It’s that time of year again, when I think about this poem: 

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded,

and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock…”

Mom used to quote this poem, by local Hoosier James Whitcomb Riley, to me when I was young.  I never dreamed that I’d live in Riley’s part of the country and experience the color of his words in this poem.   Not only that, but I’m kind of surprised that many people here in Anderson don’t know that he lived here (yes, here in Anderson) and was a reporter/writer for the ANDERSON DEMOCRAT (the 1877 Anderson newspaper).  He was despondent over the fact that he could not get his poems published.  And so, this unknown poet wrote a poem, entitled “LEONAINIE” and signed it with the letters E.A.P.  A reporter from a rival newspaper in Kokomo linked the poem to POE and it was immediately and widely circulated.  This proved Riley’s point that only famous, published writers EVER got published, and those with just as much talent, but of no fame NEVER got published.  Riley announced the hoax after much national acclaim for “LEONAINIE” and was promptly fired by the ANDERSON DEMOCRAT, not because of the hoax, but because the Kokomo paper got all the notoriety that Anderson thought it deserved.  Someone, however, noticed the brilliance of Riley’s writing style, and gave him a chance…the rest is history.

Things have a way of working out…and although James Whitcomb Riley gave no claim to being a believer or follower of Christ, this story does remind me that “all things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

When I look at the journey Central Christian Church took to get to the place we are now, I am astounded.  I have no doubts that I “love the Lord and am called according to His purpose.”, but sometimes, in the middle of dark times, and frustrating times (as was the case with James W. Riley) when one KNOWS that they’re not doing what they were MADE to do…God seems somewhat distant. 

I’m here to tell you that God has better things in mind for you then you could possibly realize, His plans are always perfect, His dreams are bigger than YOUR dreams, and it’s always darkest just before sunrise.

James Whitcomb Riley made his own plans to gain fame, to achieve the recognition that he thought he deserved.  Sometimes I think like that also and rely on my own limited wisdom to move forward.  But in the Kingdom of God, we should always realize that God has ALL the answers where we have few, God sees ALL things where we see but a little, God’s plan is perfect for EVERYONE involved, not just us.

So today…as you experience the “frost on the pumpkin”, think of Anderson’s own James Whitcomb Riley (who, it is said, visited Central Christian Church with a local friend) and remember that you have a destiny, God knows your gifts, let HIM decide when the world should notice…and it will be perfect for everyone!

He walked in through the doors from the narthex of the church, where I had just started working as Music Director, and he looked grumpier than usual.

“Oh, GOOD.” I thought…sarcastically.

I looked up from the piano where I was arranging my pages of music before the service that day.  I had not been with this congregation very long and was just beginning to put names with faces, and dispositions.  This man’s disposition, face, and name was a combination I learned quickly.  He was never happy about anything.  From the building’s roof to sugar cream pie, he had a opinion, and it wasn’t a good one.

My bad habit of labeling a person (and in some cases then writing them off as “someone unworthy of my time” …forgive me, Father) had quickly labeled this guy as someone to avoid, someone whose opinion I guessed with every decision I made, whether he was present or not.  And so, he crippled me.  For every fifty or so people who thought I was wonderful, there would always be him.  It was his review, imagined or otherwise, that judged me.

And here he walked, down the aisle, quite possibly to let me know of another disappointment he had in me.

In a moment of weakness, and displaying a rare attribute of “agape” (love actions, despite how one feels), I said: “Hey, how’s it going?”

“The day could’ve started better.” Was his succinct, grim, reply.

OK, here we go.

“I have two identical-looking tubes in the medicine cabinet,” he continued, as my thoughts tried to imagine where he was going with this, “one of them is hemorrhoid cream, the other is “Polygrip”…I’ll leave the story right there.”

At this point I had an epiphany: this guy was funny (which meant he was intelligent), and suddenly I saw him in a different light.  It happened in a millisecond, but it happened.

He walked passed me, on his way to take care of something (it turned out to be a leaky baptistery) and as he passed, he said one more thing.

“You’re doin’ good…don’t let the b*&%+ds get you down.” (as it says in the Scripture…somewhere, I’m sure).

