Friendship and Hamsters

 

“What are you researching, Victoria?”  I asked my daughter.

“Nothing, really,” she answered me, even as she pulled up a webpage entitled, “5 Tips on how to encourage your hamster to love and trust you.”  As she scrolled down, numerous linked articles showed up – most of which had to do with dogs – “What happens when your dog eats sweet potatoes” and “3 foods your dog needs to avoid!”

“Doesn’t Pip like you?”  I asked her.

“No – or rather, I’m not sure, but he bit me and even though it didn’t hurt, it makes me think he doesn’t like me,” Victoria answered in a rush.

“Maybe you need my new perfume that makes you smell like a hamster,” I said.  “It could be really helpful.”

“Dad!”  Victoria was not amused.

Aly started laughing.  “That would be funny to be sitting in church, and you start sniffing and ask yourself, ‘I wonder who it is that smells like a hamster?’”

It is an amusing thought, but Victoria takes her relationship with Pip pretty seriously – more seriously than her relationship with her siblings.  Getting him to like her and let her hold him is near the top of the list of things she wants to do this summer.

“A man who has friends must himself be friendly…” (Proverbs 18:24) The idea is that if we want people with whom we can share life and connect deeply, we must be willing to make some effort. 

I often hear people complain that some group isn’t friendly or doesn’t reach out the way they would like.  I am sure there is some truth to this, but there is also a sense in which we need to be willing to start a conversation, listen to someone else, and try to get to know them.

Even when it is outside our comfort zone, we can take a first step to friendship.

Just like it is not enough simply to smell like a hamster, so too, it is not enough to wish for connection with others.  As we make ourselves into good friends, we will find these connections grow and our circles expand as a result.

Extra Hot

 

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  It was also eighty degrees, and someone was wearing his winter coat on the beach.  Something clearly wasn’t right.

“Why do you still have on your coat?”  I asked my younger son.

“I’m just trying to enjoy the beach,” he said.  “I’d enjoy it a lot more if random people stopped asking me about my coat.”

“It just seemed a little warm for a coat,” I said.  “We could have it surgically removed if that would be helpful.”

“It wouldn’t be helpful,” Elliot said.  “I’m not hot all and it’s a nice coat.”

“Maybe we need to get him checked to see if he has a thyroid condition,” Elaine put in.  “He does seem to be cold all of the time.”

I looked around but couldn’t spy a minute-clinic site to get blood drawn anywhere on this particular stretch of sand.  “Maybe we can wait till we get back home,” I said.  “Although I’m guessing his thyroid level is OK.  I think he decided to wear his coat and so taking it off would be admitting he made a mistake.  It’s better to bake than to admit error.”

It is hard to live life unable to make mistakes.  Of course, no one can actually live a completely mistake-free existence, but some people act as they do.  They seldom admit to any errors on their part – people around them are to blame for misunderstandings.  It might even turn out that though others thought that a mistake was made, there really wasn’t one.

“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…” (Proverbs 24:16a) When the righteous man makes mistakes, he gets up, dusts himself off, and confesses his failure, learning from them to do better. 

On the other hand, it is those who never make mistakes who repeat them most.

Murder He Wrote

 

“Dad,” Elliot asked me the other evening.  “If someone was shot through the neck, could you tell what gun had shot them just from the size of the bullet hole if you didn’t have the bullet?”

“Probably not,” I said.  “Although depending on how close to their neck the gun was held, there would certainly be blood and DNA on the gun.”

“Sure,” Elliot agreed, “but they didn’t know about DNA in the 1920s in England.”

“This is a weird conversation,” I said.  “Why are you wanting to know all this stuff?  Are you time traveling back to try to murder someone because murder is murder, even if a time machine is involved.”

“I’m writing a detective story,” Elliot said.  “It is set in the 1920s in England and it involves the detective’s cousin being shot in the neck and the detective coming to solve the crime.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.  “I thought you were supposed to write about things that you know about.  You don’t know anything about England, particularly not during the 1920s – nor much about murders, for that matter.  Why not set your story in a small Mennonite school in the 2020s?”

