Abandoned Children

This twenty-month-old girl was discovered abandoned, crying,  locked in a men’s restroom at a Shell service station in Newark, Delaware, on Feb. 21. Later, police found a possible link to a woman thought to be her mother, whose charred body was uncovered in the remains of a fire. This NY Daily News article tells the story.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, a young man went out to socialize recently, leaving his nine-month-old baby girl alone in a hotel room. Some hotel employees used a pass key to open the room  after she had been heard crying for hours. Apparently, she was alone there for thirteen hours. The story about this incident is in this Vancouver Sun article, dated Feb. 25.

The BBC Live News Channel features a story about a tiny baby girl, around two to four months old, who was abandoned in November, 2008, outside a hospital emergency room in Lincolnshire, England.

How can parents abandon their children, no matter what the circumstances are? Disclaimer: I am not talking about "tough love," which people sometimes must resort to in order to make their children aware of intolerable destructive behavior; what I refer to is parents leaving children for selfish reasons.  Imagine the unspeakable devastation of children of any age whose parents reject or go off and leave them. What can comfort such a child?

The only thing of lasting power to give solace and healing to a child’s heart broken through rejection or abandonment is the sheltering love of God.  The Bible says God is close to the brokenhearted, to children unloved and left alone. In Psalm 27: 10, David knows that “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” He will become both father and mother to children bereft of parents.

God’s love is the only perfect love. Parents are human and therefore flawed. Their love is imperfect, and they cannot hope to love unconditionally. But if they know love of any kind, they know something of God. God will heal the heart of anyone abandoned and left rejected and deeply hurt. And, too, he will forgive parents who cause such hurts.

I once met a pastor named Ruben in Mexico who made up a song he sang while he worked as a construction boss. These are the words (translated), a message to parents in a country with many abandoned children, especially near the border:  All who can hear my voice, if you have children, never leave them, never abandon them.

Abandoned Children

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/abandoned-children.html

Ash Wednesday, 2010

Ash Wednesday was a few days ago, Feb. 17.  In celebration of the beginning of Lent, I went to an evening service at my church.  Pastor John put a cross-shaped smudge of ashes on my forehead, saying “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.”  He said Lent is a time for reflection and repentance.

He said sometimes people give up something for Lent, but too often, they do it for the wrong reasons--to lose weight, for example.  The purpose for giving up something is to help us focus on Christ, what he means to us, our response to him. I don’t have trouble with that focus, so I don’t give up anything, or at least I never have until this year.

My daughter and I decided to forego desserts except for one day a week.  As I said, I have not done this before.  On Tuesday, the 16^th, I celebrated the coming experience by eating the last big  chocolate chip cookie, grown slightly stale, but homemade, and a handful of semi-sweet chocolate bits. Someone pointed out to me that Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday,” is for that purpose, so people especially in New Orleans can go all out in whatever debauchery they love, and then give it all up for Lent. Somehow, that bit of information always eluded me. I knew they did it, as loud and long as possible, but I never realized its connection to Lent.  

The result of my sacrifice, so far, is that every time I see chocolate or have the opportunity, like today,  to turn down a hot fudge sundae, I think about Jesus and my commitment to him.  I believe my attention will be more riveted on him in the coming weeks because of it.  I will spend more time in prayer, meditation, and Bible reading.  

I grew up as a Baptist, and we didn’t do Ash Wednesday or Lent.  I have been a Methodist for over thirty years, but have been paying close attention for only sixteen years--I fell in love with God in March, 1994, just before Easter. (Here’s a link to that story.)  So I am still learning.

As I learn more about him, I see how wondrous his love is, how tender and precious. And I understand that this unfathomable love is the reason for the miracle of atonement through his son Jesus. I do not deserve it and never could, but I am forgiven and have a healed heart filled with sweet, quiet--sometimes loud--joy. And that is my strength.

Here are links to a couple of posts I wrote in previous years about Lent. I invite you to read them! 