That was one of three compliments (assuming THAT was a compliment) he ever directed toward me, always in private.  I have remembered it all these years.  He and I also shared some memorably irreverent moments during board meetings, when we sat in the back, side-by-side.

He taught me that I cannot judge any person, based on a first impression.  I cannot make choices based on an uncomfortable or painful moment. He also taught me that irritating people aren’t what they seem…and we never know anyone’s “backstory” …

…there are many people who are “porcupine people” – spikey and lonely, because they are afraid to get close and determined to keep you away.

Every moment has its time.
Every person has their place.
Don’t brush aside either.
Or you my also brush aside
God’s wish for you to either
ENJOY or BE the miracle.

A BLOG BY PASTOR KEN RICKETT

One of the joys of the so-called “golden years” is the recall of childhood memories. That being said, it is usually true (for me, anyway) that childhood recollections are often triggered by something said, observed, or something experienced. If the truth be told, “senior citizens” expend vast energies trying to live and cope with the present or impending future possibilities (medical, financial, family issues), and therefore, specific childhood memories are “jogged” by some comment or activity.

Recently, while visiting my college roommate who lives in the mountains of North Carolina, I was relaxing when he grabbed several plastic grocery bags and said, “come with me.” We walked uphill to the house where his parents used to live, then we were under the canopy of a huge chestnut tree. On the ground lay quite a few empty chestnut burrs, and the ground was literally dotted with chestnuts awaiting harvest–either by humans or wildlife. Looking up at the magnificently-sized tree, it was obvious that the majority of burrs had not yet opened. However, the number of chestnuts on

the ground seemed so numerous that it was mind-boggling that the tree had thousands of chestnuts yet to be released by Mother Nature’s ripening processes. Handing me the plastic bags, my roommate pointed to the ground, and said, “get all you want.”

Bending my back and picking up chestnuts by the handfuls, I soon gathered three or four bags full of chestnuts. It would have been much easier to sit on the ground, and scoot here and there to pick up the plentiful brown nuts. But, if one has ever gathered chestnuts, the prickly burrs can easily penetrate the skin sometimes leaving festering sores! I was grateful to be wearing thick-soled tennis shoes! When moving around, picking up the chestnuts, I made no sudden moves; I did not want to fall on the burrs! This marvelous experience caused childhood memories to gush into my conscious mind as I eagerly grabbed the chestnuts within reach.

“Back in the day” as the saying goes, I remembered how grocery stores in those mountains sold chestnuts in the twilight month of September’s fading summer, and the delight of my brother and I as our grandmother brought home from shopping a bag of chestnuts for our after-school treat. We often sat in the swing on the front porch, hulling chestnuts and chomping on their yellow meat. An occasional “wormy chestnut” was tossed out into the yard. Our grandmother had an old wood cookstove, and several times

throughout my childhood, after building a fire in the stove and waiting for the oven to get hot, she would then put a panful of chestnuts in oven, occasionally stirring them, until they were roasted. Now, that’s a mouth-watering treat for those who like to eat chestnuts!

Chestnuts a’roasting! Yes, those were the days, my friend! Had it not been for the sultry, dry days of September, those chestnuts would have been put into an old timey popcorn popper and roasted over a blazing flame in the living room fireplace!

Today we enjoy singing, at Christmastime, a song that mentions “roasting chestnuts over an open fire” …and therefore, we sometimes get the impression that roasting chestnuts is a yuletide treat! But the reality, my friend, is that roasting chestnuts is rooted in the early fall season when September’s goldenrod is yellow with blooms!  However, just as we roast salted and buttered pecans at Christmas, we also preserve chestnuts until Christmas for roasting. So, upon arrival back home in Indiana, our bags of chestnuts were placed in the freezer until some chilly December night when we can roast them over an open fire outdoors…and memories will once again, come to mind…

Recent experiences, whether routine or surprising events, whether happy or sad, often trigger memories. Memories invite one to relive a certain day or time in their lives. We relish the memories that are positive, happy, engaging…and in a real sense, we are remembering God’s blessings.  While some memories are painful or embarrassing or unsettling, the truth is that we may often cherish the ways in which we moved on from those days…with God’s help.

