C.S. Lewis wrote a famous book titled “The Four Loves” in which he explores the four Greek words for the English word “love”: Philia, Eros, Storge, Agape. Roughly translated these four are, friendship, erotic love, affection, and holy charity. The translators of the Greek New Testament into English had no choice but to include all of these in a single word, “love”.

In the Hebrew language the word for “love” that Isaac spoke to Esau, his son: Prepare the tasty food I love and bring it to me.” (Genesis 27:4) is the same word used by Moses much later: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)

I guess that all that this means to me is that from the earliest recorded times human beings have recognized and given a name or names to something that was gratifying, desirable, and sometimes holy and transcendent. When Moses told the Israelites to “Love the Lord your God”, no one wondered what that meant, and when Jesus affirmed it as the greatest commandment, no one asked “What does that mean, and how can we do it?” (Mark 12:30-33) Rather , love for God and neighbor was recognized by a teacher of the law who responded, “Well said, teacher. . . to love God with all your heart, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus knew that he would be dying very soon he told the disciples, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s one life for his friends.” (John 15:13) The cross would be love on display, a truth that only very few would recognize at the time and only dimly until after the Resurrection. Then the numbers would grow to reach around the world. The precious words of Jesus to his friends have widened the circle of those who love him.

The apostle Peter wrote, “Though you have not seen him, you love him.” (1Peter 1:3) The love that Moses had mandated has appeared in the spirits of believers who had never seen Jesus in their lives, but knew and loved him as if they had. The transcendent Spirit that is traceable from before Moses is spread through Christ’s death and Resurrection, and we are drawn to love our invisible God.

Advent is a time to trace love’s progress and to bask in the love of God and neighbor, to lift our eyes away from despair and grief, and to renew the bond with the one who came as a new-born, and offers us new birth.

Love in Him,

Prue

Joy

Most of my life I believed that Joy is a by-product of happy circumstances or relationships., but Nehemiah, the steadfast returner to Jerusalem after being exiled, wrote this when his people had become conscious of how far away they had fallen from God’s words to them: “This day (of return) is holy to the Lord your God. Do not grieve, for the Joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The “day” was the day of self-revelation as the people heard their scriptures read,manyfor the first time. The discrepancy between their lives and the word of God was dismaying., but Nehemiah says they may draw strength from the supernatural Joy of hearing the word of God.

“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her Joy that a child has been born into the world.” (John 16:21-22) Jesus said this to his disciples in anticipation of his own resurrection.

The advent of new life carries Joy to the spirits of human beings, especially the mothers of new-born babies, and brings with it strength. That Joy blots out the pain and anguish of the birth process.

There is indeed strength in Joy, as the Psalmist knew, as well: “Restore unto me the Joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:12)

While God’s Spirit is a peaceful Spirit, He is also a Joyful Spirit. Jesus himself says this at a time when he could be expected to be anything but Joyful, the night before his crucifixion: “I have told you this so that my Joy may be in you and that your Joy maybe complete.” (John 15:11)

The power of Joy rests in the character of God. Jesus speaks of his followers sharing his Joy and the Father’s Joy. The very reason for His incarnation, for coming to earth to live among joyless as well as joyful human beings is to share the Spirit of God, living in Him, with those who are willing to receive Him.

At Jesus’ nativity, it’s with great Joy that angels announce to the shepherds, “Don’t be afraid, for I bring you good news that will cause great Joy for all people.” (Luke 2:10) The Joy of the Lord is contagious, and comes to us from God Himself. It is for us a strength that can always be renewed.

Love in Him,

Prue

“The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything , but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and the Peace which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)

Of all the turbulent lives that have been lived on earth, St. Paul’s must be one of the most turbulent. Multiple shipwrecks, multiple arrests and beatings and imprisonments, virtually endless traveling, experiencing cold and heat, hunger, thirst, betrayal, and loneliness were the lot of the Pharisee apostle who preached the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles.

In each of his letters to individuals or congregations, Paul opens his letter with this: “Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul, who persecuted and imprisoned believers, had become an apostle of Peace when he himself experienced “the Peace that passes understanding” and wrote of it to the churches.

