Shut Up Already!

Andrew Klavan nails it.

No.  No, I don't think I will.

Here Is Love

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. ~3 John 1:4

Our male heir was home briefly from college this weekend ... as in, just long enough to do a load of laundry, help his dad fix the lawnmower, eat a sandwich, suffer a breakup, and sing in church Sunday morning.

Whew. These kids travel at the speed of light.

As I clack away here, he is in Savannah, Georgia, for a week-long training deployment.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers, poured incessant from above

(He's a reservist with the Tennessee Air National Guard. Or TANG ... not the kind you drink.)

But because it was such a blessing -- how I wish you could have heard it -- I want to share with you the words to the song he sang in church yesterday. Here Is Love is also known as the "love song" of the great Welsh revival of 1904-1905.

Wondrous love, unbounded mercy! Vast as oceans in their flood: Jesus, Prince of Life, is dying -- Life for us is in His blood. Oh! What heart can e're forget Him? Who can cease His praise to sing? Wondrous love! Forever cherished, While the Heavens with music ring.

On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide; Through the floodgates of God's mercy, Flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love, like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above, And Heaven's peace and perfect justice, Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting, Love Thee, ever all my days; Let me seek Thy kingdom only, And my life be to Thy praise; Thou alone shall be my glory, Nothing in the world I see. Thou has cleansed and sanctified me; Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me; By Thy Spirit through Thy Word; And Thy grace my need is meeting, As I trust in Thee, my Lord. Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring, Thy great love and power on me, Without measure, full and boundless, Drawing out my heart to Thee.

This YouTube is unfortunately un-embeddable, but if you care to, click here to hear a beautiful performance of this hymn at a Welsh church a year or so ago. It's not very long; they only sing the first two verses. The beginning is sung in Welsh but some English comes later! The soloist is very pretty and the melody is ... well, you just have to listen.

If you think of it, please pray for Andrew. He looks slightly crazed in this picture, but I can assure you, he is only slightly crazed. LOL! Just kidding.

Happy Monday, everyone!

She's Only One, But She Is One

Baby Allissa turns one on Tax Day.  Born on a Tuesday just like her mother, she seems in a hurry to grow up just as her mother was. 

They say time flies, but I read somewhere that time doesn't fly, y'all.  Time stays put; we go.

And before I go, I'm going to North Carolina to be with my granddaughters at the birthday party.  I'm making homemade barbecue.  I wish all of you could be there to celebrate Allissa with us!

Meantime, have a happy Tax Day!  Participate in a T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) party if you can!

He, A Rose

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.  ~Song of Solomon 2:1

When I was a little girl I was not taken to church. I learned exactly two things about organized religion as a child: one, we were not Catholic; and two, we were Baptists. My mother imparted this knowledge to me in a course of events completely unrelated to any stripe of faith-based instruction.

The non-Catholic part I learned when, as a grade-schooler, I picked out a St. Christopher medal on a neck chain for my mother's Christmas present.

She had a taste for fine jewelry and I was even then a person of refinement.

I can still smell the hot vinegar.

But the cashier at our local K-Mart was brought up short when my mother, spying the trinket in my hand along with a sweaty dollar, told her we wouldn't be buying it.

"We're not Catholic," she explained in a low voice.

The cashier stashed my wholly inappropriate gift choice under the counter as she and my mother shared a conspiratorial chuckle at my expense.

That must have spurred me, ever the inquisitive one, to demand of my mother as we walked home exactly what we were, if not Catholic (a word which meant nothing to me).

"We're Baptists," she said.

But if you'd been witness to the lack of activity around our house at any time church services were being held in the community, I am certain you would have been justified in questioning the depth of our piety.

To put it plainly, Sunday mornings were for sleeping in, eating a late breakfast, and reading the funnies in living color. Later in the day you might sortie with your family, ending up at the beach or a drive-in movie.

The occasional Easter Sunday would, however, find our strange little clan bedecked in homemade finery -- to include hats of plastic straw and shiny white vinyl shoes with matching purses for my sister and me -- and ensconced for an uneasy hour in the back row of some packed-out local sanctuary or other.

I remember nothing about these visits to places of worship because they are memorable only for their marked infrequency.

My sister and I always received Easter candy in abundance, however. Our parents were generous and downright ceremonious when it came to the presentation and distribution of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans -- indeed, Easter candy of every variation -- the sugar blitz mitigated somewhat by the heavy, brightly-colored real eggs nestled in the shreds of synthetic "grass" that lined our baskets.

I can still smell the hot vinegar and see the little stemmed plastic loop one used to fish the stained eggs out of the steaming, garishly-hued liquid that had transformed them from plain white ovals into psychedelic freaks of nature.

(Nothing like a good hardboiled egg -- any shade of shell -- eaten standing by the sink, studded with grains of salt from a puddle in your palm.)

