My sister Debbie and myself were born in the same hospital in Painesville, Ohio, Debbie, two and a half years before me. The hospital was pretty old then. In time, the decision was made to build a new hospital to replace the old hospital. They worked for several years to raise the money. When they got to the point that they could start making plans, they got the best architects they could find and set to work. The primary architect, being a man, felt he needed some women on his team to properly decorate the new facility. He built hospitals, but he knew only a woman could really decorate.

          So, he assembled a team, finding women in the area with good eyes and good ideas. He only needed a small team and he had a lot of women to choose from. Marsha was called one day in the early 2000s and asked to be on the team. And so, Tri-Pointe Medical Center in Lake County, Ohio, has a lot of ‘Marsha’ influence. Unfortunately for the hospital, the décor was the best part of the place. It came to be known as Die-Pointe, a name the place earned. It took a few years for them to iron out the kinks.

          It has been my experience that women are much better at some things than men are and men, generally, realize this fact. It has also been my experience that women tend to think that they know more about everything than men do. This is not an attack on women, so please don’t misunderstand. It is just a fact of life.

          For instance, how often do men tell their wives how to dress for church? Unless you have an unusual marriage, very rarely. Wives, on the other hand, consider it their obligation to dress their husbands. Marsha will say, “Why don’t you wear the red tie with that shirt? It really goes well!” Or, sometimes she will day, “Oh, that blue checked shirt really brings out the blue in your eyes!” Now, if I say, “Wouldn’t a white top go better with that skirt?” all I will get is a pity look. And, if I say, “What is wrong with your hair?” the day is ruined for both of us. Different ways of looking at things, and it starts on the day you get married. One of the things I tell young husbands to be is that to you it is the day you are getting married, to her it is her wedding day. You, Bubba, are just along for the ride.

          I was reminded of this last Wednesday. I was at Parkview Hospital for about seven hours. Not being the patient, I spent most of that time in two different waiting rooms. I had a book in the car I could have brought it, as I usually do in this situation, but I figured I would be fine leafing through magazines or reading the newspaper. I miscalculated, though. Newspapers no longer seem to exist, at least at Parkview. And, evidently, the reading material is chosen by the receptionists.

               A lot of magazines were scattered around on a lot of small tables. Up to date editions of Better Homes and Garden, People, The Perfect Wedding and a wide assortment of such magazines. Hundreds of such magazines. Stacks of such magazines. I won’t read People because I don’t care what the Kardashians are doing this week. The other magazines are full of articles that of are no interest. In one waiting room I found a magazine called Golf, which could, possibly, be for men, but it had a female golfer on the front and the primary article was concerned with the upcoming LPGA season for 2015. In the other waiting room, I found a magazine called Muscle Truck. It took me five minutes to leaf through that one. Not having a truck, much less one with muscles, it held little interest. All that was left with was TV, and daytime TV is for women. I wound sitting and watching another man sleep in his chair.

               Most of you women who are reading this think I am being silly. I am not. Society is doing this to us. Remember “Everyone Loves Raymond”? It was funny because Raymond and his brother were idiots and their father was a crotchety old fool. Raymond’s wife and his mother were pretty smart cookies. “Home Improvement” was a well loved show. Tim had a television show, along with his friend, Al, which was a home improvement show. Tim was an accident prone, weird thinking lug, Al was socially insecure, Tim’s three sons were miniature versions of him, only without the accidents, mostly. The only competent characters on the show were Tim’s wife, Tim’s female assistant on his show and Wilson, the man next door who never showed his face. This is the formula for comedy. Weak men, strong women. It started out differently. “I Love Lucy” was the weak woman, but even then, she was surrounded by weak men. “The Cosby Show” portrayed a strong man, a strong woman and normal kids. The man could be goofy, the wife could sometimes be goofier and the kids were kids. Mom and Dad were successful in their careers and the kids grew up to be good. The biggest gripe against “The Cosby Show” was that it was too unrealistic.

