on being thankful for what came to pass

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The second greatest benefit of blogging is that if you keep at it long enough, one day you will realize that you've inadvertently given yourself an unexpected blessing: archives.

We didn't even consider this lovely side benefit of blogging back when we decided to start The Beehive. But I have to say that those archives tucked away over there on your left are absolutely priceless to me now. As I thumb through the 625 missives we've pecked out over the past four years, I realize that all our fiddling and piddling here have somehow created an accidental journal of a golden time.

When I realized what a treasure our archives had become to me, I renamed them "What Came To Pass." There's a little story behind that -- a true story. My father once told me about a small-town ministers' breakfast where all the preachers were asked to share a verse in the Bible that they were particularly fond of and tell why. As they went around the room, one preacher after another cited some well-known verse, the type of verse you would expect to hear at such a time, if you know what I mean. But then they got to an elderly and much-beloved black preacher. He said, "Here's the Bible phrase I lean on every day, my friends: "And it came to pass..." Because everything that comes upon us on this hard old earth, no matter how bad it may be, it doesn't come to stay. Eternity with Jesus Christ is the only thing that will ever come to stay! All the rest just comes to pass."

Isn't that wonderful?

So it was that tonight after supper, I spent a happy half-hour fossicking about in the Beehive archives for posts from Thanksgivings that came to pass. As long as I have them gathered in hand, I figure I might as well pass them by you all again. So here are a few that our readers particularly enjoyed.


Beatrice's Feast (2007)
Might ought to fetch a hanky first. More than a few Beehive readers have told me this one made them cry. Beatrice felt so blessed by preparing this feast that she's doing it again this year. We love our Beatrice!

Thanksgiving Poems, Prayers & Psalms (2006)
The lovely words we take turns reading aloud during our Thanksgiving feasts -- one of our favorite family traditions.

Providing and Preventing (2006)
On being thankful for invisible blessings

Random Thoughts of Gratitude (2006)
What I remember about writing this post is how it buoyed my soul into a state of joy that lingered for days. I should write posts like this more often. Maybe I will resolve to do that in the coming months. Maybe you would do it with me? I like being in a state of joy, don't you?

Thanksgiving Books for Families (2006)
And I should post this one earlier next year!

And one more... head over to my cooking blog for my grandmother's legendary and much-requested recipe for Cornbread Dressing. You know you want it.

Say what? Oh, you're still wondering what the firstest greatest benefit of blogging is? I'll give you three guesses one guess.

thanksgiving snowballs

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 5 - Joyful Surrender: Christian Submission

The Two Essential Questions:
Is God good?
Is God Lord?

"Both the goodness and providence of God are well established in Scripture, but both are questioned today: "If God is so good, why does He allow evil things to happen?" and "If God is in control, why is the world such a mess?" Until we resolve these two questions in our own minds, we will find ourselves at virtual war with God."

"...maturity will eventually require that we come to this conclusion: "Yes, God is good, and yes, God is Lord." Until we have done that, the intimacy of surrender simply will not be possible."

"Many of us carry wounds that need to be healed before we can embrace these two truths... Whatever the case, we should do what we must do so we can resolve these two fundamental questions without delay. The scrapper in each of us must be retired."

"There will likely be a time in our Christian journeys when, like Jacob, we will wrestle with God all night long. That night may last for months or even years. But there must eventually come a dawn when we say, "OK, God, You win. You've broken me and I'm Yours. No more fighting. No more complaining. Lead me where You will. Not my will but Thine be done."

"The biggest block to our surrender is not our appetites and wayward desires, but our addiction to running our own lives."

"Thomas a Kempis said, "The love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.""

"We need to understand the seriousness of rebellion. When we refuse God in the big things, He will move to the small. When we refuse to give God even these, what else can He ask? We have then approached the land of apostasy, and all the spiritual disciplines in the world, all the beautiful songs we sing, and all the money we give away won't excuse the fact that our hearts are in rebellion."

"Christian surrender means the death of complaining."

