Of Banjos and Lawn Mowers

 

"I'm playing the guitar!"  Elise said dramatically, to anyone who would listen.

"Interesting," I said.

Then, Elise picked up a fly swatter and began to gently strike the strings of the guitar with the flying insect killing device.

"I've never heard anyone play a guitar with a fly swatter before," Vincent commented.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"  I asked and got no answer.  In fact, the silence was fairly deafening.  "Vincent, do you know the difference between a banjo and a lawn mower?"  

"You can play music on the banjo?"  Vincent hazarded a guess.

"No," I said.  "You can't tune a banjo!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Vincent said.  "You can't tune a lawn mower."

"You can tune the engine of a lawn mower -- tune it up," I said.  "Anyway, it is more of a joke making fun of banjos than it is a statement that elevates those who play law mowers in the orchestras across our great land."

It is interesting how easy it is to identify someone else as "other."  Whether it is violinists calling violists slow or the rest of the orchestra making fun of banjo players, it is all too easy to make fun of someone else.

Paul told the Galatians "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:26,27)

The point, of course, is not that everyone is exactly the same.  Oboists, violinists, and even accordionists all have different talents and yet all are accepted with God on the basis of Jesus' atonement.

Our tendency is to exclude other groups as not worthy of the kingdom, or simply needing to clean things up before they can enter in.  Instead, God makes it clear that His grace is broad enough to reach all groups -- even musicians who play guitars with fly swatters.

The Kiddie Pool

 

"I think that little pool is the kiddie pool," Victoria said.

"Probably," Anna agreed.

"No!"  Elise said, depositing her two pennies worth of opinion into the conversation quite forcefully.  "It isn't!"

"Yes, it is," Victoria said definitively.  With the backing of her older sister, Victoria was secure in her knowledge and willing to defend it against all attackers.

"No, it isn't a kitty pool," Elise said, refusing to give an inch.  "Kitties don't swim.  Maybe big cats swim, but not kittens!"

I had to chuckle.  Communication is an issue on lots of different levels, even between an eight-year-old and her three-year-old sister.

It seems that human relationships are fraught with miscommunication.  It isn't the problem of using unknown tongues or foreign languages.  The problem is that our underlying concepts and ideas are different and even though we are using familiar words, the people around us do not understand what we are trying to say.

If only it was as simple as clarifying the difference between the words 'often' and 'orphan' as in the operetta The Pirates of Penzance.  Unfortunately, it is often a lot harder to sort out our differences.  

Hebrews 13:16 tells us not to forget to communicate.  At first, this seems like an obvious command and something that hardly needs to be stated.

The longer I live, the more I realize that communication is not a given.  We need to realize that communication is not simply me saying what my opinions and ideas are with great force.

Communication is when I shut my mouth and sit down and listen and attempt to understand what the other person is really saying.  It will help with my relationships.  It may even let me know that my older sister is saying the word 'kiddie,' and not 'kitty.'

Selfies at the Falls

 

Five young women stood ahead of me at the overlook.  One by one, they turned their backs on the waterfall and held their phones lovingly, as they attempted to capture exactly the right pout on their lips, adding their loveliness to the scene of natural beauty behind them.

Having taken their individual selfies, they crowded together to take group pictures.  Having completed these images, they moved on to video themselves.

All this time, I stood patiently, craning my neck to try to see over the young ladies to glimpse the waterfall that lay behind them.

(This sort of thing happened at every single overlook on the way down the trail.)

When I finally approached the overlook, I didn't snap a single selfie.  I did take a few photos of the waterfall.  Then, I stood, paying attention to my senses, hearing the roar of the water cascading down the rock face, feeling the throb in the board walk I was standing on, and sensing the mighty power of God in it all.

I feel like there is a generation gap here.  I simply don't connect with the concept of selfies -- I've never felt like there is any scene that is enhanced by having my smiling mug in front of it.

What concerns me is not that people snap photos of themselves in front of random locations.  Folks have done that for longer than there have been cell phones.  I am worried that the need capture the perfect selfie robs individuals of the beauty that lies before (or actually behind) them.