               In America, it seems that everything around us is attacking the family, even the shows we watch and the things we read. Currently, the favorite target is the husband/dad figure. If the intent is to be funny, then the husband/dad figure is an idiot. If the intent is to be provocative and sensational, then the man is a brutish pervert. I don’t watch current TV at all anymore, and haven’t for years. But what television show that airs now has the husband/dad figure as the head of a family that is ‘normal,’ that works through its problems? I imagine there are very few, if any at all. I also imagine that there are no shows about a family that goes to church and is led in prayer at the dining room table before meals by the husband/dad.

          For some reason, parents who exercise discipline and control in a family are harsh and unloving. The children are therefore abused children. The parents are out of control. Parents have to learn to put their children into ‘time-outs.’ While at school the children cannot be punished, either. There are no limits for a child.

               The attack on men in our society, and therefore, on the family, has become so common and so ingrained in us that we do not recognize it as a problem. It goes much further than not having men’s magazines in waiting rooms, but that is a symptom. The lady buying magazines could have provided a ‘Field and Stream’ which would have been nice, but that panders to the thuggish nature of men, glorifying the killing of poor, defenseless woodland creatures. A ‘Sports Illustrated’ would have been welcomed, but every year they put out a swimsuit edition, which panders to the sexual, perverted nature of men. Women, of course, are free to read ‘People’ and ‘Cosmopolitan,’ but women have good thoughts. Not having any men’s magazines is perfectly acceptable. No one should raise a thought about it.

          Of course, I am overreacting. Foolish of me to quibble over such minor things. I should take my outdated ideas, retreat to my ‘man cave’ and watch NASCAR.  Meanwhile, our families fall apart, discipline becomes unlawful and society pays a price.

          It is a new day out there. But, is it a better day?

               Parkland, Florida is a bedroom community. That means that Parkland itself has very little in the way of business and industry that would make it a city, but its population is large because people who work in the nearby cities, such as Fort Lauderdale and Miami and Hollywood, Florida, choose to live in Parkland. Away from the violence and congestion and traffic of the cities. When we lived in Florida, 1970s and 1980s, I was an assistant pastor, but I also ran an auto parts store in Hollywood, Florida. We were just a little south of Parkland, which at that time was mostly orange groves. The western edge of Parkland butted up next to the Everglades National Park. At that time, it was farm country, although a greatly different type of farming than we have here in the North and Midwest.

          Today it is a community of just over 30,000 people. That is startling to me. My father had come to South Florida to live with Marsha and myself and had gotten a job in construction operating a bulldozer. Surprisingly to me, he was very good at his job and became very well known in construction circles. He learned the construction trade during WWII in the South Pacific while building air fields under fire while serving with the Navy SeeBees. Marsha and I were just about to go back to seminary when my father called me up one night and asked me to come to his new job sight the next day. He told me it was in Parkland and I needed to see it. I got there around nine and he drove his dozer over. Hundreds of acres of orange trees surrounded us. He told me it was his job to push them all down so they could begin a planned community. It had been sold to a developer. Now it is a city, of sorts. Lots and lots of houses. There is a Walmart, of course. There is a CVS, a grocery store and a Starbucks. Seriously, that is it. The rest of the community is houses. It is only twenty minutes to Fort Lauderdale, fifteen to Hollywood and forty five to fifty five minutes to Miami. People live in Parkland. That’s it.

          The people who live there, live very well. The average household income is over $131,000 a year. Canals were put in with a back and forth and twisting way so that over half the homes are on the water. The average price of a home in Parkland is $596,000. Of course, the cost of living there is higher. For me to live at the level we live at now I would have to make $71,000 a year. But even so, that is still $60,000 less a year than the average salary. I only found one church in Parkland, but there might be a couple more. The church stats for the city says that 25% attend some church somewhere, so that would mean 7,500 of the people attend somewhere. Certainly not in that one church, though. It is pretty small.

          In amongst all those houses is a high school. It was at this high school a 19 year old kid shot thirty one students (mostly) and teachers during a fire drill. As I write this, seventeen have died. The others are wounded and there may yet be another death or two. It is a horrible thing. Of course, immediately there were calls for more gun control from the liberal side and calls for allowing school guards to carry firearms. It is like the politicians wait for these things to happen so they can get revved up. But what it is really about is that people were shot and over half died.