“Ash Wednesday”--2006

“Ash Wednesday, 2007”

The picture comes from this site: www.stbs.org.uk/  

Ash Wednesday, 2010

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/ash-wednesday-2010.html

Ducks or Geese in Formation

I had a forty-five minute drive home the other day. It was late afternoon, and I was tired, dreading the drive home.

Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds in an afterthought, so I looked up to see a little blue sky.  High overhead was a V-formation of ducks or geese, headed north. I watched them as long as I could. Two other formations came along, then. I slowed down so I could see them longer.

As the road turned, I could see a large group of them from the back, and I saw something new (to me!).  Occasionally, a bird near the front of the formation would move a little sideways. All the rest of the birds in that line followed that one exactly, and so the whole line rippled, like a wave in water. It happened in several waves.

I was amazed at the sight of how closely they followed, how precisely each one  imitated  the one just ahead. It was a beautiful thing--a ripple of birds.

The picture is from this site: ifornature.blogspot.com/2008/01/tg-halli.html

Ducks or Geese in Formation

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/02/ducks-or-geese-in-formation.html

Before all things

One of my favorite Bible verses is this:

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This verse is found in the first chapter of Colossians, verse 17. In this chapter, Paul prefaces his letter to the Christians of Colossae, a city in ancient Greece. The Christian Colossians are said to have been in error in their beliefs. Paul feared they were heading toward ways of worshipping that would reduce Christianity to a legal system and obscure Jesus.

The verse is part of a statement of beliefs--a testimonial prayer for the believer’s life. It proclaims the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the supreme power and love of God, who redeemed us from darkness and emptiness through Jesus. It means God created the world and everything in it, and that he is in control of it all.

That gives me hope and a sense of security, even when it may appear that our lives are falling apart. Because God is love, I know I can depend on him. That doesn't mean he will keep me from being hurt or sick or from making dumb decisions. But it does mean that when these things happen, I will still be able to find a center of peace, a cool oasis in the desert. All will not be lost--even if all is lost.

The little drawing comes from this site: http://www.saintjohnsbible.org/

Before all things

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/before-all-things.html

LBJ's Daughter and Me: Trivia

 

Here is a bit of trivia from around 1965: 

I graduated from UT Austin with (rather, at the same time as) Lynda Bird Johnson, oldest daughter of Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird Johnson. I saw her in her cap and gown just before the ceremony, walking down a wide sidewalk that extends a long way down in front of the UT library. She was surrounded by secret service agents, also in caps and gowns. They were looking about suspiciously. They reminded me of a flock of blackbirds.

LBJ and Lady Bird were there in the audience, of course, and I had a good view of them. My parents were there, too; it was a relatively small summer graduation outside on the “mall.” Apparently, the Johnsons had asked that the speakers pay no particular attention to them, as nobody even introduced them.  

LBJ had the world’s longest ear lobes.

I borrowed this picture of the Johnsons from this site:  americanpicturelinks.com/36lj.htm

LBJ's Daughter and Me: Trivia

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/lbjs-daughter-and-me-trivia.html

Carpe Diem and Tattoos

“Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero” means “seize the day and place little trust in tomorrow.”  Apparently, this Latin phrase is quite popular these days as a tattoo.  An Internet search of Google Images shows a large number of inquiries about it and many pictures of designs featuring it.

I have a young friend, in her thirties now, whose small butterfly tattoo grew to huge proportions when she was pregnant. But she really wanted to rid herself of the two-inch flower on her ankle, so she underwent five laser treatments to have it removed.

She learned several things:

1. Tattoo removal is painful and expensive. As the picture above shows, the inks/paints are deeply buried in the skin. This article describes removal options and gives other interesting information.

2. Getting a tattoo can be dangerous; tattoo artistry is not regulated and is often unsanitary. You can get hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases from dirty needles.

3. Some tattoo artists use metallic inks, even automobile paint, for their designs. Metal-based paints can cause pain and burning during later MRIs.

My friend moved away from the city where she was having the removal treatments. Now the flower tattoo looks like a bruise, and she is happier with her ankle that looks more like the perfect one God gave her.