But at the age of fourteen, by God's grace, I learned the truth about Easter. That was when I recognized my need for a Savior and was told that my need had been met long before I existed, in the person of Jesus Christ. I accepted His finished work on the cross as being sufficient for my salvation, and I'm so glad I did.

From that day until this I have never doubted that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, and that He lives in a real, actual Heaven with God, His Father, and that someday I will live there too.

I was privileged to marry a man who had come to the Lord at the age of twenty-two, and who, like me, wanted to establish a Christian home and rear children who would be taught the true meaning of Easter.

In the spring of 1998 our eldest daughter, Stephanie, had an opportunity to visit London and the Holy Land. Then a senior in high school, she had professed her faith in Christ as a six-year-old. When she returned home around Easter time, we all gathered in the family room to listen to her stories and receive the gifts she had brought us from abroad.

We were all in tears by then.

We hadn't been seated long when Stephanie began telling us about the day the group visited the "garden tomb" -- a borrowed sepulchre where the body of Jesus Christ had been placed after the crucifixion:

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. ~Matthew 27:57-60

As she described the ancient place, I began to play the skeptic. "How can anyone be sure that's the very tomb where Jesus's body lay for three days before His resurrection?" I wanted to know.

After all, it was a long time ago. And had they made an appeal to her tender, sympathetic heart, wanting her to buy something? Just outside the place they identify as the borrowed tomb, they will try to sell you a splinter, claiming the very cross of Jesus as its provenance.

Religion is big business.

Stephanie, patiently and with the aplomb of a seasoned traveler, explained that even though it occurred more than two thousand years ago, Bible scholars and historians are fairly certain that they have correctly identified the very tomb made available by Joseph of Arimathaea for securing the remains of Jesus.

I must have continued to register doubt, because suddenly my daughter burst into tears.

"Mom," she said. "All I can say is that when you stand there, you just know that it really is the place."

We were all in tears by then. I handed Stephanie a Kleenex and she wept into it. I still have that long-dry tissue, stored away amongst other mementoes of her trip.

Today Stephanie is a pastor's wife and the mother of two little girls who will always know the true meaning of Easter. Although her tears have evaporated, her words -- and the conviction with which she spoke them -- still resonate with me.

I never eat chocolate bunnies on Easter anymore -- although I am not averse to consuming a raft of marshmallow peeps at one sitting -- but I always go to church, just like every other Sunday of the year. And yes, I'm a Baptist. I learned that on the way home from K-mart one day, my sweaty unspent dollar burning a hole in my pocket.

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ~Matthew 28:1-6

Jesus said ... I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ~John 11:25-26

Happy Easter!

America Arrogant?

Speak for yourself, Mr. President.

The United States of America is, always has been, and ever will be, the greatest nation on the face of planet Earth.

For an American to go anywhere -- be it his own backyard or the farthest-flung corner of the globe -- and claim differently, is nothing short of treason.

America is exceptional in every way, and not even your unabashed, inexplicable,and completely misplaced disloyalty can change that fact.

No other nation has ever come close to her greatness, and no other nation ever will.

America remains a beacon of hope and freedom for the world.

America is the nation to whom, thoughout her history, other nations have looked for help when they have been in trouble.

America sends its young men and women to protect -- and often die for -- the freedoms of not only its own citizens, but of citizens of countries far from its own shores.

Those of us left behind work and pray and contribute to a free society that has been the model for all others since its conception.

When natural disasters strike around the globe, Americans lead the charge in providing assistance both material and spiritual.

Just because you are not proud of the country that gave you -- a nobody from nowhere -- a world-class education, the means by which to accumulate great personal wealth, and the opportunity to become its commander in chief, and just because you seem eager to strip us of our freedoms and dismantle our precious country plank by plank, doesn't mean that we who pay your salary are duty-bound to agree with you.

Perhaps you should reconsider your statements in light of the fact that you at this moment are traveling in the very lap of prestige, luxury, and security, accompanied by an entourage of 500 people -- one of whom was brought along for the sole purpose of playing basketball with you after hours, and eight of whom are there only to attend to your wife's personal needs.

All on the taxpayer's dime.

You should be bragging on the America that has made this type of lifestyle possible for you, because you enjoy it on the backs of those whose beloved homeland you have seen fit to publicly shame.

With all her many problems -- not the least of which, at the present moment, IS you -- I submit to you with all due respect that America is anything BUT arrogant. Your condemnation does not befit your office and is indeed an embarrassment to those whose interests you claim to represent.

In spite of you and your liberal ilk who would orchestrate her decline in order to enslave her people and gain more power for themselves, America remains a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world.

Contrary to popular opinion -- including, apparently, yours -- its citizens are industrious, intelligent, intuitive, genuine, funny, adventurous, compassionate, clever, determined, generous, brave, talented, innovative, patriotic, savvy, selfless, and loyal.

So speak for yourself, Mr. President. You do not speak for me or mine. Speak ONLY for yourself.