It’s no secret one of my favorite places to hang out after a rehearsal, performance, church or to write and work (while eating and drinking) is SCAMPY’S.  For those of you not from around Anderson, Indiana, SCAMPY’S is a local, family-owned “pizza/pub” with a rich and generous history.  It’s a local “watering hole” and a great place to eat, drink, meet people and have a great time…owned and operated by some pretty cool people.

I’m there quite a bit; an average of twice a week during the theatre season, and sometimes more.  When my schedule is fuller and I need to combine work and dinner – and it’s late in the afternoon or late at night – I’ll retreat there by myself.  I love the staff, they’re like family now, and I always see some other patron I know.  Then they leave me to my work (the amount of sermons written there in 13 years is astounding). 

In the back of the room is a JUKEBOX.  Now, I say JUKEBOX, and that is “technically” what it is, but JUKEBOXES have changed even since I was a kid.  This one doesn’t require you to stand in front of it and push buttons, unless you want to.  It doesn’t even require change – you can use APPLE PAY or your credit card (handy).  But the awesome thing is the JUKEBOX APP for my iPHONE which connects to the JUKEBOX.  I put money in the APP, select the music (from a vast catalogue of virtually every style) and the JUKEBOX plays.

So, imagine this scenario: there I am, either alone, or with an unsuspecting group, and I start to choose some music which then mysteriously plays throughout the room, and no one knows (usually) who has chosen the songs.

The night I got the APP on my phone, and started to use it for the first time, I forgot there was SCAMPY’S (the bar on the other side) and SCAMPY’S ANNEX (where I was enjoying pizza while trying to figure out the JUKEBOX APP – two different places).  I chose my first, inaugural, song to be played on the new-fangled JUKEBOX – “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN” which I thought was appropriate, both as a patron and minister.

It didn’t play.

Since it was just a few cents for each play, I chose it again.  It didn’t play.

I looked at the APP, the APP said it was playing…I bought yet another “play” of it before I figured out what you already have – I chose the wrong JUKEBOX.  And while I was sitting in the silence of the ANNEX, the bar patrons next door were enjoying three rounds of back-to-back “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN”! 

Now, I’m sure that was more than irritating for them, though I didn’t go over and check.  To this day I’m not sure anyone understands what happened.

That experience, however, started me on a journey to “alter the mood of my fellow patrons in the ANNEX” with music.  I’ve walked in where various families, groups or couples are quietly talking over their meals when all of the sudden an energetic song that I’ve stealthily placed in the JUKEBOX queue fills the room.  It’s amazing to see the power of music to change the mood and sound of a room.  People become filled with energy: the sounds are not just louder (probably trying to be heard over the music) but also filled with laughter and a little more energy.

 I’m not making this up, the power of music to alter the essence of a place and person is like seeing the change when a light it turned on in darkness, or a smile appears on a face, or someone you love walks into the room.

While I’ve had fun choosing music at SCAMPY’S, the Spirit takes advantage of that time, once again, to teach.  Though music is a more powerful example, I have seen how a small thing makes big changes.  How a kind word shifts an entire day for someone, how a smile to a stranger changes the way they walk as they pass, and how a “thank you” to a server is the “icing on the cake” for someone who may feel transparent to the many customers they have served that day.

Jesus is right.  The connecting to Him is our connection to each other, and visa versa.  When we “do unto others” we “do unto Him”.  The person who makes others laugh, who lifts others up with their words, who smiles, who thanks…who gives, is a person who connects us with each other, and connects us with God.

Our spiritual ancestors understood that God’s commands (mitzvot) were centered around creating connections with each other and forming or maintaining community, with the understanding that God is loved when we love each other.

During these next two “weeks of thanks” take the time to “turn on the music” in someone’s life.  It doesn’t take a special skill, you don’t need the JUKEBOX APP on your phone.  All you need to do is remember what it was like when Jesus Himself, or through someone else, turned the music on for you – and do that: smile, thank, embrace, give, and love.

 “Money spent on a JUKEBOX is never a wasted investment.”
Famous Quotes by RICK VALE

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING – turn on the JUKEBOX.