Back in the NC mountains, I grew up in a small town in which my family had connections with an African American family, one of whom was Mary Alice Miller, a poet, who wrote wistfully, but aptly. She captured the power of memory in these words:

“A Simpler, Sweeter Time
A simpler, sweeter time
And I want to go back again
To feel the love
That we felt then…”

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 tales she told 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 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 observe. Our narrow and judgmental attitudes come 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 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.  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.

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 ANNEX.  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, on average, twice a week or more, during the theatre season.  I love the staff, they’re like family now, and I always see some other patron I know. When I lived alone, I used to retreat there to work and eat by myself. I liked being out of the house eating something I didn’t need to make, and I enjoyed the chatter around the place while I worked (the quantity of sermons written there, over the years, is astounding). Whenever I’m there, whether with friends or alone, I sit down and “exhale”.  It is usually the end of the day, and I whisper a “thank you” to the Spirit. It has become a place that is comfortable, hospitable, and familiar.  

Against the back wall 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 young. (SIDE NOTE, WORD NERD ALERT: This is an interesting word: “juke” is Gullah – creole dialect – for “bawdy”, as in “juke/jook joint”, a “jukebox” was a nickel slot music box for playing music so one could dance at the “juke joint” – it would be a stretch to call SCAMPY’S a “juke joint”, however)  This JUKEBOX 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 me to the JUKEBOX, from wherever I am…over the internet.  I put money in the APP on my phone, select the music (from a vast catalogue of virtually every style), and the JUKEBOX plays my song.

So, imagine this scenario: there I was, the JUKEBOX and APP were new, and it was my first time using it.  I go to the APP on my phone, choose the JUKEBOX I’d like to activate (There it is: SCAMPY’S), and I begin to choose some music which will then mysteriously play throughout the room, and no one will know who has chosen the songs. 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.  I waited, waited, waited…still nothing.  So, I told myself I had done the whole process wrong.  I lost a little bit of change, but “purchased” another play of “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN”…still nothing, even though my phone was saying the first song I ordered was already playing.  So, I thought, “third time’s a charm” and set it to play once more.

AFTER I had hit the button to play a THIRD TIME, on my phone, I noticed there were TWO listings for SCAMPY’S: there was the listing for SCAMPY’S ANNEX (where I was enjoying my pizza in silence) and a listing for SCAMPY’S (the full bar next door, part of the same place) – and suddenly dawn broke over my head – they had another JUKEBOX in the bar…WHICH MY PHONE WAS CONNECTED TO.  That’s right, while I was sitting in the silence of SCAMPY’S ANNEX, the bar patrons next door were enjoying THREE ROUNDS of one of the longest songs in history: back-to-back performances of, “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.  I like to guess, as an observer of human nature, what kind of songs would “speak” to the people present – though I don’t personally know them. 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, will change 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.  We are, or I should say we have the choice to be, “the salt of the earth”.  Connecting to Jesus is achieved by 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.

If you have a regular time, or place, to exhale and give a little “thanks”, also take the time to “turn on the music” in someone’s life.  It doesn’t take a special skill, “you ARE the salt of the earth”, 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 

“Above all, put on love — the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of the Messiah, to which you were also called in one body, control your hearts. Be thankful. Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
COLOSSIANS 3:14-17

YOU are the SALT OF THE EARTH, THE LIGHT,
and THE JUKEBOX of the world.

One day, when I was out for a neighborhood walk, I noticed two boys and an adult walking along the street.  One of the young boys had a bike which he was “walking” behind the other young boy, who was slightly ahead.  The boy with the bike accidently (as it looked to me) ran into the boy who was walking, just a bump, nothing major.  Immediately the boy in front turned around and without so much as a word hit the other boy in the shoulder.  The boy with the bike threw it down and started to pound on the other boy…the adult immediately jumped in and broke up what had started.  Now I don’t know the “back story” I only know what I saw…but these boys were young, very young, and I wondered at what age we all learn to hit back when we are hurt.  Because it IS a “learned” behavior…and not the way we were created…and not the way of the Kingdom we “Followers” call Home.

