A Pretty Good Eyeballer

                For over a decade, cranberry relish has graced our Thanksgiving table. Its simple recipe of cranberries, an orange, and some sugar makes it a perfect dish for me to prepare.

                After Dad’s first stroke, he and I made the cranberry relish while Angie took Mother to her yearly appointment with her oncologist. It seemed to be scheduled Monday or Tuesday of Thanksgiving week each year. Dad asked about Mother’s whereabouts routinely about every hour. For that reason, I planned and filled our several hours they would be gone with activities.

                This year, I had already used the round, frosted glass container from which I usually serve the cranberry relish. I bit my tongue and didn’t mention the pretty glass dish embellished beautifully in the perfect size had a noticeable chip-- knowing that Mother can’t part with it.

                I pulled down the two serving dishes that seemed most compatible with the cranberry relish. I bemoaned a bit about having used the most appropriate glass serving dish with another salad. Mother eyed the two glass containers before her and said empathetically, “I think it will fit in this one.”

Mother was a pretty good eyeballer on
choosing this fluted serving bowl!

                As I began spooning the fragrant cranberry relish into the dish Mother selected, I thought No big deal. I’ll just transfer it to something else if the cranberry’s quantity exceeds this little glass container. To my surprise, the Thanksgiving cranberry relish fit perfectly into the serving dish Mother at age 99 chose by eyeballing it.

                Pondering on the solution for serving the cranberry relish brought to mind the account in Luke 5:1-11. Jesus used Simon Peter’s boat as a nautical pulpit. When He finished His message, Jesus asked Simon to Launch out into the deep and let down their nets.

                Simon Peter wearily, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at Your word I will let down the nets.” Peter astounded at the vast number of fish causing the net to break called another boat, but both boats began sinking with the huge haul.

                Upon seeing the power of Jesus, Peter fell at the feet of Jesus recognizing the Lordship of Jesus, his own sinfulness, and the incompatibility of the two. He requested Jesus depart from him. Unfazed, Jesus calmed the trepidation within Peter and gave him a new direction – to fish for men.

               How often we doubt commands, instructions, and directives given clearly from God’s Word or by the leading of the Holy Spirit in the same way I questioned Mother’s recommendation for the serving bowl for the cranberry relish! Each time we follow Him and see His plan work for His glory may we find courage to obey even quicker and with a heart full of faith. Just as the cranberry relish fit perfectly in the bowl as Mother predicted it would, we can know anything our Father suggests for our lives will work for our good and for His glory.

Photo of Mother and me taken on
Thanksgiving Evening 2023

A Beautiful Thanksgiving Prayer

 Bach and the Blood of Christ

        Several years ago, I listened to an interview of a gifted vocalist who sang in a chorale featuring classical choral selections. She loved the strong melodies and lush, complicated harmonies of Bach’s cantatas. Then she made a disparaging comment about the libretto (words) written in the 12th or 13th century for which Johann Sebastian Bach had composed music in the 18th century. She recoiled at lines about sorrow, suffering, and blood, specifically the blood of Christ.

Cristo Crucificado painted by
Diego Valazquez in 1632. It is
housed in the Museo del Prado
in Madrid. 

        Clearly, the singer did not understand the red thread of the Gospel. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 9, verse 22 wrote, …without the shedding of blood there is not remission (of sin). May we be like J. S. Bach and sing, speak, and tell of a Savior so full of love for rebellious humans that He submitted to torture, ridicule, and a cruel death shedding His own blood.
        May this verse of Bach’s O Sacred Head, Now Wounded be our prayer of Thanksgiving and commitment this week.

        What language shall I borrow

            To thank Thee, dearest Friend,

        For this Thy dying sorrow,

     Thy pity without end?

               O make me Thine forever,

                 And should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never

Outlive my love for Thee.

Thomas Schaffer gave me the Diego Valazquez print from his European trip. I taught Thomas in church and his third grade year. The photo to the left caught Thomas and my father, Thomas's upper elementary grade Sunday School teacher following Thomas's high school graduation from Woodland High School. Dad and I taught very differently. He opened the boys class that he taught often with this phrase in his prayer, "Lord, help us to learn a little bit today." I was appalled when Thomas as a early high school student prayed this phrase during his offertory prayer. I had to confess to the Lord my judgmental and inaccurate attitude. I have come to believe that if we walk away with one kernel of Biblical truth that will impact our life during the week, then we have  connected with God. 

