Marian and I Will Be Looking, and Hoping

   As I was reading through Matthew 11 this morning, the thought of self promotion hit me. Jesus was the exact opposite of this term. He went about the landscape doing what His Father led Him to do. It pleased some, angered some and just plain bewildered some others.

   Already we are bombarded with stuff about the political scene in this country. Already we are in the midst of the 2016 campaign for President when the 2014 mid term elections have just concluded. Candidates are raising huge amounts of money to run and get their name and message out.

   As these two separate thoughts ran through my mind, I thought of a song, but I need to set the stage.

   One Fall, in an early year of our marriage, Mayre and I went to New York and got tickets the the Broadway musical, The Music Man. Since that time it has been our favorite, and we have the 33 1/3 LP record and the DVD of the movie to prove it.

   In the show, the prim librarian, Marian, falls for the fast talking music salesman, Harold Hill. In one scene she sings about what she would like to see in a man who could become her husband. Part of the lyric from this song contains these lines:

All I want is a plain man.
All I want is a modest man.
A quiet man, a gentle man
A straightforward and honest man
To sit with me in a cottage somewhere in the state of Iowa...
And I would like him to be more interested in me
Than he's in himself and more interested in us than in me...
And if occasionally he'd ponder
What makes Shakespeare and Beethoven great.
Him I could love 'til I die.


   My mind played the contrast between the song lyrics and the political gyrations today, both ideas centered in Iowa, then and now.

   At this point in the story, the words of the song that Marian sings contains the opposite description of Harold Hill, the slick salesman, but by the end when they both can only see each other, the words seem to be gaining steam toward reality.

   Contrast these descriptive words with the current slate of possible Presidential candidates, raising money to put themselves out in front of the voters of Iowa.

   Is it too simple to pine for?

      a plain man (woman)
      a modest man
      a quiet and gentle man
      a straightforward and honest man
      more interested in us than in me (himself, herself)
      willing to ponder deeper things

   How about just a man or woman that I could be enthusiastic about supporting? How about voting for and not just against?

   It is a long time until November of 2016. Maybe such a man or woman could surface, but until then, self promotion seems to be the name of the game.

   And Marian the librarian would still be looking...

What's Next?

   We have had so much fun and spent so many hours of travel on our Courthouse project, and to realize that we have done it, sitting here with all the photographs in front of me on the computer, prompts the question "What's Next?"

   If you missed the reason for all the travel and pictures you can refresh yourself here:

http://walkinganewpath-pilgrim.blogspot.com/2015/01/four-years-five-months-five-daysmore-or.html

   All through the years of fun on this, folks have asked, "What are you going to do with all of this?" And we have asked ourselves the same question. A lot of the people who had seen some of the pictures of these courthouses told us that they should be in a book of some kind.

   That is a pretty expensive proposition, but we kept our options open.

   A few weeks back, sitting in a meeting of our Condo Association, someone brought up what Mayre and I were doing, and one of our directors, a lawyer from Atlanta, spoke up and said that he had just received a copy of a new coffee table book that I might like to look at. He brought me that book a few days ago.

   Back in January, in Clayton, the county seat of Rabun County, while visiting in the local paper's office, a man had showed me same book.

   This 350 page book has a picture of each and every courthouse in Georgia. On the facing page for each one is a short blurb about the county and its official building. It is slick and well done. The pictures are by a professional and taken when the light was soft and right. He puts a lot of my efforts to shame.

   But I like my pictures, and I have enjoyed meeting the people of the various places we have visited. I enjoyed coming into a small town, on a two lane road, and looking ahead, seeing the clock tower of the old building rising above the landscape. I looked forward to those courthouse squares and the stores spread around that big building.

   I read a blurb on the internet the other day referring to the courthouse in Sparta, Hancock County, that burned in 2014. This grand old building was referenced as "Her Majesty", and I thought that was fitting.

   So many times on our travels we felt the majesty of the buildings that were the seat of government for those counties. Those old buildings reflected the pride of the people, and they stand as memorials to the industry of its citizens. Some as still busy and some silent, but they still cast a shadow over each town. Some clocks in the old towers still have the correct time, and some are resting, but they have all marked the passing of time for people who met their schedules by those chimes.

   By my unofficial count there are 70 courthouses still functioning over 100 years old, and there are at least 19 more buildings that have served in this way that are still standing, most being used for something else.

   We came to look on those old courthouses as friends, and I'm glad we got to meet all of them.

   But the question still begs: "What's Next?"

   More courthouses in more states?

   My son asked me this question when he heard we had finished, and I responded that next time we were doing Rhode Island, they only had 5 counties, not 159.

