Poems of Home in the Northern Hills of Missouri

Something Familiar

There is a certain sound

from inside a car passing

close to the edge

of a timber

in the cooling evening

on a country road.

It is a sound filled with crickets

and cicadas

and the swish of leaves

as the car comes near on a curve.

It is the sound of all the hidden creatures,

the nesting birds, heads bending under their wings.

It is the beginning silent sounds

of signs in the sky,

the stars and the fireflies. It is the sound of a home, not far away, down

the road apiece.

There is a porch around the house

with lights in the window,

and ham frying on the stove

with a familiar sizzle.

This poem I wrote ten years ago after finding an old letter written by my Grandmother. I left her spelling intact.

Community

An old letter found

written almost thirty years ago;

my grandparents to my parents

on the birth of my first child:

"So glad its over & a boy."

The news of the letter comes

clearing away three decades

of life, like so much underbrush-

"weve got our potatoes dug.

Had about- 13 bushell."

All the habits of Sacramento

recede into the rounded hills

of fertile memories and soils.

"The butter beans are gone till

they bloom again. We canned

19 pints & gave away a lot."

Once again I am shaped by

community- "Shure good Gertudes

came up Sadur & brought supper &

stayed all night." Surrounded by

the stays of those who care:

"Fays came over after supper."

Once again weather weaves reality

through windy storm. I

know again the mixture

of awe, the need for shelter, for others:

"A big cloud came up after we went

to bed- We got up & went to the cave.

Had quite a storm."

Biblical Women, Contemporary Christian Women: Finding Courage to Follow Christ: Part 3

Picture by Penny Juncker

I never finished my posts on Biblical Women, Contemporary Christian Women: Finding Courage to Follow Christ. I will add one women who I think is very important to the life of the Presbyterian Church USA at this point in time. She had the courage to stand against much of the idolatry that now plagues today's church.

If you can imagine riding a bike across part of Europe with your husband after World War II and studying under both Karl Barth and Gerhard von Rad, (at different universities) you can envision some of the life of Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier.

Her last teaching position was as Visiting Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia.What amazes me about the late Dr. Achtemeier is that in the face of so much opposition from radical feminists both within the Presbyterian Church USA and out side of it, she continued to uphold the Triune name of the Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to defend the right's of unborn babies.

Her little book, Not Til I Have Done: A Personal Testimony is a wonderful witness of how the Lord uses Christian women in the contemporary church. It was her twenty-fifth book. Among other books she has also written, Nature God & Pulpit and Nahum-Malachi in the Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching Series.

This is a long quote by Dr. Achtemeier but worth the time:

"What sort of God do the radical feminists offer me to replace the Father who has guided me my whole life long? An amorphous something called a
PrimalMatrix, a Mother Goddess of earth, a Sophia myth, a He/She, a God/ess, an immanent spirit in nature and all persons. They tell me I too am divine with the spirit uniting all things, when I know that is nonsense. They say I have no sin except that of dependence on my Father, a teaching that I refuted with a hundred examples of my wrong. They declare that the cross of Christ was a bloody mistake, an example of the Father's child abuse, when I know very well that sacrifice was the supreme gift of the Father's love for me. They write that there is no eternal life but
only absorption back into the goddess, but I know that any deity who cannot defeat death is no deity at all. ... "(Not Til I Have Done)

I just noticed that Michael Kruse on his blog has featured the Exiled Preacher and his interview with The Kevin Vanhoozer Interview. So I will give Guy Davies a double workout today since while there I saw that he had on Monday posted a review of a favorite book of mine, God Crucified: Monotheism & Christology in the New Testament, by Richard Bauckham. Go to God Crucified by Richard Bauckham. Here is a sample.

In this gem of a book, Bauckham sketches out his proposal that New Testament Christology is best understood using the Hebrew concept of the divine identity rather than Greek notions of person, essence and nature. It is sometimes assumed that the sub-apostolic church developed a higher Christology than we find in the New Testament, because it is only from from Nicaea onwards that Christ was confessed as fully God - a divine person who was homoousion with the Father. Bauckham questions this assumption saying,

"I shall be arguing what will seem to anyone familiar with the study of New Testament Christology a surprising thesis: that the highest possible Christology, the inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity, was central to the faith of the early church even before any of the New testament writings were written, since it occurs in all of them." (p. 27).

