepped on her all the time. One night, as I tried to stop stepping on her and she screeched in protest, I almost fell into a pot of hot soup.

Something had to be done. I had a big, empty, popcorn tin so I put an old towel in the bottom of it and set it in front of the range. She jumped right in, curled up, and took a long nap. I guess it reminded her of the trash can.

Since then, Skittles has been spending a lot of time sleeping in her popcorn can. She loves it, and it amuses me to have her there now that I don't have to worry about stepping on her.

Today, after I broke a glass in the kitchen, I vacuumed to clean up any splinters I might have missed with the broom. Usually, Skittles would have to leave the room while the vacuum was running. She's always very careful not to get caught in close quarters with that noisy monster.

But today, she felt so secure in her popcorn can that she didn't have to leave, not even when I vacuumed her rug. After several minutes of noisy vacuuming, I passed her can again, and she was half-asleep.

As I put up the vacuum cleaner, words from an old hymn came to mind -- "Safe and secure from all alarms." That's a phrase from the chorus of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," a hymn we sang in the country churches I attended as a child. If you're not familiar with it, you can read and hear it at Cyberhymnal.

Related:
Another midi of this hymn
And a piano midi version
And one more version

Lost and Found

Some stories of losing, seeking, and finding

The gospel text at church last Sunday was the first part of Luke 15 -- the parables of the shepherd who leaves the flock and goes to find the lost sheep, and the woman who sweeps her house searching for a lost silver coin. The stories have an underlying spiritual meaning: God is concerned about every individual, and He rejoices when a sinner repents.

Losing and finding was certainly on our minds even before it was preached on at church. Isaac misplaced his iPod last week. He knew it was in the house, but he searched fruitlessly for several days. Finally he thought to look in Keely's room. There it was, on the bed where he had laid it while he was doing some ironing. It is not an exaggeration to say that he rejoiced.

I think the luckiest find I ever made was when I lost the stone out of my engagement ring. When I saw that it was missing, I told myself, "It's gone." I was really surprised a week or so later when I found the diamond in the bottom of the laundry basket.

One of my sadder losses happened when I was living in a college dorm. First, a couple of necklaces were missing, including one that my grandma had given me. Then I accidentally left a ring on our bathroom sink, and when I came back a few hours later, it was gone. I talked to my roommate and the other two girls who shared the bathroom, but they denied any knowledge. After that, I locked my remaining valuables in the closet, an action very similar to locking the barn door after the horse is stolen. I was glad when that semester ended.

In our yard, I've found about a dozen cut glass crystals that look like they came from a chandelier. The man who built this house worked at a factory where they made light fixtures, and I think he must have brought home a few crystals for his children. They played with them outside and either dropped them or forgot where they had put them.

I've never had a flock of sheep, but I've had quite a few pet cats over the years. Kitty, my Bolivian cat, got lost several times. She stayed with my mother-in-law during the five years we were in Germany. At one point, she went missing for a couple of months before she showed up again, looking like a skeleton. Mama Netz thought she must have been locked in someone's shed.

Kitty disappeared another time after she came to live with us in Kentucky. I walked down the roads and out in the woods and pastures calling her name, but I didn't find her. Several weeks later, I was working in the far corner of the yard and I saw a cat walking by. I thought it looked like Kitty, so I spoke to her. She turned and looked at me in total surprise. If I hadn't seen her, she would have kept on walking. I don't think she had any idea that she was near home.

Two thousand years have passed since Jesus told the parables of The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin, but the experiences he relates in them are timeless. We all have lost-and found stories. Who has not experienced sadness and concern when something was lost, and joy and relief when it was found again?

After these two parables, Jesus told his audience a third parable -- The Lost Son (The Prodigal Son.) It's another timeless, poignant story of pain and joy that illustrates God's concern and love for each of us.

Technorati tags: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Silver Coin, The Lost Son, The Prodigal Son, parables, losing things, finding things

Ghosts of Christmas Past (12)

Three Kings Day -- Heilege Drei Könige

Today was the 12th day of Christmas, tonight is "Twelfth Night" and this is my 12th and final "Christmas Ghosts" post. Tomorrow, the celebration of Christmas ends, and the celebration of Epiphany begins in many Christian churches of the West.