Seizing the day is good. However, while you might enjoy your tattoo today and even for a few years, you can trust  that a time may well come when you will wish you had seized it with less permanent means. 

Carpe Diem and Tattoos

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/carpe-diem-and-tattoos.html

Children and Carpe Diem

Here’s a truth:  children grow up too fast. And here’s an auxiliary truth: life goes by too fast; we are too soon old. Therefore, carpe diem. As a poetry lover, I wish to share with you this poem by Thomas Lux.

A Little Tooth

by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

* * *

"A Little Tooth" from Drowned River by Thomas Lux. Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Lux. Borrowed from the Poetry Society of America’s website.

Children and Carpe Diem

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/children-and-carpe-diem.html

The Birth of Jesus

The book of Luke tells us that the angel of God said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” And so she became pregnant with the baby Jesus.

Soon after that, Mary went to spend several months with her relative Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, who lived in the hill country, some distance away. The angel had also told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant; beyond the child-bearing age, Elizabeth had been unable to conceive until then.

As soon as Mary greeted Elizabeth, the baby in her womb, she said, “leaped for joy.” This baby, from the womb, recognized the Christ child in Mary’s womb. He was to be John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. The Holy Spirit within him saw the Christ and communicated joy to his spirit.

My friend and Sunday school teacher, whose name happens to be Mary, said this reaction of the unborn baby John to the unborn baby Jesus is a picture of what happens when we accept Christ. The Holy Spirit comes inside us to give us the mind of Christ so that we can discern truth. And so the Holy Spirit in us recognizes Jesus and causes our spirits to leap with joy.

On the previous Sunday morning, a man in our class said he wasn’t so sure all that was possible. In human terms, it is not possible.

Do I believe God can do anything—that he is omnipotent? If my answer is “yes,” then how can I question a pregnancy that happened without human intercourse? How can I question the pregnancy of an old, barren woman? How can I question one unborn baby’s reaction to another unborn baby?

Luke 1:37 says, “For nothing is impossible with God.”

The picture comes from this site: www.dst-corp.com/james/PaintingsOfJesus/NoJS.ht and it is entitled "His Name Shall Be Called Wonderful." The artist is Simon Dewey.


This is a re-print of this entry, from 2007. The picture is different.

The Birth of Jesus

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/birth-of-jesus.html

Fear--A Cultural Focus

The American cultural focus these days is on risk, threat, danger, hazard, warning.  Swine flu, terrorism, AIDS, e. coli, massive blood infections.  Dust mites, global warming, mad cow disease, tsunamis, Lyme disease, autism. Failure, computer viruses, insomnia, PAD, ED, TB, plagiarism, death. Losing face, losing money, losing custody, losing control. We are dogged by angst.

Max Lucado wrote a thought-provoking book about this subject called Fearless: Imagine Your Life without Fear. He made me think about it, and I realize how huge fear is in our culture. I can think of quite a number of important things I could have done--might have done--but never even considered because of my fear and timidity. With God’s help, I can overcome fear in my life. I think it’s my biggest obstacle.

Can you imagine what your life would be like without fear?  What if fear and anxiety went away and left you in peace? How would it be if we could trust God so completely that we relinquished control of our lives to him?  He’s in control, anyway; we just think we are.

Would you live differently? How might it change things?

Picture borrowed from Voices of Oneness Blog

Fear--A Cultural Focus

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/fear-cultural-focus.html

On Children and Priorities

Some well-meaning (maybe) woman recently said this to a young mother I know:

Look at yourself. You look like a mom. You are a beautiful woman, but your children suck everything out of you. You need to spruce up your wardrobe and do something for yourself! Let yourself be the priority for once!

The young mother was shocked and hurt, understandably. She thought about her priorities, and here’s what she decided:

My children are my priority and greatest blessing, as they should be. My job right now is to love them, guide them into adulthood, and teach them to love God so their lives will be filled with him. That’s how they can best live in the world, which is full of hard knocks--through love of God and other people. Concern about “Self” is of little importance in the rank of major things.

