Imagery

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In the mega store employees are required to greet me.

They ask if they can help. I say, “No, but thank you for asking.” One particularly persistent young woman asks how I am doing and if my day is good and if I have some time to talk about switching to satellite television.  I tell her thank you for asking but we are happy with what we have. That was it. Nothing particularly gracious.

And you know what she said? “Thank you for not running away.”

Can you believe it?

This young woman made in the image of God had to thank me for treating her as such. Yikes. Shouldn’t it be the default response?

So today I want to celebrate our ‘image of God’ ness and share a few of my thousand favorite photos of folks made in the image of God.

The Incline

The little church in which I grew up set aside time in the worship service for silent prayer.
We would bow our heads and quietly petition our Father.
After a moment or so the organist cued us to finish the prayer and we sang in unison:

"Hear our prayer O Lord,

Hear our prayer O Lord,

Incline Thine ear to us,

And grant us Thy peace."

It was just a song we sang. A way to make sure no one fell asleep, or worse, didn't pray silently on and on while the rest of the congregation fidgeted in embarrassment.

Then the song fell out of use. I haven't heard it in decades. But one day, preparing my little boys to pray before we started our school day, it hit me.

We approach the creator of the universe, the One who knows intimately every hair on every head since the beginning of time, the One who formed and recognizes every pebble and blade of grass. 

He is the One who describes the earth as His footstool and who holds all creation together by the power of His Word, who is working out His plans throughout every kingdom and nation and ruler.

That's the One we asked to take time and listen to a scattered homeschool mom and 3 jelly-stained boys.

The song came rushing back. The small congregation of my childhood had been asking for what we need every day.

Like small children we tug at the hand of our busy father, urging him to bend his ear close.

And the God of time and creation stoops with love and affection and says,

"Tell me what you need, my little one."

The Early Word gets the Birm

Last Wednesday we looked into the delights of malapropisms.
This week the promised spoonerisms make their appearance.

When I teach my little English class about Spoonerisms I tell them that they are named after Rev. Spooner, who elevated transposing initial sounds of neighboring words
(for example, ‘The Lord is a shoving leopard’) to an art form.

But, never content to just rest on my cursory research skills I had to dig deeper.
And I learn of the possibility that not every spoonerism attributed to Rev. Spooner was actually generated by that venerable gentleman. Some may have been made up by his students.

Who to believe? Internet research is turning me into a cynic.
But still, a spoonerism is a spoonerism and they can be a true delight.
So let’s just suspend our cynicism, enjoy some of 'Rev. Spooner’s' verbal gyrations and maybe come up with a few of our own.

-When anticipating the triumphal return of British troops after WWI he said, “When our boys come home from France we will have the hags flung out.”

-Doughty English farmers were ‘noble tons of soil”,
he admired a finely tuned bike as a ‘well-boiled icicle’
and, with impeccable manners before dropping in on a college dean inquired:
“Is the bean dizzy?”


Spoonerisms can be the sprinkles on top of the language cupcake. Entire fairy stories have been re-written using spoonerisms: ‘Bleeping Speauty’, Prinderella and the Cince’ 'The Mittle Lermaid'


I’ve accomplished some inadvertent spoonerisms in my time. Our neighbors Darryl and Heather were twisted and reformed into Harryl and Deather and I really disliked the 60’s style cag sharpet in our living room.

You, too, can become adept at spoonerisms. Just be careful or you may find yourself blushing when you refer to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as the ‘Canadian Broadcorping Castration.’

I'm bringing peevish back

There are lists of the most beautiful words in the English language. One list includes ‘epiphany’ and ‘mellifluous’ and ‘serendipity’.
 
Evocative words may be ‘calm’ or ‘chinook’ ‘snuggle’  or ‘mom’.

Words that are fun to say, like ‘bobolink’ and ‘hornswoggle’ and ‘tinitinnabulation’ are, well, fun to say.
Like ‘mulligrubs’, which means sulky.

But some words are making their way back into my vocabulary because they elevate my emotions and emotional responses above the petty all the way to apposite (or 'appropriate for the circumstances').

Therefore, I am not a worrier. Worry is for bureaucrats and hand-wringers.
I fret. So much more active and deliberate than worrying, with a smidgen of Piglet thrown in.

