Davy Crockett’s alleged violin is kept in the Witte museum in San Antonio, Texas. Some times it is loaned to the Alamo or other museums for demonstrations or simply as an historic artifact. Perhaps the most curious thing about the violin is the story that Davy placed the rattles from the tail of a rattlesnake inside the body of the instrument. In some recordings that have been made using the violin it is said that one can hear the rattles moving against the wood.

I have sometimes wondered how violins came into being in the first place. They are made of a wooden box, often spruce and maple, but not always. The strings were originally made of catgut, while the bow hair is made from a horse’s tail. Without the tree resin that is rubbed across the hair, the bow would not make a sound when it is drawn across the strings. It seems like the most unlikely combination of elements to produce such exquisite variations of sound. I have seen paintings of angels playing the violin, presumably because the sound is so sublime.

There must have been divine inspiration in the making of such an instrument, for Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father. . .. (James 1:15)

In the Old Testament the account of the building of the first tabernacle is a detailed picture of God’s provision for this structure , the predecessor of the great temple built by Solomon. In this earlier version, the hand of God was intimately involved in each detail: See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel. . . and He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom,, understanding. . . and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in artistic crafts. And He has given to both him and Oholiab. . . the ability to teach others. (Exodus 35:30-34)

I’m convinced that the thing we call “talent” in individuals who have great abilities or who make great discoveries, is in truth a manifestation of the creative Spirit of God displayed in such persons. It is a gift, sometimes abused, but available to be used for His Kingdom.

Davy Crockett’s legacy is enhanced by the artifact of his violin. It helps us imagine the man who died at the Alamo; but there is no physical object known to exist today from Bezalel’s inspired work, though the search continues. His legacy lives in the lives inspired by the gifts recorded in Scripture, spiritual gifts of beauty and skill originating in his God and our God.

Love in Him,

Prue

The man didn’t ask for pity. Instead, he asked for the power he recognized in Jesus, to be applied to his leprosy: A man with leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will: be clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. (Mark 1:40-41)

Jesus was constantly looking for faith in the people around him. While this man did not prove to be obedient later, when Jesus had told him not to spread the news, the man clearly displayed faith in Jesus’ God given ability to heal him. The man’s faith opened Jesus’ heart to pity him and then to extend his hand to a dreaded leper. The unnamed man believed that Jesus could heal him, if he would . Sometimes we believe that Jesus cannot help us, when all he is waiting for is for us to display the glimmer of faith that this man showed : “If you are willing.”

I believe that Jesus’ willingness is from his Father God. At Gethsemane Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but what You will.” in the face of his own death. (Mark 14:36).

Being rooted in God’s will, the things that Jesus “wills” are the things that God wills for us. They are the things of the promises in both the Old and New Testaments: The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9), and Take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

In the first century while Jesus lived as one of us, he sought out faith among the people of Israel. Sometimes he seemed discouraged: I have not seen such faith in all of Israel! (Matthew 8:10), but in his last evening with the disciples he assured them that they had a secure place in the very heart of God: The Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16: 27)

When Jesus was asked, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” He answered,

The work of God is this: To believe in the one He has sent. (John 6:29)

I believe that Jesus is willing to make us clean. He is willing to companion us, and even befriend us. His time on earth was spent seeking those who would open their hearts to him and be changed. It’s never easy, but when we do that, we,too, may ask, and hear him say, I will!

Love in Him,

Prue

We pray to Christ as our God, Christ prays for us (as our Priest), and He prays in us as our head. (St. Augustine)

Lent has launched, and we are starting on our forty day journey into the wilderness of our lives. The intersection of naturall and supernatural receives a nudge in Lent as we look around for a way closer to the One who rose fro the dead.

In the past I have given up desserts, alcoholic drinks, chocolate, and T.V. I believe that all of that did help remind me to pray and to read the Bible, but this year I believe that the biggest nudge my spirit can receive is much simpler: more and more regular prayer. In the lives of saints like St. Augustine, it’s often in prayer that God spoke to them, until their lives were prayers themselves. St. Thomas Aquinas was said to have remained silent for the last year of his life, neither speaking nor writing, but wrapped in prayer.