(Family/Friend Trivia: Thomas and Ashleigh, his wife, lived in extreme northwest Illiniois in one of their early pastorates located 20 miles south of the burial place of Dad's great-grandfather, the first Edmund Gates who was born 1805 and died 1876. Dad would have commented, "Thomas, it's a small world!)

The Come-Along

                Recently, I had to open a “Goad” gate into the meadow to get a cow and calf out. I picked up the phrase “Goad Gate” from our dear friend and neighbor, Vonda Goad. Any wire gate that is next to impossible for the ordinary person to close is the type of gate she referred to as a “Goad Gate.”

                Thankfully, my brother-in-law constructed a “come-along” of twisted wire connected to a wooden rod. I positioned the wire and the wooden rod that comprised the come-along around the post. The immovable post of the “Goad Gate” began to inch toward the post of the fence enabling me to loosen the wire holding the gate closed. I breathed a quick “thank-you” to the Lord as I opened the gate.

The come-along hanging idly 
between the gates post and
 fence post.

                After driving the two bovines slowly from the meadow without incident through the “Goad Gate” I closed the gate with the assistance of the come-along. What a powerful tool the come-along proved to be that morning!  

                The Holy Spirit’s work in the lives of true believers in Jesus bounced around my mind all while I opened and shut the “Goad Gate.” I remember the original text of the New Testament used the word paraclete to describe the Holy Spirit . I have read one of its best translations in English is helper.

                Jesus spoke to His disciples these words from John 14:16-17, And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

                The Holy Spirit promised by Jesus and sent by the Father indwells anyone who has received Jesus. Since the Holy Spirit is always with us, we can be assured that His help is always available for us, just as the come-along was my only hope for shutting the gate.

The come-along ready to be tightened
around the gate post.

                The Apostle Paul wrote of three invaluable characteristics of a true believer imparted by the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17 states, For the kingdom of God is not of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Nothing gives greater joy and peace than seeing the Holy Spirit empower us and those we love to live righteously. As only the come-along enabled me to close the meadow gate, so only the Holy Spirit can endow a believer to obey the principles of the Word of God.

                How do we understand God’s teachings as they appear in the Bible? Paul gives us a glimpse of how the Holy Spirit helps us in I Corinthians 2:13, “…we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

                The Holy Spirit acts as a seal or guarantee of all we have received in Christ. A notarization, our 21^st century type of seal, legally guarantees the authenticity of a document. The Ephesians were reminded of this by Paul in his letter to them in chapter 1, verses 13-14, In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

                Without the come-along, I cannot close most of the wire gates on Mother’s farm, but with it I can. The use of this simple tool illustrates precisely that apart from the Holy Spirit we cannot successfully live the life God planned for us as His children.

Saluting a Veteran

            As Veterans Day approached, I chose this passage from the military account of my father’s years serving during World War II.  He recalled in Chapter 4, based on his experiences in 1944, a unique responsibility given to him following his return to the States after completing his tour of duty in the European theater. 

Portrait of Dad  taken in London shortly after
being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Dad earned the Distinguished Flying Cross in February of the same year when he completed 25 combat missions as an upper turret gunner/flight engineer on a B-17 bomber crew. He then began training young airmen since he had been recommended for a direct commission as a gunnery officer. However, his course drastically changed when his crew went down as the lead plane over Berlin after taking a direct hit. He was quickly processed to return home. More about this time in his life can be found in the posting entitled Neither of Them Got Over March 6, 1944 and accessed at: bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2017/02/neither-of-them-got-over-march-6-1944.html

By May of that year, Dad had arrived in Oklahoma. Against all advice, he requested to be based in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Much to the surprise of his advisors, he was assigned to Gene Autry Air Base, exactly as Dad had hoped. This section lifted from his memoirs details his new assignment.

Edmund’s superiors made a unique request of Edmund based on his prewar agricultural experience. He was asked if he would be willing to supervise German prisoners of war as they worked in the huge base victory garden of four to five acres. Edmund was put in charge of seventy-five to one hundred twenty-five German POWs. The number of garden laborers fluctuated. 