(Even as I said this, I realized it wasn’t totally true.  An awful lot of authors write stories about dragons and magic and not a single one of them that I have found owns a pet dragon or can do magic beyond using an iPhone.)

“That would be boring,” my younger son replied.  “Beyond which, I’ve read enough Agatha Christie stories that I think I know how to write this sort of thing.  My only problem is that my chapters are too short – most of them are only a page and a half long, but I figure after I do my research, I can expand them.”

“Well, I’ll enjoy telling people that I knew Elliot Waldron, back before he was a famous crime novelist,” I said.

“It’s amazing to me that I thought of this perfect crime.  I think it will surprise most people,” Elliot told me seriously.  “I figure I’ll have the book done by the end of the summer.”

“And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” (Ecclesiastes 12:12)

If Solomon thought that there were a lot of books written in his day, I wonder what he would have thought about the 21^st century.  In doing a tiny bit of research, it seems as though (if you include self-published books) there are some 2 million new books written every year, just in the United States.

That means that there are more people writing books than are actually reading them!

I have read enough of these books to know that many of them have no particular reason for their existence.  I suppose it takes some level of self-importance to believe that you have an important story tell or light to shed on some subject that has been shrouded in mystery until the present.

I suppose more important than the writing of numerous books is the reading of THE book – God’s message to humans.  More than that, the goal in reading Scripture is not simply to read or even memorize the words, but to apply them to our lives.

An awful lot of people who claim to follow Christ stalk through their lives, hurting their friends and family with their words and actions. 

Too many of us believe that we have much to say and some of us even sit down and cobble together books or blogs as a result.  But only one book truly sheds light on the path we are to take.  All other books fall short – even a crime novel written by a 15-year-old about someone shot through the neck in England in the 1920s.

Jots and Tittles

 

 “Come on everyone,” Elaine called out from the kitchen, where she was finishing preparing our supper meal.  “It’s time to eat people!”

There was stunned silence.  “Really, Honey?”  I asked.  “Have we turned to cannibalism?  I know groceries are expensive, but still…”

“I thought this was chicken,” Aly said, looking at the dish sitting on the table.

“There’s a comma in there that you apparently didn’t catch,” Elaine said – I thought a bit defensively.  “It’s time to eat, People.  You hear it now?”

It reminded me of the old joke where a Panda walked into a restaurant and ordered a yogurt parfait.  Upon finishing his delectable repast, he pulled out a gun and fired two shots into the ceiling and left the eating establishment.

Another patron turned to the man beside him and asked, “Why did he do that?”

“Look in this book,” the other man said, showing him a wildlife manual.  Under the entry for Panda, was simply written this entry.  “Black and white mammal native to China.  Eats, shoots and leaves.”

Of course, commas make all of the difference in some sentences.  It can make the difference between understanding that a panda eats both bamboo shoots and leaves and believing that pandas are prone to firing off weapons and fleeing the scene of the crime afterward.

Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18) This verse came in the context of the Sermon on the Mount – a section of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus repeatedly strengthened the commands given in the Law of Moses, rather than dispensing with them.

Jots and tittles are the King James’ way of translating yods and daleths – tiny little letters and strokes that help give meaning to ancient Hebrew writing.  The point seems to have been that only the parts of the law that Jesus fulfilled would be dispensed with – the rest would continue on.

Jesus went through talking about murder and telling his listeners that not only was murder wrong, but getting angry and holding offenses against your brother was dangerous.  Adultery was not simply the act of unfaithfulness in marriage, but included looking lustfully on someone else.

I am afraid that many people in the 21^st century believe that Jesus came to get rid of the law – commas and all, but the reality is He came to give us the power to live above the law.  He came to bring us the ability to live in holiness and to understand what it means to please God.

For whether we are talking about cannibalism, or just coming to the table to eat chicken, every part of the sentence is important.  How much more the inspired Word of God that was given to the Biblical authors – yods, daleths, commas, and all.

A Loving Epistle

 

“Dad, I want you to mail this letter to Tonya,” Elise told me, presenting me with an envelope with the name TONYA scrawled across the front.  A stamp had been placed beside the name.  “I put the stamp on so they would make sure to deliver the letter on time.”

