In a few hours I'm off to Newfoundland. That's where I was born and spent twenty-three years before I left the first time. Since then, we've moved back three times and left three times and, now, here we are in London.
The occasion of this trip is my mother's birthday. Mary Louise Antle Sparkes is going to be 90 years old on September 1st. She is sharp of mind and wit and humour and still loves new shoes even though she now gets around in a wheel chair. She'll enjoy her party, I know, and all of us who are able to return for the celebration are looking forward to the time together.
Several of the grandchildren and one daughter won't be at the party. Some of the grandchildren who live thousands of miles away aren't able to attend the afternoon tea celebration, but they have sent greetings to be read on the day. In my daughter's, sent by e-mail earlier today, I was touched to read that my mother's legacy to her was how she showed love's faithfulness.
Gillian wrote about how when she was a child and we drove the 50 miles to Shearstown to visit her grandparents, she looked forward to the smells in Nanny's house, the sweet fragrance of cookies coming out of the oven, bread just baked, or jams boiling on the stove. There was also the ever present promise of chocolate treats in the blue dish on the end table in the lvingroom. She knew Nanny was always ready.
I don't think Gillian would mind if I shared this, about how part of what she loved about those trips was the faithful assurance..."that there would be you, Nanny, making sure that everyone was fed, happy, healthy, and well taken care of."
Gillian learned from her grandmother, from her example of faith, the unfathomable, unearned love of God. Somehow, that understanding is connected to and strengthened by her memories of my mother's love and faithfulness. Now, whenever Gillian "enters a bakery or someone's home who has been cookin' good food," it evokes the memories of sweet smells on Sparkes Lane in Shearstown, and she remembers the faithfulness of love.
Maybe it is always the case that our first experiences of, and impressions of, God are often found in the lives of his people. We are made in his image, he has told us: Maybe, for good or bad, people around us see his image in us and, just maybe, it is for that reason the Bible so often tells us to love. Our love is to be unfeigned, the kind that forgives seventy times seven, that puts the beloved's welfare above one's own, that seeks the good of the beloved at all times, that reflects the love that has been shed abroad in us. The love that died for us.
"Whether there are prophecies, they will fail...tongues will cease...knowledge will vanish away;...love never fails." I Corinthians 13:8
Thanks, Gillie.
In Chapter Six of What's In A Name, I wrote about our eyes and what they look at.
Luke records something Jesus said about our eyes: "The light of the body is the eye; therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body is full of light."
For years, that statement was beyond me. I'd wonder, When is my eye single and how does my body get to be full of light? Of course, I knew it's meaning wasn't as literal as that might make it sound, but still, I didn't get it.
Since then I have realized that what is important is my understanding of it's application. A single eye is a focused eye, and when my eye is focused on the things of the light, of truth, it effects everything about my life. The way I keep my eye single is by giving due respect to its function and choosing well where I look.
Here are just a few Bible admonitions about "looking":
Of course it doesn't matter how many or how few scriptures about "looking" we can find. Whether the number of references is small or great, what really matters is the overall Biblical truth about where we keep our inner eyes, the eyes of our heart.
As that Sunday School chorus of my childhood went, "Oh be careful little eyes what you see."
My friend Jill became a grandmother last week. It shouldn't amaze me, since she is of that age, as are my other friends and I. But it does: I'm truly amazed.
Maybe it's because I'm not yet a grandmother and it seems strange that my friends are there already. Although, come to think of it, I've heard many a newly minted grandmother say, "I can't believe it!" Maybe none of us can fathom it at first.
I don't think our amazement has anything to do with the fact that our children are parents; I think it has to do with the fact that we don't feel nearly as old as our grandparents were, or as our parents were when we made them grandparents.
Somehow, in spite of bodies that carry undeniable evidence of the passing years, our minds don't so much. There are still so many things in this world that feel new to us.
I think the fact that our world feels new every morning is a wonderful gift of God. I know the probably depressed writer of Ecclesiastes said there's nothing new under the sun, but [Dare I say it?] I think he was wrong. Every day is new; filled with new mercies [That's biblical!] and with fresh grace. It's also filled with new challenges and hope and new manifestations of God's blessing.
We see it in the face of each new baby.
