Voices Low and Gentle

"The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness." — Proverbs 16:31:

I read Old John Keble's meditation for the "25th Sunday after Trinity" this morning and thought of you folks that shepherd God's flock. Here are Keble's thoughts and my glosses: 

Pride of the dewy morning! 

The swain's experienced eye 

From thee takes timely warning, 

Nor trusts the gorgeous sky. 

For well he knows, such dawnings gay 

Bring noons of storm and shower, 

And travelers linger on the way 

Beside the sheltering bower. 

Country folk know that bright, beautiful mornings can deteriorate and become clouded with "storm and shower." They don't presume that a day that begins well, will end well. 

E'en so, in hope and trembling 

Should watchful shepherd view 

His little lambs assembling, 

With glance both kind and true; 

'Tis not the eye of keenest blaze, 

Nor the quick-swelling breast, 

That soonest thrills at touch of praise-

These do not please him best. 

Good Shepherds are delighted when God's "little lambs" make a good beginning, but must wait and watch over them as they mature and never presume that they will ever grow beyond the point where they will no longer need pastoral care.

But voices low and gentle, 

And timid glances shy, 

That seem for aid parental  

To sue all wistfully, 

Still pressing, longing to be right, 

Yet fearing to be wrong, 

In these the Pastor dares delight, 

A lamb-like, Christ-like throng. 

These in Life's distant even 

Shall shine serenely bright, 

As in th' autumnal heaven 

Mild rainbow tints at night,

Sheep, as they grow older, still long ("sue") for parental, pastoral care. Good shepherds will take delight in those aging sheep that are pressing, longing for righteousness at "life's distant even." 

We take delight in young folks and their spiritual progress. In our enthusiasm for these lambs, however, we may think that older, more mature sheep, having made a good beginning, can make it on their own. 

But the hardest tests often lie in the "even" of our lives. Older believers, though well established in their faith, remain "a lamb-like throng." They will always need a loving pastor to help them run the race with endurance and finish well. 

Let's not forget them. 

David Roper

8/18/16

Spider

(God) takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. —Psalm 147:10b

My track coach in high school dubbed me "Spider" because I had skinny legs. The moniker stuck with me until I went off to college. I was glad to leave it behind. 

It delights me to know that God is not impressed by the size and strength of my legs, especially now that I'm old and my "youthful hose, well saved, are a world too wide for (my) shrunk shank." In fact, though God loves me, He isn’t impressed with any attribute or ability that I possess.

Psalm 147, the poem in which this verse is imbedded, is all about what God is doing: He builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel; He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds; He counts the number of the stars; He calls them by name; He covers the heavens with clouds; He provides rain for the earth; He  makes grass grow on the mountains; He gives food to wild animals and the young ravens that cry (147:2-4; 8,9). God does all these things by Himself; He doesn't need anything from me to get His work done (147:10). Out of His love and mercy He offers to use me, but it's not "as though He needs anything at all" (Acts 17:25).

You may recall a story I've told more than once about a day on which I returned to Boise having been away for a week or so. I was praying with Carolyn that evening, thanking God for taking care of things while I was gone. Carolyn chuckled. “What’s up?" I asked. "Well," she replied, with a twinkle in her eye: "Who do you think takes care of things while you're here?" 

Exactly. 

David Roper

7/14/16

Quickness

My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,

They come to an end as the thread runs out. —Job 7:6 NEB

As I look back on my 83 years of life I'm impressed by the swiftness with which these years have flitted by. It seems but yesterday that I was young and now I am old. 

Sages have described our life-span as a shadow, a dream, a moving mist, a spray of flowers that promptly withers, an m-dash between the birth and death dates on our gravestones. a bird in flight—“as though a sparrow flew swiftly through the hall, coming in by one door and out by the other" (the Venerable Bede). Job states the truth baldly: "Life is short and full of trouble" (14:1). (A friend of mine adds, “You have to eat to keep up your strength.”)

It’s not the troubles of life that concern me, however; it's the thought that my life will be finished before I am. So many things on my bucket list are yet uncompleted, so many projects undone. As Job put it, the thread will run out before the fabric I’m weaving is done. 

There's a bit of a problem with the text because no one knows the meaning of the word with which Job ends his comparison. Parallelism suggests that the word usually translated "without hope" is part of the illustration taken from weaving. Hence the New English Bible translates, ‘My days … come to an end as the thread runs out.” Peterson paraphrases, "My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles and then the yarn runs out—an unfinished life!" (Job 7:6 The Message).

Indeed. So many trout streams I’ve scouted that Ill never fish. So many trails I’ve traced on contour maps that I’ll never walk. So many projects that Carolyn and I have dreamed about that we’ll never complete. So much to do; so little time to do it.

But I have achieved the one thing for which I was created, the thing without which nothing else matters: I have come to know and believe the love that God has for me (1 John 4:16).

Poet Henry Vaughn writes, 

Thou art a toilsome mole, or less;

A moving mist;

But life is what none can express:

A quickness which my God hath kissed. 

David Roper

8/2/16

A Call to Failure

It came as a revelation—

   It was worth the price of the gale—

To know that the souls that conquer,

   Must at first be the souls that fail.

To know that where strength is baffled,

   I have reached the common ground,

Where the highest meet with the lowly;

   Where the heart of man is found.

—George Matheson

History is unrepeatable, but it can be re-lived many times in our memory. Our successes we like to savor; our failures we’d rather forget. I’m gradually learning, however, that failure can be a singular form of success.