At whatever age we’ve learned to hit back harder, or repay an equal amount of pain, we also learn to apply that principle to every part of our lives.  We learn the subtle ways of “getting back” or “getting even” and call it “fairness”.  We learn it, and we practice it.  It becomes a part of our politics: whatever happened to simply stating your platform and being polite, without attacking your opponent?  It becomes war: how long have countries fought, simply stating that they are paying back for the attack on them?  It all seems so natural…after all, I have the right to defend myself, don’t I?  I have the right to say that if you hurt me, you deserve pain also…isn’t that the case?

Some people who identify as “Christian” do the same thing, without a second thought, even though “fighting back”, “getting even”, “causing pain”, “an eye-for-an-eye” is completely, irrevocably, and undeniably against ALL that Jesus, the King, teaches in that black book they hold up while screaming curses at those who are different than them.

When our soldiers across the sea are killed, mutilated, their bodies dragged through the streets…I am not surprised, I am horrified that any human could do that to another, but am not surprised.  That is the kind of behavior I expect from the ignorant and ungodly.  I would hope that is never the kind of behavior any American citizen would engage in…but I know that I’m wishing for something that is probably not to be.

However, we who follow Jesus (and if you’re going to call yourself a “follower of Jesus” you actually DO need to “follow Jesus”…otherwise, you’re just a “fan”) should be behaving in a manner that HE teaches us.  No matter what country we live in, no matter if our bodies live in the USA or somewhere else, we are citizens of the KINGDOM OF GOD, and we simply don’t behave that way.

We are well-behaved:

NOT because we’ve never been hurt…we have been.
NOT because we’ve never been slandered…we have been.
NOT because we’ve never been humiliated…we have been…

…but because that’s simply NOT who we are. The minute we hit them back, we become them, we ignore our citizenship in the Kingdom, and we cause God grief.  

If we are going to “follow” Jesus, then we have no other choice but to do as He commands: walk the extra mile, turn the other cheek, love (LOVE) our enemies and pray for them…and be IN the world…but, unlike “them”, not OF the world. 

My prayer is that there will come a time, soon, when others will know we are Christians by our love, and not just because our Facebook status says so.

24601: That is the number the prison gives to identify the man known as Jean Valjean, the protagonist in the book and musical, LES MISERABLES. 24601.  The number is not only given for identification, but also is thrown in the face of a man who carries a name, a family, a history…so that the penal system can remind him that he is “less than a man”…he is only a number.

That is what is what “the world” does best…it reduces humanity.  The world takes the fullness of life and reminds all of us that we are only a statistic, just a number in a vast sea of like numbers.

Depending on which circle one walks in, they are either one voice-type in a choir, a checking account number, an address, a blonde, a catholic, a poor person, a wacko.  The world will constantly reduce us to the least common denominator.  The world will do what is easiest, most efficient…and most degrading.

I remember the day I flew to Washington State with a medium-sized wooden box containing the ashes of my father.  Those ashes were all that was left of his body, after the world had its way…that, and a series of forms, two bags of odds and ends, and a few clothes.  This is what the world thought of him.  That is what the world thinks of you and me.  We may bask in greatness and popularity, or sulk in our inability to gain what we think we are worth…but either way, the world doesn’t care.  Don’t kid yourself, the world, as God Himself has said, is a prostitute who may flatter and tempt…but in the end you’re nothing more to her than a loaf of bread…if even that.

That’s what the world, with its popularity contests, worship of youthful beauty, and elevation of wealth and power above all things does to us.  However, the world does not define what LIFE is.  God defines LIFE.  And HE does the opposite of what the world does; instead of reducing humanity, God elevates, enhances, and fills humanity.

The scripture reminds us that God has elevated us, crowned us, claims us as children, and pronounces us heirs to the universe.  “Life” is not defined by the things that are left when our breath takes flight.  “Life” IS that breath, the very breath that was given us the day we first cried.  “Life” as God sees it, is something that not only lives forever, but is MORE real after we rid ourselves of these bodies and this world.  God does not see my father or mother as “ashes in a box”, but as individual, golden, perennial diamonds.  He knows them as Marge & Tom, the children for whom He would do anything, reach any depth, and fly across the universe to rescue.