Creation was an amazing place before Adam and Eve showed up on the scene.  I wonder if, in spite of their lack of smart phones, these two innocents enjoyed the world in a way that modern humans seldom do.

"O taste and see that the Lord is good," the Psalmist wrote.  "Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him."  (Psalm 34:8)

I wonder if he had written that verse today, maybe he would have changed it a little bit.

Perhaps it might go something like this:  "Put down your smart phone and use your five senses for just a little while and you will truly perceive how great God is and how wonderful is His Creation."

"Blessed is the man who trusts in Him."

Planting a Bigger Garden

 

 

“I was a little late getting my garden in this year,” the older man told me.  “I guess I just didn’t get around to it when I intended, but I’ve got my plants in now.”

I’m not sure what people in urban areas talk about.  I’m guessing sports and the weather, but when you live in the country, you talk to people about gardening.  If things are dry (as they are right now), you complain about how we’ve had less rain than usual for the time of year.  When the Japanese Beatles show up, you complain about them and tell about how you’ve put out traps for them.

(I’m pretty sure these traps don’t work.  They do attract beetles, but I’m also sure they would work better if I put them in my neighbor’s yard.  Being the Christian man I am, I haven't done that.)

“How late did you get it out?”  I asked. 

“Just last week,” he said.  He pulled out his phone and showed me a few photos of an immaculate garden.

“It looks great,” I said.  “You sure do have a lot planted.  I plant something similar, but I’m feeding five children.”

“It’s just my wife and me,” he said.  “We end up giving a lot of it away.  But you know, as you get older, there’s less that you can give to others.  Raising a garden helps us stay useful.”

The verse comes to me from Acts 20:35, “…remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Many have not understood this fact.  Their lives are all about receiving gifts and blessings.  Even as they do this, they are missing the greater blessing.

The good feelings one gets from getting a gift are often fairly short in duration.  There is excitement when Christmas or a birthday comes, with all the gifts that show up, but then they quickly get put aside for the other needs of life.

On the other hand, when we are able to give, it says not only that we have enough, but that we have a heart that sees and desires to meet others needs.  We have realized that we have much and we simply want to pass it on.

More than that, the memory of the ways that we have blessed others will stick with us far down life’s road.

It requires planning to have the resources to give.  It takes effort to budget and prepare ways that we can bless others when we see their needs.

It might even be something as simple as planting and tending a garden that is bigger than our family needs, simply so that we can share something more than zucchini with those around us at harvest time.

Those who have prepared truly find that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Church Signs

 

“God accepts knee mail.”

I read the sign and smiled a little.  Church signs have always amused me.  It seems that the folks who put the sayings on them usually fall into one of three camps.

There is a group that simply put a Bible verse or hymn title on them.  These are safe, although I'm guessing people don't pay as much attention to them as to some other signs.

There is a group of sign posters that simply puts the title of the pastor’s next sermon.  Of course, these can be creative depending on the preacher.  Some preachers are prone to choosing boring titles, like “Abraham a man of God" or "Honoring Your Mother on Mother's Day."

(I'm not one to cast stones -- I am terrible at choosing titles for things I share.)

The last group are those who try to get creative with the church signs.  These are funny things that often seem as though someone whose main calling in life is to tell Dad jokes decided to get into the church sign business.

“God wants spiritual fruits not religious nuts.”

One man told me that he had charge of a church sign for a while.  “I had a book of little sayings that I used,” he said.  “You don’t want them to be too long because then people can’t read the whole sign before they drive by.  They need to make people notice the sign."

I do wonder how many people stop in for a church service because of the church sign.  My guess is not many.  Those who go to church already have a church and those who don’t attend church aren’t likely to drop in, simply because the sign in front of the church made them chuckle.

The writer of Hebrews told the people to whom he was writing, “Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other, especially as you see the day drawing near.”

We need fellowship.  We need encouragement.  We need a church family – not because of their awesome signs, but because of the light they carry with them.  Without that encouragement and support we are bound to struggle.