Blunders, mistakes, missed opportunities, broken relationships, failed ministries can be a means of grace and great blessing if we accept them as part of our call. “Souls that conquer must at first be the souls that fail.”

Through humiliation our strength is frustrated; we’re disabused of our delusions of grandeur and brought low. There, we learn “to associate with the lowly” (Romans 12:16). Our losses enable us to empathize with those who've fallen; we can accept and love them as no other can.

But first we must let go of regret. As long as we worry over the things we wish had not happened and the mistakes we wish we had not made, part of our heart remains isolated. Brooding over past disasters intimidates us; feelings of inadequacy isolate us. We’re afraid to venture ourselves again.

But when we accept our failures as simple proof that we’re weak, God’s strength is made perfect. We can turn toward to others with greater compassion, sensitivity, wisdom and understanding. Thus our mistakes are redeemed and put to God’s intended purpose.

Failure is not ruinous; we are called to failure and owe much to each day that we fail. The lessons that we learn there, “are worth the price of the gale.”

David Roper

7/30/16

Home Sweet Home

"Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names." —Psalm 49:11

A few years ago Carolyn and I bought two lots at Dry Creek Cemetery, a wind-swept hill overlooking the city of Boise, one for me and one for her. Mine is about 4’ wide and 8' long—32 square feet in all. Not much to show for a lifetime of effort.

No matter what you acquire or achieve in this life you can't take it with you. As Israel's poet put it, you die and "leave everything to others”  (Psalm 49:10). This calls for "understanding” (49:3,20—knowledge that there is another dimension of reality in which earthly notions of the good life are irrelevant. 

This present world is tangible but transient; the unseen world is forever and ever. It's toward that invisible, eternal realm that our predominant thoughts, time and energy must go. That's what it means to "lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." Everything else is a wasting asset, an investment that inexorably and irreversibly declines in value over time.  

I'm reminded here of a story I heard years ago about a stock broker that encountered a genie who granted the obligatory wish. "A copy of the Wall Street Journal one year hence," the man replied. Thereupon, newspaper in hand, he turned to the market report for that day anticipating a killing. But his eye fell first on his picture on the opposite page accompanied by his obituary. The killing he anticipated was his own. 

David Roper

7/29/16

The Tyranny of Time

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.  —Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Shortly after they were married, our son Brian and daughter-in law Jill backpacked their way across Europe. One evening they found lodging in a hostel across the street from an old church with a lofty clock tower and a bell that tolled every 15 minutes. The gentle rhythm at first was soothing, but soon became grating—exactly the point “Mentor” is making in these fourteen antitheses.

Twenty-eight times the bell tolls. Time marches on, counting down the hours of our lives.

Time, in ancient myth, is an old man leaning on a scythe, with an hour-glass in his hand, reminding us that time is running out and in due course will mow us down. A world of work and hurry and a sudden end. So much to do; so little time to do it!

Back in the '60s, Pete Seeger wrote a ballad entitled, "Turn, Turn, Turn” that was based on this poem in Ecclesiastes. Seeger took the text as it is and added the last six words: "I swear it's not too late."

Seeger's line rhymed well with the phrase, "a time to hate," but he missed the point of the poem. The author of this litany is not arguing for peace, but for transcendence: The frustrations of time point us to an existence beyond time. Put another way: Time argues for eternity.

Douglas Adams asks, ”Why were we born; why must we die; and why do we spend so much of the intervening time looking at our digital watches” (A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Why do we feel the relentless pressure of time?

Mentor supplies the answer: "(God) has put eternity in our hearts..." (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We are eternal creatures, caught up in time, restless until we find a timeless purpose for our lives. Clocks and calendars point to something beyond us and push us relentlessly, inexorably toward that end.

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, “For me there has always been… a sense, sometimes enormously vivid, that I was a stranger in a strange land; a visitor, not a native, a displaced person… The only ultimate disaster that can befall us, I have come to realize, is to feel ourselves at home here on earth” (Jesus Rediscovered pp. 47-48).

Time marches on, reminding us that we are creatures of eternity, waiting to make heaven our home.    

David Roper
7/25/16
                                                                                                                                                                     

Waiting

"God, deliver me! Lord, help me! Hurry!" —Psalm 70:1

God is never in a hurry; He has all the time in the world to get His work done. Therefore, we wait...and wait.

Waiting is hard. Why must we live in this awkward circumstance, with this difficult person, with this embarrassing behavior, with this health issue that will not go away? "So how come history takes such a long, long time

when you're waiting for a miracle?" Bruce Cockburn asks. Why doesn't God comes through? 

Sometimes, the answer is, “Just wait awhile."

Waiting is one of life's greatest teachers in that in it we learn the virtue of...well, waiting. Waiting while God works in and for us. It's in waiting that we develop endurance, the ability to trust God's goodness, even when things aren't going our way (70:5). It's one of the hardest lessons to learn, one of the last lessons to be learned, and can best be learned through waiting. Consider Job, at the end of his long ordeal: "Even if you slay me, yet will I trust you!"

But that's not the end of the story. Endurance is not dreary, tooth-clenched resignation. We can "rejoice and be glad" while we wait (70:4), knowing that God will deliver us in due time—in this world or in the next. God is never in a hurry, but He's always on time.

LORD! Show mercy and be merciless to my foe my flesh;

make straight my path ignore my whimpering self-pity; 

starve my hunger until the sharp pain of raging need

becomes the dull ache of wanting now the feast that comes later. 

LORD! Show mercy and give me hope to wait. 

—Karen Dabaghian