I don’t aspire to be like St. Thomas, but I do believe that internalizing Lent might be more meaningful than skipping dessert. I have decided to “clean up” my prayer life by not allowing so many diversions to keep me from praying at least daily, and perhaps twice daily in a purposeful way that does not include hasty prayers while I’m doing something else. I will never abandon those, but the deeper ones need more attention now.

When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. . . Do not be like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:6-8) Jesus said this just before he gave his disciples the very words to have in their mouths and in their heads, the words that have become known as the “Lord’s Prayer”

Equally as valuable as this prayer gift is the prayer that Jesus prayed at Gethsemane: “Abba, Father, he said. “Everything is possible for you . Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)

In these two prayers, the son of God gave us a blueprint for our relationship to his Father and our Father, as well as for our relationships to one another. These prayers have been the wellspring for preachers and teachers, and even just for friends praying for one another. On battlefields and in hospitals and sick beds at homes world-wide, these words have advanced the kingdom, and we may go freely to this well every day.

Love in Him,

Prue

Today is Ash Wednesday, when we are reminded of our own mortality by wearing the mark of ashes on our forehead. It’s a solemn ceremony that ushers in the season of Lent. Ash Wednesday reminds me of the day that Ezra read to the Israelites who had returned from Babylon, the scriptures that they had neglected before they had gone into exile. The realization of the yawning gap between the people they had once been, and the people they had become, was overwhelming, and there was much weeping and distress. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)

Lent, of course, is a fast, and not a feast, unless you think of the period as a deepening and a clarifying of our relationship with Christ. In that sense, Jesus is saying to us exactly what Nehemiah said to the people: Put aside your grief, fear,distress, and the church has put aside forty days of renewal and hope as we inch closer to the Resurrected One. Ash Wednesday is the opening to the path that reunites us with our God, and with the conscious knowledge of our unique relationship with Him, we have strength that comes from Him, a strength that is delivered in joy, even as we grow in our awareness of our own mortality.

Nehemiah’s message is a preview of the Gospel itself. It’s the announcement that though we are unable to rescue ourselves, and are dismayed at our own weaknesses, there is One who is capable and willing, and even desiring, to deliver strength to us, and the strength is wrapped in joy.

Christians have the advantage of knowing the end at the beginning of Lent: the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Nehemiah is delivering the message to his people, that, though they have seen a corner of the truth about their losses, God has declared them still to be His people, and in that there is nothing but joy.

Easter will be a great feast for us, us Lent is a movement toward that feast, with the growing reminder that the One we celebrate is our strength, and it is not a despairing strength, but a joyful one from the strength of Christ Himself. The Joy of the Lord is your strength.

Love in Him,

Prue

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day!

On the map, Possum Kingdom Lake looks like a large dragon sprawled out in at least three directions with a coiling tail which is the Brazos River. P.K. Is a deep, cold lake shaped in the early 1940’s from canyons near the river bed. It supports a wealth of wildlife, including birds, fish, deer, and audads, a curly horned “sheep” that looks like a goat.

In the summer, the lake is alive with boaters, fishermen(and women), skiers, swimmers, rock divers and just plain vacationers. Not many people live year-round near the lake, which makes it very quiet in February. Sitting on the deck overlooking the lake seems like witnessing a primeval landscape, even though there are modern houses on two sides, the lake stretches out before and I watch a small flock of ducks swim back and forth, and I marvel at how they can handle the cold water. From certain angles from the deck I see only water and cliffs and unimproved land. It’s as if I’m witnessing a stage in creation itself. In Proverbs, the Person of Wisdom says about witnessing creation: I was there when He set the heavens in place, when He marked out the horizon on the face of the deep. . . and when He marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was constantly by His side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing in His presence, rejoicing in His whole world and delighting in mankind. (Proverbs 8:27-31)

It amazes me that the delight in creation still exists on our earth. It’s as if there is a veneer of despair surrounding earth, sky, water and air in the minds of many, but beneath the despair there truly exists the indescribable joy of all of these, still renewed from creation itself. From the only true “Good” in the universe, the six days of creation were undiluted goodness: God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31) For an omniscient and omnipotent God, His project, that pleased Him well and brought Him joy, must have some of His own character about it, for us to be able to share the joy and recognize His hand in the sky, water, air and land that He designed.