Epiphany commemorates (among other things) the Magi's visit to the young child, Jesus, and in Germany, the first Sunday in Epiphany is even called "Three Kings" -- Heilige Drei Könige.

There is an old German custom that costumed boys go from house to house on the eve of Epiphany, carrying water and incense blessed by the priest. They sing carols and solicit treats for themselves and donations for charities. They are the Star Singers -- Sternsänger.

Someone from the group may walk through the house with incense to rid it of evil, write the initials "CMB" (for the traditional names of the Wise Men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) and the number for the new year over the front door ("20 CMB 07"), sprinkle some water, and say a little prayer asking for protection for the house.

I didn't know anything about this custom when the costumed children in the photo at right knocked on my door. It was January 5, 1988, and we were living in the little Bavarian village of Kleinwallstadt (literally translated "Small Barrier City") on the Main River near Frankfort, Germany.

It was easy to see that these boys were dressed as the Wise Men, and it seemed that I should offer them some cookies and leftover candy canes in exchange for the little song they sang to me. I did so, and they accepted. If they were collecting coins, I didn't realize that. They were pleased to pose for the snapshot. We exchanged a few sentences of German and English and then they went on their way, on down the street.

Curious about whether I had responded correctly by feeding my visitors, I later questioned my German neighbors and read more about the custom in my trusty guidebooks to Germany. I guess I may have missed my chance to have our house cleansed, marked, and blessed. I really don't know if they had incense and water with them or not.

These boys in their kingly costumes are probably in their early thirties now, but they're forever young in my memory and in my photo of them -- young and enjoying their costumed caroling adventure!

Merry Christmas!

Ghosts of Christmas Past (8)

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane...

The following story of a snowy Christmas eve is a Christmas memory in two ways. It recalls a Christmas of my childhood, and it also brings to mind the Christmas of 2000 when I wrote this for a little keepsake book and special website that members of my church made.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL MEMORY of a Christmas Eve when I was about eight years old. A dry snow was falling that night and several inches of white powder lay on the ground by the time we read the Bible story of Jesus's birth and opened our gifts.

Our Christmas packages held new ice skates and mine were white. We were so anxious to try them that we couldn't wait until morning light! We laced on our skates while my father got a shovel and pushed back the snow on the little pond in the milkcow pasture. Then, with a million tiny snowflakes sparkling in the yardlight and dancing away into the long quiet shadows, we skated.

I outgrew those skates in a year or two, but the best gift my parents gave me that Christmas is still with me -- the happy memory of the utter joy and beauty of that night. God's great love for us shines through happy memories like this, lifting our spirits and warming our hearts each time He brings them to mind.

This is my 49th Christmas. [That was in 2000. In 2006, it's now my 55th Christmas!] Through the years, I have had times of walking "through the valley of the shadow of death" as well as times of walking "beside the still waters". Sometimes, I could only pray, "O Lord, you know!" and hand my heartaches and fears over to God.

Still, as I look back over the years, I see God's great love for me shining brightly through each of them. I thank Him for my savior, Jesus, and for the joy of celebrating Christmas! I thank Him for each day of my life and for all He has provided for me. He has brought me this far and He will lead me on.

Technorati tags:

Christmas memories
faith

Medieval Book of Psalms Discovered

Some Interesting News...

National Geographic News, by Kate Ravilious
July 26, 2006

A thousand-year-old Book of Psalms has been discovered by a construction worker in a bog in Ireland.

The eagle-eyed worker was using a backhoe to dig up potting soil in central Ireland last week when he spotted the leather-bound book.

Experts called to the site were amazed to find an ancient Psalter Book of Psalms lying in the mud. The archaeologists won't say exactly where the book was found until they are finished investigating the site.

Read more: Medieval Christian Book Discovered in Ireland Bog

See also "Ancient Holy Book Found in Dublin Bog."