          You hear on the news or get the phone call at your work that there has been a shooting at your teenager’s school. You race to the site, terror gnawing at your belly. The place is surrounded by the police. You finally find an officer who looks like he has some authority and you ask about your child. You are shifted around and finally someone takes you aside and tells you that they have just found the body of your daughter, the light of your life. That morning, as you left your home on the water and drove through the quiet, uncongested streets of your refuge, life seemed pretty good. Good salary, good neighbors, great kids, reasonably happy marriage. Yes, the good life. Now, your good life has just been sucked away.

          How do you deal with that?

          See, it is not just the funerals, which we will all see on TV and the internet. It is not just the political firestorm that will be played out. It is not just the next few days that all of it will remain on the front of the media. There are Moms and Dads and brothers sisters and grandparents and, in the case of the adults killed, spouses whose lives have suddenly gone sour. Even for the wounded ones, life has changed forever. How do you deal with that? And there is another aspect. The second leading cause of death among teens is suicide. Suicide often happens in the wake of the death of another teen or teens. We will not hear of that all the way down in Parkland, but it is very likely to happen.

          I tend to look at these things with two sets of eyes. First, I am a parent. The horror of the situation is unimaginable. Death happens and parents lose children. But, a pointless, violent death? Random, sudden. Down there they get hit by the occasional hurricane. Imagine, during the hurricane of last year you sat with your family in the safest place in your home or evacuation center as the wind howled and the rain pounded. Your kids sat between you and your spouse as the two of you offered them a sense of security. They trusted you to protect. But here, you were helpless. Away at your job or whatever. And your child died. That will not go away in a few days.

          Second, I am a pastor. I know those people will need help. Spiritual help and comfort. Someone they can scream at and talk with and be held while they cry. It will not go away in a week. Grief is a very long walk in a very dark wood. There are counselors one can go to, of course. Thirty minutes a visit, $150 a visit (if you are lucky) and they won’t pray with you nor will they introduce you to the Great Comforter. You’ll be handled just like the case studies in grad school told them to handle you. In a place like Parkland, where only 25% attend any type of worship center, who will see to those families? Thirty one shot, so thirty one families affected. Eight families of that group say they go to worship somewhere. Let’s say they are being truthful, that they go more than just Christmas and Easter. Are those eight worship centers ready for this? Do those worship centers all have the comfort and grace of Christ with them as they reach out? Of course, the answer to that is no. Maybe two or three of those worship centers……. But, those people might have lived close to their church at one time. Now they have moved somewhere else. Not much of a choice close by and Sunday morning is such a good time to tee it up or walk down to the canal behind the house and do a little fishing or drive the ten miles to the ocean. I am thinking that most, if not all, of those families are emotionally devastated today and have no Spiritual resource to call upon.

          Through the eyes of a parent and through the eyes of a pastor, I hurt deep within.  How will they deal? When some goofball from CNN or Fox walks up to their door with a camera crew in tow and asks if this is the worst moment of their lives, how will they deal?

          But you know what? Our society has systematically removed God from our lives, from our government and from our schools. Even from our churches. We have, in the process of removing God, removed morals and ethics. We have, in the process of removing God, removed respect and discipline. God, choosing not to force Himself on us, has left our society. We are on our own, now. Horrible things like this will continue. Even those of us who still hold to the ways of God have been tainted. We don’t raise our children in the ways of God, we don’t curb our own hypocrisies, we only walk the Path when it is convenient, we read our couple of verses a day and pry on the run. We have brought this horror down on ourselves.

          How will we deal with this?

As I start this blog today, I would like to thank Mark Wagner for posting the verses used on his Facebook page. Given the format it was in, I am almost certain he had posted it from somewhere else, but it had spoken to him. I enjoy reading these types of things because I know that a heart was touched. But, as I read Mark’s post, it triggered a thought in my mind. I went through each verse in the post and took a few verses out, since the Scripture used didn’t always pertain specifically to the spoken word, but for the most part I haven’t changed anything except to add my thoughts.