   Any ideas?

   Perhaps a one-page book on Campbell County, GA, the one county courthouse that that new book did not have.

   Even if that county no longer exists...

An Enigmatic Trip West

      There was one simple reason to get in the car last Saturday and head out west on US Highway 82. There was an oversight in our courthouse quest that needed to be corrected, combined with a day with no plans, and there we were westward bound.

   As I was going back into my files, making sure that all 160 Georgia courthouses had the right picture with them, I came to Berrien County, noticing that the picture on the web for that courthouse was not the same as I had taken. A closer reading of the information on the site showed that I had photographed the current building correctly, but had failed to notice that there was an older one, still located on the square in Nashville. In putting the photos together for all the counties, I had purposefully tried to include for each county the oldest building still standing, even if it had been replaced as a working courthouse.

   So, we needed a shot of the 1898 courthouse in Nashville, and off we went.

   There is another town on US 82, just west of Alapaha, Enigma, that we had passed through numerous times on our way to our daughter's in Arkansas. The town is not right on the highway, but I had always wanted to get off the main road and discover that town with the strange name.

   So we dropped south a little and found Enigma. A water tower, two churches sitting right next to each other, and a small line of stores.

   The Baptist church and the Methodist church, sitting there side by side with only a small side street separating them. I sure hoped they got along.

   Have you ever zipped along a highway, seen the name of a town that is a little off that main road and wanted to investigate?

   Do it, you might find an "Enigma" waiting for you.

   And how in the world did we miss that old courthouse in Nashville? It was not like it was not outstanding in the middle of town.

Personal Questions

   All through Chapter 9 in Matthew there is healing going on:

      verse 6.."Rise, take up your bed and walk."

      verse 22.."your faith has made you well."

      verse 25.."He took her by the hand, and the girl arose."

      verse 30.."and their eyes were opened."

      verse 33.."the dumb man spoke."

      verse 35..
                     "Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness."

   I read through the chapter as I have many times before. Then I read it again, more slowly, and try to put myself in that story.

   What would I do?

   What would I believe?

   Would I press to the front or hang in the back, wondering?

   I read the stories today, and I believe that they happened as they were reported.

   So, what about today? What about my role today?

   Is my faith so weak that I pray "Thy will be done", and then just let it be?

   Is my compassion so small that I just don't care?

   I don't question God's role in healing, just my part in the story. Open my eyes to see You at work in my world. Help me to truly care...

Matthew to Hosea to Venice

   Oh, the associations that one's mind makes.

   When I sit down and read Scripture in the morning, I take up where last I left off and read slowly until I feel compelled to stop. Sometimes it is just because I have read quite a lot and think that I should go back and read more closely to see what I missed.

   Sometimes it is because a word, or phrase, or verse of just a thought that comes from this particular part catches my eye and causes my mind to dwell on it to the exclusion of the other verses around it.

   This morning it all started in Matthew 9, verse 13, where Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees who have just chastised Him for eating with sinners.

   Jesus says to them:

      "But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

   This passage uses the words of Hosea 6:6 where God is speaking to the Jews through the prophet.

      "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; "

   The word that I seemed fixated on was that of compassion or mercy. God's admonition was to avoid the ritual for ritual's sake and emulate the God who established that ritual. Be compassionate and merciful. Live the life, not just do the required sacrifice.

   There is a lot in this thought, but my mind did not seem to want to stop.

   There was a line in the episode of Downton Abbey the other night where the Dowager tells Mary that she needs to learn compassion. I thought of the situation in that drama but did not have time to go back and watch it again to pick up the exact wording. The point was there anyway.

   Then my mind thought of mercy, the very attribute of God that we all enjoy. How about that line from Shakespeare, "the quality of mercy is not strained…

   The whole quotation from The Merchant of Venice:

      The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes

The thronèd monarch better than his crown.

His scepter shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,

But mercy is above this sceptered sway.

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings.

It is an attribute to God himself.

   I like it.

   God, help me to be more compassionate and merciful.

   As You have been to me, so do I need to be to others.

   Amen

Do I Really Want To Know?

   A verse from today, Matthew 7:21:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter."

   Another verse from a previous reading day, Matthew 6:10:

"Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven."
   How many times have I asked God over the years?

      What is Your will for me in this situation that I find myself in?

   How many times have I not asked?

   How many times did I not want to know?

   How many times was my agenda more important?