“But you’ll see Tonya on Sunday,” I said.  “The letter would hardly get to her before you see her next.”

The letter wasn’t sealed and so I peaked at the note inside.  I felt like an Egyptologist trying to decode a laundry list from the corner of King Tut’s tomb.  Elise is not into spacing her words apart, nor does she use punctuation and sometimes she doesn’t use vowels. 

I read such sentences as: “Plsritsun.” (Please write soon?) and “Allriteweneverican,” (I’ll write whenever I can.) 

I was stumped for a while by the phrase, “Lukonbak.”  But eventually I discovered that it was merely an indication that Elise’s epistle continued on the other side of the paper.

“Dad, I won’t see Tonya for ever so long and she needs to know that I still love her,” Elise said.

“I think she’ll be OK,” I said.

“You know,” Elise told me wisely.  “You can love people, but you can’t love food.  You can only like food.  A lot of people don’t know that, and they’ll say things like ‘I love ice cream,” but you can’t really love ice cream at all.”

My six-year-old daughter may not write the most legible letters or understand the rules of punctuation, but she understands some things about love that are important.  Love is something deeper than the like you have for a particular object or food and more than that, the object of love needs to be told of that love regularly.

Many people say that they love God.  I wonder what they mean by that.  Do they love Him the same way they love ice cream or a special kind of pickles?  Do they mean that they love the fact that they can bring lists of wants and needs to Him to fulfill – like some sort of cosmic grandfather?

The Bible tells us that the best way to know if someone loves God is if they show love to the people around them.  “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” (I John 4:20,21)

The two are tightly related.  Loving God and loving our brother and yet, so many people try to separate them, believing that they can love God without demonstrating any sort of love for the people they live and work with.

At the end of the day, it is more important to show love than to use spaces between words or even to capitalize words correctly.  

"ForonlythosewhoshowlovetootherstrulylovetheirHeavenlyFather."

Toxic Floats!

 

“Mom got us root beer, for root beer floats,” Victoria told me, as I walked in the door from a long day at work.  “Elise and I both had one this afternoon.”

“Sounds tasty,” I said.

“It’s kind of weird though,” Victoria said.  “It isn’t the root beer that floats, it’s the ice cream.  Shouldn’t they be called ice cream floats?”

“That’s a good point,” I said.  I proceeded to look it up and found that in Mexico, it is called an “helado flotante,” meaning floating ice cream.  Clearly, Spanish speakers (at least in Mexico), know what they are doing when they describe things as complex as ice cream floating in soda.

“Can I have another one for supper?”  Elise asked, ready to skip whatever the main course was and jump to the good stuff.

“Now, Elise,” Anna put in quickly.  “Root beer is soda and soda isn’t healthy for you!”

“Why not?”  Elise asked, not believing that something that tasted so good was not also good for you.

“Because sodas are acidic,” Anna said firmly.  “And acid won’t let your stomach work right.”

“What sorts of things does your stomach work at?”  I asked curiously.  Mine never seems to do much other than complain if I eat Ghost Pepper Jack Cheese.

“Oh, digest things and stuff like that,” Anna said breezily.  I was disappointed, I had hoped I could use my stomach to make money, but it seemed like stomachs don’t do that sort of work.

“I thought your stomach had acid in it already,” Victoria put in.  “I don’t know why it would be bothered if you drank root beer, even if it is acidic.”

With this conversation behind us, we sat down to an excellent supper.  Afterward, Victoria and Elise watched as Anna took the two liter bottle of root beer out of the fridge and poured herself a cup of the “very unhealthy” liquid.  

“I thought that root beer wasn’t healthy,” Elise said.

“It isn’t,” Anna said.  “That’s why I’m only taking this much.”  She indicated a point slightly over halfway up her cup.

“That’s way more than I got,” Elise said firmly.  “I guess I’m more healthy than you!  I don’t drink NEAR as much root beer as you do Anna!”

Consistency is something that is really hard to achieve.  Parents often want their children to do what they tell them to do, rather than following the parents’ example.  Even the Pharisees in Jesus’ day struggled with this.  Despite them seeming like paragons of following the law, Jesus said of them, “So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.”