In the years I have been in the ministry I have seen much conflict, and most of that conflict has been caused by someone who felt they, and only they, had the answer and it was their duty, and their right, to tell the world. In the Bible, James talks about the evil the spoken word can do. James 3:1-12. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

Perhaps the greatest problem we face in Christianity is the uncontrolled tongue. We all know the braggart, the boaster, the know it all, the quick tempered and so on. We often come to despise that person. But, do we ever look at ourselves and see if we are that person ourselves. As I went through these examples of when to be silent, I applied them to myself. I really do try to weigh my words before I speak, but do I always succeed?

Arby Taft. It was a great blessing to know Arby. He was a long time member of our church in Ohio. He and his wife, Alberta, were already in their 80s when we went to that church. He had been an Elder for a very long time, until he stepped down to make way for a younger person. However, such was the love for this man that they made him Elder Emeritus and encouraged him to come to the Board meetings and lend us his experience and knowledge. All this happened before I became pastor. I was told that Arby would come to the meetings, but he had no authority and no vote. It didn’t matter to me one way or another, so it wasn’t an issue. Arby would sit there and smile and answer a question if put to him, and that was all he really did,

There came a meeting, though, that was heated. The discussion was divisive, concerning whether or not the church should remain in the denomination we were in, which was going more and more liberal. Many wanted to stay because there are benefits to denominational membership. Some wanted to stay because we had always been in the denomination. And some wanted to leave because the denomination was liberal and was anti-Biblical. I was remaining silent on the matter because it was a church decision.

All of a sudden, Arby spoke up in a quiet voice. All arguing ceased. All got quiet. Arby spoke. What he said was sensible. It was wise. He spoke for about three minutes. It ended all debate. I had never seen anything like it. Here was a man who over the years had built up this huge store of respect and admiration. A man of few words, and those he did speak were kind and considerate. Here, he spoke his mind. As he closed the Board chairman looked around, called for a vote and then we closed. Arby had probably saved us a church split with his Godly spirit. What a contrast to all the arguing that had gone on before.

There are times to be silent and times to speak. Weigh your conversation against these simple rules.

Be silent in the heat of anger. Proverbs 14:17. A quick-tempered person does foolish things, and the one who devises evil schemes is hated. When one speaks out in anger, that person loses respect immediately. What they say may be right, but without respect, they may as well not have spoken.

            Be silent when you don’t have all the facts. Proverbs 18:13. If one gives an answer before he hears the facts, it is his folly and shame. It is a waste of time when you speak and don’t know what you are speaking of.

            Be silent when it is time to listen. Proverbs 13:1. A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. Most of the time we are better off listening rather than spouting off.

            Be silent when you are tempted to make light of holy things. Ecclesiastes 5:2. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, let your words be few. It is not wrong to question God, but it is wrong to be critical of God. After all, He is in His heaven and we are just His creation. He knows best.

            Be silent when you are angered by God’s forgiveness of a sinful one. Proverbs 14:9. Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright. If Osama bin Laden had professed Christ before he had died, how many would have thought that was fair?

            Be silent if you would be ashamed of your words later. Proverbs 8:8. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. Everyone is going to have a moment when our minds are not fixed on God. To say that your mouth is righteous is to say that when a curse or angry thoughts come, they don’t reach our longue and lips.

            Be silent if your words could convey the wrong impression. Proverbs 17:27. Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Collect yourself before you speak.

            Be silent when you are tempted to tell a lie. Proverbs 4:24. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. All lies are sin, all are wrong. “Even to the point of saving someone’s feelings?” Yes. That would be a time for silence.

            Be silent if your words will damage someone else’s reputation. Proverbs 16:27. A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. The person who talks evil of someone else appears worthless to their listeners and, according to this from God’s word, they are worthless before the Lord.

            Be silent if your words will damage a friendship. Proverbs 16:28. A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends. This isn’t talking about damaging a friendship between the dishonest man and his friend, but about two other friends. The dishonest man, the whisperer, already has very few friends.