In several other stories about the find, I read that the book was open to Psalm 83, a prayer for Israel as she faces many enemies. All in all, what an amazing find!

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Day Is Dying In The West

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... The Rural Life...

Another day of growing is complete.
Hymn: Day is Dying In The West

Drought Across the Plains and Beyond

The Rural Life...

I hate to hear that it's terribly dry in the Nebraska Sandhills, my childhood home. A friend writes to me that the hills are burnt up -- that is, the grass has shriveled and dried to a crispy crunch.

It's extremely dry in southwest Kansas where my brother and sister-in-law live and ranch. The wheat crop in Kansas is severely damaged this year, I've read. There won't be much of a hay crop either.

In Montana where Sarpy Sam ranches, his hay crop is running 1/3 less than normal due to the drought.

Texas and Oklahoma are suffering from a long drought and the drought extends across much of the Great Plains, the Great Basin, and the Southwest, creating fire hazards, creating adverse conditions for both wildlife and domesticated animals, and bringing economic stress to farmers and ranchers.

Even some of the Gulf Coast states like Georgia and Mississippi are dry. Louisiana is in a drought, as hard as that may be to believe.

AgWeb comments that, "Pastures and summer crops remain under varying degrees of drought stress from Texas to the Dakotas, despite last week’s scattered but highly beneficial showers."

A map of drought-stricken areas is provided at the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Let's join in earnest prayer for rain for these drought-stricken areas -- and for a moderation in the rainfall in New England where the floods are!

Kentucky has been fortunate compared to many states. Locally, the water table is low, but we've received enough rain that crops are looking good so far. (Photo of my neighbor's cornfield here.)

O GOD, most Merciful Father, in this our necessity, we beseech Thee to open the windows of heaven, and to send a fruitful rain upon us, to revive the earth, and to refresh the fruits thereof, that we may praise and glorify Thy Name for this Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Prayer Source: Collects and Prayers of the Lutheran Church

O GOD, in Whom we live and move, and have our being, grant us rain, in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal, we may the more confidently seek after eternal gifts. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Prayer Source: National Catholic Rural Life Conference

Google search: A prayer for rain

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A sparrow's bath

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... More About Birds and Animals...

This morning, I saw a little sparrow splashing wildly in a big shallow puddle behind a store in Hopkinsville. He was up to his knees in rainwater, and he was taking a good bath. He didn't pay any attention to me even when I eventually drove through the edge of his puddle. What a funny, cheeky little bird! I'm glad he had a chance to freshen up today.

I don't know what kind of a sparrow he was. We have many varieties of native sparrows here plus the European house sparrow. I've had sparrows at my bird feeders before and have tried to identify them. Identification requires close observation because such small details differentiate the species of sparrows.

I was talking once with a man in the waiting room at the doctor's office. He mentioned that he feeds the birds in his backyard in the old downtown area of Hopkinsville. After hearing a little about the variety of birds we see at bird feeders in the country, he told me that he had mostly sparrows at his feeders. "That's OK," he said. "They're interesting, too."

Jesus spoke of sparrows to illustrate God's loving care when he was talking to his disciples about the troubles they would face. God sees even the sparrow when it falls, Jesus said, and we can be sure that we are very much more precious in God's eyes. (Matthew 10:29-31).

Ethel Waters titled her autobiography, "His Eye is On The Sparrow." (I read that amazing account of her rise to fame from a terrible childhood when I was about 14 years old, and I have never forgotten it.) In her later years, Ethel Waters often sang the wonderful old hymn, "His Eye is On The Sparrow," for Billy Graham crusades. As I listen to this hymn and read its words, it brings tears to my eyes to remember how Ethel Waters sang it.

And so the happy sight of that little sparrow splashing in the rainwater has caused me to ponder some things I would not otherwise have thought of this morning and even moved me to tears at the memory of a beautiful old lady who sang with immense feeling.

And here is the little sparrow making the water fly.

"Splish splash, he was takin' a bath..." (lyrics)

Here's a nice study of the many mentions of the sparrow in the Bible.

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