One German prisoner of war was fluent in English and served as Edmund’s interpreter. In a time of relaxation, as Edmund and his German interpreter were resting, three or four B-17s flew over the Gene Autry Army Air Base. As they both glanced upward, Edmund casually inquired as to whether he had ever seen B-17s fly over Germany. Immediately his German interpreter responded, “Some days we didn’t move for hours until those bombers flew over.” Edmund mused within himself of missions when the bombers could have numbered as many as 1,500 planes in the German sky. He thought it prudent not to tell his German POW interpreter that he flew twenty-five missions over German-controlled territory on Flying Fortresses exactly like those roaring above them. The divulgement of Edmund’s previous military exploits might have damaged the otherwise cooperative and amiable working relationship between the two of them.

The enormous victory garden, with Edmund as the overseer, was in the midst of harvesting vegetables like carrots, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, and turnips. The German prisoners were diligent, exemplary workers. Edmund never sensed any action that could be construed as complaining or insubordination. Perhaps the fact that he wore simple working fatigues as opposed to a uniform may have contributed to the German prisoners’ willing compliance in this horticultural endeavor. Edmund communicated only work directives to the laborers. Other casual exchanges of cordial friendliness were impossible since Edmund must rely on his interpreter to communicate for him. Edmund focused on his basic duty of simply insuring that all workers continued doing the task assigned to them for that day.  The prisoners he supervised were physically larger and of a stockier build than Edmund. His height was only five feet eight, and his weight was about 165 pounds. His imposing physique was obviously not the reason for Edmund’s achievement as the overseer of the productive victory garden. Edmund contributed the success of the agricultural venture to the work ethic instilled from a young age in the industrious German prisoners of war.

 This supervisory assignment of the German POWs working in the base’s victory garden seemed uncharacteristic for a decorated airman who had recently returned from his flying exploits over enemy territory in Europe. Now he had been asked to oversee workers from the enemy country where his buddies had given their lives. 

At this point, Dad had been informed all his crew were missing in action. He had received a letter from his pilot’s wife earlier in the year. Dorothy Rabo, the young bride of Fred Rabo, felt in her heart that Fred, Dad’s pilot and dear friend, was alive. (Later, Dorothy's intuition proved correct, with Fred surviving as a POW, along with three others. The other seven crew members were killed.)

With uncertainty in his heart, Dad returned to the soil. My mother mentioned as we discussed this juncture of my father’s life that Dad readily followed orders. He learned that as a young boy on the farm due to the discipline his parents instilled in him. For this reason, superintending a large “truck patch” did not seem beneath his ranking as a Tech Sergeant in the newly formed Army Air Force. He was merely obeying a directive and being subordinate.

Dad’s friend and dentist, Dr. Gary Henderson, indicated that he knew all the military stories in Dad’s memoirs but expressed surprise that Dad had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. Never had Dad mentioned that to him. This same understated attitude about accolades received during his World War II service, made it easy for him to remain tight lipped with his German POW interpreter about his combat activity in Europe during 1942-1944.

Perhaps Dad renewed his inner strength as he witnessed the production, growth, and harvest of the enormous garden, much larger than any his mother had raised in the Big Bend. The slow pace of gardening and the interaction with capable German soldiers who much like him had responded to serve their country may have been therapeutic. Unfortunately, the homeland of these German POWs was led by a power-crazed, maniacal leader.

The agricultural setting removed Dad and the German POWs from the volatile situation that had placed them in adversarial positions. Their common goal to successfully raise vegetables from the earthy bed united them in their efforts and purpose. Dad, especially, must have experienced healing by letting go of his sorrow and loss, realizing nothing would be gained by allowing it to be a driving force in his life.

Much like Dad, many of us can find healing and renewal in tasks that appear mundane and even, mindless. Seldom do we realize that it is God’s way of removing us from the harried pace with its frustrations, failures, and disappointments to rejuvenate our souls. Jesus even told His disciples at one point to in Mark 6:31, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.

As my father did, almost eighty years ago, may all veterans along with us find God’s purpose and His peace as we choose His pace. May we cease striving and know that He is God; He will be exalted among the nations, He will be exalted in the earth as David so eloquently penned in Psalm 46:10.

Lord, bless the veterans in our communities with Your strength. In turn, may Your Name be honored by their endeavors so our communities will flourish. Thank You for strong men and women who faithfully served our country. Bless them as they live out Your principles throughout their lives.