I think about this when it comes to instructing my children because they are awfully quick to pick up on areas where my actions simply do not line up with the things I’m telling them.  If I am asking them to love other people and speak kindly, but they hear me speaking critically of others or see me acting in an uncaring way, they will see the inconsistency.

For, if root beer is really as unhealthy as all that, big sisters would avoid it completely – not simply fill their glass with the toxic fluid “up to here.”

Planning a Graduation

 

“Dad,” Elise said seriously.  “I don’t want to graduate with boys!”

“I don’t think you have much choice, Elise,” I said.  “It’s an odd fact, but roughly half the earth’s population are boys.”

“It’s true,” Aly put in.  “Boys are weird, but some of them are nice.”

“Do you want Elliot to come to your graduation?”  I asked. 

“Elliot CAN NOT come to my graduation!”  Elise said firmly.  “He is a boy and worse than that, I don’t like him.  He can just stay home.”

“What about me?”  I asked.  “Can I come?”

Elise considered this a little longer than she did for her brother.  “No, you can’t come either,” she said at last.  “You’re my dad and you’re a boy too and I don’t want any boys at my graduation.”

It was such a weird conversation to be having because of course, Elise is six years old and coming down to the tail end of first grade.  She has eleven more years to grow and develop and get more accustomed to boys and even develop a better relationship with her older brother (if that is possible).  The idea of her planning her high school graduation now, just a month before the end of her first grade year is a bit silly.

Of course, she doesn’t think it is silly.  She sees it as important – she needs to set ground rules ahead of time so that everything goes off perfectly when the big day comes.

Paul told the Philippians, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.  Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6,7 NLT)

There are so many verses in the Bible about giving up worry and anxiety and trusting God with our future.  I suppose there are a lot of reasons for that, but chief among them is that most of us feel like our lives are uncontrolled chaos.  We have a deep desire to be in control and to order the things around us and somehow the people in our lives resist our attempts at ordering things.

The blessing is that God’s peace will guard our hearts and mind and give us calmness as we face the future – even if that future includes a graduation ceremony, 11 years from now, in which an unwanted brother and dad show up.

Infamous

 

“Would any of you all like to be famous?”  I asked my gathered family.

Six-year-old Elise was the first to put in her 2 and ½ cents.  “I would NOT want to be famous,” she said firmly.  “Because when you are famous, people follow you around and take pictures of you when you don’t want them to and that would be SO annoying.”

“That would be a downside to fame,” I agreed.  “As it is, you only have to deal with your mom and dad taking pictures of you.”

“I would like to be inspicuous,” Anna said.

“Inspicuous?”  I asked.  This was a word with which I was unfamiliar.

“You know – kind of the opposite of conspicuous, but not exactly the opposite – inspicuous.”

“You mean inconspicuous,” Elliot said.  “That’s a word and inspicuous isn’t.”

“No, I don’t think I mean inconspicuous – just inspicuous.  Anyway, I don’t really want to be famous,” Anna said, thoughtfully.  “I’d rather be infamous – like you, Dad.”

“Infamous like me?”  I asked.  “I hadn’t realized I was infamous – notorious, maybe, but certainly not infamous.”

“It’s all of those botched surgeries,” Elliot put in helpfully. 

“What do you think infamous means?”  Elaine asked.

“Oh, it means famous, but only to a select group of people.  So, like Dad is famous in Brookneal and to some Mennonites, but he isn’t famous all across the country.  That's what infamous means.”

“Oh, no, Anna,” I said.  “Infamy has to do with fame for bad reasons.  So, for instance, if I took to the high seas as a pirate, I would be infamous as the first Mennonite Physician Pirate, but hopefully, I’m not infamous now.”

I sometimes think about fame.  It seems as though there are many people who desire a bit of fame and in the internet age, it is possible to get attention from others.  We call some of these people “influencers” and can follow their trials and travails on their You Tube channels.

Of course, most of these people aren’t famous for any particularly great reason.  They haven’t fixed world hunger or brought peace to the Middle East – they simply make content that other people are willing to click on and even sometimes “like and subscribe.”