We who Believe & Follow The Way are the bearers of THIS torch: that the world will flatter us, tempt us, beat us and try to kill us…but God is “not of this world” and this Age will be cleaned to make way for the next; an Age with homes for each of His children.  An Age ruled by the King who put on our skin so that we might trust Him, believe Him and follow Him…from the manger to the cross and through the tomb back to the Garden.

The only things from this Age that we will see in the next are each other.  Don’t let the world reduce you and define you…and more importantly, don’t be a part of the world’s conspiracy by reducing another person to something less than they are – our relationship to one another is the only true currency we take with us to The-Age-To-Come.  How we love them here and now, in this age, defines our love for God. So, let’s do for each other what God does for us: ELEVATE each other with words of praise, ENHANCE each other by sharing their gifts and giving them of ours, and FILL each other with acts of love that are unconditional.

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
VICTOR HUGO, author of LES MISERABLES

“Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God,
and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
I JOHN 4:7

I was a small boy who could barely read when my mother began instilling in my little brain the idea of memorizing things: phone numbers, addresses, scripture, poems.  She was an advocate of memorizing long passages of prose, speeches and monologues, a passion she got from her mother, the teacher.

Also, my grandmother (who passed before I was born) was, as someone who lived through the wars, convinced the scripture would someday be taken out of the hands of the faithful and should be memorized as much as possible.  She herself could recite at least 4 books of the Bible, in scorching King James English (so mom said.) 

As was often the case, being the child of the “Church script writer”, I was “cast” as the child with the longest (and I’m sure, the most dramatic) monologues and Bible verses to recite.  I was at my hometown church one day when mom and dad were there doing something else, and I decided to go to the sanctuary and see how scary it was to stand up on the platform and deliver to the rows of empty, blonde wood, pews.  I started the walk up to the front from the back when someone popped their head up from below one of the pews.  It was the father of some of my friends at church, he was fixing something in one of the pews…he smiled and said “Hi”.  He then asked what I was doing, and I told him I was going to practice my “monologue”.  He then asked me a question that confused me because I had NEVER heard the term before. 

“Do you know it by heart?” 

It’s funny how some things stick with you.  I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old and yet, I can see the pews, see his 40-year-old face, hear his voice and see the surprise on his face when learning I had never heard that term before.  He explained that having something memorized was often referred to as, “knowing it by heart.” That could refer to things like what I was learning and delivering…but also to things, truths, that need to be “kept in our heart.” 

“Do you know that your mom and dad love you?”

“Yes.”

“THAT is something you know by heart.”

“Do you know that we all love you?”

“Yes.”

“Keep that in your heart.”

“Do you know that God loves you?”

“Yes.”

“Then, there are the most important things you can know…by heart.” 

Again, if an angel had broken through the walls, stood beside him with a flaming sword held high I couldn’t have been more impressed (for more than 50 years or so) with that moment in time…it has stayed with me.

The term comes from the Greeks, who had no separation, in their culture and philosophy, between logic and emotion, considering the organ of the heart to be the seat of knowledge.  To “know something by heart” was to remember in the deepest part of you and COMMIT to remember it.

I recently concluded a performance of a Shakespeare script.  I didn’t have a large role, but it was significant: as a storyteller.  The words and phrases, even in this comic play, were sometimes stunningly beautiful and crafted as only a brilliant writer can do it: using language as a painter uses brushes and oil, and as a sculptor uses chisels, hammers, and polishing cloths.  Although these words are difficult for a 63-year-old mind to remember…I was, and am, DRIVEN to remember them because they contain “truth” …and I want to commit them “to heart.”

What do YOU commit to heart?  

Jesus is constantly reminding us that there are some things we have “memorized by heart” that perhaps we should forget: worry, or past indiscretions He has forgiven, and the times someone else hurt us, as some examples.