I believe that the sweetness that God Himself experienced at producing life on Earth, is still available to His creatures, and, in fact, that He intends it to be available. It doesn’t require a lake in February to share His delight in mankind. A chair by a window , with a Bible on your lap, can take you there as well, just remembering His joy at creation.

Love in Him,

Prue

The Silent Command

“Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.” ( Emily Post, 1922)

The American Emily Post was the ultimate authority on human etiquette for not only the United States, but also for much of the rest of the world from the time she published her first etiquette book in 1922 until her death in 1960.

Emily Post received hundreds of letters asking advice on manners for all occasions. In one letter a British man wrote that he had planned on attending his uncle and aunt’s fiftieth wedding anniversary when very unexpectedly he had received an invitation for the same date to tea at Buckingham Palace, where the queen gave occasional receptions for her subjects. The writer wondered which event he should attend.

Emily Post wrote that an invitation from the palace was not entirely an invitation, but was actually a command. The head of state, the queen herself, was entitled to command her subjects as part of the larger “family” of the nation. The uncle and aunt must wait.

Throughout the Bible, God makes many invitations to His people. Those who perceive them as commands drop everything else and obey; some never do: After Elijah had thrown his cloak over Elisha, Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. Elisha had kissed his parents goodbye. (I Kings 20-21)

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Both Elijah and Jesus were extending invitations that were also commands. Only some souls recognize the command inside the invitation, because only a few souls recognize the person of our God in the invitation. Eleven of the disciples recognized the call and the command. Since then there have been souls in every generation who have heard, recognized, and responded to the invitation/command. What does it take to be one of those? At the very least it takes recognizing that the One who invites has a right to command, and finally, it takes a willingness to respond. With Peter , Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.”, and Peter was able to accept both the invitation and the command. I believe Jesus is still commanding every one of us, “Don’t be afraid.”

Love in Him,

Prue

My father’s sister grew up on the family farm, and there were remnants in the house of the lives of previous owners. One such “remnant” was a small spinning wheel which, though it had no use in her lifetime, was a reminder of an earlier generation. After Aunt Edna left home the wheel was moved out and she never knew what became of it; but Edna one day found an exact copy in an antique store, and purchased it as a memory of her childhood wheel. Much later the spinning wheel came to belong to me and now shares my living room with contemporary and antique furniture.

The spinning wheel is like a magnet to children. Each one wants to try the use the treadle. I must have explained it to dozens of little ones and it never ceases to fascinate. I like it as a reminder of the past, of my Aunt, and of the farm.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. ( Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

This charge to Israel is for the people to enlist their memories to preserve their relationship with the Living God, the author of their freedom from bondage and their arrival at the Promised Land. The memories could be born anew in each generation by following this advice. In a mostly illiterate community these activities would convey history and give context to the present.

Once a five year old boy looked at my spinning wheel and, walking slowly around it, he said, “Where do you get parts for something like this?” I almost laughed out loud, but then I became conscious of the enormity of the gap between past and present generations.

The only book that truly fills the gap is the Bible itself: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. . . ( Second Timothy 3:16) It’s the quiet time, like the time spent at the spinning wheel, that opens our spirits to God’s words for our lives. Hanging copies of the law around our houses, and talking constantly of the law will no longer suffice, for God has sent His Word,revealed in His Book Time spent in reading it can bridge every gap in our lives. And new”parts” will appear every day.

Love in Him, ,

Prue

A guest on the “Antiques Roadshow” recently brought a letter from the 1950’s and a torn soiled piece of tissue displaying a lipstick smear. The appraiser was at first surprised and then confident in her estimate of between $2000 and $5000 for the two items. The letter was from a soldier who told of seeing Marilyn Monroe in a show in Japan and visiting her room back-stage. She had dropped the tissue on the floor after blotting her lipstick. The date, time, and place corresponded with Monroe’s performances for the military, and the letter was sent to the soldier’s parents. It was accepted as authentic, hence the appraisal.

The value in the tissue with a smear of lipstick lay in its “provenance,” the connection between an object and a famous or historic person or event, or as in this case, a virtual icon of America’s culture.

I have loved you, but you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob , but Esau I have hated. . .

(Malachi 1:2) In this passage the Lord makes clear the distinction between the unique place of Israel in His heart , and of Esau, who lives outside the covenant.