The Bible makes it clear that our goal should not be to gain fame or attention for ourselves.  Jesus said, “Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.” (John 7:18)  If we are representing Jesus, we will attempt to honor Him with the things we say and share – even if we get little or no attention for ourselves.

At the end of the day, our goal should not be to be famous – or infamous – or even “inspicuous.”  Our goal should be to bring to glory to God.  As His fame grows and His name is well known, the world can be changed for good in a way that a million internet influencers never could.

An Odd Aroma

 

“What’s that smell?”  My beautiful wife said, as I opened the door to our humble abode.

“I hope that’s not Elliot’s pie,” I said.  “It smells as though he was cremating it, not just baking it.”

The aroma of something burning wafted out into the garage.  As we walked into the kitchen, Elliot pounced before we had a chance to say anything.  “Look at my pumpkin pie!”  He said.  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

It did look OK – I had expected to see something resembling a volcanic crater based on the atmosphere in the kitchen, but although the edges were a little dark, it certainly didn’t explain the smell.  “What happened?”  I asked.

“What do you mean?”  Elliot said blankly.  “I baked a pie, that’s all.”

There was general laughter from the other children sitting in the kitchen.

“You didn’t burn anything?  Then why does it smell the way it does?  I hope this isn’t your new cologne.”

“You smell something?”  Elliot said and then.  “Well, I sort of spilled some of the pumpkin on the bottom of the oven when I was putting it in.  I was surprised at how much smoke it made.  It kind of set of all the smoke detectors and I had to turn off the oven and clean out the bottom before I could bake the pie.”

“That certainly explains it,” I said.  “I wonder how long it will take before the atmosphere clears in here?”

Someone told me once about a restaurant on the moon – they have great food, but no atmosphere.  On the other hand, we had great food and too much atmosphere.

One of the things I have realized is that our lives leave behind an aroma.  The things we do, the words we say, and even the ways in which we say them touch people and leave behind an impression long after we leave the room.

“Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.” (II Corinthians 2:15 NLT)

In the Old Testament times, the Jewish people saw the sacrifices they made as pleasing God.  Even then, God told them that He was more pleased with obedience, mercy, and justice than with sacrifices. 

In the New Testament era, we no longer offer sacrifices and yet, there is still an aroma that goes up based on our words and actions.  Hopefully it is a Christ-like fragrance that others perceive and not the thick, harsh smell of burned pumpkin on the bottom of an oven that wafts up to the throne of grace.

Crazy Weather

 

"This weather is crazy!"  My patient warmed to his topic, just as quickly as the temperatures had cooled from the previous weekend.  "We got up to eighty degrees last week and then it snowed on Friday!  It was 24 degrees at my place Tuesday morning!  It's no wonder everyone is getting sick."

"Actually," I said (relishing my ability to bring science to bear on the situation), "Weather has very little to do with infections.  I think most respiratory infections are caused by either bacteria or viruses."

My patient wasn't buying what I was selling.  "Then why do so many more people get sick in the winter than in the summer?"  He shot back.  "I've had six close relatives die in the last couple of years and all but one of them passed in the winter months.  It's right scary when December rolls around again -- you just don't know who you'll lose, but it's bound to be someone."

"I mostly blame it on school," I said.  "I think schools are the perfect environment to spread viruses around -- after all, you have a bunch of kids packed together in a room for multiple hours a day.  More than that, pre-teen children are terrible at washing hands and covering their coughs."

"Maybe so, but none of my family members who died was either a student or schoolteacher.  That didn't stop them from getting sick."

Later on, I googled the question and discovered that there are multiple reasons people get sick more frequently in the winter months.  Of course, in cold weather, people do spend more time in close quarters with others, but more than that, in cold, dry weather, water droplets from a sneeze or cough fly farther than in warm, humid air.  Even more interesting is that when the inside of our nose gets cold, the little cilia inside don't work as effectively to sweep out mucus and viruses.  When the janitor cells in our noses go on strike, the sinuses get sick.