We may not WANT to commit those things to our hearts, but we do, and we memorize every hurt and say it, play it, over and over again.  Jesus reminds us that the things we keep in our hearts tell everyone (including Himself) what we truly “treasure”.  (MATTHEW 6:21) 

YET, as humans we are prone to forget the GOOD things, the beautiful things, the true things…and the writer, Paul, reminds us to commit those things to heart (PHILIPPIANS 4:8).  God asks that we remember what He has done for us, so our faith can be strengthened by those things.  Psychologists teach that training the mind to remember good events, strong events, will change the way our mind works. People who know by heart all the bad things in their lives, and “play them” over and over again (as a recording) will change…you and I have seen it happen, and we experience those kinds of people every day.  But those who remember when God delivered, when God loved, when God provided, also have change in their minds…you and I see a few of them every day as well.

What do YOU commit to heart?

Choose carefully what you learn, what you memorize, and what you know by heart.  It will change you…change isn’t bad, change is life.  But HOW you change is up to you.

“Go to your bosom; knock there and ask your heart what it doth know.”
SHAKESPEARE (“Measure for Measure” Act 2, Scene 2)

“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”
ROMANS 12:2

MATTHEW 13: 24-30:
Then he put forth another parable to them, “The Kingdom of Heaven”, he said, “is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were asleep his enemy came and sowed tares (weeds) among the wheat and went away. When the crop came up, and ripened, the weeds appeared as well.
Then the owner’s servants came up to him and said,
‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field?

Where did these tares (weeds) come from?’
‘Some blackguard has done this to spite me,’ he replied.
‘Do you want us then to go out and pull them all up?’
 said his servants.

‘No,’ he returned, ‘if you pull up the weeds now, you will pull up the wheat with them. Let them both grow together till the harvest. And at harvest-time I shall tell the reapers,

‘Collect all the weeds first and tie them up in bundles ready to burn but collect the wheat and store it in my barn.’” 

Have you ever engaged in an “exercise in futility?” I have.

Just last week I swept the hardwood floor in the living room while the sun’s rays were brightly shining through the window and bathing much of the floor in sunlight. It seemed as if there was far more dirt in the air than in my dustpan! Then, after working on the computer for a while, I went back into the living room and behold, the end tables which I had dusted before sweeping were covered again. I thought, “why did I even bother to sweep the floor? Or dust the end tables?” What an exercise in futility! I have concluded that the best time to sweep the floor is at midnight with only a dim night light allowing me to avoid tripping over furniture as I sweep!

Dust is an imperfection in which we learn to cope…even if we must dust and sweep every day or every week. I still remember my grandmother taking her quilts off the bed on a warm sunny morning, hanging them up over a clothesline, and beating them with a broom handle. Little poofs of dust would explode with each strike and then less and less dust with subsequent blows. Then she would leave the quilts out all day to “sun.” Then eventually it was a task to do all over again.

Was this an exercise in futility. . .or a means of coping and accepting an imperfection that exists? 

Some people like to eat tender dandelion greens and others see these plants as a weed and a nuisance. For me, I just want my front yard to be free of them. In the spring I use fertilizer that only allows grass to flourish. Yet, all through the summer I use my dandelion weeder often. As far as my yard goes, I have succeeded in keeping them from blooming and scattering their airborne seeds throughout my yard, but I must stay vigilant by using that dandelion weeder weekly! But I can’t control the dandelions in other yards and fields around me. So, it is a constant battle to weed them out of my yard before they reproduce. Yes, sometimes I wonder why I even attempt such an exercise in futility! But each week that I stroll through my yard with my dandelion picker, the truth finally takes hold. . .my yard will always be prone to this imperfection.

Like dust, dandelions will never be “controlled”; these imperfections have dwelt and will dwell on and on forever. The parable about pulling up the tares found in the wheat fields is a clear example of an exercise in futility.

Tares, weeds that resemble wheat in the early growing stages, are an imperfection that no one wants to see in a wheat field. The wise farmer tells his helpers (who discovered the tares) to leave the tares alone and wait until harvest to separate the tares and wheat.  Why? The roots of the tares and the wheat entangle, thus, to pull up the tares is to also pull up the roots of the good wheat and thereby destroy a good harvest. Yes, it is aggravating to see a wheat field invaded by tares, and the instinct is to want to pull them. Far better to wait until harvest when the farm workers can separate the wheat from the tares!