Listening and Waiting

My husband cupped his hand behind his ear and said: "Listen to what the Spirit says to the churches."

We were drinking coffee and talking about a class on the book of Revelation; the one he and his friend Bruce were preparing to teach. My husband said, "Think of how, in the thirties and forties, a child might listen in the night for the sound of the train's horn, hoping for the soon return of their daddy.

And then we were still, caught in memories of the past. He was listening for the sound of the train as it passed on the tracks at the edge of his childhood home on C street in Sacramento. I was far away in Northern Missouri, a young teenager once again.

My father had been gone for several months. Every night I listened for our front door to open, for him to come quietly into the house. No one in our small town knew where he was. Someone started a rumor; they had seen him driving East with a wild look in his eyes. But we, his family, knew. He was in California.

He was working on a dairy, gaining back his health, saving money, so he could come home and take us back to California with him.

The preceding year was hard. It began with someone finding my father in his truck in Ely Nevada bleeding to death from an ulcer. He was in the hospital for a long time, and then came home for awhile before slipping out of town to California to find a job. A place he had worked before. We were burdened with debt and he lost his truck. Now we were going to lose our home.

My older sister quit school to work in the cap factory with my mom. It was Pattonsburg's only "big" business besides trucking grain in and out of the grain elevators. I quit school to take care of my little sister who was only two years old. And then I lost my saxophone.

More than half of our school from the fifth grade up through high school played in the band. It was a marching band and we practiced most fall afternoons through the few streets of Pattonsburg. But the sax was gone and my mom and dad told me someone stole it. I know today. I know they couldn't finish paying for it and so I lost it.

And so I sat in our backyard on many of those late fall days and listened to the band marching somewhere in town and I cried while my sister took her nap.

There was happiness. I was constantly coming home from the library my arms loaded with books. I remember reading the Robe and other books by the author, including a book of his sermons. In the summer I began working at the local theater selling tickets and seeing all of the movies I wanted for free! Movie star Grace Kelly got married that year, to her prince, and the owner of the theater still owes me five dollars for the bet we made about how long she would stay married. Besides, I still had time to promenade up and down main street on Saturday night with my sisters and friends and to drink a chocolate coke at the drug store

But I waited with my family for my Dad's return. And one night I heard him in the kitchen talking to my Mom. We left in a few days for California and for what we hoped would be a new life.

But real human life, minus the eternal promises of God, often doesn't turn out the way we hope. Moments of joy, humanly speaking, are only moments.

Yes, I did go back to school. But Mom and Dad never owned their own home again. In fact, we finally ended up in public housing, and eventually I started taking jobs in other people's homes, living there, and making my way by cleaning and baby sitting. Both my Mom and Dad died early, my Mom at fifty one, my Dad two years later at the same age.

But my Mom and Dad found a greater treasure, a Savior and a heavenly home. And Jesus grabbed me too while he was at it.

The scriptures speak of all those who love his appearing, who long for his return; who put their hands to their ears and listen for his coming. We long for the coming of those close to us, but we are never sure. We long for the coming of Christ--and we are sure!

"Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died and your life, is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." (Col 3:1-4)

We are told, in the scriptures, that with the coming of Jesus Christ we will celebrate and worship. There will be music including harps. What I am hoping is that someone, as we kneel in praise, around the throne of God and the lamb, will hand me a saxophone. There in that place I am sure the reed will be wet enough, I will have enough breath and I will once again remember all of the notes.

A Bit More on Presbyterians Dancing with Karl Marx

I just saw these news items about Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez, who, according to the articles, is planning on nationalizing all schools and creating new curriculum which will undoubtedly be full of Marxist ideology.

The BBC article is here, Venezuela head warns on schools. And the Guardian Unlimited is here: Chavez Threatens To Take Over Schools. Sandra Sierra of the Guardian writes:

"Just what the curriculum will include and how it will be applied to all Venezuelan schools and universities remains unclear.

But one college-level syllabus obtained by The Associated Press shows some premedical students already have a recommended reading list including Karl Marx's ``Das Kapital'' and Fidel Castro's speeches, alongside traditional subjects like biology and chemistry.

The syllabus also includes quotations from Chavez and urges students to learn about slain revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara and Colombian rebel chief Manuel Marulanda, whose leftist guerrillas are considered a terrorist group by Colombia, the U.S. and European Union."