"I learned that faith isn't tested by how often God answers my prayers with a yes, but by my willingness to continue serving Him and thanking Him, even when I don't have a clue as to what He is doing."

"Thanksgiving became my doorway to a more mature surrender. When I began to fight my sin of complaining with thanksgiving, the opposing virtue, this was a struggle for me. But God in His mercy placed gratitude in my heart, and like a snowball rolling down a hill, that gift of gratitude grew until the complaining was wiped out."

"When God birthed thanksgiving in my heart, my purest cry was simply, "God, I want to be on your side." My only request was to be wherever God was. If God was in riches or poverty, sickness or health, at home or far away, I wanted to be there. Whatever God was doing, that's what I wanted to be doing. Nothing else mattered."

"Rebellion means war, so it is no surprise that surrender means peace."

Chapter 4 quotes here and here.
(You can follow the link trail to prior chapter notes from there.)

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soul sadness

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This brief passage from Chapter 4* is rich and stunning and has been whirling in my thoughts for a couple of days now. I've re-read these seven sequential paragraphs slowly a half dozen times and they're still talking to me.

I'm posting the passage uncut in the hopes that some of you might think aloud on these things with me. I'd love some company here in the whirlwind.

Soul Sadness

A Pharisee who does nothing but focus on avoiding sin is still concentrating on sin, which makes him or her little different from the person who voraciously lives in sin. Both are consumed by sin -- one to avoid it, the other to live in it.

Undue fretting leads to "soul sadness," or despondency or "inquietude," as Francis de Sales* put it. Soul sadness is the result of a performance-based holiness and it often plagues those who most want to serve God.

De Sales wrote that true holiness is cultivated with "patience, meekness, humility, and tranquillity, expecting it more from the providence of God than from [our] own industry or diligence." If, however, we seek deliverance from sin out of performance (which is merely a form of self-love and self-exaltation), we will fatigue ourselves and fall into a soul sadness that, "instead of removing, aggravates the evil, and involves [the soul] in such anguish and distress, with so great loss of courage and strength," that we imagine ourselves "incurable."

Thus de Sales asserted that soul sadness, resulting from self-love and self-effort, "is the greatest evil that can befall the soul, sin only excepted." Soul sadness saps our strength, which is needed to resist the temptation. This is how it keeps us in the maze of "performance."

It is possible for us to desire holiness for the wrong reasons; perhaps we simply want to use holiness for fame, as others might use a beautiful voice or eloquent speech. Or perhaps we are steeped in pride and simply unwilling to count ourselves among the truly sinful. This unholy desire for holiness produces a soul sadness that Satan exploits to further defeat us, with the intent of driving us off the cliff of despair.

Soul sadness "proceeds from an inordinate desire of being delivered from the evil which we feel, or of acquiring the good which we desire: and yet there is nothing which tends more to increase evil, and to prevent the enjoyment of good, than an unquiet mind."

The essence of the Christian life is a love relationship with God. Our standing in the Christian life rests with Christ; when the virtues take on too much importance, that is, when acquiring virtues and avoiding sin become the primary focus of our walk, we have elevated the (admittedly important) secondary over the primary. Another way of putting it is that we have made an idol out of our own piety.

Comments?


*from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas. Search this month's archives for my reading journal quotes from Chapters 1-4.

**Francis de Sales was a Christian who wrote at the beginning of the 1600's.
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the absurdity of sin

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 4 - Holiness of the Heart: Avoiding Sin and Temptation

"Our quest to understand holiness begins with understanding the absurdity of sin."

"Sin creates massive disturbances in our lives; holiness brings peace."

"A performance-based Christian says, "I want to do this, but I know I shouldn't. I must either find a way to not do this or to not get caught." The relation-based Christian asks, "Who do I want to be in love with? My Lord or this sin?""

"Christianity, with its moral calling, may seem repressive to the world, but when we see sin as it really is (slow suicide), the moral calling of Christianity takes on a whole new light. "

"Sin is not inviting but debilitating; holiness is not burdensome but liberating."