I’m a history buff…I really enjoy “historic trivia”, as you know: interesting but useless information.  Of course, I can’t seem to remember Birthdays, Anniversaries, my license plate number or important stuff like that…but let me read about Queen Victoria’s cousin’s dog and I’ll remember that till the day I die!

Guess what happened today in 1860?  Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. We at Central are kind of connected to this event.  There is a newspaper, in our collection of historic items stored upstairs, on which the front page not only lists our “charter” but also has a schedule of the LINCOLN/DOUGLAS DEBATES in neighboring Illinois, in case anyone wanted to travel by train to get there.

For all the greatness the patina of time has put on Lincoln, I have some southern ancestors who considered Lincoln the “anti-christ”, vilifying him for using scripture to condone aggression…as if that hadn’t been done before.  I’m not sure I agree with that side of my family, however,

God’s name gets used to justify acts that are Godly or not.

Poor God.  I think He can take care of Himself, but truly…He gets blamed for some really stupidly human things.

The scripture was used to argue that all planets revolved around the earth (including the sun) and anyone who taught differently was a heretic.

The scripture was used to argue that the earth was flat, that Jews were evil, that anyone of dark skin didn’t have a soul, that slavery was ordained by God, that women were not allowed to lead or speak in church or anywhere else…and we all know what the scripture is used to argue against these days.

Poor God.

In all of the effort to justify our own prejudices and keep the world around us from growing, from expanding, from changing…we use God as our excuse, and translate the Bible into our own “language”…we use His name in vain as we stamp it on all of our agendas with their conditions and clauses that keep people we don’t like at arms’ length.  It’s been happening for centuries and we still do it…even in church.

Part of the problem is that most of us have a picture of God that is too small.  We have a box that we put Him in, and He won’t be kept in a box.  When He behaves beyond the definition that we have kept in our hearts, we question whether that is really Him.  Is His grace really that large?  Is His Kingdom really that expansive?  Is His love really that unconditional?  Is His reality and His universe really that infinite?

Praise God.

The answer, of course, is to give God back His good name.  That’s what PRAISE is, it is “telling Him who He is”, not because HE needs to know, but because WE need to be reminded.  PRAISE gives Him back His good name.  PRAISE is to be done in front of other people.  PRAISE Him, in front of the people, for the fact that He is NOT the one who says:

“Grace is only afforded to those who go to church.”

“Love is only given to those who follow the rules.”

“Your heart might be in the right place, but if you make the wrong decision or make one too many mistakes I won’t love you anymore.”

No, He’s the one who says, “My grace is sufficient.”  “God so loved THE WORLD…” and “man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart.” He is the God who does not “label” us, but “loves” us.

The scripture is just one witness to God.  There are many others: the congregation, the Spirit, nature…for example.  And all of those witnesses, combined, still don’t encompass the entirety of God’s being.  So who are WE to label HIM?  Who are WE to decide who He loves, or what He blesses?

Hopefully we, at Central, have gotten beyond the place where we use the scripture to do anything but find a foundation, a beginning of a wonderful friendship with the One who created and preserves us, who fills us with His own breath and shows us (when we are able to see) His Kingdom on earth, as we follow Him.  Let us never misuse His words to argue our own agenda because we have chosen to be the judge of our fellow travelers on earth.  Let us never assume that God fits into our little box of godliness.  Let us always seek for the wonderful, the surprising, and the untamed God that truly allows us to learn for ourselves that the earth is NOT flat, that it is part of a wonderful universal dance that HE put in place, and that there is more to this life than we will ever know until we sit down to dinner in the age to come.

Let us celebrate the God who doesn’t own a “label-maker”, but loves us because of who HE is, not who WE are.

I tell this story regularly, so I apologize but I love the story.  I tell it again now because we need to tell our stories and pass them down.  The things we know, the family history we have, needs to be told.  I am also now one of the few who know THIS particular story.  This coming Sunday we honor all of the saints, and so, here is a “saint” I want to honor.