   Jesus is pretty straight forward when He says that the one who does God's will is bound for the Kingdom of Heaven, but those others who don't care to know, well…

   Where we live, and because of the lack of any four lane roads, our main arteries have what are called eyebrows. These allow the traffic to go around the right side of a vehicle trying to make a left turn. The purpose is to keep traffic moving.

   Here is God's will, the straight road ahead, but when the traffic ahead wants to turn, and I do not want to stop, I breeze around on the right side and continue.

   "It was just a short detour, God, and look, now I'm back on the straight road again. Isn't that good?"

   Perhaps a bad example, but what if I was supposed to stop for a minute on my way?

   Whoops

 

Confluence…a Verse and a Magazine

   I thought of the word "confluence" this morning. There was this verse from Matthew 7:

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"

   And there was this magazine sitting on my couch that I had just finished reading.

   There was a confluence of the two in my mind as I thought about how they seemed to go together.

   The dictionary online defines this word as:

   Confluence: the flowing together of two or more rivers or streams. So I'm not entirely sure that I am using it in the right way, but I want to change the word rivers and substitute the world of ideas or thoughts.

   When I read the verse, I thought about the "good gifts" that my parents had given me. Not the material kind, but more in the line of character, of a work ethic, honesty, integrity. Even in times I did not live up to all they stood for, these gifts were in the back of my mind, challenging and correcting and guiding my life.

   One of these "good gifts" was their value of education. They were not rich by any means, but they managed to send all three of us boys to a private school in our hometown.

   Now here comes the "confluence"…

   I began McCallie School in the 8th grade. My parents had wanted me to begin in the 7th, but I held out for another year with my friends in our public junior high. I knew no one in the new school, and they wore uniforms. Two things against a change for me.

   Having a good education available and taking full advantage of it were two different things. McCallie had good teachers, hard classes, lots of homework. The opportunity was there.

   But it also had mandatory athletics every afternoon, an Honor Code that was alive, and a motto that meant something.

   "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever"

   For the longest I wondered from where in the Bible this had come, but one day discovered that its source was the Westminster Confession. It had been the school's motto since it was founded in 1905 by two Presbyterian brothers, and it underscored their belief that quality education, built on the foundation of Christian faith and practice, could turn boys into men of character and honor.

   I'm glad that my parents gave me the good gift of the education this school provided. I'm glad that my two sons could go there and thrive, and I'm glad that the school still holds to the motto, and that the mantra of:

   continues in front of students and faculty today.

   And I'm also glad the my daughter could go to a girl's school founded by Grace McCallie in 1906, and she too thrived in that great sister school.

   We are indeed blessed by a previous generation of men and women who believed and acted on the "good gifts" principle.

   MCallie has a new headmaster, the reason for the magazine pictured above, A. Lee Burns, a 1987 graduate of the school. Lee's father "Bud" Burns, graduated in the class behind me in 1955, and was the lead sergeant in the first platoon, Company A, which I got to command in the McCallie regiment.

   I only speak from my own experience. I know that there are many places of learning all over that do a great job, many teachers that teach with excellence, and many students that take advantage of the opportunity available to them. The "good gifts" principle is alive all over.

   God Has Blessed

   Amen and Amen

 

Walking on a Winter Wednesday, down by the Water

   Too often, after writing down in this blog what I have felt to be important in my life, I forget it quickly, and, at the end of the day, realize that, although I have been led to think on and write about something, I have failed to live it.

   How is that for a sentence with a bunch of commas in it?

   Yesterday, I was challenged to do my best in all the circumstances I found, to consciously think, when choices came up, of the best thing I could do.

   I don't know how many choices I overlooked, but I did manage to consider the alternatives some of the time. One such choice was how to spend my morning.

   It was a pretty day, sunny but chilly. One thing that my wife likes to do is to go down into the Village area and walk by the ocean, so, instead of just doing stuff around the house, I took her there.

   The paths are level and a good place for her to walk. The crowds are not there in the winter, and there would be time to dawdle along and talk to people along the way. The sun and wind were also factors.

   I also had on my agenda for yesterday to write a letter to a boy in Kenya that we sponsor through the Compassion program, so I took my camera for some shots of our Island to send to him.

   What we saw mostly were people.

   People watching the ocean.

   People feeding the seagulls.

   People with dogs. They said he was a Doodle dog.

   People rockin', restin', readin' on the porch by the Library.

   And we stopped to chat with strangers on vacation. The first couple was from near Roanoke, VA, close to where we lived for 3 years a few years back. When we asked a second couple, a few benches farther down on the path, they also said they were from near Roanoke. They were as surprised as we were when we told them about the first couple we just had talked to, no doubt feeling that they were the only ones from that area on the Island that particular day. Small world.