"We feel God's redeeming love and grace when we get together with some believers. Their holiness is a warm hearth, a shelter that invites us to come in from the cold. Even though we sense an underlying strength that tells us sin and manipulation are not acceptable in their presence -- and this can be somewhat fearful -- we still find ourselves drawn to them.

"There are others whose holiness seems to be a prison. It is forced, uncomfortable, and ragged at the edges. The biting edge of accusation and judgment pushes us away from them. When they talk about sin, their voices seem marked by fear, not understanding or wisdom."

"We cease from sin not just because we are disciplined, but because we have found something better."

"Focusing on sin, either by committing it or by being consumed with fighting it, keeps us from practicing God's presence. God forbid that we should ever define ourselves or our days solely by what we didn't do. Let us instead be people who define ourselves by practicing God's presence."

Chapter 1 quotes
Chapter 2 quotes
Chapter 3 quotes
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happiness unplugged

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Today's big news:

~Watching TV is for gloomy droopy sadsacks.
~Going to church makes people happy.

The New York Times says so.

Quoting a new study from the University of Maryland:

“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.”

Me? Well, I guess I'm beyond happy. Golly, I'm giddy jolly jubilant. Because I don't even know which remote turns our TV on. Not a clue. And that DVR thingy? Hahaha.

Please do go read it. (After all, you do want to be happy, don't you? Well, the NYT article just happens to mention that reading newspapers makes people happy, too. That made me laugh, and since I was laughing while reading their paper, I guess that means they're right.)

At any rate, it's short and it will probably make you feel like you are doing a few things right, after all. And that will definitely make you happy, right?

What Happy People Don't Do - NYT 11.19.08
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eggs without shells

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 3 - Training the Body and Soul: Seven Methods of Spiritual Training*

"One of Satan's favorite traps is to let us acknowledge God's conviction, then cause us to mistakenly assume that just because we are convicted we are changed."

"Setting goals but being unwilling to train toward them leaves us worse off than ignoring goals altogether, for we have done nothing but add an element of insincerity to our lives."

"Spiritual training assumes we can change -- that the lazy can, in cooperation with the Spirit's work, become diligent, the selfish can learn to love, and the cruel can learn to be kind. We needn't see ourselves as slaves to the darker sides of our personalities."

""That's just the way I am" is a confession of sloth, not humility."

"...there is something sacred about the early side of morning... Early rising historically has been an important part of Christian spiritual training... There is a style of life generally consistent with those who cultivate spiritual growth and a style of life generally consistent with those who wouldn't know a spiritual thought unless it bit them in bodily form."

"... as I disciple others, especially younger men, I've noticed that many of the most troublesome difficulties occur in the late evening. A disciplined schedule can actually cut the opportunity to sin -- and, therefore, help cut the place of sin in our hearts and lives."

"If your prayers have become rote recitations of intercession, you're probably praying two or three hours too late."

"A righteous life and rigorous training without a heart full of grace is like an egg without a yolk -- a fragile shell that will break under the slightest pressure. Not only are Pharisees a bore and an active bother, thy eventually crack under the strain of impossible expectations. That is only one side of the truth, however, for though Pharisees are eggs without yolks, those who try to exist solely on mercy without structure or discipline are like eggs without shells -- a sticky, gooey mess."

"Legalism, on the one hand, and complacency, on the other, are the twin enemies to true Christian spirituality. Paul spoke scathingly of anyone who added a milligram to grace, but he could scarcely mention the word without adding, in essence, "But we don't continue to live the way we used to." (Romans 5:20-6:2)**

"The problem with so many of us is that we don't labor during the six days and we don't rest during the seventh. We live in the gray wasteland of killing time, which is neither restful nor productive. Thus we feel unable to keep one day devoted to rest because we failed to fill the previous six days with work."