The tiny little girl was called “Lizzy”, her full name was “Elizabeth”.  She belonged to a mother and father who, for reasons unknown, found themselves in terrible debt.  In the days when Lizzy was born debts were settled privately, out of court, in ways that many of us today would find unenlightened and repulsive.  It was, however the way things were done then.  Some debts were paid through servitude.  As it was, little Lizzy was given up by her parents as payment to a debt owed to another family.  She was, before she was one-year-old, a bond-slave; given to serve out her life as a servant to a family that was not her own so the debt of her parents could be paid.

The Moore family, who received Lizzy, were (thankfully) gracious and kind, beneficent and practical.  Lizzy grew up on hard farm work, but so did the Moore children.  All indications were that she was treated well, not poorly, and that the family loved her.  However, she wasn’t the same as the children she was raised beside…she was an outsider.  The Moores were not her parents, and in fact no more was ever heard of her biological parents after they gave Lizzy to the Moore family.  She was, at that point not the member of any family.

But Lizzy discovered someone who DID think she belonged…if to no one else, to him and his heart.  He fell in love with the teenaged girl who worked for the Moore family and lived in their home.  Before she came of age, he asked for her hand in marriage.

And here we are at the crossroads of this story, for Mr. Moore needed to agree upon the marriage…not as Lizzy’s father, but as her owner.  If he didn’t believe the original debt had been sufficiently paid, he would not let her go.  Up to this point, the date of her 18th birthday, she had no life but what she lived vicariously through the family who raised her.  She didn’t even have a last name, she was only Elizabeth Idella; “Lizzy”.  She had no property, owned nothing…but here was a chance.

The beautiful part of the story is that the Moores agreed to the marriage, finding the boy agreeable and a suitable match.  On Lizzy’s 18th birthday the Moore family gave her 3 wonderful gifts: a bedroom suite of furniture, her freedom, and their name…a home, wings, and a name.  No longer would she be known as the “girl who worked for the Moores”, she left for her wedding as Elizabeth Idella…Moore.

I love this story for two reasons.

FIRST: it is a true story which reflects what happens to any of us who accept the gift of life and redemption of debt.  We are all in debt, but God sets us free, He gives us a home to take care of…and then He gives us His name.  He does this not because of who WE are but because of who HE is.  He gives to us because it is in His nature to give, to love, to set free and to embrace us.  How can we walk away from that and not be thankful every day?

SECOND: I love this story is because Lizzy and her husband had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth (so to carry the name of her mother, the bond-slave set free).  Mary Elizabeth married and had a daughter named, Routh Elizabeth…also named after the bond-slave grandmother.  Routh Elizabeth also married.  She and her husband Troy had a daughter and they named her Margery Elizabeth, once again never forgetting the story of the now great-grand-mother who was a bond-slave set free.  And, as you’ve probably guessed, or remembered from my telling of this story before, Margery Elizabeth married a young soldier named, Tom…and they had a son named Rick.

I am thankful today for my great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Idella Moore…who lived her childhood out as a slave, paying a debt she herself did not incur, and was given a home, wings and a name…so that I could have the same.  I am also thankful that even though we’ve never met, she has taught be about our Heavenly Father…who also give me A Home, Wings & A Name…He paid my debt and so, I belong, I am free, and I am His.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”
REVELATION 2:17

She was as colorful a person as you would like to meet; my first piano teacher, Mrs. Beardsley.  With a smoker’s cough, low voice, and a pink living room (I especially remember the AMAZING aluminum Christmas tree with pink ornaments and rotating color wheel…this was the ’60’s) and a love for music, piano and her students that was unsurpassed.

When I first began taking lessons, the summer of my Kindergarten year, she would sit at a chair beside the piano bench.  Her manner never frightened or intimidated me, as she exhibited a free-spirited kind of love toward me and all her students in her manner.  Although I’m probably still suffering the effects of second-hand smoke, and scarred by the memory of her colorful pictures of motorcycle riding through California, and tales of she and her husband when they were young (which was, I have to admit, difficult to imagine…seeing the arthritically-crippled fingers and joints as I sat beside her at the piano) what has followed me through the years is her love, and the type of wisdom that a good teacher passes on; wisdom that goes deeper than the specifics of the lesson itself.