In the hectic hustle of the Christmas season everyone looks for moments of Peace andcalm, but Paul carried the mysterious Peace with him wherever he was. It was a gift he had received from Jesus himself.

At the Last Supper Jesus told of the Peace that his Spirit would convey to the disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my Peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

Jesus’s Peace is a supernatural Peace , and it is a gift, a part of the new lives that the disciples will be living. It conveys the mysterious Peace that Elijah experienced in the midst of the earthquake and fire, the “still small voice” of God, (I Kings 19:12), the voice of Peace.

Peace in the Advent season can still be found. It is a gift God eagerly bestows. We have only to pick up His gift in the Bible and read the words of God’s own Son. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have Peace. In this world you will havetrouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Finally, in Advent it’s good to reread the story of the announcement of this wonderful Peace. “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth Peace to those on whom His favor rests.” (Luke 2:14)

Love in Him,

Prue

Advent is a season of waiting, and waiting requires patience. Compared to Love, Hope, Joy, and Peace, patience is a poor cousin. It doesn’t come with trumpet blasts or satin ribbons; it doesn’t sit on top of the Christmas tree or sparkle.

When my grandson was visiting with his family on Christmas Eve he could hardly sit still. He whispered to his father until I asked, “ Is there something I can help you with?” In agony the five year old said, “I can’t remember if the cookies come first or the stockings?”

Patience isn’t easy, especially for children, but also for everyone. Both the Old and New Testaments express the need to be patient: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.” (Psalm 40:1) David also shares his patience with us: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14) Though he had been anointed king of Israel, David waited patiently for years for the fulfillment of his anointing. He repeatedly rejected opportunities to take the throne from Saul. When all obstacles were removed, David’s conscience was clear of taking the throne for himself. His patience bore fruit when God promised him an eternal patrimony: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” (II Samuel 7:16)

In the New Testament an Angel of God visited Mary to tell her, “The Lord God will give him (Mary’s son) the throne of his father David, ad he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”( Luke 1:32-33) In patience Mary waited for nine months, and then for thirty years before he started his ministry. Mary’s patience was sorely tried at the cross.

Enduring patience is an engine in the spiritual world that moves human beings and God closer together. Patience is not being discouraged, but persevering in faith. It is staying in touch with Christ so that without seeing Him, we may with assurance wait for Him.

Advent is a time of waiting, and of deep assurance of the arrival of God’s own son into our world and into our lives. It’s a time to probe the mystery of a loving and creative God who asks patience of us in waiting upon His Holy Spirit. As we wait we are renewed by the promises in His book and in the witnesses of countless ones who have gone before us. May He give us patience with children, adults and with Him, for “Love is Patient. . .”(1 Corinthians 13:13)

Love in Him,

Prue

Hope

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the Christian year for many denominations. It’s a time of reflection ad of anticipation built on the history of salvation fro the earliest times, and culminating in the birth of Jesus the Christ.

While different churches agree that the four Sundays before Christmas represent Love, Joy Hope, and Peace, they don’t all agree on the order or the scriptures associated with each of these, and so I will freely assign each to a Sunday in Advent.

Hope for the Hebrew slaves in Egypt began the day that Moses took off his sandals in front of a burning bush on a mountain side.

Hope began for a Hebrew woman named Hannah when she knelt in a tabernacle and asked God for the favor of a son: “And she made a vow, saying, ‘Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life. . . ‘” (Samuel 1:11). Hannah’s misery was relieved when she stood up, though the answer to her prayer was yet to be realized. The Spirit of God had endowed her with Hope.

Hope is a priceless essential quality in all our relationships, and especially in relating to our God. It was Hope that motivated Hannah to make her request, Hope in a God she knew only in stories and rituals, but His Spirit had given her Hope. Her prayer put in motion the great changes that would come to Israel when her son Samuel grew and led Israel. It was he who ushered in the Golden Age of Israel by anointing Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David.

What a powerful force the simple unexpected seed of Hope became in Hannah and in Moses and in all who respond to God’s Spirit in their lives.