Chapter 1 quotes
Chapter 2 quotes

*The 7 methods:

1. Pious Readings

2. Imitate Living Examples

3. Cultivate Virtues

4. Use Discomfort

5. Practice Holiness

6. Early Rising

7. Living a Life of Reflection

**Romans 5:20-6:2 -- "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?"

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hell broke apart at His feet

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Quotes from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas

Chapter 2 - Starting at the Finish Line: Spiritual Goals

"Jesus chased out ignorance, defeated the demonic, and released the ill and oppressed. In other words, as Jesus walked, hell broke apart at His feet."

"Jesus and hell could not occupy the same spot, so wherever Jesus went, hell was dismantled."

"I can be immature and reach heaven. I'm not sure, however, that I can remain immature and see hell break apart at my feet. If I am steeped in habitual sin, if I remain a spiritual adolescent, I cannot threaten hell, not while kissing its feet or lusting after its trinkets."

"If we don't experience the dissolution of hell in our own lives, we would do well to ask ourselves why. Are we flirting with hell and thus unable to confront it? Have we refused to deal with needy issues in our lives, perhaps denying they exist, and therefore blinded ourselves to the needs and hurts of others? Or have we just become lazy, content to coast into heaven rather than be faithful servants?"

"This goal, to love God so much that we overflow with love for others and consequently see hell break apart at our feet, encourages us to press on to be the type of person God can use consistently and powerfully. It spurs us on toward active ministry surrounded by times of intimate prayer -- for we dare not enter this ministry without the sure presence of God. The goal is also clearly defined by a central question: Are people around us being changed?"

Chapter 1 quotes

our lack of wonder

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I'll be journalling some quotes here in coming days from Seeking the Face of God by Gary Thomas, which I am reading through at a snail's pace (on purpose).


Quotes from Chapter 1: The Journey of Faith

"Surely there has never been a more unequal relationship than the one Christ calls us to when He says, "Come, follow Me." Our lack of wonder at the absolute inequality of the relationship is evidence enough that we do not fully comprehend the greatness of the God who speaks and the humility of us who listen."

"We need not be mature to reach heaven... However, without maturity, we will have neither the motivation nor the ability to get involved in the lives of others."

for the JOY

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"Wherefore
seeing

we

also are
compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses

let us
lay aside
every weight
and the sin
which doth so easily beset us
and let us
run with patience
the race that is set before us

looking
unto
Jesus

the
Author
and
Finisher
of our faith;

Who for the
joy
that was set before Him

endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and is set down
at the right hand
of the throne
of
God."


what commanding verbs
what compelling verbs
what comforting verbs


lay it aside.
all the heaviness, the sin, the sorrow, the fear,
the disappointment, the bitterness
all the burden of darkness
LAY IT ASIDE.

No really, LAY IT ALL ASIDE.


ahh
light!
now then


run
...with patience...
RUN!

and
look!
look unto Him

who suffered all


everything that could be suffered
more than you can even imagine suffering
suffered a suffering unto death

and for what?


for the JOY

(What? He felt JOY in all that suffering? JOY?)

Yes, JOY.

Jesus suffered it all
for the
JOY
of
saving



you.

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6 janes for a song

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It's that time of year again!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone, whether in possession of a great fortune or not, is in need of an attractive set of Jane Austen's novels. Yes, it's time for us to once again faithfully alert all our Gentle Readers of Oxford's annual sale of their beautiful 6 volume $175 hardback set of The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen... FOR $43.75.

I don't know when the sale ends, but it won't last long. So tarry not, Gentle Readers!

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Why do we have Thanksgiving Day?

...Or, A different story of Abraham and Sarah

q. shenaynay

Did you know that the lady who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is also largely responsible for our national Thanksgiving tradition?

Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879) was a woman of letters in a day when few women were formally educated. For almost a half century she was literary editor of Godey's Lady's Book, the preeminent lady's journal of the time. She wrote most of the journal's articles, as well as poetry and published works of fiction. She was a household name for decades -- you could rightly say she was one of America's first female celebrities. Despite her obscurity today, her influence over American culture remains immeasurable.