I agree with her. While our children were growing up, I saw my mother-role as the most important thing I’d ever do and as the most rewarding of all hats I would ever wear.  I still feel that way, as a grandmother.  And, by the way, the baby in this picture is one of my granddaughters. Isn't she a cutie? Look how trusting she is. She knew, somehow, even at this age, that she was deeply loved.

On Children and Priorities

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-children-and-priorities.html

An Occasional Word

It is no secret that I am a word person.  I have no words to describe how words intrigue me, draw me, inspire, entertain, and confuse me.  I love to investigate all kinds of wordage--their meanings, both their denotations and their connotations. 

My word! The word word speaks broad meaning.  You can give your word as a promise, to assure someone. Or you can speak a word of caution or advice. You should keep your word, in the first case, and you should limit your word in the second. People will depend on your word if you don’t break it, but they will ignore you if your outpouring of words is too numerous, too critical or bossy, or too insignificant. You must be a man or woman of your word, standing on that word, and be as good as your word. You must never break your word.

If you are quoting an expert, be sure to do it word for word rather than in so many words, or you’ll mislead somebody. If you take the words right out of someone’s mouth, your relationship might be very close and understanding. If you hang on somebody’s words, you could be in an unbalanced relationship. 

You could be a wordsmith who enjoys subtle wordplay, arranges wording in word processing, or plays word square or does crossword puzzles. You could read the wonderful words of Wordsworth. You could be wordless, which I am not. You could have a brain-lesion problem called alexia that makes you word blind, so you can’t read, and that would be torture. You could look up the 100 most beautiful words in the English language at this linked site.

You could read the word of God. You could see that it is the living word, and in the book of John, you could learn how the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus.

Words have great power, and that’s why the pen is mightier than the sword. But in a word, all this utterance is just so many words.

*For much of this word, I had the help of Webster. And the picture comes from this site: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/10/

An Occasional Word

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/occasional-word.html

A Semi-Serious Meditation on Scavengers

The ocean floor is home to one of the world’s largest clean-up crews. Imagine all the leavings of carelessness, death, and destruction that sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Scientists in oceanography have discovered that thousands of scavengers and decomposers, as well as exotic and beautiful creatures, live in total darkness below 656 feet in the ocean, according to this linked Associated Press article on Yahoo.

The AP article says “Thousands of marine species eke out an existence in the ocean's pitch-black depths by feeding on the snowlike decaying matter that cascades down — even sunken whale bones. Oil and methane also are an energy source for the bottom-dwellers. . . .”

The deepest ocean floor is the domicile of giant tubeworms. In the upper areas of the ocean, an Extreme Science site says, tubeworms commonly grow to about the size of your hand, but the deep sea variety of tubeworm often reaches eight feet in length around warm-water vents.

 

According to the site of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment at the University of Delaware, tubeworms are structurally very simple in that they do not have the internal organs most creatures have--mouth, eyes, and stomach--that aid in finding nourishment and eating.  It was discovered recently that they do have mouths and stomachs in their earliest stages to help them take in the bacteria on which they live. But as they grow, these organs disappear.

The Extreme Science site says

Scientists were at a loss to explain how these tube-worms were getting nutrients to survive and grow. It turns out their insides are lined with bacteria that oxidize the H2S (hydrogen sulfide gas released by the hydrothermal vents), turning it into usable nutrients for the worms. The bacteria, in turn, benefit from the relationship because the worms deliver blood-containing hemoglobin, which helps the bacteria to break down the sulfides.

It is all a cycle whose parts mesh perfectly.

The deep-sea tubeworm is something amazing (among many things) that God has created as part of  the ocean’s janitorial team.  Even nasty oil spill messes can be scoured up and turned into nutrients. The earth is full of highly efficient scavengers and decomposers like buzzards, hyenas, and cockroaches, not to mention fungi, microbes, and bacteria.

Afterthought: A cockroach can live a week without its head! (It only dies then because it can't drink water.)  --A Good Grief! Moment from NatureWorks 

A Semi-Serious Meditation on Scavengers

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/semi-serious-meditation-on-scavengers.html

Speaking of Reading...

