Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

Mother's Day--
Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

It is no wonder that one of my mother's favorite songs was the hymn, "Let the lower lights be burning," composed by Philip Paul Bliss, a nineteenth-century musician and evangelist.

Living and growing in Wesleyville, one of Newfoundland's poor but hearty outports on the island’s northeastern Bonavista Bay, and with a father who captained a fishing schooner, my mother was well educated (formally, she finished the equivalent of eighth grade) about the importance of the "lower lights."

The history of Bliss's 1871 hymn suggests he wrote it after hearing a sermon by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody that included a story of a ship running aground while entering Cleveland harbor (on Lake Erie) because the lighthouse had failed.

Moody made the distinction of the upper lights, God's starry heaven, the navigation aid to mariners worldwide, and the "lower lights" provided by coastal lighthouses that warn ships of danger as they approach shallow rockbound coasts. These lower lights--the strong beams from the lighthouse--were critical beacons of warning and guides to safety for ships approaching their berths. The lower lights provide sailors their way to safe harbor.

Moody's story noted that God takes care of the upper lights, but it is the Christian's duty to "let the lower lights be burning" as a means of guidance and rescue—and for Moody and his evangelist friend, Bliss, for the saving of souls.

Here are the inspired verses Bliss wrote after hearing Moody:

     "Brightly beams our Father's mercy
     From his lighthouse evermore,
     But to us he gives the keeping
     Of the lights along the shore.

     "Let the lower lights be burning,
     Send a gleam across the wave.
     Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
     You may rescue, you may save.

     "Dark the night of sin has settled,
     Loud the angry billows roar.
     Eager eyes are watching, longing,
     For the lights along the shore.

     "Trim your feeble lamp, my brother,
     Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
     Trying now to make the harbor
     In the darkness may be lost."

I never really appreciated how much that hymn awakened the lived experience of my mother, though I often noted she sang it lustily and mostly from memory during the frequent church “singspirations” at our Baptist church in Brooklyn. As a young girl, my mother had worked at a waterfront department store—the only job for which she drew pay during her 93 years--and became familiar with the ways and wares of a life dependent on the sea.

Bliss’s words are meant to inspire us to serve others, especially those in peril. I believe my mother, who later in life, when her four children were grown and gone on their own voyages, became a Red Cross volunteer, and who, as she aged became a devoted reader of the Book of Psalms, was inspired to be a keeper of the “lower lights.”

I recall as a young man being inspired along similar lines after reading J. D. Salinger’s classic novel, Catcher in the Rye. I was particularly impressed with Holden Caulfield’s dream story of him serving as a guard for children playing in a field of rye close to a dangerous precipice. It was the protagonist’s job to watch over the children and catch any who wandered too close to the perilous edge. He was the “catcher” in the rye. I recall telling a church study group focusing on “ministry” that I’d determined I too wanted to become a “catcher in the rye.”

I’ve learned that sentiment has been inspired as much by my mother as by Salinger.

And here's a rendition that inspires and reminds me of "singspirations" at the church of my youth.

Judy, Henry, and Jack (Judy Boitnott, bass; Henry Boitnott, 
mandolin; and Jack Zell, guitar and lead singer), stalwarts 
of the Roanoke Valley Fiddle and Banjo Club,
performing at the Copper Hill Church of the Brethren, 
Copper Hill, Virginia, in the rural Blue Ridge Mountains, 
circa January 2008. This video is posted at 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO_7Y0slxNU

A Faith Floss post:
February 10, 2016: Ash Wednesday

Does God require a login and password?

I returned today after a long absence to the meditational prayer Website of the Irish Jesuits known as Sacred Space http://www.sacredspace.ie, where I was surprised to learn that  there was a problem with my username or password.

Then a spiritual quandary confronted me: Does God require a login and password when we come to pray? I suspect not. The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite spirit, the scriptures say (Psalm 51:17).

So I  guess the universal login for signing on with God is: brokenspirit; and the universal password must be: havemercy. And if the password must be unique or encrypted or something like that, we could make it haveJohn3:16mercy.

Not a bad password anywhere, I think; although, I've never particularly understood that verse's popularity on placards at sporting events. Perhaps those placards should read "Jesus Saves," a bit of graffiti that was a favorite of a  young woman I knew growing up and one of the frequent signs in the Baptist church we attended.