   Then it was a couple from Allentown, PA and another from Philadelphia.

   The walk was good. The weather was not windy, but sunny and getting warmer. The people were nice.

   It was a good decision to make on this day, and I was glad that I had thought of a better thing to do on a Winter Wednesday.

   It was the right thing to do. No regrets.

 

Dangerous Thinking...

   As I reread Matthew chapter 6 this morning, I thought of the 9 valentines that yesterday I had stuffed into envelopes to go in the mailbox today. (7 grandchildren and 2 foster grands)

   Here were 9 young lives that needed to be pointed to the path for good living, as Matthew describes it. Like these:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them"

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth"

“So do not worry about tomorrow" (or be anxious)

   What if they could grasp these early in their lives and pattern their days in this way? Two of these kids are in college, and the rest are on the ladder toward that. Their lives are in front of them.

      "Do the best you can with what you have where you are"

   There is that old past, present, future thing, again. If we live the best we can each day, we don't have to keep looking over our shoulder at the past, nor worrying about living with our regrets in the future.

   I got up in the quiet this morning and had an hour before anyone else stirred. Time to think on all these things as I read, but soon things changed, and there were things to do.

   While in the midst of coffee and oatmeal, newspaper and conversation, plans and memories, I found myself being anxious about what I could write that might sum up what was percolating through my brain.

   Then the thought: What I'm doing right now is important and even that is worth doing to the best of my ability. What if I did everything, I mean everything, the best I could, could I look with satisfaction on my efforts, all my efforts?

   So I come back and think, then write it down, and then I wonder...

   Could I live one whole day that way?

   What would it look like to live one whole day the best I could?

   Not yesterday, not tomorrow….Today

I Want Honesty in Prayer

   Yesterday, the pastor giving the sermon in our church talked from Matthew 6, the verses involved in the Lord's Prayer: (NASB)

“Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
 ‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
 ‘Give us this day [e]our daily bread.
 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]

   This morning, as a part of my reading in Matthew, I came to the same verses, and, I thought, there must be something here that I need to focus my attention on.

   Now I have to confess that the act of praying this prayer, out loud in a worship service, is hard for me. It is not because I do not believe, it is the feeling of rote that stops my voice from participating.

   I honestly try not to put motives in other's lives, but the voices that I hear, seem to be devoid of passion and more in the tone of "this is what we do at this time in our service". I wonder to myself how much of prayer to God is involved and how much of knowing the right words to say.

   So I am often silent when this prayer is a part of the ritual of a service.

   I read the prayer in Matthew and Luke, and I try to see the meaning in each of the words and phrases. It is a powerful praise and petition to God, with meaning that transcends my thinking.

   And when I pray these words, I want to have time to dwell on the meaning. It is just not something I can do while I try to repeat them along with others and being led from the front. It does become rote for me, and I don't feel that I honor God in that way.

   That is just me.

   I want my silence, not to be a condemning of other's prayers, but an honest effort to be in tune with God and what He wants to show me as I pray.

   So, if I am standing next to you one day, and I do not voice the words when the congregation leader asks us to speak this prayer, it is all about my inability, and nothing about anyone else.

   And, I do believe...

 

Business As Usual

   Just another day.

   Up, reading, walking, breakfast, checking email, and so it was this morning.

   Then there was this one particular email, asking for prayer for Christians, specific individuals, who were in the throes of persecution.

   I remembered a verse from Matthew 5 in my readings earlier, verse 10:

   “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

   And just as I am about to delete the email, I notice the sender's name.

   iCommitToPray.

   I had felt burdened by the stories of people around the world who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus, and I signed up to pray for them.

   Here I was about to toss this email in the trash without even reading it, just like another piece of spam. Some commitment!

   So I read, and I prayed, and I felt ashamed that I did not care much about them at all, and what they were going through.

 

A teenage girl, Naigaga Saidha, was beaten and disowned by her Muslim family after she confessed her faith in Christ during an evangelism event in the remote village of Bwite. Naigaga has recovered from her injuries and is now living in another village with a family of Christian converts from Islam who care for other disowned children.

   And I wondered if this day would be "just another day", or "business as usual" for them, and what would that entail?

I Can Do It Myself...

   One of the books I mentioned yesterday,

   This guy is hiking the Appalachain Trail, a 2,000 plus mile walkway from the mountains of North Georgia to the mountains of Maine, and he is doing it alone. Like a turtle, he carries what he needs with him. He crosses into civilization occasionally, but, except for this resupply, he's got it all in his backpack.

   He is his own cook, his own doctor and his own psychiatrist on the long walk, and he has a "can do" attitude. He meets others on the trail, and in the towns along the way, but they are only bit actors, not part of any supporting cast.

   He does not say it in the book, but to me he seems like one of my kids who would say when I wanted to help get something done, "I can do it myself".

   I was reading the above book before I went to sleep last night, and this morning, something in my reading made me think of that "can do" attitude.

   I was in Matthew 5, in the Beatitudes section, and I paused at verse 3.

   "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

   There are 7 "Blessed"s in these next verses, and, even as each verse begins with "Blessed are..", all the other 6 after verse 3, end the sentence with "they shall", denoting a future event.

   Verse 3 ends with "their's is…", denoting present tense.

   Who are the "poor in spirit", and why is their blessed state in the here and now?

   From the reading of several commentaries on these verses, I understand that it is not lack of money or material possessions Jesus is talking about. He is referring to those who realize a poverty of spiritual things. They understand that they cannot do it all themselves.

   "To be poor in spirit is to have a humble opinion of ourselves; to be sensible that we are sinners, and have no righteousness of our own; to be willing to be saved only by the rich grace and mercy of God; to be willing to be where God places us, to bear what he lays on us, to go where he bids us, and to die when he commands; to be willing to be in his hands, and to feel that we deserve no favor from him."

   They are satisfied to be where God has placed them.

   I want to live that way. I don't want to just do it my way, I want to do it the right way.

   Not having read to the end of the book, but yet not seeing any reference to God in the narrative, I don't know the spiritual condition of the hiker, but I can realize that God is on the AT, regardless of whether or not he is seen.

   And this hiker is not doing it by himself.

   Prevenient Grace: "this is the grace that “goes before”—that grace which precedes human action and reflects God’s heart for his creation."

   Hopefully we will all find that we definitely cannot do it by ourselves.

Words On A Page

   I like to read. My kids know this, and many times over the years, I have gotten books as presents. They are always appreciated, and I read them in the knowledge that someone thought I would enjoy them and picked them out for that reason.

   Other people mention books that they have read, and they think that I would like them too.

   Books are more that just "words on a page", they can be windows into the soul, of the writer and of the reader.

   I like books that are personal in nature; ones that show the hearts of the characters portrayed, be they fictional or real. Ones that ask the question, "is that me?" or "how would I fit in here?"

   Here is what I have read thus far in the new year:

   Visions and Voices, a pictorial look into the one-room schoolhouses in Montana, with photographs and testimonies of the ones who taught there and those that were taught.

   In the Kingdom of Ice, a book about Arctic exploration in the late 1800s, the struggles to reach the North Pole by boat.

   AWOL on the A.T., a man's personal story of hiking the 2,172 mile Appalachain Trail.

   All of the above engage me on a personal level, asking me those questions about my life, what I might do in those situations, how I might respond to those environments. They are more than just "words on a page".

   I read other things also. There is a blog by a girl that I once taught in school for a few months. She has a way with words that I like, as she writes of her personal experiences in a big city up north. Even though she lives a couple of generations below me on the age spectrum, her honest thoughts and struggles speak to me., and I try to see myself and ask, "what would I do?"

   God's Story, as recorded in the Book of Matthew, has been my reading in the mornings over this last month, as I ask the question "what would Jesus have me do in my life right now?" and "where do I fit in Life's story?".

   Readings for pleasure? Sure

   Readings for instruction? Of course

   Readings of Inspiration? Naturally

   Words on a Page? More than that,

             Glimpses into my own life and soul.

   And I am grateful to those who can write well, and to God, who can put me in His everlasting Story, and help me to see it.

   Psalm 31:15, a Psalm of David

   "My times are in Your hand;"

   And I'm glad

A Forgotten Figure in a Manger Scene

   I was reading in Matthew 2 this morning and ran across this phrase:

 "an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "

   That got me to thinking about a man, one who was critical to the Christmas Story, but did not gather much press after that one event in time…Joseph, the husband of Mary, the leader of that family unit that included the Savior, Jesus Christ.

   Here is a man, a strong man, a compassionate man, a listening man, a man God spoke to through his angel, not once but several times over those years.

   As I think about his life, what little we know of it, I am struck by what he brought to the story. The life of Jesus was in his hands, and he responded.

   He is maybe forgotten for the most part, but with his concern for Mary, for the child, and the importance of his obedience to the voice of God through the angel, he looms large in the story.

   In the manger scene we used at Christmas, I can't even find him, but I know he is there, and I will try to put him in the proper perspective next year.

   I'm glad his name jumped out at me from those few verses. He is a role model for all us fathers.