The principal of Godly provenance is in contrast to personal satisfaction. Those who have a close relationship (The Israelites, called “God’s People”) are of greater value to Him than those who never seek Him. The closer the relationship, the greater the loving attachment. (The Lord is My Shepherd ,Psalm 23)

It’s true that God seeks those who are lost, yet He rejoices over every soul who draws near to Him. In the New Testament, God spoke directly to James, John, and Peter , those who were closest to His son: This is my son. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him! (Matthew 17:5) When God looks at us He is looking for evidence of His son. The more He sees of Jesus in us, the closer He draws to us.

Marilyn Monroe’s lipstick is the closest anyone can ever come to that poor, famous, idolized woman. It makes a scrap of tissue with a smear on it worth thousands of dollars.

The love of Christ in our hearts is so close to God that He measures us as if we were His own children, beyond price and loved with an everlasting love. We have the provenance of Jesus.

Love in Him,

Prue

An epaulette shark © wenfisher (CC BY 2.0)

The epaulette shark is about three feet long, much of which is its tail. It is named “epaulette” because of two round black spots with white fringe-like borders , one on each side of its body. Someone once thought that the spots looked like “epaulettes” on its shoulders. It is not an endangered shark, but inhabits New Guinea and the Great Barrier Reef near Australia. What makes this shark unusual, is that it has the ability to walk on land. Actually, it shuffles on its thick, paddle-shaped pectoral fins which function as legs and feet. It takes walks quite frequently into and out of tidal pools.

The epaulette shark is only one of many surprising and little known living creatures that share our planet earth with humanity. They are a reminder of the infinite shapes and forms of life in God’s creation: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived–the things God has prepared for those who love Him. (1Corinthians 2:9)

It’s easy to slip into predictable patterns in our lives until we forget that there is One who is always “Making all things new! (Revelation 21:5), and creating in the midst of His creation. When we do slip, we close the invisible doors to the presence of One who knows us better than we know ourselves. The young man said to Jesus”All these (commandments) I have observed. What do I lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. (Matthew 19:20-22)

It’s not only possessions that keep us from following Jesus. It’s also attitudes and relationships that prevent Jesus’ voice from reaching us. The young man heard the voice, but the network of his life, his many possessions , kept him from receiving the unimaginable blessing.

Knowing that the epaulette shark exists and thrives reminds me that there are other lives, beside the one I live daily: the life of God Himself who created both me and the shark. The rich young man knew he wanted perfection, but couldn’t imagine any life better than the one he lived. He was unable to make the exchange even to receive eternal life.

God said to John in the Revelation, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. (Revelation 21:6-7)

Love in Him,

Prue

Tongs

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live cooal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from th altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

It did not surprise me that God chose to remove Isaiah’s sin with a burning coal, but it did surprise me that the angel used tongs to do it. In other encounters with fire in the scripture, angels move about both in and out of fire. In the Exodus the burning bush of Moses’ encounter is inhabited by an angel: The the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. (Exodus 3:2)

When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were joined in the furnace of intense fore by an angel of God, not one of them was so much as scorched; and Nanoah, Samson’s father, , after making an offering to the Lord : “as the flames blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. (Judges 13:20)

The humble tool of a pair of tongs seemed incongruous in the hand of a supernatural being and servant of God Himself, until we remember the humble person sent by God to perform the task performed by the tongs. It is Jesus alone who removes our guilt, and Jesus alone who atones for our sins. The angel in Isaiah’s vision could no more perform that feat than you or I could. The tongs were essential to Isaiah’s experience, for they delivered the burning coal from the altar of the holy of holies, the very place where, centuries later, an angel would meet Zechariah to tell him he would have a son named John who would prepare the way for the Messiah. (Luke 1:1-14)

The tongs represent that Messiah, for he is the one who will in fact atone for humanity’s sin with his own life. He will bring the salvation that is hungered for across all lands and people, and open the door for the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in and with human beings. The tongs used on Isaiah are a tiny, almost obscure reminder that the presence of God on earth was yet to be fulfilled and that the day did come when flames rested on the men and women meeting at Pentecost in a room in Jerusalem when God anointed the disciples following Jesus’ resurrection.

No longer would tongs be needed, for Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection achieved God’s plan for us: Behold! I am making all things new. (Revelation 21;5)

Love in Him,

Prue