Twisting strands of DNA

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew 1:1

Give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the King’s Son; That he may rule your people righteously and the poor with justice; That the mountains may bring prosperity to the people, and the little hills bring righteousness. He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor. He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another. He shall come down like rain upon the mown field, like showers that water the earth. In his time shall the righteous flourish; there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more. He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, and the oppressed who has no helper. He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; he shall preserve the lives of the needy. He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence, and dear shall their blood be in his sight. May his Name remain for ever and be established as long as the sun endures; may all nations bless themselves in him and call him blessed. 

Psalm 17

The genealogy of Jesus Christ certainly includes some inauspicious folk.  Judah, the son of the Deceiver Jacob, was pretty much a scumbag in every sense of the word.  And the beat goes on, restored prostitutes, sons of adultery and murder, prophet-murderers and idol-worshippers.  And yet, God was at work.  Somehow he took all of this twisted DNA and created His only begotten Son.  As a reflection of His love and goodness; certainly nothing that we deserved. Or deserve.

Thus, let us live with mercy, for we have certainly received mercy.

And to take courage.  In his time shall the righteous flourish; there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more. He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

The story is not over yet.  

shaking off the vipers

Then they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves. (We were in all 276 persons in the ship.) And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. Acts 27:36-39

Well, I’ve been reading the Acts of the Apostles for over a month now.  And I am not entirely sure that I understand what Spirit-filled lives look anymore now than when I began.  They certainly are not flawless nor omniscient.  In fact, I am reminded of a favorite Phyllis McGinley quote: The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.

But I do understand that these are true stories, methodically gathered by a precise and careful eyewitness who recorded in an orderly fashion what he heard and what he saw, even if it didn’t always seem logical or straightforward. Nothing was neat and tidy. 

And what he heard and what he saw was the Spirit moving powerfully among man, healing, speaking, and teaching them in the very hour what they ought to say.  And most of all, as promised, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sent in Jesus’ name, taught His followers; the Spirit of truth came, and as promised, guided His followers into the truth.  

It is a process of learning and growing, of stumbling and being picked up, brushing the dust away, and starting once again.  For we are but simple vessels of clay, and now we but see in a mirror, dimly,

But may I continue in the path set by Paul, as he waited trial in Rome, welcoming all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness.

So be it.

And we have that Bible in five different languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian

Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another. And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. Acts 21:34

Things certainly haven’t changed much in the past two thousand years.  There are still a bunch of folks still worried about the rules of religion, do this, don’t do that; think this, don’t think that. However, Paul says our actions will cease, our prophesying is dim, what we know will pass away. These are good things, but not what really matters.  All the neat little rules belong to the weaker brothers. We are to put aside our childish squabbling and choose what will remain: faith, hope and love.  

Lots of stories are coming out these days, about my dad, and the impact he had on so many lives.  For instance he taught Ali how to shake hands properly. But there is one that grips my momma’s heart.  

So one of my daughters, well all of my daughters, grew up on the mission field, surrounded by committed Christians of every creed and culture.  They were in church pretty much every time the doors opened.  They went to Christian schools and memorized Bible verses with the best of them.  But they were losing the story in the midst of the cluttered verbiage of premillennialism, dispensationalism, predestinationalism colored lines and charts that spoke nothing of an all powerful loving God, but mostly spoke of who was in and who was out. LIttle children drawing ism lines in the sand and fighting about things they do not understand.

One of my girls was pretty angry at this god created in the image of man.  If he was real, she was not so sure she wanted to be part of his club.  And on top of it all, she was all signed up to spend the summer with a overly cheerful short-term mission group and there was no way to get out of it all.  And she was absolutely unhappy.  And of course, one of the requirements was that every single person spend one entire hour every single morning reading the Bible.  Grumble.  And of course, her duffle bag with everything in it including her Bible had been stolen or lost or whatever.  So there she was, sitting alone in the jungle with her backpack and very crabby at Someone. Well not alone.