As one church sign writer put it so well, 

"Ch—ch.  What’s missing?  UR!”

The End of School

 

“It’s only two more weeks,” I said in my sagest voice.

“Two more weeks till what?”  Victoria asked.

“Two more weeks till the end of school,” I said.  “Will you be sad that school is over?”

Victoria didn’t have to think long on that one.  “No,” she said.  “But I am excited about our field trip.  We are going to the zoo!”

What followed then was a long discussion of the animals at the zoo.  The North Carolina Zoo apparently has at least three different kinds of bears (Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, and Polar Bears), but not, Pandas.  Apparently, it is also lacking that, most important of animals, Naked Mole Rats.

For my children, the beginning of school seems a long time ago, an event shrouded in the distant haze of the past.  If they think hard enough, they can remember things about those early days of the 2022-23 school year, but it is almost as though it was a different person taking those classes.

I would say that my children are like most children.  They enjoy certain aspects of school, but they don’t really enjoy studying and doing schoolwork. 

They would far rather sit by a pool and eat popsicles.

All good things come to an end, but so do experiences we don’t enjoy.  Psalm 30:5 says, “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

For mountain climbers, there comes a time when they reach the summit and can look back on all of the struggles that lay behind them and bask in the suns rays as they strike the peak.  The struggle was real, but those who persevered found that it didn’t last.

So too, there comes a time at the end of each school year when children can look back and see, as in a blur, a myriad of tests and quizzes, pizza parties and papers, and realize that it soon will end.  Whether or not the year was a success is based on the lessons learned and friendships nurtured and not simply on the grades earned in each class.

It is helpful for us to remember this.  The hard times seem to last forever, while the good times, just the blink of an eye.  Even when are struggling we must remember that difficult times do come to an end as well.  The question is whether we are learning the right lessons from them and developing strong relationships.  These are things that will carry us from the sorrow of the evening into the joy filled morning.

Tin Tin or Bust!

 

"I want to read Tin Tin!  I want to read Tin Tin!"  The voice of my youngest daughter was insistent in her demands for fairness.

Surprising as it might seem, her issue had nothing to do with banned books in Florida or even with her parent's restrictions on reading material.

The issue as it appeared had everything to do with the fact that her four older siblings were looking at Tin Tin "books" while she had none at hand.  I had gotten a used set of these comics by Herge for our children to look at.  I thought they seemed a little advanced for a three-year-old young lady who, at this moment, prefers Richard Scarry to nearly any other author.

"Here you go," I told Elise, handing her a copy of Tin Tin and the Cigar of the Pharaohs.  

She took it and looked curiously at the cover, then opened the book and flipped idly through it.  I could tell that she was anything but excited by the book, despite her apparent excitement a few seconds earlier to gain a copy.  

Maybe it was the wrong one.  "Do you want to look at this one?"  I asked her, offering a copy of The Secret of the Unicorn.

"OK," she said and exchanged the books.  Quite quickly she put down the book to engage in other more interesting activities, like poking her sister.

I wasn't surprised.  Tin Tin is a bit advanced for a three year old -- even one as precocious as Elise is.  Of course, what had triggered her interest was not a New York Times book review or even word of mouth from other three-year-olds she hangs out with.  No, the only thing that made her want to read one was the fact that all of her siblings were reading these books

Proverbs 13:20 says, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed."

Over and over again in the book of Proverbs, Solomon lets the reader know that they will be influenced by the people they spend time with.  If those people are wise and good, then they will tend to follow that path, while if they are prone to foolish and impulsive acts, then that is the direction they will tend towards.

So it is that we must choose our companions wisely, for they will impact the course our lives will take.  They might even encourage us to read the comics of a Belgian author from the 1930s.

Judging the Cymbals

 

"I want to play the cymbals!"  My three-year-old daughter said, in a very upset voice.  Her older brother had just confiscated the play instruments.

Elise likes to sit on the floor and crash them together at regular intervals while she sings snippets of songs that she knows.  Some of her favorite songs are Happy Birthday and There is a Balm in Gilead.  

"But you're making too much noise with them," Elliot said.  "If I give them back, will you stop banging them/"

"Just give them back, Elliot," I said.  "She'll make noise with them, but so did you at that age."

"I did not," Elliot said in an aggrieved tone of voice.  "You never gave me cymbals when I was three.  I still don't have cymbals today!"

"And for good reason," I said.  "Mom and I probably wouldn't have chosen that musical instrument as a toy of choice to give to Elise either, but someone else was kind of to give them to her for her last birthday.  I'm sure if you had had some at that age, you would have used every opportunity to make noise with them."

Elliot still wasn't convinced.  Childhood behavior is a little like snoring -- since you don't remember doing it, it's questionable if it really happened or if other people are just giving you a hard time for no reason.

I often think about Jesus' command in Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that you be not judged."  I think this passage is commonly misinterpreted.  Jesus wasn't telling us not to be discerning or wise in our relationships.  

We need to make decisions about other people and whether we should have a close relationship with them.  Some are acting in ways that won't help or actually deter us from achieving our goals.  Even as we judge other people, we need to make certain that we judge ourselves just as hard or harder than we do others in our lives.

If I don't like a behavior in someone else, am I willing to eliminate it from my own life?  Am I good at excusing my own dysfunction and even sin, while coming down hard on other people?

Often, when we begin to judge ourselves first, it will give us grace when dealing with others with similar issues.  It might even give a twelve-year-old boy patience when dealing with his three-year-old sister who wants to play toy cymbals in an annoying fashion.

The Empty Tomb

 

“Would it be OK if I pray with you both?”  I asked my older patient and his wife.  Calvin had recently been enrolled in a hospice program and I could tell that both he and his wife were uncertain as to what that meant – other than that he didn’t have long to live.

“Of course,” Calvin said.  There in the exam room, I prayed for them both – asking for peace and courage, asking most of all for Jesus’ nearness in these last few months of Calvin’s life.

I finished and there was silence in the room.  Then, Calvin began to share a little with me.  “Dr. Waldron,” he said.  “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.  I’ve had a good life and I still feel pretty good.  Most of all, I know where I’m going when I die, and I know who is waiting for me there.  The only thing that makes me sad is saying good bye to my wife, but I know that I will see her again.”

I smiled.  It was encouraging to hear the faith of someone who had served God for his whole love and continued to live in that faith, even as he faced death.

This little story came to mind as I thought of Easter and its meaning.  Something that happened a couple of millenia ago still is fresh and impactful today.

About two thousand years ago, a group of women woke up early one Sunday morning to take care of some post funeral preparations that they hadn't finished due to the Sabbath day.

As they made the short journey to the garden tomb, they conversed among each other about the horrors of the last week.  Then, one of them asked a question that almost stopped them in their tracks.  “How are we going to roll the stone away?”

They remembered the large stone that had been rolled in front of the cave that served as a tomb.  None of them were strong enough to move the stone away from the mouth of the tomb.

This slowed them, but still they continued.  Maybe there would be a gardener or someone else who would be able to help them.

At last, they came to the tomb, but to their surprise, they found the stone pushed aside and they were able to peer in to see the startling reality.  The tomb was empty!

In the thousands of years since this time, many have looked into that empty tomb.  Some see only emptiness.  Some see some sort of deception.  Those who truly know Jesus look into that space and see victory.

The tomb is empty and because of that, those who follow Jesus need have no more fear of death, because they are following the one who conquered death.

Calvin knew that he was dying and he was unafraid.  He had looked into the tomb and read its lack of an occupant as a message for him. The tomb is empty, Jesus is risen, and death is vanquished!

An App for Holiness?

 

“I’m convinced that watches that track your exercise patterns don’t really help people get fit,” I said.  “I think they just help people feel good about the level of activity they already have.”

“I don’t think so,” the man next to me said.  “I get pretty competitive with it and really get focused when I have a long exercise streak going.”

“I’m probably a little cynical because I see a lot of overweight people wearing them,” I said.  Then, I added, almost as an afterthought.  “You know, it’s too bad that there isn’t a watch that keeps track of spiritual disciplines for you.”

“That would be interesting.”

“You know, have a feature that keeps track of church attendance, Bible reading, and prayer?  It would tell you when you are on a good streak of activities that are healthy from a spiritual standpoint,” I said.

“It would probably help some people,” the other man said with a laugh.

I continued thinking about the subject.  I am sure that some people would react negatively to such a watch feature.  It would seem too much like trying to curry favor with God or earn His approval.

Maybe the exercise comparison is a good one.  We exercise in order to build muscles and in the same way, there are things that, throughout history, Christians have relied on to grow in their relationship with Jesus.

We call these things Spiritual Disciplines.

Paul told Timothy, “Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it hold promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” (I Tim. 4:7,8)  The Christian life is not something that simply happens.  There are an awful lot of flabby, out of shape Christians these days and it isn't because God is less powerful or real.

Spiritual disciplines are out of favor these days.  They seem like the sorts of things the Pharisees would do to prove the fact that they had more holiness than anyone else around.  If you are doing these things to look holy or boost your ego, then they are wasted time and effort.

I believe there is benefit to them. Strong Christians in every era have made an effort to practice them regularly – even though they never had a watch or app that encouraged them in their exercises.

Seed Potatoes

 

“It’s time!”  I announced to my children.  “I need help planting potatoes this evening.”

Anna and Victoria looked a little excited, Elliot a little less so and Vincent did not look particularly pleased.  Anna said, “I need to practice flute, so I can’t really help.”

"That’s OK,” I said, “the rest of us will take care of it.”

After supper we walked down to the garden.  It was a cool evening and I had already made rows for the seed potatoes.

“Why did you cut the potatoes in pieces?”  Elliot wondered.

“It helps us cut more potatoes from each seed potato,” I told him.  “Some of the seed potatoes are pretty big and have several eyes on them and each eye has the ability to grow into a potato plant.”

“I want one!  I want one!”  Elise was definitive that she was going to help.  Then, she proceeded to put the piece given to her right on top of another potato.

“No, Leesy,” Victoria told her.  “You need to space them out.  Like this.”

I like planting potatoes.  Smelling the fresh spring air and not battling heat make it one of the nicer things to do in the garden.  Later, when the temperatures reach the 90s, it isn’t quite as much fun to do the necessary parts of gardening.

Planting things in the soil always makes me think of what Jesus said.  “Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24)

Every gardener knows that gardening is about giving up something to gain something more.  If you plant a half pound of bean seed or 20 pounds of potatoes, you expect to get much more at the time of harvest than what was planted in the first place.       

Jesus was talking of His own sacrifice.  We are coming up on Good Friday and a time when we remember Him walking to the cross to give up His life so that we might have life. 

We were – we are -- broken people.  God in His love and wisdom looked into this world and realized that the only solution for our brokenness was for Him to come into the world and be broken for us.  Only then could we be made whole.

We too are called to follow in our Master’s footsteps.  We need to die to ourselves so that we can live for Him and bear a plentiful harvest.

Jesus became like us so that He could bring us Shalom.  We must be willing to share in His brokenness so that we too can bring healing to our little corner of the world.

             

The Biggest Blueberry!

 

I walked along the walk towards the front yard.  Behind me, I heard the sound of Aria barking, but I ignored her.  There, along the driveway I could see my blueberry bushes full to the bursting with blueberries which seemed odd, since it was a chilly February day.

I picked a handful and ate it, tasting the sweet tartness of the berries.  Then, I saw it -- a blueberry as big as an apple, shining in the morning sun.  I had never seen a blueberry that big.

I picked the blueberry and in an exact of selflessness, I ran tearing into the house.  "Elaine," I called to my wife.  "I found the biggest blueberry I have ever seen and I want you to have it!"

Elaine took the blueberry, looked at it for a second then bit into it.

My moment of glory was immediately swallowed up by the sound of her choking and spitting out the berry into the trash.  "That is awful!"  She said.

And that, dear readers, is when I woke up.  It was all a dream and not even a very good dream at that.

I am not certain how to interpret it.  Certainly, it doesn't seem to speak of years of famine and plenty, nor of future empires.  If it speaks of anything, it is probably my forlorn desire to have a few blueberries from our bushes in a year when spring came to early and all of the blooming things are bound to get frozen.

Maybe it also says something about things that are not what they seem.  There are plenty of people who look good on the outside, but aren't so good on the inside.

Jesus told the Pharisees of His day that they were like white washed graves -- freshly painted on the outside but inside, they were full of dead men's bones.  Not surprisingly, they didn't take this very well.  No one really wants to be compared to a sepulcher -- however nice looking that sepulcher might be.

Our goal must never be to only clean up the outside.  Cleaning up the outside is helpful before going on a date, but for life, it is far more important is to let Jesus purify our hearts.

This is the only way to escape the trap of hypocrisy, of trying to seem like something that we aren't really -- a little like an apple-sized, dream lemon masquerading as a beautiful blueberry.

Playing with Thomas

 

 “Dad,” Elise said.  “I want you to play Thomases with me!”

 For the uninformed, Thomas is a sentient tank engine that runs on the tracks on the island of Sodor.  While the real Thomas lives far away (I guess in the United Kingdom), we have plastic railroad tracks and AA battery operated engines that run on them. 

 Elaine was out running errands and Elise and I were manning the fort together.  “Let me finish washing these dishes,” I told her.  “Then, we can play with trains.”

 “OK, Dad,” Elise said.  “My dollies really want to play with Thomas.  Hamber [her doll Amber] says that Thomas is her favorite engine!”

 I finished washing the dishes and we went upstairs to play with trains.  This mostly consisted of me putting tracks together and Elise watching me do so.  Then, we ran various trains around the tracks.

 It didn’t exactly thrill me to watch the trains meander around the tracks.

 I was getting tired of this.  “Shall we stop playing with trains?”  I asked in a hopeful voice.

 “No!” Elise said, quite firmly.  “Hamber wants to keep playing with trains.”

 “How about if we read a book together?”

 Elise thought for a moment.  “Yes,” she said, at last.  “We can read a book together.”

 So, we went downstairs, and I began to read a variety of books.  We read “Popcorn” by Frank Asch.  We read “Jonah’s Trash… God’s Treasure” by Joel Anderson.  We read several Richard Scarry books.

 At the end of each one, I gently suggested that Elise could do some playing on her own.  Each time, she demanded that I read more and so on and on we went until finally, as my voice gave out, Elaine arrived back at home.

 The morning had passed, and the clock showed that it was time to eat lunch.  As we sat down to eat, I felt a little frustrated.  I hadn’t accomplished anything that morning.  I had just put together train tracks that would be taken apart in a few days and read books that my daughter has heard twenty times before.

 I’m sure plenty of parents feel this way.  They clean and wash clothes and do endless tasks that only need to be repeated – sometimes hours after they are completed.  Their children want to play the same thing over and over or read the same books until they have them memorized.  

 I am afraid that the biggest issue for me is simply that I am not good at discerning what is valuable.  Jesus told a story in Matthew 13 about a man who finds a pearl that he recognizes as immensely valuable and then goes out and sells everything he has to purchase that gem.

 This story was talking about the importance of giving up all to follow after Jesus.  At the same time, the important thing in the parable is that the man recognized the value of the gem.

 In much the same way, I need to recognize what is valuable in my life.  Of course, at the top of the list is my relationship with Jesus, but other things are important too.  Nurturing relationships and getting to know my children are extremely high on the list of things that are worthwhile for me to do, even if they won’t ever get me into a “Who’s who” list of important people.

 If we were a little better at recognizing what is really valuable in life, our priorities would probably shift quite a bit.  Maybe we would even come to the place of understanding that the benefit of playing with our children isn’t playing with trains or reading books.  The benefit is spending time with some of the most important people in our lives and building relationships that will last, even when their childhood is gone.