Unlikely Seedbeds

Unlikely Seedbeds Grace found in ghastly places Copyright Doug Blair, Waterloo ON, 2019

Spiritual Jealousy

I did it Touched His garment And how real things have changed And those who should respect the light

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Just think me quite deranged.

They doubt it Can’t get to it It did not start with them “A youngster’s strange exuberance Imagine, touched Christ’s hem!”

I know it They’re hardened To years of same old same And they’ll not rob this precious pearl I thrill to name His Name.

They question I blush now These eyes that Glory touched

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They have beheld the love-tide’s swell?

An urchin given much!

Hugo’s Spring

When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences:

“I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are livelier than ever. I am rising toward the

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sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds.

You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail?

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years.

The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple.�

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Of Caesar's Household

(Taken from ​The High Calling​, Meditations on Philippians by J.H. Jowett, 1909, Fleming H. Revell Company) All the saints salute you, especially they that are of Caesar's household" (Phil. 4:22) "That is a very wonderful thing that the general river of Christian courtesy should be flowing from the hard precincts of imperial lust and tyranny...

Here is a clean, clear river streaming out of the very centre of a poisonous swamp. Here is a sweet spring lifting its healthful waters in the bitter waste.

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Here is a white lily spreading its radiant purity above a very noisome bed.

This is the kind of miracle to arrest and startle the world. Goodness in unexpected places! ...A commissioner of one of our great London dailies has recently been exploring some of the awful howling wastes of London's slums. He went into one court, and up one terrible flight of stairs, where gin and sweat and swearing and putridity were horribly commingled, and in the very thick of it all he heard a woman's sweet, clear, triumphant voice singing, "We thank Thee, O our Father, for all things bright and good." Yes, and the commissioner discovered that she was a saint indeed. But how adverse the environment. Where did the lovely fern find even the requisite pinch of friendly earth? God knows, and he provided it. It seems as though God's plants can laugh at circumstances, that they can sink strange roots right through their immediate setting, and reach such marvelous resources that their inhospitable environment counts for nothing."

His Beloved “Reb�

He told his wife and daughter to stay in the house. He loaded the shotgun and went outside to hide behind some garbage cans. He had robbed these

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men, men who knew him, to feed his desperate drug habit. They would be coming. They knew where he lived. He found himself praying, “Help me Jesus, help me Jesus. Save me Jesus.” A pact was made that if he survived the night he would give his life to the Lord. What was there to give? Petty juvenile thief, turned armed robber, turned jailbird, turned neighbourhood drug king, turned desperate addict.

And the Lord showed mercy. Henry Covington survived the night. He told his wife of the strange pact. She joined with him in a struggle to withdraw from the life and the crack…

In later years author Mitch Albom would meet this man who was pastoring a dilapidated church in recession weary Detroit, offering food and shelter to the homeless and preaching on the wonder of second and third chances with Jesus.

Albom was investigating worthy causes in his hometown. He had learned some things about community and hope and giving and giving thanks from his rabbi of former years, Albert Lewis of New Jersey, affectionately called “the Reb”. Although Mitch had turned from the synagogue and entered into a mixed marriage, the imposing rabbi had not turned from him.

At a speaking engagement Mitch had been approached surprisingly by Albert with a single request; “Would you give my eulogy?” Mitch felt

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awkward and inappropriate for the task; but a dialogue had begun with this solid man of conservative faith, and a friendship forged over the ensuing eight years.

“Reb” Lewis is the real hero of the best-seller “Have a Little Faith”. One recognizes some of the earmarks of the previous account by Albom entitled “Tuesdays with Morrie”. That one brought together Albom the sports writer and his former college professor Morrie, with ample life wisdom from a secularist with a heart, and one who was rapidly dying.

Now Albom tackles crushing life issues and questions with men of faith and much respected; one an aging and weakening rabbi in the suburbs, and the other an Afro-American Protestant pastor in the threatening inner-city.

Mitch does get to offer the eulogy. A beautiful one. He also gets to help to raise resources for the Detroit church with the “huge hole in the roof”.

Read the book. Beautiful insights of hope; numerous vignettes; few lines drawn.

Translator Extraordinaire

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William Carey is considered by many to be the Father of Missions. A humble cobbler in England in the late 1700's caught in the grip of grace and compelled into hazardous missionary endeavour in India.

"In his own words he cried, "My attention to missions was first awakened after I was at Moulton, by reading the Last Voyage of Captain Cook." To many, Cook's Journal was a thrilling story of adventure, but to Carey it was a revelation of human need! He then began to read every book that had any bearing on the subject. (This, along with his language study — for at twenty-one years of age Carey had mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Italian, and was turning to Dutch and French. One well called his shoemaker's cottage "Carey's College," for as he cobbled shoes along with

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his preaching he never sat at his bench without some kind of a book before him.)"

Suffice it to say, he met with many early setbacks but became convinced that he was to engage in vigourous Bible translation into numerous eastern dialects.

He and his wife Dorothy were astounded in the sub-continent by the carnage which they observed as seemingly harmless exercises of the Hindu, karma and reincarnation.

Babies tossed in sacrifice to the giant carnivorous turtles of the Holy River.

Grossly retarded siblings dropped into a pit of burning embers with family members preventing any effort to escape the excruciating death! The next life for the poor one, they insisted, would be so very much better.