Even the high priest failed to recognize the Spirit of God in a praying woman, but the glimmer of Hope had entered Hannah, and she kept the promise when her baby was born. One Hopeful, faithful woman was used by God to help prepare the advent of His own son. There would come others who would call Israel and all humankind back to a Hope that looks forward to salvation. Advent carries the spirit of Hope.

Love in Him,

Prue

“The Chambered Nautilus” is a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes which has been taught and discussed in school rooms for generations in America. In it Holmes writes of the “silent toil” of the nautilus to construct an ever growing shell, into which the creature continues to inhabit and to grow. At the very last stanza the author compares the slow growing nautilus to a human soul: “Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low—vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!”

In discussing this poem with a high school class, I was asked, “What’s the point?” If this is about a human soul, why does he drag in a chambered nautilus? Why doesn’t he just say ‘Keep growing, soul, until you die?”’

I didn’t have a good answer then, which may be why it has come back to my mind quite often. The student was questioning the purpose of poetry itself.

“The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it upon the waters,” (Psalm 24:1-2)

God and the soul are invisible. Nevertheless everything in creation displays the reality of God, and the labors of the nautilus give us a picture of our own growing out of smallness to the increasingly large and even limitless expanse of the kingdom of our creator God.

The metaphors in Holmes’ poem open our imagination to exotic life forms both real and imaginary: “This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign, sails the unshadowed main. . . In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, and coral reefs lie bare,
Where cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair”. . .

To touch the reader’s imagination, to enable us to imagine something we have never seen, is to open more and more “chambers” through which we might perceive our living God.

The poet is grateful to the nautilus for opening his mind this way: “Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, child of the wandering sea.”

Thanks for your insight, Mr. Holmes, for showing us more of God’s world at work in your soul. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Love in Him,

Prue

Ally, a friend of mine from California told this story about herself when she was a child.

Ally overheard her father tell her mother that they would “take the Pontiac up the coast to San Francisco and catch the circus there” on their summer vacation. What she thought she heard was, “We’ll take the pony act up the coast and join the circus in San Francisco.”

I asked her how long she believed that they were going to join the circus with a pony act. “At least a month,” she answered.

“Was it good news to you, or not?” I asked.

“Oh, yes! My only worry was that they might think that I knew how to train ponies, and I knew that I didn’t.”

“When you learned that you were taking a family vacation without ponies, were you disappointed?”

“No, not at all!” It was one of our best vacations. My parents, my brother and I were together and we had a great time.”

For at least a month Ally believed that her entire life would change as she and her family would work with a circus performing a pony act for a living, and when the reality became clear, her mind never skipped a beat. It was enough that she was with her family.

“Let the little children come to me . . . for the kindom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:14)

This is very strong language for Jesus to use about those who wish to come to his Father and share His life, but these words are a spiritual window into the simplicity of soul that God looks for in His own. He looks for those for whom the Person of God is the rock of their lives; Jesus also said, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.!” (Matthew21:42)

One day Ally’s dad said “Hop in the car! We’re ready to go! “Where are the ponies?” asked Ally. “What ponies?” asked her dad.

It didn’t matter. Her brother was already in the car and everything was packed. They drove up the coast stopping along the way to picnic and swim, then saw the circus in San Francisco. It was a great vacation.

Love in Him, Prue

“Your love must migrate; cast off your moorings from creatures, moor yourself to the creator. Change your love, change your fear; the only things that make good or bad lives are good or bad loves.” (St.. Augustine, sermon # 313A)

The only direct preparation given to Peter in order for him to become on apostle and a leader of apostles is the direction from the mouth of Jesus: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15), and it followed the question , “Do you love me?” asked three times. This was the only criteria that Jesus required of Peter in order for Peter to become the the apostle that he was. It is still the criteria Jesus extends to us to enter into conscious relationship with him: “Do you love me?”

Loving God is the single greatest commandment, but we seldom know what that’s really like. We love many people, places, and things in our world We cling to memories and even vain hopes, but Jesus said only, “Do you love me?”

To St. Augustine it’s clear that loving God requires a real exchange between other attachments and an invisible love. It represents a vast shift in our self-perception and in our perception of the world; and we can’t achieve in alone. It is Jesus who led Peter away and asks the question. It’s his Holy Spirit who opens our ears and eyes to God’s claim on us.