Hale was indignant upon moving to Philadelphia to find that Thanksgiving was not observed there as it was in her native New England. George Washington had issued a proclamation for national thanksgiving during his first year in office in 1789 (shortly after Hale was born) and again in subsequent years. The next President, John Adams, ever the brainy contrarian, had a different notion. Rather than a day of feasting, Adams proclaimed a national "Day of Fasting and Humility." Somehow this never quite caught on as a way to spend a holiday.

Next came Jefferson, who was fierce in his belief that American Presidents should avoid the very appearance of posing as heads of the church (a la the English king), and, though he had proclaimed days of thanksgiving as Governor of Virginia, he purposefully never did so as President. (The FBI somewhat recently restored a fascinating letter from Jefferson to Baptists of his day defending his refusal; the Library of Congress article describes how the famous Baptist Elder John Leland, champion of religious liberty and Jefferson's friend, came to his aid.)

President James Madison briefly revived the proclamation tradition, and then, for almost a half century... nothing. The ensuing Presidents simply dropped the, er, turkey.

For Sarah Josepha Hale this would never do. Capitalizing on her immense influence, she published an editorial every November calling for a set day of Thanksgiving for the entire nation. Over many years, she persistently wrote letters petitioning Presidents Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Lincoln, pleading for a revival of the presidential proclamations of Washington and Madison.

The agony of the Civil War galvanized her zeal, for she saw a day of national thanksgiving as a catalyst for unification and healing. In 1863, she wrote her final appeal to President Lincoln:

"Would it not be a great advantage, socially, nationally, religiously, to have the day of our American Thanksgiving positively settled? Putting aside the sectional feelings and local incidents that might be urged by any single State or isolated Territory that desired to choose its own time, would it not be more noble, more truly American, to become national in unity when we offer to God our tribute of joy and gratitude for the blessings of the year?"

She enclosed copies of her previous letters to his presidential predecessors. Public sentiment for her campaign grew, and historians record that the Battle of Gettysburg was the great event that finally swung the balance in favor of her cause. Following Gettysburg, Lincoln wrote a plea "that we invoke the influence of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger that produced the strife."

Hale wrote in an 1863 issue of Lady's Book that "President Lincoln recognized the truth of these ideas (the unifying influence of a National day of thanks) as soon as they were presented to him." He replied to her appeal quickly this time, and honored her suggestion that the best time would be the last Thursday in November since, as she wrote, "the agricultural labors of the year are generally completed."

President Lincoln immediately issued the 1863 Proclamation for Thanksgiving.

Hale, ever enthused for improving her country, then went on to spearhead the movement to raise funds and complete the Bunker Hill Monument, and to make a national monument of Mount Vernon. She was also instrumental in the founding of Vassar, the nation's first college for women, for which she helped devise curriculum.

And the fruit of her persistence in establishing an American tradition of Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations continues to this day.

On Thanksgiving Day this year, let's be thankful for all the people before us who, like Sarah Josepha Hale, had vision and the wherewithal and persistence to make good things happen for their country and their culture. And let's pray for God to raise up more of them. We need them.

positively medieval?

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And another thought on that banning of Latin nonsense...

So the new de facto modus operandi (oops! and oops again!) proposed here seems to boil down to this:

The way to avoid discriminating against people who don't know something is to discriminate against people who do know something.

Did I get that right?

Well, buckaroos, welcome back to the Dark Ages. Only - ha! funny thought - those Medieval folks that the history books brand as dimwits... knew their Latin.


Wow. What a weird world.

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guess it wasn't quite dead after all.

You've got to respect a language that can cause this much of an uproar though dead:

Councils Ban 'Elitist' and 'Discriminatory' Latin Phrases


That muffled snorting you hear is the ghost of Orwell, no doubt feeling double plus prescient these days.

I've let my high school Latin slip, but this is enough to make me want to dust it off and pay it some attention.

ps. (Oh dear! That stands for post scriptum! So is PS not PC when writing our British friends now? Alas, I guess now we'll have to spell it out for them in simple words: "Stuff I Forgot," or "Oh Yeah, There's More." Right.) Why do I lately keep feeling like the inmates are running the asylum?


Tyrranus absurdis.