All of this tormented Mrs. Carey to the point of mental illness. The scene became one of William diligently struggling over texts while his wife screamed paranoid accusations at the servants over terrible imagined treachery. He came to see little manifestation of love from his beloved.

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But the work continued and stands as his incredible labour of love for generations of brown-skinned people who would step into the light of the Master based on those precious words.

Others would perhaps serve more signally in hands-on help: E. Stanley Jones, Mark Buntain, Mother Theresa, Dr. Paul Brand, T. L. Osborne, Morris Cerullo.

But the groundwork had been laid by that visionary with the quill pen, and at no small cost to him and his.

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Blind Warrior of Raiatea

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My journey in the library stacks yielded a book by John Williams entitled "A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands" (John Snow, Publisher, London, 1838) In Journal fashion the martyr herald of the London Missionary Society retells some of his trials and victories among the native people of French Polynesia.

The elderly blind man "Me" loved to hear stories of the merciful, miracle-working Jesus. Christ always had time and compassion for the bruised, estranged ones along the pathways of the Holy Land. Me would ask friends for many accounts of the Gospel tale and of the preacher's messages. Without much hesitation he became a Christian.

This brought new joy to his tireless working of a field and occasional care of the little ones. But the day came when he was stricken with serious illness and bed-ridden. Others ravaged the crops of his field. Social custom suggested that this "useless one" be eliminated or starved.

Williams found his friend in this pathetic condition and wondered why other recent converts had not fed or nursed Me. The old man's response was that he dare not beg for help. Better to go hungry than to embarrass and hinder the recent inroads of the Good News.

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Bedside, the old man related an encouraging vision to the "eyes of the heart": "I have been in great trouble this morning, but I am happy now. I saw an immense mountain with precipitous sides, up which I endeavoured to climb, but when I attained a considerable height, I lost my hold and fell to the bottom. Exhausted with perplexity and fatigue, I went to a distance and sat down to weep, and while weeping, I saw a drop of blood fall upon that mountain and in a moment it was dissolved...That mountain was my sins, and the drop which fell upon it was one drop of the precious blood of Jesus, by which the mountain of my guilt must be melted away."

Williams promised to return with food and medicine, which the old man agreed to accept. But he was quick to add that he was not looking for recovery but rather to depart and to be with the Lord, which was far better.

Light In the depths of London town Gutters, shambles, broken down

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Whiskey, gin spilled on the street Pockets picked by nimble feet Sally Anne with brassy joy Catches ear of girl and boy ‘Bout a child who had no home Pure with promise; made to roam Magic ‘neath a Star so bright Come to give the downcast light.

This the hope of Yuletide charm Entered Yahweh’s strong right arm Entered shepherd for the lost Entered hope at matchless cost. …If you take a right turn here Cross the courtyard, damp and clear

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Pull the gate and climb the stair You will find an urchin there She with tones so clear and bright Sings a holy “Silent Night�.

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It Starts with a Small Thing

Once in a restaurant lunch I heard the country song “I put your picture away�. It described unfaithfulness and misunderstanding, a breakup and eventual God ordained reconciliation.

This one-time lawyer had certainly seen a bellyful of marriage break-ups.

As the client would relate the history, it became apparent that there had been some very small beginnings. Some silly expenditure without consultation. Some household chore never shared. Some flirtation at a

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party. Some puckish experiment with drugs. Some undermining of needful discipline with a child.

Then came the accusations, the raised voices, the counter-thrusts, the intentional shaming before others, the person at work who seemed so much more understanding, the adultery, the earthquake of disappointment, the refusal to forgive.

Did you hear that? I said the "refusal to forgive". But this just isn't fair. I shouldn't have to go through this. I deserve better. I have already met her half-way!

I have observed this with clients and with neighbours. The insidious crescendo of unforgiveness.

I do remember one signal time in my office with a farmer who was obviously heart-broken, but starting to dig in his heels. I asked him to recall pleasant earlier times in the romance. I acknowledged that he had by then done his fair share. But was he prepared now to do the really stupid thing for love? Would he go shockingly beyond half-way in the dwindling days with his wife? He ultimately agreed. The woman was stunned by his unquenchable grace. (Romans 12: 20, 21). The marriage rekindled.

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Perhaps another hurting spouse will read this and flex just a little more hope and forgiveness, doing 'something really stupid' for love.

Targets for Wonder

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Yep, you’re on display and under the microscope…like it or not. In the spirit realm your inner Friend is being detected and the spirit of the world wants to investigate, and perhaps cross swords:

What makes this guy tick? In so many ways apparently, he does not run with us.

Is he a fanatic and into some cult?

Is he really happy or is this just a dutiful put-on?

Will he end up losing out big time?

He seems to have peace and control. How’s that?

I know that I can find the crack in this thing somewhere.

Can’t seem to get him upset. That’s just not natural.

He seems to speak about the future and eternal things. I can’t get past this Thursday?

For me Jesus has just been another cuss word.

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The list of challenges and puzzlements goes on. In his First Letter the Apostle Peter tells us to be ready to give an answer to the man who asks the reason for our hope.

Hear what the prophet Zechariah said in the 3rd chapter:

7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by.

8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for ​they are men wondered at:​ for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch.

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