ONE GIFT TOO FEW

(Dear Followers,
Although I will continue posting my Out of the Chute in Azalea Heights chapters, I plan to add some new devotional thoughts from my in-process second devotional book from time to time. Thank you for being my first readers.)

“…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

Ready or not, a new year is upon us. Most of us are in some stage of defrocking our lives of the all-out festivity we crazily plunged headlong into a few weeks back. We are ready to pack away the frills and get back down to business. We gather into trash bags the ripped-off wrappings of gifts, and we smile as we remember delighted faces beholding the surprise that had minutes ago been a titillating mystery.

We won’t tell anyone, of course, because after all, they all tried so hard… but for some of us, again this Christmas, we didn’t get what we really wanted. So once again we begin a new year feeling unsatisfied.

And really it’s nobody’s fault. What we want is nothing that can fit inside a box of any size. And nobody else could get it for us even if did. Of course there are varying degrees of disappointment about this commodity in everyone reading this, but I daresay we all harbor at least a little bit of unfulfillment concerning that which we all wish we could enter into a new year, at least once in our lives, totally unlacking.

Paz, Pax, Shalom…Peace. Though the word is a staple in all vocabularies, and in fact, is one of the few words that most of us know in at least one other language than our native one, the pictures and ideas that “peace” conjures up in the mind are vastly varied and sometimes even contradictory from one person to the next. Although we might not agree upon what it means, we all know it is the one thing we most desire for ourselves and the ones we most love. We all agree that if we could just have this one thing—peace—we would never want for anything else. It is also the one gift we most wish we could give to others. What does it take to find it? How much will it cost us to buy it? Will this new year bring us and those we love any closer to it than the last?

To some, peace means living in a nation that is not currently at war. However, such a simple definition of peace cannot reach within the soul; living in a nation that is not at war has little effect upon an embattled heart and a haunted mind. Likewise, it is possible to live amidst the violent clamor of minefields, hand grenades, and bombs and yet still possess a soul that is graced with serenity. Philippians 4:7 calls this “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.”

The peace of God—the kind our minds can’t even fathom because it is so durable. That’s a peace worth pursuing this year, no matter how great the cost.

GRACE FOR MRS. GRAVITTS

Sometimes when Mother and Daddy went out of town, I would get to go out to Flat Fork and stay with Nanny and Duke-Duke, my great aunt and uncle who lived on a little dairy farm. They were old and always had been, but you never had to worry about surprises with them like knock-down drag-outs in the middle of the night. Way out there in the dark country, the only thing you heard in the middle of the night was Duke-Duke quietly shuffling his cards for endless games of Solitaire on his lap board in his rocking chair under the pole lamp, the bass-ey gong of the grandfather clock every fifteen minutes, and two or three times a night, a train whistle from the tracks out past the south pasture where they kept black angus cows and Topsey, the brown mare that I was lucky enough to saddle up and ride from dusk till dawn on many Saturdays just like she was mine. My cousin June and her stallion, Trigger, would lead me and Topsey all over Flat Fork bottom, jumping ditches like Gene Autry and loping across pasture after pasture until our horses were black with sweat. Azalea Heights was a city of more than four-thousand people, so coming to the country like this was a retreat that I looked forward to. Julie, however, didn’t like it out in the quiet country, even though Nanny would rub her back with talcum powder to help her go to sleep, so she would go stay with a friend in town.

Since Nanny and Duke-Duke didn’t have a television set, they would talk to me and tell me stories at night when it was too late to ride Topsey and June had gone home. One night in one of our conversations about school, Nanny informed me of a secret that changed the way I thought about Mrs. Gravitts for the rest of that year. She said that Mr. Gravitts had an illness that made Mrs. Gravitts’ life very hard, and that she probably never got a full night’s sleep or had much leisure time even in the summers. Nanny wasn’t the kind to preach or tell me I ought not to make Mrs. Gravitts’ life any harder than it already was, but as I lay in bed that night listening to the clock chiming and train whistling way out beyond the cow pasture, I got a soft, sad feeling about old Mrs. Gravitts’ hard life, and decided I would try harder to control myself in her room rather than trying to get ideas that would make her tireder, and that I would try not to notice her false teeth clacking, and even if I did, that I wouldn’t talk to other students about it anymore. Being what I had heard some people call a “ring leader,” I was pretty sure that if my behavior changed, a lot of other kids’ behavior would change, too.

It seemed kinda strange that if Mother and Daddy hadn’t decided to go over to Shreveport that night and I hadn’t come out to Flat Fork, I might never have known about Mr. Gravitts, and then I would have kept on thinking Mrs. Gravitts was just making life miserable for us for the fun of it, and I’d have gone on paying her back for it until May 23 instead of changing my mind and giving her five months of grace.