Run that thinking out. We human beings often have little patience with imperfections that we might see; our first instinct is to rip them out or remove them. How futile it is to think that we can eliminate imperfections in ourselves or in others. Imperfections are ingrained in human life like dust or dandelion weeds or tares. We ministers strive to remind dreamy-eyed couples who are planning a marriage ceremony that when the honeymoon is over, there is an awareness of a zillion imperfections. . .and that a person must work “with and around” as constantly as sweeping and dusting. Leaving the tares alone until harvest is a clear message: leave the imperfections alone when the greater good (harvest) will be adversely affected! O, to be sure, some imperfections (criminal behavior) are such that punitive action must be taken. However, my point is that too many relationships (not only marriage, but friendship, co-workers, family, etc.) may be harmed when we decide that some imperfections we see in others must be ripped out.

For example, years ago my wife and I had gotten to the point that we were short with some of the other’s shortcomings. Then we learned that we differed in how we picked up on the world around us. I (Ken) tend to be intuitive which means, among other things, that I often instinctively know what may be going on without having to ask or be told. Della, on the other hand, is “sensing” person who must rely upon the five senses (touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell) which means, among other things, that she usually has to ask or see for herself, etc. But once we learned that we pick up on the world around us differently, many of the things that irritated us melted away almost overnight. What we saw as imperfections in each other that we wanted to “rip out” was transformed into a new way for us to understand each other. 

Leave the imperfections alone. Any of us can enjoy long term relationships simply when we wisely realize that we are not in this world to rip out all imperfections that we see in each other. If we did so, we would be lonely and alone for sure!

Fred Craddock, well-known Disciples of Christ preacher and author, uses this parable to say to the churches, “leave the tares alone; don’t pull ‘em up!” The old practice of “churching” meant that a person was removed from membership for a “sin” committed, usually with an expectation that such persons would see the error of their ways and ask to be restored. Written histories of a few congregations tell stories about young people who were “dismissed” for dancing, or a man “churched” for chewing tobacco, or a woman “removed” for flirting. Usually, the aftermath of these actions is turmoil. Families and kin quit attending. People take sides. Offerings suffer. Why? Because roots are all tangled up: pulling a “tare” also pulls out the good wheat. Leave the tares alone.

Craddock also says, “don’t clean up the membership rolls.” I (Ken) once began a pastorate with a new congregation, and within days I was confronted by an older man who came up to me on a street of that town. I was informed that he would not be back in church, nor his family, nor would his folks support the church in any way. I said, “do you mind telling me why?” To which the response was, “I got the new church directory and my family, including my grown children and their families, were not in it anymore. We may not have attended, but we did support it financially when we could. But somebody decided to clean the rolls. . .” So, I did some checking into the man’s story. The new directory was created and printed while the church had an interim minister, and the person assigned to update the membership list with home addresses “removed” people using the criteria of attendance alone. I have learned that the most precious asset of any congregation is the goodwill of the membership and the good will of the community. Leave the tares alone! God did not call the Church into being for the Church to remove tares; that is God’s job. Rather, the Church is called into being to put to share redemptive love and grace as revealed in Jesus Christ, to lift up those who have been overtaken in a fault, to exist in true fellowship with fellow Christians who can admit to being a part of imperfect humanity who are united in a common goal to become the new humanity of God’s people by the increase of love for God and neighbor.

“Leave the tares alone.” Some people place this parable in terms of God’s judgment. That may well be. BUT this parable is about withholding our judgment. Oddly, for those who follow Jesus, to leave the tares alone is a clarion call to love redemptively, to live faithfully, and to become as gracious to one another as we would want God to be gracious (and forgiving) to us!

For me, working in the theatre is almost the same as being involved with a church congregation: it’s a bunch of diverse people getting together with a variety of talents and gifts, and one single purpose.  Through the process of designing, planning, rehearsing, building, sewing, and creating, actors “bond” with one another and a new community is formed.  That’s one of the main reasons I love it and have for most of my adult life.

Theatre also feeds the process of teaching, through observing human nature.  Like I always say, God will speak to you in whatever way you’ll listen.  The theatre, and people involved, have (knowingly and unknowingly) taught me a lot about God, about life, and about love.