So she rummaged around in her backpack.  Nothing else to do. And lo and behold, her sneaky grandpa and done his little trick when she wasn’t looking.  He had slipped a handful of his ever-tucked-into-his-shirt pocket little Bibles. Just in case.  So my daughter, suckled on the word of God started flipping through the familiar verses. Verses of comfort, assurance and salvation...from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith is in Christ Jesus...for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is a gift of God: Not of works, lest any man shall boast...for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. But He sent not His son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved...

And somehow, there God met her in a fresh new way.  His way. Not our way. And I have been rereading and rereading 1 Corinthians 13.  In a fresh new way.
  

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love never fails.  

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.  For God so loved the world.  

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.

Even the silence is just fine

And Paul went to see Aquila and Priscilla, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. Acts 18:2

Companionlyness. 

Of course animals enjoy this too.  One only has to wander past any old dogpark to smile at the tail-wagging happiness leaping around in those small enclosures.  Or the rows of hunched up pigeons lining phone wires in the early morning hours.

But there is a made-in-the-image-of-God depth to the human need for relationship that stems from the three-in-oneness of the Creator.  And there are hints of it in the Chicago streets after a Blackhawks’ game. And the gracious cordiality in 5:15 a.m. crew in the second slowest lane in Hilldebrand pool. And the appreciative cooing over Everette as we watched a women’s soccer C team race back and forth in the cooling summer evening.

There is an even sweeter tie that bonds in the brotherhood.  How good and pleasant it is, a shared Spirit which kindles the creativity and joy in the bustling Desert Christian summer office, which weaves comfortably throughout the monthly gathering of oldsters who had volunteered at The Press, or even that strings tightly across the miles and years, sight unseen, but still sturdy.

Seth and Karen Barnes graduated from Wheaton College with us, the same year,, and although at first there seemed to be very little shared commonality beyond a few jokes about flying pigs and Perry Mastodon, the years have worn away the differences.  We all did small business loans in the DR where both of our first children were born, we have all adventured with people in short-term missions, and now we are walking through this stage of life together, celebrating life with the births of grandchildren (Everette beat theirs by a day) and sitting by the bedsides saying goodbye to parents crossing over. We also share the same bucketlist, and this summer Seth made the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.  

The time on the Camino was life-giving. I fell in love again with simplicity, community and grace. 

After seeing the movie The Way, I sensed that a walk on the Camino might be in my future at some point in my life. There's something about it that has pulled pilgrims like a giant magnet down its 500 mile length. At first the 5:30 wakeups and dawn departures were a struggle. But the magic of the place soon took over - we were in the Spanish countryside as the sun rose over poppy-speckled fields of grain, medieval castles in the background. 

I returned from the Camino to people I love, but a lifestyle in America that has grown too rushed and complicated.

Sometimes the Camino is not a choice.  The Coverdale family is making its Way down that path right now, as we sit piled high on the kingsized bed next to the rollaway hospital bed and watch my daddy breathe.  It is a not too rushed and complicated path, pretty much controlled by Mr. Clock who dictates when it is time to readjust his pillow position or administer a few more drops of morphine. We sort through the boxes and boxes of letters; my dad date-stamped them all and printed both our letter and his response.  Or there are carbon copies of old Underwood typewriter missives.  There are a lot of tales in those pages, mostly about a large rambling family trying to live each day to His honor and glory.  At least that was the struggle that made it into the letters to the patriarch.  There was an envelope with a scrawled warning: Life is not as bad as this letter sounds.  It’s kind of fun to hear the stories before they grew and stretched over the years.  Although often, the immediate includes even more dramatic details that were lost in the telling.  Occasionally we flip through a few hands of Spades, watch a free library movie or go for a walk.  Tom and Brandon are chopping down dead oleanders in the 116 degree weather.  It’s a pretty quiet companionlyness.

Simplicity, community and grace.  We are walking it.  