Grace was another one of those things Mr. Pete talked about every Sunday that I never could quite get a good grip on. Since nobody else asked any questions about it, and I didn’t want to seem dumb about something he talked about like it was as common as salt and pepper, I just nodded and kept quiet and acted like it was a concept I had known about from way back. But now, listening to Nanny talk about Mrs. Gravitts and coming to my decision about the rest of the year, I began to see what he might have meant about being “saved by God’s grace.” Mrs. Gravitts was in for a big surprise, because from January through next May, she was about to be saved my mine.

JOHN 3:16: A MANGER SCENE

Though Christmas Day proper has come and gone-- December 25, that is-- we are still blessed by what we celebrated on that day. Let us not give up Christmas just because a certain day has been marked off our calendars. What happened that caused us to celebrate that day is happening still. Let us continue to rejoice in the message of the angels!

“While they were there the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped Him in cloths and placed Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night, An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:6-12

Humanity strutted in the shadow of Death

Pleased to be charmed and beguiled,

But the fragrance that mesmerized flesh reached Heaven

As the stench of creation defiled.

Out of the portals of purity

From a realm bathed in radiant light—

From out of the very heart of the Father

Into the bowels of night—

Was sent a Beacon to show us

A light that our spirits were losing;

Was cast as a Buoy to save us

From a torment of man’s own choosing.

For God in His mercy so loved man in his sin

So foolishly dying in need—

Who doused each flicker of His image in us

With the chilling disgust of our greed

That He sent down His own Son to die at our hands,

A King from the pure Halls of Joy,

At unutterable cost—Oh, unthinkable loss!

To be Mary and Joseph’s boy.

IN SKIN CALLED JESUS

“He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him He gave the right to become children of God…The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and glory…From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another.” John 1:10-12, 14, 16

One day in skin called Jesus, the God of Heaven stepped out of the Book

To walk and talk and eat among us,

And let us feel His breath upon us—

To let us touch Him with our fingers of flesh,

And give us a closer look.

For He was the Word loosed from the pages, laughing and sweating, with dusty feet—

Wisely passionate and meekly glad,

The pride of His Father in humility clad,

From His seat in the Throne Room to the Place of the Skull

So that agony and ecstasy could meet.

Gritting His teeth, God withheld His hand from His Son now covered in sin—

And the man in skin called Jesus died—

And with Him the shame God could not abide.

His humanity had bought us eternity;

God lost so that we could win.

Think of it! What must it have been like for God to watch His perfect Son growing from year to year “in wisdom and stature” knowing that each day brought Him closer to the agonizing death which was the purpose of His life? No one but the Omniscient could have fathomed such foreboding agony; no one but the Omnipotent could have borne it. Ponder such love and live out your deep gratitude this Christmas and in the new year.

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

“I thank my God every time I remember you.” Philippians 1:3

My Dear Sister Judy,

Looking back, it was only a handful of seasons;

in the scope of our lives, it was only a few,

but it seemed like scores of Christmases then,

whose comings and goings would never end,

when Mother would bring the Christmas tree in

in colors no tree ever grew.

Like cotton candy, more than a tree,

flocked in blue, even pink-tinted snow,

we’d deck it in fashionable “ice”covered lights,

and when our picture window would fog up just right,

303 Tenaha would extinguish the night,

and our proud eyes and hearts would glow.

I remember my Betsy-Wetsy doll;

I remember your Tiny Tears.

There were red and yellow cowboy boots,

chemistry sets, and stocking loot,

Roman candles, almonds, and Juicy Fruit,

dependable, year after year.

And we could always depend on Mother to run

from the pictures Daddy would click.

Cousins came over, or we went there,

anxious to see how each other fared,

still in pajamas, but nobody cared—

and there were log-sized peppermint sticks!

You played your piano or accordion,

and Daddy made all of us sing.

For this one day, at least, a ceasefire was called;

no bombs could be dropped, no axes could fall.

It was all for one, and one for all—

a miracle only Christmas could bring.

It was magic for sure, and we couldn’t wait

for the season to work its charm.

Duke Ellen and Janis would appear with their things;

you’d play your records and compare diamond rings

while we’d cuss and bust my new trampoline.

Life was happy and safe and warm.

The family weather was unstable;

in a flash it could turn ice-cold.

And its fabric was fickle— burlap or cashmere—

it was anyone’s guess all the rest of the year.

But when we pulled out the tinsel, we packed up the tears,

and fashioned a tapestry of gold.

Some logs in that hearth we’ve resigned to the ages;

some better as ashes than embers.

But the way our parents made Christmas- oh man!

Weren’t they something? Wasn’t it grand?

Just Mother and Daddy, Judy, and Jan,

and those precious Parker Decembers.

(To my little big sister, who alone can share these rare memories)

Remember these days?

Quick—before you get up and are swept into the season’s bustle today—grab a pen and write some shared memories of a Christmas Past to someone you love!