When I am rehearsing a show.  I am reminded of situations I’ve had before.  One example, one “epiphany”, presented itself to me.

Often, in theatre where volunteers are involved (people with lives outside of the theatre) someone will need to miss a rehearsal and someone else will need to fill in that night.  In one rehearsal I attended, the striking, tall, blonde leading lady with the golden voice was absent and the Assistant Director to the show was obliged to step in, script-in-hand, and sub for her.  The leading lady had a few love scenes, a couple of beautiful songs, and a dance – and the script consistently spoke of her character’s beauty, especially with the line, “She’s an elegant strain of music in the moonlight…with blonde hair”.  Now, the Assistant Director was a round, 55-ish man, balding with a huge mustache and beard…his “uniform” was sweatshirt and jeans.  And no one would want to hear him sing.

During one moment in the rehearsal, one of the actors, in character and speaking with his impeccable British accent, turned to him and said, “You’re the ugliest strain of music in the moonlight with blonde hair I’ve ever seen!”  EVERYONE, including the Assistant Director, laughed.  No one was hurt or offended.

I catalogued the moment.

Everyone laughed.  HE laughed.  Why?  Because it was obvious to everyone, including the Assistant Director in question, that he was neither a woman, tall, blonde, or exactly “beautiful”.  He wasn’t hurt.  Far from it – HE thought it was hilarious.  Everyone enjoyed the joke.  The Assistant Director thought it was funny because he KNEW he wasn’t an “elegant strain of music in the moonlight, with blonde hair.”

Instead, he KNEW who he was.

WORDS are power, and sometimes WORDS do hurt.  In my lifetime I’ve been hit with some ugly and ignorant words.  We’ve all heard the “sticks and stones” phrase, even though experience tells us words are powerful, with a power to be used for good or bad.  So how do we protect ourselves against words that hurt, opinions about us that are untrue?  Do we fight back? Well, we don’t need to.

But we do need to know who we are.  If someone told me I was an ugly tall blonde woman I’m not sure I would be angry, because the accusation is so ridiculous.  I know I’m not tall, blonde, or female.  They couldn’t hurt me with that “insult” because it is so far from who I actually am that it’s silly.

So, why are we hurt when someone says something unkind to us or about us that is clearly not true?  I believe there are a couple of reasons:

1. We are too concerned about what other people think about us, and
   2. We are insecure in ourselves about who we really are and think we need validation from others, to be spectacular. 

When a person decides God is who He says He is, and they realize that Jesus is His Son, and God-in-the-Flesh – and decide to follow Him, they become who HE says they are.  And God calls us His children.  This is the same God who spoke the word “light” and there was light.  When He speaks it…it is so.  He thinks you’re the most spectacular bit of stardust He has breathed life into – that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.  Others don’t have the final say about your life, and neither do they sit on the throne of the universe.

But what about the loudest voice of all, your own?  The scripture assumes that we all love ourselves, sometimes. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” makes the assumption that you love yourself.  We all know that isn’t always the case.  We are our own worst enemies when it comes to believing in our own significance. What is the answer?

Go back to point one; God decides your worth…but He also inhabits your very soul, because it is worthy of Him.  Or at least HE believes so. And, because we belong to Him, we assure that hurtful words never come out of OUR mouths.

When I know who I am and where my “significance” comes from, there isn’t a word anyone can say to penetrate that armor of love and truth, I cannot be permanently armed.  Of course, we need to be honest about our abilities and inabilities, not think TOO highly of ourselves, and not compare ourselves with others.  We must be able to accept unconditional (and it actually MEANS, “unconditional”) love.  And we must continually, continually, practice life within those parameters – it TAKES practice, it won’t happen all at once.

I thank both the theatre and the church for helping me grow my imagination, share my talents, and for speaking God’s Truth to me…in the language(s) I hear.  With that God-given imagination, and in a very “theatrical” way, I see Jesus at the bottom of that hill in Israel called “Mount of the Beatitudes”. In a moment He looks up at me; one lost man in the sea of thousands on the hill that day, and says, “You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world”…

…and I realize, sometimes God has more faith in me than I do in Him. 

Be well, go shine, and remember who you are.