I am placing these articles here in light of the three articles I have just recently posted:

Presbyterians Dancing With Karl Marx! Part 1 .

Presbyterians Dancing With Karl Marx! Part 2 .

Presbyterians Dancing with Karl Marx Part 3 .

I have already mentioned Chavez in connection with organizations and groups Presbyterian Officials are patronizing and using for ministry such as the World Social Forum, but additionally there is an article on him at Presbyterian Peace Fellowship What is Happening in Venezuela?. It is written by Anne Barstow, Tom Driver, and Paul Driver .

Their conclusions are:
"Venezuela is a model for the future. Devoting some of the money that used to be in private hands to the public good is a sign of progress and is beneficial to the overall betterment of the country, especially when it is linked to the people’s feeling of political empowerment. Questions can be raised, and in Venezuela are raised, about too much concentration of power in the President’s hands. At this point in history, however, none of Venezuela’s alternatives to Chavismo offer as much hope."

May we soon turn from pushing any form of ideology and instead proclaim Jesus Christ Lord.

Wandering among the Welsh

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is "Exiled Preacher." Guy Davies is a Reformed Welsh Pastor living in England. Of course for anyone living in the United States that doesn't seem like much of an exile. But for him, a Welshman among the English, it is. One of the first things on his web site that caught my attention was this statement:

"The Englishman looks upon the Welshman as a rebel, an awkward individualist, as a man who always wants his own way and is perpetually creating totally uncalled for difficulties" (D.M.Lloyd-Jones)."

The reason that statement caught my attention is because, although my last name through my husband is Larson, his actual nationality is Welsh and Dutch. His father changed the family name from Roberts to Larson many years ago. (And that's another very long story.) But the point is, I am partly English and that description seems to me to fit my husband, and his brother, to a tee. I laughed a long time when I read it. And don't worry my husband laughed a long time too!

Every so often, the exiled preacher creates lists of ten and I particularly liked his one on ten reasons to read John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion:

Ten reasons to read Calvin's Institutes

Both the picture above and the one on the side of my blog were taken in Wales where we were hiking. The scene is near Aberystwyth in Northern Wales where we were staying. Since it was a ten mile hike I stayed at our B&B in the evening but my husband, Brad, went on to meet up with a Welsh choir we had found.

Since my husband not only is a piano tuner but also has a beautiful tenor voice, he sings in our church choir, we found a music store and asked where we might hear a local Welsh choir. After getting the information and a contact, we were told that we could go and hear them practice in the evening.

My husband went, and was invited to have a drink with them at the local pub, after their practice. He had his first taste of whiskey and a great time. Today, about fourteen years later he still orders music from the same music store.

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One of the great Christian revivals began in Wales in 1904. Here is a quote from an article, "The Welsh Revival of 1904-5" by Oliver W. Price, about the revival:

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"During the spring of 1904 a young Welshman named Evan Roberts was repeatedly awakened at 1:00 a.m. He met with God until 5:00 a.m. The Welsh revival followed. Churches were packed for prayer meetings. In a prayer meeting for young people, Pastor Joseph Jenkins asked for testimonies. A young girl named Florrie Evans, who had only been a believer a few days, rose and with a trembling voice said simply, 'I love Jesus with all my heart.' The other young people's hearts were melted. A powerful spiritual awakening that brought 100,000 people to Christ was under way."

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For several articles on the Welsh Revival including this one go to "The Welsh Revival of 1904-05.

Presbyterians Dancing with Karl Marx Part 3

I entitled this series “Presbyterians Dancing with Karl Marx,” but originally I named it, “Why are they singing the Internationale?” The original title occurred to me after reading a story by a member of Agricultural Missions Inc. She wrote of hearing the Landless Workers singing the Brazilian version of the Internationale as a ritual at the beginning of their day. So the research that finally pushed me into these posts was an attempt to answer the question that the story evoked: Why are they singing the Internationale?

The Internationale, first used in France and later in the Communist Soviet Union has some rather interesting words. The original French version’s first verse begins:

Arise, the damned of the earth,
Arise, prisoners of hunger,
Reason thunders in its crater,
It is the eruption of the end!
Let's make a blank slate of the past,

The second verse offers the solution for the damned:

There are no supreme saviours,
Neither God, nor Caesars, nor tribune
Producers, let's save ourselves!