Although there are many stories and illustrations of care, teaching, music and love that I could tell (and have told), for the sake of today I am remembering the times I was learning specific pieces that she herself had played.  There was one particular Mozart piano piece that I was learning.  There was a certain passage which was exceptionally difficult, it seemed that week after week it never got any better.  Mrs. Beardsley, frustrated by her crooked, arthritic fingers and inability to adequately show me the fingering and technique used to play the passage, rose from her rose-pink Lazy-Boy (where she had moved in later years) and made her way to a hall closet where there were piles and piles of music, HER music books, from HER lessons as a child.  All the music was catalogued by composer and she quickly found “our” piece and brought it over.  She sat now beside me and placed her old copy of the piece at the piano.  Written in two hands, one; the fine pencil marks of HER teacher, and one the more childish writing of HER, as a child pianist, were notes, remarks, fingerings and exercises used for this piece.

And then she spoke the lesson I speak to you: “After playing this for so long, I’d forgotten how difficult it had been to learn.  A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”

The Spirit teaches us, through the Scripture and life, that our Jesus isn’t interested in remembering our sins.  (And just as a side-note here, remember that in English we have the one word, “sin”, but the Greeks had seven; everything from “forgetting”, “aiming-but-missing” to “out-and-out rebellion against God”…and all those different words are translated into our one word, “sin”).  Once we recognize, and ask forgiveness for, our debts, our mistakes, our defiance…Jesus is good to forgive AND forget.  But my belief is that WE should NEVER forget our mistakes, our bad choices, our sin.

Why?  Because, as Mrs. Beardsley taught me, and is now teaching you, “A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”  A forgiven Believer & Follower needs to remember when they weren’t a Believer and/or a Follower…or else they forget to feel for others and start down the slippery slope of “us and them” mentality.

If a care-giver forgets what it is like to be sick or incapacitated, their care becomes theoretical and academic.  If a minister forgets that he or she wasn’t always a minister, they cease being relevant, to say nothing of empathetic.  All of us who Believe & Follow have the tendency to become narrow in our acceptance and judgmental in our attitudes…that is obvious in everything we read and see on TV.  That comes, when we forget where our journey began.

When we, as Believers & Followers, forget that we used to NOT be Believers & Followers and the only reason we are now is because of who GOD is, and not because of who WE are…then we have no hope of ever reaching any other heart, of sharing any other burden, of holding any other hand in love.  When we lose our EMPATHY we cannot give SYMPATHY…when we forget our own struggle, we lose to tools needed to help anyone else in theirs.

And then we cease loving God…because the way we love HIM is by loving each other.  This Lenten season we could all afford to repeat again and again…”remember that you are dust”…not so much to remind us of our mortality, but to remind us that we were are ARE all “students” as well as “teachers”…the journey that someone else is on may be one we have already travelled, or visa versa.

My thanks, again, to Mrs. Beardsley and her legacy…none of us may ever know the wide circles our influence will travel.  Let us continue to learn, to love, to feel the pain and longing of others as if it were our own.

Ah, Autumn in Indiana – the crisp 94-degree air – the bugs which, because of the lack of cold, have grown to the size of German Shepherds.  I keep saying that Autumn is my favorite time of year in Indiana, but I’m going to need to change that to, “It’s my favorite day in Indiana.”

In any case, a few weeks back I stood at the grave of a friend at Anderson Memorial Park, close to I-69.  It actually was a brisk, early fall, day; clear, sunny, a bit chilly and beautiful.  At the end of my prayer for the family, a military service began and I stood listening to a bugle playing taps.  This was a real bugle, and not the “recorded” instruments that are used frequently these days (for lack of musicians who can play the bugle anymore).

As the simple melody played and I reveled in that moment, I looked over the heads of those there to the tops of the trees in the park.  They were already (even weeks ago) starting to change color.  Just the tops, as if a giant paint brush had just barely swept over the trees in that area.  I remembered then I was told, for some reason, the trees in Memorial Park often turn first.  No one is sure why.  Maybe it’s the cool breeze that seems to be present there, maybe it’s the type of trees that grow there.  For whatever reason, there it was: an orange-topped tree reminding me, as I listened to the bugle and stood in a cemetery, that it is often through stress, cold, “change of season”, and yes – death, that our true colors are revealed.