“We love because He first loved us .” (1 John 4:19) When God tells the Israelites through Moses to love Him with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, He is describing His own love for them. When Jesus quotes Moses’ commandment (Mark 12:28), he is asserting the very love that he and the Father have for their people. He desires us to share His life, a life of unfathomable love. Augustine knew this when he wrote that our love must migrate to make room for the powerful, creative love of our God.

When we walk into a room, sit down , turn on a light near our chair, and reach for the Bible, there is no one in heaven who wonders why we are there. Rather, there is joy and anticipation that we have desired to draw near to Him. Our hearts just might have begun to migrate, or maybe they are well on their way. In either case, the Holy Spirit rejoices to see us there, as He does when we seek out private time in order to pray. He is always listening, always answering.

Love in Him,

Prue

The eighth person to walk on the moon, and the first to ride on it was James Irwin in 1971. While Irwin was on the moon he experienced the presence of God in such a way that a year later he left the space program and began to preach his faith, repeating his famous statement, “Jesus walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon.”

What had happened was that he received a simple and direct answer to a prayer for help while he was trying unsuccessfully to implement an experiment on the moon’s surface. In the emptiness of space Irwin found fullness of life, and returned to earth to spread the word.

When I was preparing to move from Central New York to Spring, Texas, I was too busy to wonder if or how I would find Jesus in my new home. The day the movers arrived I had a sinking feeling that I was leaving everything familiar to me, and entering an entirely new environment.

The driver of the moving van said to me, “Spring, Texas! Is that the Spring that’s near Conroe, Texas?” When I answered “Yes”, he said, “Well, you’re going to God’s Country!” He was a native of Conroe.

I had thought that I was leaving God’s Country, but from that time on, I turned my face south, and stopped looking back.

“Do not be afraid or terrified…for the Lord your God goes before you; he will never leave you or forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6) This promise delivered by Moses to the displaced people of Israel is the very rock that supported the whole nation as it faced the Promised Land, and afterward as they struggled to form a nation and a unified people. It is echoed generations later by the prophet Jeremiah when he wrote to the exiles in Babylon: “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” (Jeremiah 29:11)

God’s plans included the gift on earth (and on the moon ) of His own son, a gift that supplied the one and only missing link in our relationship to our Father God. Jesus is the link that holds everything together between us and our Father. He lifts us out of the constraints of time, into God’s eternity. He is in fact, our Savior; and His walking our earth is indeed more important than our walking on the moon.

Love in Him,

Prue

When the weather became cooler we decided that it was safe to paint our new kitchen door which receives full sun in the afternoon. The exterior is surrounded by multicolored brick and so I matched the paint to one of the brick colors. Halfway through the painter’s job, Jack came to me and said, “Come and see the paint job. It’s pink! The door is pink!”

Indeed, the door was looking quite pink, but Roy, the painter said, “It’s a vary nice color, not exactly pink, and it matches the brick.” We all finally agreed that the door is quite handsome and not really pink, when our son-in-law stopped by and saw the door and said, “You’ve painted your door pink!” That’s all that Jack needed to hear.

This is not the first time I’ve made some noticeable mistakes using paint chips. “For now we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect will pass away.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

St. Paul was not writing about paint colors, but about a reality that is still largely screened from our vision, the reality of a living Christ in our midst and His spirit in our own spirits. This is the famous passage where Paul concludes with, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)

In spite of God’s being invisible, the people who knew Him best have left us an abundance of evidence of His presence with us and in the world. Even in charting faith, hope, and love, Paul sets up a pathway to the very heart of the son of God.

The Old Testament prophets endured rejection and misunderstanding to trace for us the character of God. Jesus himself spoke parable after parable to show the way and to lead the way to resurrection, a gift God gave to us.

“This is what the Lord says, “Stand at the crossroads and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is. Walk in it and find rest for yourselves.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

When it comes to misjudging paint chips, it’s good to know that “when perfection comes, the imperfect will pass away.” It’s even better to know that it’s still possible to “walk where the good way is,” and know that Someone has walked it before us and made a path of faith, hope, and love that lasts forever.

Love in Him,

Prue