Of course, it is understandable that people blame the weather for various illnesses.  After all, there is little more certain in old literature than that a character who has spent time in a cold, damp location will begin to cough and depending on the author's whims, eventually find themselves knocking on the pearly gates.

It strikes me that unless we understand the reason behind the things that happen to us, we can do little to prevent them from recurring in the future.  As long as people believed that malaria and yellow fever were transmitted by inhaling bad air, people would continue to perish from them, but when they figured out that was actually mosquito borne, they could begin to eliminate it.

Jesus said, "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45)

When we say something unkind or unchristian in some way, our tendency is to believe that we need better filters.  "That's not really me," we say, explaining away the slip of the tongue with excuses like fatigue and stress.

The reality is that what comes out of our mouths is quite definitely an indication of what is in our hearts.  The fact that we filter most of the negative things out, doesn't change that at all.  Jesus doesn't want us to change or improve our filters; He wants us to change our hearts.  Only then will we be able to speak without fear of what we share.

Once we understand the source of the problem, we can do something about it, whether we are talking about loose speech or respiratory illnesses.  For fixing the weather in Virginia is unlikely to eliminate viruses, even if warmer weather would put a smile on the face of the dying man who can't stop coughing.

Holy Food?

 

“I hear you all are having a donut sale next weekend,” the lady said to me.  “I always look forward to that – Mennonite donuts are SO good!”

“That’s our plan,” I said.  “We’ll be selling hole-y food at the gym as long as it lasts.”

“Holy food?”  The lady seemed surprised.  “Will your bishop be blessing the donuts before you sell them?  That would be a big attraction.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said.  “I just meant that donuts have holes in them.”

“Oh,” the lady seemed disappointed.  “Well, I’m sure with a doctor helping with them they will be especially healthy.”

I wasn’t too sure about that.  “They’ll be tasty,” I said, uncertainly.  “I’m not too sure about how much nutritional value they will have.”

The woman went on to talk about the quality of homemade food.  Even if Mennonite donuts weren’t vitamin fortified, they were still “a cut above.”

I have noticed that many people look for reasons to do unhealthy things and at the same time they find plenty of reasons why they don’t do the healthy things they know they should be doing.  They buy holy donuts from the Mennonites but completely skip the vigorous exercise that all of us should be doing to get into shape.

The Prophet Jeremiah had one of the darkest assessments of the human condition that I know of.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) 

The world around us tell us to “Follow your heart.” But is it wisdom to follow your heart?  Jeremiah would say “no.”  Following your heart will simply get you into trouble.

At a minimum, you need to have a basic understanding of what your heart desires and why it wants those things, because most of us are amazingly good at coming up with reasons why we should pursue things that are not good for us.

We call this “reason creation” rationalization.  Rather than asking the question about whether or not we can come up with reasons why we should do the thing we want to do, maybe it would be better to ask whether this activity will help us achieve our long-term goals.

If buying donuts doesn’t help us get healthy or draw closer to Jesus, then maybe we should leave them alone.  This, even if the donuts are holy, almost-healthy, Mennonite delicacies from Gladys, Virginia.

A Lack of Power

 

 

“There’s something wrong,” Elaine said.  “The food is cold!”

We had just gotten home from church and strangely enough, no aromas of cooking food wafted out when we opened the door into our house.  Only our dog Cosmo greeted us as we entered, and we certainly weren’t planning to eat him.

“Is the crock pot on?”  I asked.  It has happened before that the crock pot didn’t get turned on.  For some reason, crock pots aren’t very effective when the switch is turned to ‘off.’

“Yes, it’s on,” Elaine said.

My mind immediately jumped to the idea that our crock pot was broken, although in my experience, they are fairly indestructible devices.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Navy Seals start to carry crockpots with them on missions – at least if they were just a little smaller.

“Oh, I see,” Elaine said.  “It wasn’t plugged in.  Well, I guess that explains it.”

I gave a sigh of relief.  At least our crockpot wasn’t broken.  Although, it begs the question – with all of the cordless items on the market, why haven’t crockpots gone wireless?