            Be silent if you can’t say it without screaming it. Proverbs 25:28. A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. When you speak and you are ‘in the moment,’ you leave yourself wide open to distain.

            Be silent if your words will be a poor reflection of the Lord or your friends and family. 1 Peter 2:21-23. For to this, you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Something few stop to consider. We are examples of Christ in everything we do or say. You open your mouth in anger or frustration or without knowledge or without understanding, you are shaming the very name of Christ.

            Be silent if you may have to eat your words later. Proverbs 18:21. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. We have to pay the price of an untamed tongue eventually.

            Be silent when you are tempted to flatter a wicked person. Proverbs 24:24. Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations. Sometimes we lift up politicians or preachers or others even when we know they have an evil heart, simply because they agree with us at that moment. The same can be said about an athlete who wins the big game for our team. Evil is always evil and is something we need to avoid.

            Be silent when you are supposed to be working instead. Prov. 14:23. In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. The more we work for the Lord, the less critical we can be.

             To close this out, I would like to put this thought out; If we are to be silent all these times, when can we speak? Proverbs 15:1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Consider your words. Maybe you are right in what you say, but are you proper? Are you edifying the Lord? Is your response soft on the ears of your listener? Weigh your words.

           

            I don’t think it can be true. Somebody is telling a fib. Why someone would lie about it is beyond me, but it just cannot be true. Was the Super Bowl played on Sunday really the 52^nd Super Bowl? Really? I can’t believe that. If it is true, then I have been around a long time. But surely, not that long.

            The first Super Bowl wasn’t even called the Super Bowl. One of the announcers referred to it by that name just before the game started to try and build a little excitement about a game that everyone knew was going to be a blowout. The final score was Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10, but it wasn’t even that close. The stadium wasn’t even sold out. So, the announcer referred to it as a super bowl, kind of a take off on the New Year’s college games, and the name stuck.

            That first game was actually called AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The NFL was the old, established league. They were used to being the top dog. But then the AFL, or American Football League, came along in the late 1950s and offered something a little different. The used gimmicks like red, white and blue footballs. They went into cities that had been trying to get NFL teams for years. And they went all out to sign star players coming out of college. Joe Namath, coming out of Alabama, was signed by the New York Jets for an unbelievable $100,000 bonus, thus becoming the first ‘bonus-baby.’ The NFL, however, could have withstood all the gimmicks and new cities and signings. They were, after all, the establishment. All of these things cost a lot of money and AFL stadiums were typically less than half full. It would have to end. The common thinking was that the cities that had signed with the AFC, like Buffalo and Kansas City and Oakland, would be punished by never getting their own team and star signees like Namath would never catch on with an NFL club once the AFL folded. The NFL, and their television network CBS, would reign supreme.

            But then the AFL signed a deal with NBC and AFL style football, with its wide open offenses and fast play, was suddenly available to anyone who wanted something a little different. The NFL nearly choked on their tradition and old style. Finally, they sat down with their AFL counterparts and worked out a deal. For three years, 1967, 68 and 69, the two leagues would come together after the two leagues had played out seasons 1966, 67 and 68 and had crowned their own champions, and would play a championship game called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. After that, there would be a complete merger and the championship game would just go back to being called the NFL Championship Game. Not all of the AFL cities would be brought into the NFL, but enough to make everyone sort of happy.

            Thus, the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game was played. CBS and NBC actually carried the game. I kept switching back and forth until my father yelled at me and told me I was going to break the knob, which was probably true. CBS showed the game better, but NBC had snazzier stuff and better graphics, at least for 1967. The game was a dud, but we all knew it would be. Green Bay rolled up Kansas City. Close at halftime, but it was really over for KC by halfway through the third quarter. I had bet a quarter at school that Kansas City would win, so I lost twenty five cents. If I had won I would have made a dollar. We had our own 11 year old bookie.