But there is another Way, another Camino, that I can choose every day.  I can turn off the clutter.  Yes, that means you, NPR radio.  I can choose meaningful conversation.  Yes, that means a prayer walk around Desert with Sue. And of course, twaddling Miss Everette Tess on one’s knee makes the hours melt.  

Of course it doesn’t hurt that it is summer vacation.  No nervously racing down Speedway trying to hit the traffic signal sweet spots.  But I certainly used to tuck one last assignment into each student’s folder at the end of the school year which required establishing a new habit following the twenty-one day rule.  Perhaps this time of imposed companionlyness will settle down deeply in my soul.  As we sift through the reminders of a life well-lived, deliberately and very much counting the cost, may I never forget as I choose my Way through each day.

So be it.

‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.

And Paul went in to the synagogue of the Jews, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” Acts 17:2-3

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (Epimenides of Crete) as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ (Aratus's poem “Phainomena”) Acts 17:22-28

“Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:11 

Aslan is on the move.

On one hand, it is absolutely crazy for me to pick up the now-tiny-thin local newspaper tossed in the front yard gravel every morning.  Huge knots start twisting in my gut as I scan through the worldwide happenings, whether it be the rainstorms in India and the droughts in northern Africa, or the corrupt powers across the spectrum: Turkey, Brazil, Iraq, Texas.  In pursuit of happiness, Phil Drysdale stopped reading this sort of stuff six years ago, and hasn’t missed a blink. http://www.phildrysdale.com/2013/06/21-practical-steps-to-greater-happiness/

On the other hand, reaching down each morning has also become a daily act of worship. The dip down is an act of submission. Be still, then, l and know that I am God.

The redemptive God is at work.  He who made every nation of mankind has determined that they should seek Him and His provision, first the Jews and then the Gentiles, And He is not far off from each one of us.

I got to the respite care place pretty early this morning.  And it was hard to imagine that daddy was squeezing my hand in greeting, although that is what I was pretending.  But, since the last sense to close down shop is that of hearing, I reached for the Bible waiting next to his bed and read psalm after psalm out loud.  Not knowing what else to do in the darkened room, silent except for his raspy breaths. 

Whatever the LORD pleases, He does,

in heaven and on earth,

in the seas and all deeps. Psalm 135:6

Amen.

Little ones to Him belong

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. Acts 16:2

Paul really meant it when he said that For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. He became all things to all men. Thus it is very important to carefully consider the strengths and weaknesses of each culture to whom he preached the gospel when reading his letters.  He was clearly not setting up universal guidelines for the Church, but demonstrating what it meant to be a servant to all. Although, it was actually Mr. Timothy who paid the uncomfortable price, to be all things to all men.

This works both ways.  First when I am speaking of Jesus to those who do not know Him it is worthy to not be distracted by the jot and tittle, the arguing over the political and philosophical minutiae.  Keep the message focused on the love of God and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus.  

And when I am speaking to my brothers and sisters in Christ, it is worthy to not be distracted by the jot and tittle, the arguing over the political and philosophical minutiae.  Keep the message focused on the love of God and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus.  

 I imagine that complexity of doctrine and wondering what people thought about him and wanting to depend on his own good works were the besetting sins that Paul battled.  The sort of things that I battle.  But Mr. O’Reilly had it right: KISS.  So simple that even a child can understand.

Jesus loves me! This I know, 

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong; 

They are weak, but He is strong.

Jesus loves me! This I know, 

As He loved so long ago, 

Taking children on His knee, 

Saying, "Let them come to Me."

Jesus loves me still today, 

Walking with me on my way, 

Wanting as a friend to give

Light and love to all who live.

Jesus loves me! He who died

Heaven's gate to open wide; 

He will wash away my sin, 

Let His little child come in.

Yes, Jesus loves me! 

Yes, Jesus loves me! 

Yes, Jesus loves me! 

The Bible tells me so.

Dear LORD may I be tender to Your Spirit, the gentle prodding to hear and speak how You hear and speak.  In my weakness, You are made strong.