But such public displays came to be a joke around New England when I was in college. The joke went like this: "Jesus saves--and Esposito slaps in the rebound!" Of course, it helped to appreciate the quip if one were a Boston Bruins fan--or at least a fan of ice hockey--and knew that Phil Esposito had a habit of hanging around in front of the goal and exploiting rebounds to become one of the game's premier scorers.

The point of my whimsical meditation, of course, assures me that God's Website encourages free access. And by the way, it's Jesus who slaps in life's rebounds.

Breakfast

I have always favored breakfast. And, I love to eat breakfast food for lunch and dinner, too.

I think this has been true since childhood when my mother served me scrambled eggs and then later taught me how to scramble my own. One of her little tricks was to add a quarter teaspoon of sugar, pancake syrup, or vanilla extract to the scrambled batter. Or, as my wife and her parents later insisted: add a dollop of mayonnaise.

One of the great surprises of nutrition research as far as I'm concerned is the conclusion that eggs are good for us. This ranks second or third only to those nutritionists' assertions that coffee is beneficial in restricted amounts as is dark chocolate.

As a younger writer I often ate breakfast at a restaurant counter and finished my coffee and toast while writing in my journal. In college, my dormitory mates and I often drove across the river to the next city for all-night breakfast served at a local diner. I can remember at that time thinking my avocation in life might be to become a short-order cook at a diner.

Restaurants such as Ihop, Dennys (which was a favorite when my family lived in Tokyo), Waffle House (despite the jokes it engenders, it makes the best home fries--and there are three of them within a mile of our house in Georgia**), Perkins, Sonic, Bob Evans (which much too late in life I learned was my late older brother's favorite eating place--well, after all, Mom probably taught him to scramble eggs, too) and Cracker Barrel all specialize in serving breakfast all day.

A development in the restaurant world is the growing popularity of gourmet breakfast shops. A recent article by list-maker Malika Harricharan* rates the ten best breakfast shops in Atlanta; I'm certain there's a similar list provided for a major city near you.

I'm told that sometime before the end of this year (2015) McDonald's will be serving breakfast all day in many locations. About time, is all I can say.

Whether eggs are served with ham, bacon, sausage, grits, fries, or even fish, they always comfort and enrich me.

And, be at ease, my friends. Breakfast was apparently important in the life of Jesus.

The gospel of John tells us that the resurrected Jesus instructed the disciples who were fishing offshore to heave their nets to the other side, and moments later as his followers with their new huge catch moved ashore toward the fire he had built on the beach, Jesus invites them with the words: "Come and have breakfast."***


*http://www.10best.com/destinations/georgia/atlanta/restaurants/breakfast/

**After his victory in the 2014 Masters Golf Tournament, golfer and big-tipper Bubba Watson apparently treated his family and staff to a meal at Waffle House (as per waitress at restaurant).

*** (John 21:12).

Planting Spiritual Sequoias

Planting Spiritual Sequoias

            A friend and colleague, who retired from his school superintendent’s job just a few years before I left the same school, was killed last month in a three-car pile-up on an Interstate highway in southern Wisconsin.

          Larry Dean Kooi and his wife Gail were en-route to family celebrations with their children and grandchildren in Minnesota, having driven from their retirement home in northern Georgia. Larry slowed for a construction delay on the highway and his vehicle was rammed from behind and pushed into the car in front of him, according to press reports. Larry died instantly apparently, and his wife was hospitalized for several days after the crash.

          From every place Larry had ever led or advised a school, messages of sympathy came to his family underscoring his reputation as a wise, thoughtful, fair, caring, listening and loving man of Christ.

          Larry, a native Iowan, as far as I know had never lived in the vicinity of big Sequoia trees, which are native to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California and among the largest and oldest known trees on the earth. He and Gail did travel quite a bit and may have visited the national park that is home to the gigantic trees.

          However, Larry told me once in our casual conversations that he had a favorite poem, and it was about Sequoias, but he couldn’t remember who had written the verses. I researched a little bit and came up with the poem “Planting a Sequoia” by Dana Gioia. Larry was thrilled to have rediscovered the text.