Here are some great Christian books that I've read:

• The Bible
• Bread for the Journey--Henri Nouwen, or anything by Nouwen
• Fearless: Imagine Your Life without Fear, or anything by Max Lucado
• Life of the Beloved--Henri Nouwen
• Mere Christianity--C.S. Lewis, or anything by Lewis
• Rumors of Another World--Philip Yancy, or anything by Yancy
• Same Kind of Different as Me--Ron Hall
• The Irresistible Revolution--Shane Claiborne
• My Utmost for His Highest—Oswald Chambers
• Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana--Anne Rice, and NOT just anything by Rice! I have Called Out of Darkness by Rice, the story of how she came to the decision to follow Christ, to read soon.

Speaking of Reading...

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/speaking-of-reading.html

Thoughts on Reading

You can't read and drive at the same time. Well, you could, I suppose, but you might run into a bridge or something worse. I like to listen to audio books as I drive--makes the driving more interesting. I confess that I am an intense bookworm, even the audio kind. Reading is the best entertainment of the world, and listening to books is an excellent substitute.

That’s usually true. However, a recent one I heard was Emma, an unabridged (every last word) Victorian novel by Jane Austen. This book was almost interminable, as the characters conversed on and on about every possible subject, not many of much consequence, mostly relationships. One day as I was agonizing with Emma and her friend Harriet, I thought, This would make a good play, but as a book, it is hard to take. But I was determined, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with it to the long-suffering, happily-ever-after end.

Then I rented the movie, and it was delightful. I was right about it making a good play. Gwyneth Paltrow was perfect in the role of Emma. It was considerably abridged. I even cried at the end.

After that one, I checked out the audio book of Pride and Prejudice, another novel by Jane Austen. Why did I do that? I still don’t know. But after one fifty-mile trip with it, I couldn’t take it any more, and I returned it to the library. I will rent the movie.

I generally love huge, long novels. Last year, when I was going on a three-hundred-mile trip, I bought the unabridged audio version of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It had over twenty CDs, and I was completely engrossed in that story. I adored Gone with the Wind and Les Miserables and the Mark of the Lion series of three long novels. James Michener’s 900-page The Source and John Irving’s gigantic A Prayer for Owen Meany held me enchanted.

But Emma. Please….no!

The picture was borrowed from Life magazine: http://images.google.com/hosted/life/

Thoughts on Reading

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/thoughts-on-reading.html

Peace for Rosie

Rosie* is a ball of raw emotion. She reacts too quickly in anger when her supervisor at work asks her questions that, to most people, would not be seen as threatening. The extreme feelings she has about current situations in her life overwhelm her. She thinks about what someone did or said until it becomes different and hurtful, in her mind. She cries easily and says things she doesn’t mean; she has diarrhea.

Stress is a health-wrecker--frustration, worrying, fretting, being obsessive. And besides that, it makes life chaotic and hellish. Here are some telling statistics, according to this linked article on Web MD:

Forty-three percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects from stress.

Seventy-five to 90% of all doctor's office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints.

Stress can play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, or arthritis in addition to depression and anxiety.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) declared stress a hazard of the workplace. Stress costs American industry more than $300 billion annually.

The lifetime prevalence of an emotional disorder is more than 50%, often due to chronic, untreated stress reactions.

I hope Rosie will be able to find peace. Many people search for it today and don’t find it. Where can you find it? The answer is simple, and maybe that’s why some distrust it, but it is true. Deep, lasting, inner-core quietness is found by trusting in God and looking to him for that peace. A sense of calm fulfillment is possible--IS possible--and this is an absolute truth.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah says if we trust in God, his peace will fill us:

You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3, NIV)

In the New Testament, Jesus beckons to the stressed, the tired, the overwhelmed:

²⁸If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. ³⁰This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light. (Matthew 11, CEV)

The Message translation says it another way:

^28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

That's my prayer for peace.

*This is not really her name; she’s a composite of several stressed-out people I know.

Peace for Rosie

https://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/peace-for-rosie.html