Whispers of Truth

Yesterday I had another wheel class at pottery, and honestly it was a little rough. I went to class already frustrated at my puppy for not cooperating with my schedule. Then, when class began, the teacher told us to prepare twice as much clay as usual to throw in our two-hour lesson because we were going to cut our pieces open and examine them.   Initially this horrified me. If I actually managed to make a piece I liked, it would be sliced in half. Ruined. Destroyed intentionally. My fear was that I would make the prettiest piece yet (still, not much to look at based on my skill level) and would lose it. But I wanted to be better than I was, so I made my preparations, c arefully measuring out the same amount of clay for four pieces and preparing each piece by wedging it, working it to make it pliable, to get out any air that might be trapped in it that would prevent our clay from centering.  Then we sat down at the potter’s wheel, our teacher watching us carefully to see prob...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reversals The stench overpowered me as I stood looking down at the rubble of the ruins that was my life,              And I knew the truth was in them somewhere.                                                                                              All that was left of all I had known pulled me home,                                                                                     ...

WE who’ve been given so much in Christ must be careful not to cause offense in a world that neither understands nor has our freedoms about which Galatians 5:13 says we are “called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” As I read again through the gospels, I am picking up more and more on the word offense as it plays out in Jesus’ conversations, probably because I am seeing more and more that the so-called Christians in the world in which I am currently living are walking selfishly, giving offense rather than doing all they can to live at peace with everyone (Rom. 12:18). Living at peace while walking in the love of Christ and His truths allow us opportunity to extend the gospel that we do not have when we walk in selfishness.  There are many contexts in the gospels for the discussion of offense.The Pharisees and the scribes are often offended by Jesus, especially when they feel He has broken one of t...

I’ve been chewing on this since yesterday, rather cow-like (sorry, I grew up on a farm spending far too much time watching cows chew their cud). Actually, I’m not sorry if that grosses you out. because it is the best way I know to explain how I digest Scripture. When I first read it, I swallow it best I can, usually quickly as I tend to read large amounts at one time. Then, it comes back up in my thoughts and I dwell on it, chewing it up and swallowing it again with more understanding or sometimes more questions. At some point what I've read is finally digested.  I know that I sound like a broken record sometimes, but as I have read through a chronological arrangement of the Scriptures this year, things have clicked like they never have in all my years of reading and studying. Maybe it is getting to a certain passage and seeing it linked to another relative passage that in the regularly arranged canon is far removed from it, maybe it is seeing the repetition that occurs when that ...

“If teachers be removed into corners, it is better to go after  them than to be without  them.”    - Matthew Henry Dr. Richard Freeman, my children’s Auburn pediatrician when they were babies, told me often when I would ask about one of my children not liking anything I put in front of him, “He will eat when he gets hungry. Don’t worry about it.” He didn’t starve to death physically (spiritually is quite another matter) and he did eat but only what he wanted when he wanted it regardless of my battles otherwise. In my own life, I too have often felt the need to be “fed” what I wanted when I wanted it, and at the time thought I was starving to death. In fact, I still get hungry at times, but nothing like I did in my youth when I was starving. Let me explain. I grew up in a tiny rural church where truth was preached but growth was limited, where the gospel was proclaimed but lives were often stunted. What I looked at as a youth as being limited mainly due to numbers ...

Saying what you want to say to someone who might die soon is hard. Although sometimes the moment is expected, that doesn’t make it easier to make sure everything that needs to be said gets said. Often you don’t know that you won’t have another moment, and all those words remain locked inside the grief or drop to the ground near a graveside, never reaching the one you love. Sometimes, there is denial that the end is near, and that makes it impossible to speak because there is no acknowledgement that death is even approaching, the thought unbearable.  The writer of Ecclesiastes broaches death in the last chapter and speaks of the spirit returning to God, urging his audience to remember God: Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. (12:6-7, NASB)  Whether we want t...

 Webster’s 1828 defines booty like this: Spoil taken from an enemy in war; plunder; pillage. That which is seized by violence and robbery. Now, if you are like others of this century, maybe booty isn’t a familiar term, at least in this envisioning of it. If you are like others, you laughed, thinking, “Where in the world is she going with this?” Well, let me tell you how my morning started, and I think you will better understand. Earlier in the week, a nearby friend let me know that the sunflowers she and her husband planted near her farm would be blooming soon. After waiting a few days for them to open, knowing I needed to get up early and get going anyway today, I decided a sunrise picture of the flowers facing the sun would be nice (since I hadn’t been able to get away for a sunset picture). I set my alarm for early (way too early, mind you), jumped up, got dressed, grabbed my camera, and took off out the door.  My eagerness to get in the car and get to the field di...

I just spent two weeks looking at the nuances of the English language as it concerns not only literature but also the language used to create it. Shadows and nuances exist everywhere and create tension that readers try to interpret, yet it is the interpretation that becomes the rub. As I quickly remembered this past week, few of us have the same lens to look through, which results in various interpretations of the same words or event. The thing all of us have in common is that everyone looks through lenses colored by our own worlds.   Thinking about this past week made me think of Pilate. “What is truth?” he asks Jesus, clearly expecting no answer in return as he immediately turns and leaves Him (Jn. 18:38-39). This relativism follows Jesus’ clear statement that He "came into the world to bear witness to the truth” (v. 37). Pilate clearly didn’t “hear” His voice which was the truth, or if he did hear it, he resisted it because receiving it placed him in an untenable political po...

I inevitably forget that I have put the teakettle on to boil and am often quite surprised when it sounds its piercing whistle. Boiling water is one of those multi-tasking things we do, thinking that we will not fail to be reminded by the whistle of the kettle at a full roiling boil regardless of where we might be or what we might be doing when that happens. However, in my forgetting, I am often surprised if I am in the kitchen by the sound my kettle makes when the steam begins to build. The sound resembles my laptop when it begins to get too hot and the fan first kicks on, attempting to cool it. What should be unmistakable often is not. While taking online classes this week to maintain my teaching certifications, my laptop has been on all day. While I have learned how to keep the fan from kicking on for the most part, today while in the kitchen, my kettle began building steam and having forgotten it was on, I rushed from the room into the office to see if my computer was about to expl...