The Soviet one is not much different neither are most other versions. Various revolutionary groups have used this song including those who stood their ground in the “Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.”1 However, the song has its strongest history among revolutionary Marxists movements.

But there is a bigger question than why are they singing that song. Why are those who call themselves Christian aligning with groups who either adhere to a godless Marxist ideology, or adhere to the false gods of other cultures and ethnic groups?

Why not do the hard work of the gospel, which includes caring for the needy, feeding the poor and above all else proclaiming Jesus Christ as the unique Savior of lost sinners?

There are many organizations in the Presbyterian Church that do this without aligning themselves with far left organizations. For instance just recently Presbyterian Global Fellowship had their 2007 conference. Their speakers were those concerned with both social issues and proclaiming the good news that Jesus came to redeem a people for his own. Also, there is Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and Outreach Foundation who have joined together to form Antioch Partners.

When Christians disconnect from proclaiming Jesus Christ crucified, they disconnect from their foundations. In the temptation in the wilderness, Satan attempted to entice Jesus to exchange his allegiance to his Father, for the kingdoms of this world. Jesus’ answer was “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

Nothing but pottage is left if a Christian does otherwise.

Exchanging Jesus for the gods of this world

One particular organization that is used by Presbyterians for travel on what is seen as reality checks on social justice issues is Global Exchange. Presbyterian Women lists them on their web page dedicated to their Brazilian trip. They also list the Marxists leaning Landless Workers Movement of Brazil on this page.

One of the ladies who is confounder with Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and a group called Codepink took a group to Venezuela to the sixth World Social Forum. There a group from both Global Exchange and Codepink met with the leftist president Hugo Chavez. The cofounder, Jodie Evans wrote of Chavez:

He was a doll. Generous, open, passionate, excited, stimulated by the requests and happy to be planning with us. He was realistic but willing to stretch. I was fascinated to learn what a well educated environmentalist he is. The next project of his administration is one focused on the environment. When we asked him to take a stronger leadership position in the international anti-war movement, he was happy to do so, and said "this is not a lost cause, we can stop this war." (bold Evans’)

Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin may be excused for their adoring flattery of the despots and ideologies of the world; they do not claim a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. But those who call themselves Christians including Presbyterian Women and Presbyterian “Just Trade” need to remember they belong to the One through whom and for whom all things were created. (Col 1:1

Returning to congregations of prayer and the Word

Perhaps Barth had the very best advise for the Church in crisis times although he was writing in 1933. This will be a long quote but worth reading for our time:

The prime need of our time is for a spiritual centre of resistance: one that would, for the first time, give a meaning and a content to Church politics. The man who understands this will not 'gird himself for any fight,' but will put on his programme, 'Work and Pray.'

Now, let no one say too hastily: 'This is no good to-day, amid the summer of 1933.' [the end of the summer of 2007!] There are some theologians who ought to hang down their heads with shame for having preached such fine sermons on 'God is our only Helper' (Psalm xlvi.; Luther's rendering) and then snapping out 'It's no good now.' They should let the word come home to themselves that: 'The help of the Lord is really the only help; indeed, the only real-politik of help to the Church." ...

Again, let no one say to hastily that in the concrete situation in which the Churches are now placed, something has to be done, altogether different from what has been suggested, in order to stop the mischief. Of course something has to be done; very much so; but most decidedly nothing other than this, viz. that the Church congregations be gathered together again, but aright and anew in fear and joy, to the Word by means of the Word. All the crying about and over the Church will not deliver the Church. Where the Church is a Church she is already delivered. Let persecution be never so severe, it will not affect her! 'Still,' it is said, 'still,' shall the City of God abide, lusty beside her tiny stream' (Psalm xlvi 5; Luther's translation).

(Theological Existence Today)

In an attempt to do good works minus the glorifying of Christ, the Church becomes faithless. The call of the Church is to go to the entire world. The call is to reach out to all kinds of needs including the needs of the landless poor in every nation, but it is not a call for the Church to align herself with the godless ideologies and forces of the world.

I believe we have forgotten that the homeless, the poor, the dammed of the earth, as both the Bible and the Internationale describe us, not only need material help we also need to know Jesus Christ as the risen Savior, crucified for our salvation.


1 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale.