weighing mint, anise and cumin

 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel: To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity; Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:1-7

Hear this, all you peoples; hearken, all you who dwell in the world, you of high degree and low, rich and poor together. My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and my heart shall meditate on understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb and set forth my riddle upon the harp. Why should I be afraid in evil days, when the wickedness of those at my heels surrounds me, The wickedness of those who put their trust in their goods, and boast of their great riches? We can never ransom ourselves, or deliver to God the price of our life; For the ransom of our life is so great, that we should never have enough to pay it, Psalm 49:1-10

This is true equity: that none of us ever will ever have enough to ransom ourselves. It is through His provision, and His alone.

And wise dealing is framed by righteousness, justice and equity. And with gentle humility I am to live in the truth that my wealth and privilege and education and support system is not of my own doing, but are unmerited gifts distributed to be used for His glory and honor and service. 

LORD forgive us, the Church, for our wretched complacency and arrogance. And our faith will be known by our actions: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, mercy, temperance, faith. Against such there is no law.

And if any of us, for example, me, lacks wisdom, I should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to me.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

And my Environmental Science kiddos have started in on their last project. And one of the objectives is to demonstrate understanding of the scientific process and experimental design, of independent variables and controlled variables, of random selection of subjects, and of quantifiable results and data analysis. 

But now that we have considered the global environmental water issues and affordable energy needs of the United States, and natural resource extraction in Arizona, we have set our eyes and minds on our local community environment, Desert Christian High School. And how do we measure faith, as explored by the Freshman chapel on Wednesday? Are there any signs of actions based on beliefs? Of stored treasure and stewardship and honor among us? Do we fear God?

That is the question we will attempt to ask as an If/Then Statement and set out to measure. Not as a parsing and measuring Pharisee, but let us not be fools with bigger barns and surplus grains, rather let us seek wisdom and instruction. 

Because quite honestly, the Landlord is going to return and settle accounts. Do we really believe that it is all about that Well done, good and faithful servant? Is that what I long for?

And salt that has lost its savor is worthless. It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

His forefeet being tied together he was drowned

And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:4

I certainly do not understand the golden crowns thing, the rewards in heaven that apparently we immediately rip off of our head and with great joy throw them down at His feet because we are not worthy.

But I do understand things a little bit better in the here and now.  And I know that there is indeed a great temptation to do good works for the approval of man, so they can all think I am cool and all that.  

In many ways, the approval of man is like golden crowns.  Unwieldy and useless.  A headache, always keeping my eyes peeled trying to keep everyone happy, happy, happy with me. A desperate little hamster on a wheel to nowhere.  

What a better calling to keep my eyes fixed on Him, the author and perfecter of my faith, and absolutely not on Them.  And rather than doing the awkward dance and jiggle of The man, the boy and the donkey in Aesop’s fables trying to keep the nameless masses content, and losing it all,

I can hear the Father whispering in the quiet of my heart, “Well done, beloved child.”

running lightly on his toes

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24

Things are very quiet now, in my parents’ room.  Dad’s temperature is rising.  His blood pressure is dropping. His heart rate is rising.  He is no longer thirsty or hungry. This earthly body is shutting down, one switch at a time.  The only sound is the quiet bubbling of the oxygen machine.  And sometimes Pandora country hymns.

He has finished the course laid out before him from the beginning of time. With perseverance.  In triumph.

I cannot find it right now, but somewhere in the stacks of letters piled high paper boxes there is a typewritten letter from dad to Scott, in response to Scott’s description of his daily Bible reading.   A warning.  One can never be too careful reading those Psalms.  And dad supported this caution with a story from that morning.  

My parents were on every plea-for-money-sucker list.  They printed for over 1000 missionaries, and of course each mission organization added them to each and every database.  They had figured out that my dad methodically read each letter, opened every envelope with his dad’s metal letter opener which sat in the window sill. So the sticky web spread around and around in every direction.  The mailbox was certainly full to the brim every day.  This particular morning he received a plea from a missionary who very much needed money for a very worthy project where he was working in a very poverty-stricken corner of Africa. But alas, my parents’ checking account carried a balance of -$450 dollars, so my dad set the letter aside, and picked up his Bible for his daily quiet time.  

I do not remember the exact verse he read, but I imagine that it was along the lines of Psalm 82:3-4, Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Or it could have been Psalm 140:12, I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor. Or maybe Psalm 10:14, The unfortunate commits himself to You; You have been the helper of the orphan... O LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed.  

And the point of his typed letter to Scott was, in this date-stamped carbon copy, is that you can never be too careful in reading the Psalms because you must obey what you read.  These are David’s psalms and he was a man after God’s own heart. And by the time he had pushed back the chair from the kitchen table, there was -$500 in the Coverdale checking account.

My parents’ house is a vintage sixties tract house, plain and simple in every way.  That first night in Tucson, in November 1972, I cried myself to sleep because of this ugly house that represented everything this decision of my dad-the-rocket-scientist, to print children’s bible studies for free, meant to my very materialistic fourteen-year-old heart.  

The kitchen is classic, in the push button fold-down electric burner sort of way. Very hipster.  Yellow appliances. Sliding glass cupboards that never failed to whack my 6’ 4” dad in the head.  Sticky silverware drawers that require carefully honed jiggling.  One summer my parents decided to modernize and the counters were piled high with Home Depot flyers, graph paper sketches, and paint samples. Excitement hummed.  Finally we were going to be more like other families.

But the evening before the big project was to begin, my dad started reading one of those brochures stacked up on the microwave.  It too was full of calculations.  Like how many Bibles in Russia could be printed up and distributed for a hundred dollars.  For a thousand dollars.  For two thousand dollars.  And the Coverdales never got new kitchen counters.

So Andrea and I just got back from visiting the cousins in the South, all of dad’s kinfolk, Southern gentry in every sense of the word. Gracious, generous and well ensconced in the Belle Meade Country Club, they knew that our family, way oh way out west, was a little peculiar.  We spent many a long afternoon exchanging stories on the dock of their eleven-bedroom river cottage, laughing over the shared memories of spilled salt and jumping off the bedroom balcony into the pool.  It came out that they always thought we didn’t have a television in the house because we couldn’t afford it. Which at first I denied and begged off on more philosophical and literary reasons.  

But upon consideration, perhaps my sweet cousin were right.  In the big race, finishing well requires throwing off everything that hinders and entangles.  Televisions weigh a lot.  

Well done, good and faithful servant. Dad passed from this old body at 1:22 a.m., June 30, 2013.