            But the chance reference by that announcer, who was on NBC, sparked the name Super Bowl. Over the next two seasons Super Bowl ‘fever’ started to become a real thing. In the 1968 game, still called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game but much more often referred to as the Super Bowl, The Packers again won, this time by a score of 33-14 over the Oakland Raiders. The game, however, had a great lead in. The Packers had beat the Dallas Cowboys in the famous ‘Ice Bowl’ to get there and a lot of people were watching. Another blowout and everyone was assured that the old NFL teams were the class.

            Then came Super Bowl III. 1969. The championship game for the 1968 season. 1968 had been one of the most upside down ears in the history of the country. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam made folks start to realize that the war was not going well. Civil rights riots shook the country. War protests riots on college campuses had everyone on edge. Dr. Martin Lither King, Jr. was assassinated in April and Robert Kennedy was killed in June. It had been a vicious year. People needed a break. Super Bowl III, the first game officially named Super Bowl, was an important game. It was the last game for the old AFL. The next season the old AFL would be a part of the NFL. The establishment had won, or so it seemed. Nothing in the country was as it had been even five years earlier. In this game, it was fully expected that the Baltimore Colts would destroy the New York Jets. The Colts just missed having a perfect season while the Jets had struggled some. The Colts had blown away the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship Game while the Jets just did edge the Raiders in the AFL Championship Game. It would be another ho-hum affair with the NFL taking another one.

            Only it didn’t happen that way. The Jets dominated on defense and mounted a running game that the Colts couldn’t stop. Much has been said about the brash predictions by Namath and how great a game he played, but the truth is the former ‘bonus-baby’ had one of the least remarkable games of any Super Bowl quarterback ever. The Jets won 16-7. I had bet fifty cents with our young bookie and won a buck and a half. Inflation.

          The merger took place a few months later with more AFL teams going along than imagined. The game grew in importance, reaching the level of a national event. People watch the game just to see the commercials. Very different from that first game that didn’t even sell out the stadium.

          Is there a point to this, other than an old guy remembering ‘back in the day?’ Sure, there is. Ten months ago, I had a surgery that saved my life. A month and a half later I had a car accident that could have killed me. A brash, obnoxious guy upset the apple cart and became the president. We look up in the sky and see planes flying over every day. One family can farm hundreds and hundreds of acres. If, back in the 1960s, somebody hadn’t bucked tradition and common knowledge and started fooling around with the idea of bypassing a blocked artery, I would be dead. If the foreign car influx of the 1960s and 70s hadn’t happened, which challenged American carmakers, which in turn, challenged the foreign makers, my car wouldn’t have had the innovations in it that not only saved my life in the accident, but also kept me secure enough not to injure my recent surgery. If that brash and obnoxious candidate hadn’t bulled his way around and challenged the common belief we would not be in recovery now. If some brave men and women hadn’t dared to dream but rather just follow along and go with the common thought we wouldn’t see those planes racing across the skies. If farmers had been content to hook up the mule to the plow instead of making that first steam tractor and then on to gas and diesel, one family would be hard pressed to farm forty acres. Change for the sake of change is rarely a good idea, but that doesn’t make change a bad thing. Just like the human body grows and changes, all things need to change.

          I am no longer a football fan. Just don’t care for it. But I can see that its changing saved the game. We face some changes this year at this church. We have to face all this at some point and the sooner we make our decisions, the better. We don’t know where it might all end up but we can be pretty sure that if we do nothing it will end badly.

          Keep praying.

          Blessings. 

            Music just isn’t my thing. I don’t hear it like everyone else does. It hurts my ears and gives me a headache. So, of course, I married a musician who could play multiple instruments, who loves to sing and who enjoys music played at the loudest volume possible. But, I still appreciate many hymns, both traditional and contemporary. I love the words. I like looking up the stories of the song writers and what inspired them to write their beautiful words. Still, I prefer to read the lyrics like a poem rather hear them set to music.

            Oddly, when I was younger I could sing a little. My right ear picks up the right note and I sing that note. As I have gotten older and I sing less and less, my voice has suffered, but that is not important to me. Back in the day, though, someone would occasionally ask me to sing a particular song. This didn’t always turn out well, but not for lack of practice. I did try. The results were not always good, but I tried.