There are cordless vacuum sweepers, drills, saws, and even toasters, but cordless crockpots are few and far between.  Beyond which, since our kitchen is actually replete with electrical outlets – and I have been paying our power bill regularly – having the sort of crock pot you plug in really isn’t a problem.

Fortunately, we are a household that not only boasts a crock pot, but we also own an Instant Pot, and the contents of the crock pot were transferred to this second device and after it was plugged in, cooking commenced. 

Power is one of those things that is fairly important these days.  In the days of the pioneers, power had mostly to do with the number of horses or oxen you owned, with which you could break up the land or haul heavy loads.  Most of the menial chores that we do with electricity were done by manual labor.

I can turn a lever on my sink, and an electric well pump fills a pressure tank which pushes water out of the sink.  A couple of hundred years ago, I would have had to lower a bucket into a well and raise the water one bucket at a time.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7)

The authors of the New Testament wrote frequently about power.  They didn’t know about electrical power or diesel motors.  They had never heard of the Hoover Dam and would have had no concept of the 4 billion Kilowatt-hours of energy it generates every year.  What they knew was that Jesus had come to earth to give them power and they could see evidence of that power in their own lives and in the lives of others in their church community.

That power still exists today.  The problem is not that God’s power is less or that His hand is shortened, but simply that people don’t take advantage of that power. 

Like an unplugged crock pot sitting on a counter, they struggle through life, wondering why it is so hard.  Fears overwhelm them and self-control eludes them when victory lies just a short distance away.

For God has offered us power and love, if we only plug in to His will for our lives.

Winter Olympics

“I think Vincent and Elliot would be great at curling!”  My eldest daughter declared.  For some reason, she is really into the Winter Olympics and while four years transpire during which the great sport of curling is not mentioned in our home, February of 2026 brought a deluge of mentions of things like curling, slalom, and speed skating.

“I don’t think so,” Vincent said.  “I am not very good with ice skates on.  I’d fall over pretty fast.”

“Maybe he’d do better at the skeleton,” I suggested.

“Definitely not,” Vincent said.  “80 miles per hour is too fast for me.”

“You don’t wear ice skates for curling,” Anna persisted.  “They just wear some kind of shoe with a slippery sole that lets them slide across the ice.  You’d be fine, Vincent.”

“I don’t think so,” Vincent said in a grumbly sort of voice.

“But you and Elliot are used to sweeping,” Anna said, warming to her subject.  “With all the practice you’ve gotten sweeping at home and at school, you’d be awesome at guiding the stones!  It would be so awesome – Vincent and Elliot Waldron, Gold Medal winners for Curling!”

While curling may not be as scary as skiing down a steep slope 70 miles per hour, it seems as though there is major skill involved with it.  Simply being able to create a dirty pile with a kitchen broom isn’t the same as sliding in front of a stone, moving across the ice and direct it using special broom.  Maybe these athletes are also good at cleaning up after a meal, but I’m guessing the skills don’t actually translate that well.

For some reason, my mind was drawn to a situation that the Apostle Paul and Barnabas experienced on their first missionary journey.  Acts 13 tells us that part way through this journey, John Mark, who was supposed to be helping them left and headed for home.

No one knows why he left.  Maybe he was home sick.  Maybe the challenges of the journey and the threat of persecution were too much for him.  The reason doesn’t really matter, John Mark let them down.

So it was, when Barnabas and Paul were thinking about their next trip, Barnabas suggested bringing John Mark with them again and Paul turned him down. 

“And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.  And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus; And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God…”

We know that over time, John Mark developed maturity and towards the end of his life, Paul asked that John Mark would accompany Timothy, to visit him in prison.  Earlier on, John Mark needed someone like Barnabas in his life – a man who would give him opportunity to grow and a second chance to serve.

Most of all, he needed someone who would understand that he wasn’t fully formed, but that he was still developing the skills needed to share the gospel and minister to other’s needs. 

Each of us needs a Barnabas or two in our lives to encourage us and give us opportunities, both to succeed and fail.  More than that, we need to be willing to be a Barnabas for others around us.  Simply expecting that because your brothers can sweep the floor will let them medal in the Winter Olympics is only bound for failure – even if it produces some interesting dinner conversation along the way.