          It is well worth reading Gioia’s poem so I have copied it below:

                              Planting a Sequoia / by Dana Gioia

All afternoon my brothers and I have worked in the orchard,
Digging this hole, laying you into it, carefully packing the soil.
Rain blackened the horizon, but cold winds kept it over the Pacific,
And the sky above us stayed the dull gray
Of an old year coming to an end.

In Sicily a father plants a tree to celebrate his first son's birth—
An olive or a fig tree -- a sign that the earth has one more life to bear.
I would have done the same, proudly laying new stock into my            father's
orchard,
A green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs, 
A promise of new fruit in other autumns.

But today we kneel in the cold planting you, our native giant,
Defying the practical custom of our fathers,
Wrapping in your roots a lock of hair, a piece of an infant's birth cord,
All that remains above earth of a first-born son,
A few stray atoms brought back to the elements.

We will give you what we can — our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of
    bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

And when our family is no more, all of his unborn brothers dead,
Every niece and nephew scattered, the house torn down,
His mother's beauty ashes in the air,
I want you to stand among strangers, all young and ephemeral to 
     you,
Silently keeping the secret of your birth.

               (“Planting a Sequoia” by Dana Gioia from The Gods of Winter, Graywolf Press, 1991.)

Dana Gioia’s website is at:  http://www.danagioia.net/poems/sequoia.htm

Even if Larry never visited the Sequoias, they held a place of admiration in his consciousness. And I had the privilege of knowing and working with this poetry appreciating educator who planted spiritual Sequoias everywhere he lived and worked.

It seems humorously poetic to me also that Larry, with three successive vowels in his four-letter last name, admired a poem by a poet with four successive vowels in his five-letter surname writing about a tree with four successive vowels in its name.

I chant those vowels as a prayer for Larry: ooi-ioia-uoia!

Lent Madness 2014--Part 1

I’m in the midst of following my tournament bracket—not the March Madness of the NCAA, but the LentMadness.org selections leading to the Golden Ring crown.

This morning I chose Simeon (of the Gospel of Luke and the Nunc Dimittis of Evening Prayer) over Phillips Brooks (19^th-century Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts and long-time rector of Trinity Church in Boston, popularly known for penning the Christmas hymn, “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”).

Unless one knows of the Forward Movement [www.forwardmovement.org], a devotional (Forward Day by Day) and publishing arm of the Episcopal Church operated in Cincinnati, Ohio, LentMadness.org is a stranger. For about five years two priests of the church, the Rev. Tim Schenck and the Rev. Scott Gunn, have been running this tournament of spiritual champions during the days of Lent. They see it as a fun and educational way of providing Episcopalians (and others who enter) a casual means of getting to know some of the saints.

In the Episcopal Church, saints have been honored and recorded in a volume known as Lesser Feasts and Fasts, edited and reissued every three years, and most recently revised, reedited, and published as Holy Women, Holy Men.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church has no formal process of canonization of saints so the General Convention, which meets triennially, decides who gets into the publication and is honored with a commemorative feast day in the church’s calendar.

The Revs. Schenck and Gunn, both avid basketball fans, grasped the idea of the NCAA’s March Madness and turned it into a tournament game featuring stars such as Alcuin, John of the Cross, Anna Cooper, Thomas Gallaudet, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nicholas Ridley, Johann Sebastian Bach, and John and Charles Wesley. Schenck and Gunn act as a selection committee and set up the brackets with 64 chosen saints. Those who sign up vote on a daily basis to determine a victor, who is crowned as the Golden Halo Winner during Holy Week. Throughout Lent, the tournament goes through a Round of 32; a round of the Saintly 16; a round of the Elate 8 (that’s not a typo; look up the word elate); and a Faithful 4.

To date, more than 5,000 voters have made daily selections in the 2014 tournament by clicking on a winner after reading informative and educational biographies of each competing saint. Many of those who sign-up also post comments on why they voted as they did; why they think a certain person should have been included; or why some other’s choice is unwise. Buried in the comments are lots of theological, worship, and social justice debates. (By the way, nothing bars one from entering the tournament at any time and voting in the remaining rounds.)

For me, this Lent Madness tournament coincides with my own developing interest in knowing more about the saints.

As one baptized a Methodist and a Baptist and confirmed an Episcopalian, I’ll discuss my discovery and growing interest in the saints of the church in Part II.