            One day, an older lady in the church came up to and requested that I sing “Jesus is the Lighthouse.” This a song written by a teenaged boy named Ronnie Hinson in the restroom of a church called The Pentecostal Tabernacle somewhere in California, during a break in rehearsal for an upcoming Gospel concert he and his brothers and sister were going to give. Hinson wanted to be alone to think and he went to the restroom to do that. The song, called simply, “The Lighthouse,” was written on a roll of toilet paper. You use what you have to use. When he returned to sanctuary his brother took the manuscript and wrote the music in about five minutes. Thus was born a song, written in 1970, that is beloved by many.

           I never liked the song. Much of it is Biblically wrong. Lighthouses existed in Biblical times and were in use more then than now, yet Jesus was never compared to a lighthouse. A lighthouse warns ships away from the shore. Jesus draws people in to the Kingdom. The common thought of people who have never relied on a lighthouse, or a lighted buoy, is that the lighthouse draws the mariner to the shore. The opposite is true. The lighthouse was placed on a treacherous shore, filled with jagged rocks and unpredictable currents, too warn that mariner off. Calling Jesus the lighthouse is saying that Jesus is pushing us away, rather than drawing us to Him.

            The lady was insistent. She wanted me to sing the song. I finally agreed. I knew Marsha had it on cassette tape somewhere with the words, so I just let it go, figuring I would get it out the Saturday before the Sunday I was going to sing it and go over the song. It never pays to procrastinate.

            That Saturday morning I started looking for the song and couldn’t find it. Finally, I asked Marsha and she went right to where it lay. Should have asked her in the first place. But, there was a problem. No lyrics. All I had was a performance tape with no words to sing. Now it would be no problem. Just type the name of the song into the internet and you would have a half dozen YouTube videos, ads for where you could buy pictures of lighthouses and pages where you could just get the lyrics. Sadly, however, this was at the time that dinosaurs ruled the earth. The internet was something almost no one had heard about. So, what do I do now? A call to the local Bible bookstore revealed that no copies existed in the store. I was running out of options.

            So, I rewrote the song. New lyrics, Biblically correct and the same old tune. That’s the way I sang it. After church the lady came up to me. I expected to get pounded on pretty hard. “Pastor Wade, thank you for singing that song. That second verse has always spoken to me!” Off she went. Now, the second verse I sang bore no resemblance to the verse she had heard before. Other than the music, it was totally different.

           I know, most of you think I am pretty picky. It is the thought behind a song that makes it precious. In my mind, though, I always think what a lost person might get out of a song. Granted, today most people, the born again and the lost, think of a lighthouse as a herald of safety rather than the harbinger of danger, so the song might impact a lost person in a positive manner, as well. It is still not correct. Which is also the reason there are several Christmas carols I don’t like. Another story for another time.

            If, however, you like the imagery of the song, I have one for you that is far more lovely. Philip Bliss was one of the greatest Christian musicians of the 1800s. He was, for several years until his death in a train wreck, the musician/singer for D.L. Moody and his evangelistic crusades. We all know and love the great hymns by Fanny Crosby, but she was mostly a poet. Philip Bliss wrote the music to a lot of her poems.

            Bliss was on a ship bound for Scotland and he was on the deck early in the morning before daybreak as the ship neared the harbor. The lighthouse was shining its light across the sea and Bliss knew that it meant danger. But the ship continued to make its way in the darkness without slowing down. Nervously, he stopped a deckhand as he walked by and asked the young man if the ship should be slowing down for safety sake. The lighthouse was close by. The deckhand laughed and told Bliss that they were following the lower lights. These were the lights that lined the harbor. The houses and pubs and harbor houses and such businesses as would be open at that hour. The lighthouse warned, he was told, but each one of the lower lights played their part in bringing them to safe harbor. Greatly moved buy this, he wrote a great Christian song. Not great for its popularity, for it is hardly popular. But great for its picture of what each Christian should be doing.

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy,
From His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

o   Refrain:
Let the lower lights be burning!
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor struggling, fainting 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.

            We are the ‘lower lights’ showing the way.

            Blessings