I’m not timid.
I’m circumspect.

I don’t get moody.
I display ephemeral emotions.

I’m not a grammar nazi.
I’m a grammaticaster.

And I do not get grouchy, irritable or ticked off.
I become peevish.

My sister reminded me of what a great word peevish is and suddenly I am looking for any reason calling for peevishness.
And, just like the traffic cop who isn’t there when you need him, peeve-inducing events are remarkably sparse as of late.
Appliances are behaving, my loved ones are behaving, the weather is behaving, other drivers are behaving.
Serendipity is threatening. It is positively looming.
I’m fretting about the possibility that, unless I can exercise my new-found peevishness soon I may begin to mulligrub.

A Prude Salutes You

I’ve told you how much I loved my Childcraft books, correct? Especially the ones that had historical little vignettes presented as narrative?
I met, among a host of others, Robert Louis Stevenson, Homer, Louis Armstrong, Sitting Bull, Belle Boyd (Lady Spy) and that guy who was the first to break the 4-minute mile.

One story began with two police officers walking the beat and chatting. In two paragraphs I already liked and respected the men. And then–the unthinkable. An earthquake tossed a piece of concrete at the men and killed one of them outright. I felt betrayed, but kept reading, because that is how good Childcraft writers were back in the 1960’s.

The rest of the five page story told how Officer Edward F. Parquet, who survived, rescued dozens of people from a collapsed and burning hospital. I loved that man.

At the end of each little vignette would be an explanation of what had happened in the story, who were the heroes and the historical significance. This particular story occurred during the San Francisco earthquake in April, 1906.
The explanation ended by telling me, “Many of the people who were there are still alive today.”
In my modern ranch house in the late ’60’s, in the days of rock music and anti-war demonstrations and Bonne Bell lip gloss, it didn’t seem possible.

But guess what??????

There are still survivors TODAY! One hundred and six years later a handful of people are still around to commemorate the April 18 anniversary of the quake. Truly. Three 1906 earthquake survivors who won’t see the sunny side of 100 again were at the celebration.
These frail people transported me from 2012, back to my bedroom in 1969 where I was actually living through a 1906 earthquake alongside a courageous policeman who was risking his life to rescue every single person in a hospital.

To Officer Parquet, Earthquake Survivors, Childcraft, and Bonnie MacConnell, who wrote “Give Me Strength!” about the quake:
I salute you.

Morning Has Broken

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Morning has broken
Like the first morning,

Black bird has spoken
Like the first bird.

Praise the singing!
Praise for the morning!

Praise for them springing
Fresh from the Word!

 

Sweet the rain's new fall
Sunlit from heaven,

Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,

Sprung in completeness
Where His feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning.

Born of the one light
Eden saw play!

Praise with elation,
Praise ev'ry morning,

God's recreation
Of the new day!

Eleanor Farjeon

Give a Poor Prude a Praise

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Remember last week, when I skimmed the surface of the ‘hymns vs. praise’ debate?

Since I cut my teeth on hymns and still enjoy them every week, my exposure to Praise and Worship songs is limited at best.

So here is what I'd like for Theology Thursday:

Your favorite praise song.

To help you narrow the field, could you limit to the following criteria?

1)  The song you share has to be capable of being sung by a congregation.

The Newsboys ‘The Breakfast Song’ is all kinds of fun to listen to, but it may be difficult for a large group to keep perfectly in time while singing ‘When the big one finds you, may this song remind you that they don’t serve breakfast in hell.’

It doesn’t need 4-part harmony, but it should be free of swoops and dives and uncountable pauses that work fine for soloists but confuse a congregation. Especially if tone deaf prudes are sprinkled in here and there.

2) The song can use adjectives like ‘great’ and ‘worthy’ and ‘awesome’ to describe God but then it has to tell WHY He is great/worthy/awesome.  If my husband or children tell someone how fabulous I am I want them to back it up. Describe how I can wrap a yarn wreath or take 400 photos in a single Easter Egg Hunt. Just make sure the hearee knows WHY I am so special. So your praise song should tell me what about God is great.

3) Your song can’t be ‘How Deep the Father’s Love for Us’ or ‘In Christ Alone’. I know them already. I love them already.

4) You can share a link or just the title and composer. If you wrote it? So much the better!