In winter, it takes a lot of energy for a tree to keep leaves green (making chlorophyll) AND on the tree.  Lack of sunshine and water during the cold months prods the tree to “make some choices” about what to keep and what to let go.  As the green pigment dissipates, other colors are suddenly revealed, before the leaf drops of completely…some say these are the tree’s TRUE COLORS. 

I’ll speak only for myself now.  I believe that we, like trees, are going to show our “true colors” when our seasons change, when stress/winter comes, when the things that have supported our life are suddenly, or little-by-little, gone – we become who we truly are.

There, in Memorial Park, it was easy to compare a life that had been housed in a fragile body to that of a tree that had been green all summer – but now, with the passing of body that LIFE was it’s real self because the body had died. 

Here, in my office, I’m thinking about what I learn and teach as an Advocate for God.  The Spirit, the words of Jesus, and the example of those wise men and women who have taught and written over the centuries are all saying, “to gain your life, you must lose it” and “to find yourself, you must die to self”.  These are difficult lessons to understand, much less practice – but I think they are necessary.  I believe there is so much of us that has been put on us since birth in this world, and so much struggle to maintain the shell of our bodies which surround our souls, that it is difficult for us to see what our Father originally designed us to be; our “true colors”. 

Jesus talks a lot about “giving up” to “gain”.  But what a person “gives up” isn’t theirs to begin with, and when Jesus compares our lives (and His) to a seed that must die in the ground to become a tree – isn’t that the entire purpose of the seed?  Isn’t it our purpose to be the essence of who we are designed to be, and not all the insecurities, influences, self-motivated injuries, and world-expectations we seem to collect and cover ourselves with?

What is MY “chlorophyll”?  It is my ego.  Ego isn’t always bad, it’s just not truly who I am…it is self-identity (which is false), a paradigm built up by what I’ve experienced (which is inaccurate) and a persona built by the voices of those around me and THEIR expectations of me (which is deceptive).  If I could get rid of all that, would my “true colors” – the colors I was painted when created – be revealed?

I think the answer is, “yes”.  We see it whenever a friend is at the “end of their rope”.  Suddenly some things just don’t matter anymore.  I see it on sick beds, I see it when someone has experienced a sudden and tragic loss.  I see it when everything is gone: house, home, finances, love…it seems that when stress (cold) and lack of vision (sunshine) are combined with a new chapter of life (season) a person’s TRUE COLORS are revealed.  Sometimes the colors aren’t so pretty.  Sometimes they are – it’s what we call “character”.

How then do I live?  I’ve found that each week and day I should assess what I cling to.  Is it a “thing” (souvenirs and knick-knacks that hold memories), a “belief” (a philosophy or teaching that may not be exactly true or healthy – OR WORSE, something that keeps me from re-examining what I believe is true), a “person” (I need all the friends I can get, and I want to be able to act-in-love to everyone – but to surround myself with, and listen to, certain people is like taking poison a little at a time – you know it’s true)?  Next, I remind myself that my worth is only defined by the fact that God loves me and calls me by name.

Yes, I have work to do.  Yes, I have things I probably need to hold on to – but these are the things, beliefs, and persons that help me let go; the outside influences that encourage me to be the original, immortal being God first imagined and designed

I don’t know exactly who that person is right now, but I’m learning.  The reason I assess and practice all this NOW is because I’d rather not wait until I come to the end of my rope to let go.  I’d rather not be hit with the cold wind and lack of sun that reveal my true colors.

As you can tell, I was a philosophy minor in college.  But I truly believe that most of what we do for Jesus is “peel back” and “uncover” and “let go”.  I believe our true selves, like the autumn colors in Anderson, start at the top, at the head and heart, and gradually reveal themselves throughout our entire beings – when we “die to self.” 

Maybe the trees in Memorial Park turn first because in that place God wants to remind us something.  My friend Dick, whose grave I stood beside as I listened to TAPS, is in that forever home now.  He is looking out at, what I believe, is the New Earth as it was originally designed and created.  Maybe it’s just me, but I believe the trees in that new place are dazzling gold, orange and red…I think that  place is eternally Autumn…

…because there, in the New Earth & Heaven – in the realized Kingdom – everything and everyone glows in their true colors.